US president Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington on January 27, 2017. Evan Vucci / AP Photo
US president Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington on January 27, 2017. Evan Vucci / AP Photo

Image of the United States has plunged under Trump, survey shows



BERLIN // The image of the United States has deteriorated sharply across the globe under president Donald Trump and an overwhelming majority of people in other countries have no confidence in his ability to lead, a survey from the Pew Research Center showed.

Five months into Trump's presidency, the survey spanning 37 nations showed US favourability ratings in the rest of the world slumping to 49 per cent from 64 per cent at the end of  former US president Barack Obama's eight years in the White House.

But the falls were far steeper in some of America's closest allies, including US neighbours Mexico and Canada, and European partners like Germany and Spain.

Mr Trump took office in January pledging to put "America First". Since then he has pressed ahead with plans to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, announced he will pull out of the Paris climate accord, and accused countries including Canada, Germany and China of unfair trade practices.

On his first foreign trip as president in early June, Mr Trump received warm welcomes in Saudi Arabia and Israel, but a cool reception from European partners, with whom he clashed over Nato spending, the climate and trade.

Just 30 per cent of Mexicans now say they have a favourable view of the US, down from 66 per cent at the end of the Obama era. In Canada and Germany, favourability ratings slid by 22 points to 43 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively.

In many European countries, the ratings were comparable to those seen at the end of the presidency of George W Bush, whose 2003 invasion of Iraq was deeply unpopular.

"The drop in favourability ratings for the United States is widespread," the Pew report said. "The share of the public with a positive view of the US has plummeted in a diverse set of countries from Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia and Africa".

The survey, based on the responses of 40,447 people and conducted between February 16 and May 8 this year, showed even deeper mistrust of Mr Trump himself, with only 22 per cent of those surveyed saying they had confidence he would do the right thing in world affairs, compared to 64 per cent who trusted Mr Obama.

Both Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping, with confidence ratings of 27 per cent and 28 per cent respectively, scored higher than Mr Trump. German chancellor Angela Merkel, with a confidence rating of 42 per cent, scored highest among the four leaders in the survey.

The countries with the lowest confidence in Mr Trump were Mexico, at 5 per cent and Spain at 7 per cent. The only two countries where ratings for Mr Trump improved compared to Mr Obama were Russia, where confidence in the US president surged to 53 per cent from 11 per cent, and Israel, where it rose 7 points to 56 per cent.

Globally, 75 per cent of respondents described Mr Trump as "arrogant", 65 per cent as "intolerant" and 62 per cent as "dangerous". A majority of 55 per cent also described him as a "strong leader".

The survey showed widespread disapproval of Mr Trump's signature policy proposals, with 76 per cent unhappy with his plan to build the wall on the border with Mexico, 72 per cent against his withdrawal from major trade agreements and 62 per cent opposed to his plans to restrict travel to the US from some majority-Muslim countries.

On the positive side, the survey showed that 58 per cent of respondents had a positive view of Americans in general. And in many regions of the world, a majority or plurality of respondents said they expected relations with the US to stay roughly the same in spite of Mr Trump.

* Reuters

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What is a robo-adviser?

Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.

These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.

Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.

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Who is Allegra Stratton?

 

  • Previously worked at The Guardian, BBC’s Newsnight programme and ITV News
  • Took up a public relations role for Chancellor Rishi Sunak in April 2020
  • In October 2020 she was hired to lead No 10’s planned daily televised press briefings
  • The idea was later scrapped and she was appointed spokeswoman for Cop26
  • Ms Stratton, 41, is married to James Forsyth, the political editor of The Spectator
  • She has strong connections to the Conservative establishment
  • Mr Sunak served as best man at her 2011 wedding to Mr Forsyth
Hili 2: Unesco World Heritage site

The site is part of the Hili archaeological park in Al Ain. Excavations there have proved the existence of the earliest known agricultural communities in modern-day UAE. Some date to the Bronze Age but Hili 2 is an Iron Age site. The Iron Age witnessed the development of the falaj, a network of channels that funnelled water from natural springs in the area. Wells allowed settlements to be established, but falaj meant they could grow and thrive. Unesco, the UN's cultural body, awarded Al Ain's sites - including Hili 2 - world heritage status in 2011. Now the most recent dig at the site has revealed even more about the skilled people that lived and worked there.

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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts

Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.

The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.

Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.

More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.

The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.

Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:

November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.

May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

April 2017Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.

December 2016A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.

July 2016Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.

May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.

New Year's Eve 2011A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.

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Company/date started: 2015

Founder/CEO: Mohammed Toraif

Based: Manama, Bahrain

Sector: Sales, Technology, Conservation

Size: (employees/revenue) 4/ 5,000 downloads

Stage: 1 ($100,000)

Investors: Two first-round investors including, 500 Startups, Fawaz Al Gosaibi Holding (Saudi Arabia)

Timeline

1947
Ferrari’s road-car company is formed and its first badged car, the 125 S, rolls off the assembly line

1962
250 GTO is unveiled

1969
Fiat becomes a Ferrari shareholder, acquiring 50 per cent of the company

1972
The Fiorano circuit, Ferrari’s racetrack for development and testing, opens

1976
First automatic Ferrari, the 400 Automatic, is made

1987
F40 launched

1988
Enzo Ferrari dies; Fiat expands its stake in the company to 90 per cent

2002
The Enzo model is announced

2010
Ferrari World opens in Abu Dhabi

2011
First four-wheel drive Ferrari, the FF, is unveiled

2013
LaFerrari, the first Ferrari hybrid, arrives

2014
Fiat Chrysler announces the split of Ferrari from the parent company

2015
Ferrari launches on Wall Street

2017
812 Superfast unveiled; Ferrari celebrates its 70th anniversary

THE BIO

Favourite author - Paulo Coelho 

Favourite holiday destination - Cuba 

New York Times or Jordan Times? NYT is a school and JT was my practice field

Role model - My Grandfather 

Dream interviewee - Che Guevara

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Emergency

Director: Kangana Ranaut

Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry 

Rating: 2/5

The Book of Collateral Damage

Sinan Antoon

(Yale University Press)

The National in Davos

We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.

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