Trump’s rise is death knell for GOP: Bobby Jindal

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, with his son Eric (right), addresses the media following victory in the Florida state primary in West Palm Beach. (Photo: AFP)

The emergence of real estate tycoon Donald Trump as Republican presidential nominee sounded the death-knell for the party establishment, Indian-American former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal said.

“The GOP establishment is done for. This race shows that,” Mr Jindal told MSNBC’s Meet the Press on Wed-nesday. The 44-year-old was one of the 17 Republicans in the race to the White House, but dropped out as he was unable to gain any support. “Voters are angry and frustrated and, in some part, the Republ-ican Party deserves so-me of that frustration. Donald Trump should serve as a wake-up call,” Mr Jindal said.

Trump victory a major global risk: EIU

According to British research group EIU, the prospect of Mr Trump winning the US presidency represents a global threat on a par with jihadist militancy destabilising the world economy.

In the latest version of its Global Risk assessment, the Economist Intelligence Unit rank-ed victory for the Republican frontrunner at 12 on an index where the current top threat is a Chinese economic “hard landing” rated 20. Justifying the threat level, the EIU highlighted the tycoon’s alienation towards China as well as his comments on Islamist extremism, saying a proposal to stop Muslims from entering the US would be a “potent recruitment tool for jihadi groups”.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin on Thursday hit out at a pre-election video promoting Mr Trump, complaining it demonised Russia’s image.

“I saw this clip. I do not know for sure if (President)Vladimir Putin saw it. (But) our attitude is negative,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a tele conference with reporters.

“It’s an open secret for us that demonising Russia and whatever is linked to Russia is unfortunately a mandatory hallmark of America’s election campaign. We always sincerely regret this and wish the (US) electoral process was conducted without such references to our country.”

The video Mr Peskov was referring to attempts to cast doubt over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s ability to deal with Mr Putin and US opponents in general, showing the Russian leader easily throwing an opponent in a judo bout. It then cuts to a clip of Ms Clinton in which sounds resembl-ing a dog barking have been overlaid before cutting to footage of Mr Putin laughing.