HAMBURG: Mr Henry Kissinger, President Nixon`s closest adviser on foreign policy, yesterday [Feb 15] criticised Europe`s lack of defence efforts and said NATO was `out of joint`.

In an article published yesterday in the Hamburg Sunday newspaper `Welt Am Sonntag`, Mr Kissinger blames two major factors for this. A change in the international situation particularly the undermining of the predominance of Big Powers and the emergence of a multiplicity of political poles and unilateral policy changes by the United States.

NATO was a dynamic and creative institution during the first one and a half decades of its existence, but today it has become out of joint, he said. When the organisation was founded, the main threat to world peace came from a possible attack on Europe by the Soviet Union but the view has strengthened during the past few years that trouble spots outside Europe constitute just as great a danger, he said. Agency [Meanwhile, as reported by an agency in Kishoreganj,] Sheikh Mujibur Rahman yesterday [Feb 15] said that the coming general elections in the country would decide the `fate of Bangla Desh` and asked the people to remove the parasites from political life permanently through ballots this time.