When it comes to potential sanctions against Russia over Ukraine? Gee, I wonder why.
Germany’s Reliance on Russian Gas Limits Europe’s Options in Ukraine Crisis – Berlin is vulnerable if the West sanctions Russia over Ukraine and Moscow responds by cutting off exports.
Or valenki. Or whatever it is he’s wearing right now.
Germany is threatening Russia with dialogue again. That’s what moral superpowers do.
Annalena Baerbock: the German minister staring down Russia over Ukraine – New foreign minister won critics’ respect after meeting with Sergei Lavrov, but has work cut out in push for diplomacy.
That means embarrassing or embarrassingly.
Here’s an example: Peinlich stolpert Biden durch seine Pressekonferenz. Meaning: Biden stumbles embarrassingly through his press conference.
A year after his inauguration, the U.S. president is glossing over his mediocre record. On the eve of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, of all times, he makes a serious verbal mistake.
Thank goodness. They remain determined to not only keep using nuclear energy, but to ramp up their program.
The French, for their part, haven’t been able to make clear to the Germans a startling discovery they made a few years ago: Nuclear power is reliable because it produces day and night. The German renewables, well, aren’t, don’t and never will.
France ramps up nuclear power as Germany closes plants in the name of clean energy.
Chancellor Angela Merkel soon caved to public pressure and announced Germany would phase out all nuclear power within 10 years. Her government kept that promise. Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, wants to speed up the phase-out of coal and eventually natural gas. He promises that by the end of this decade, 80% of Germany’s energy will be from renewables. And he doesn’t include nuclear in that category.
As for Germany, it’s super-mega-ultra high risk.
No risk, no fun.
Coronavirus digest: Germany designates all neighboring countries ‘high risk’ – Germany has put Austria on its travel warning list, meaning all of its neighbors are now designated high-risk. Meanwhile, several Latin American countries have reported record daily infections.
While the number of available intensive care beds continues to rise.
Almost makes you wonder if this latest variant isn’t all that dangerous (am I allowed to wonder that?). Hey, when in doubt (and your everyday, run-of-the-mill top health official apparently always is) just increase the panic level one more notch.
Germany: Omicron wave breaks new weekly cases record – The new wave of coronavirus infections in Germany has now surpassed numbers last seen in November. Experts are warning of the threat this poses to the unvaccinated.
Please? For health reasons? And then there’s COVID too.
Berlin Shortens Film Festival, Requires Vaccination and Testing – The 2022 Berlinale hopes new COVID-19 restrictions will allow it to have in-person screenings and events in February.
The Berlin International Film Festival has cut three days off its official screening schedule for 2022 and introduced new coronavirus measures, requiring attendees to be both fully vaccinated or recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection, plus show a recent negative COVID test.
Berlin 2022 will now run Feb. 10-16, with the festival’s Gold and Silver Bear honors handed out on Wednesday, Feb. 16. The final four days of the festival, Feb. 17-20, will feature repeat screenings of festival titles in cinemas around the German capital. Traditionally, Berlin sets aside one day for these “public screenings.”
You can catch that Omicron cold there lickety-split there these days.
Germany has added to the list of high-risk areas the highest number of countries in over a year at once, including several European Union Member States, amid the increase of Coronavirus cases throughout the world, and in particular, the spread of the Omicron variant.
Updating the list of countries highly affected by the virus on Friday, January 7, 2022, the Robert Koch Institute, which is the German government research institute responsible for disease control and prevention, has expanded the same list by adding the following:
Angola
Argentina
Australia
The Bahamas
Bahrain
Belize
Bolivia
Cape Verde
The Democratic Republic of the Congo
Ivory Coast
Estonia
Fiji
France – the French overseas departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, St. Martin and St. Barthélemy
Gabon
Ghana
Grenada
Guinea
Island
Israel
Jamaica
Qatar
Kenya
Comoros
Kuwait
Luxembourg
Mali
Mauritania
The Netherlands – the overseas parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands of Aruba and Curaçao
Nigeria
Panama
Rwanda
Zambia
Sweden
Sierra Leone
South Sudan
Togo
Uganda
Uruguay
The United Arab Emirates
That means mandatory vaccination. And those signs down there read “for free vaccination decisions” and “no to mandatory vaccination.”
Tens of thousands of people are protesting against the latest restrictive COVID measures in German cities all over the country. And it’s fun to watch the state media squirm. They’re clearly finding it more and more difficult labelling these people wackos.
In Hamburg, some 13,700 people attended a demonstration against the restrictions, police said.
Under the banner, “Stop the corona dictatorship,” 4,000 protested in Düsseldorf.
Around 5,000 people rallied in Frankfurt, according to the police.
It’s brilliant, really. Or diabolical, if you prefer.
First create the current energy crisis by forcing the country to go down the ideological path to unreliable and unaffordable renewable energy, come what may, heavily burdening the German taxpayer, consumer and businessman in the process. Then promise aid to those most negatively affected by this crisis by burdening the German taxpayer, consumer and businessman even further. And still come out of it smelling like a rose. Aid here is just another nice word for taxation.
Germany’s soaring energy prices force government to promise aid – Headline inflation dips slightly, but energy costs still rising at double-digit pace.
Observing Hermann 