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Protests planned in smaller towns in eastern Germany are the largest since the fall of the Berlin Wall, says this report in DW.com. Protests are against far right AfD and plans to deport immigrants from Germany. About 300,000 people turned out near the chancellery and the Bundestag parliament buildings in Berlin on Saturday Feb. 3, 2024. About 30,000 turned out in Dresden in East Germany. About 1800 organizations have called for protests in Berlin. Luisa Neubauer of the Fridays for Future Climate protests told the crowd according to DW.com- that hope does not fall from the sky, hope is damn hard work and that Germans must live democracy not just passively have democracy. This is showing Berliners and Germans in many cities and small towns in a different light, where the people themselves are taking charge. When political parties from the CDU and SPD, Greens and the Left have let the political landscape fragment with no party having more than 20% support. The future of Germany and the EU depends on these young people out on the streets. ...

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Is time slipping away for Russia to restore what it sees as its special relationship with Ukraine, as Ukraine finds its own identity through its language and independent Orthodox Christian Church since 2019. This WSJ podcast report is by James Marson who lived in Kiev from 2007 to 2012, and Ryan Knutson, with the Archbishop of St Michael's cathedral in Kiev, and the editor of Elle magazine edition in Ukraine joining in.  To understand Ukraine one has to know that Russian is the language of the cities, which means people in Kiev speak Russian. People in the countryside Ukrainian. This is very unusual for a nation and it shows the condition of the country for centuries where intellectuals in cities dominated cultural and political life distant from the people in the countryside. For centuries Ukraine was dominated alternately by either Poland and Lithuania or Russia other than a period of 200 years around 1250-1400 when the Mongols were dominant. The peasants and countryside suffered greatly as in India and other parts of central Europe in the long history till the modern period in 1900.  Russians see their origins in the Kyivan Rus, a state bringing together the different ethnicities Ukrainian and Russian in the period 1000-1240 under the Byzantine Church in Constantinople. Kyiv, the modern capital of Ukraine called Kiev today being the capital of this state. This is the cultural connection that president Putin and Russians see as one they do not want to see drift away. After the Russian state drove out the Mongols in 1240 the northern provinces and Kiev became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the rest became part of a new Russian state. After 1650 Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire and by 1800 with the partition of Poland was fully made part of the Russian Empire. Russian is now after 1800 the language of the intellectual class in Kiev and the cities, and Ukrainian language persists in the countryside. In 1804 Ukrainian is banned as a language and subject of instruction in schools. The end of the Russian Empire under the Tsars in 1917 ended the ban on the Ukrainian language and a period of respect of the cultures of the different soviet republics including Ukraine ensued. Putin has strong feelings on Kyiv, or modern Kiev, as the place where Russia as a country began. He wrote a 7000 word essay says this report in WSJ in 2010 on this relationship as he sees it.  Yet the period of protests in Kiev since 2010 has resulted in Ukraine building  its own identity as a nation. Magazines in the country are required to use Ukrainian for 50% of their circulation. People in Kiev now use Ukrainian instead of Russian as the sense of national identity is being revived. During 1917-1921 Ukraine fought a war with the Bolsheviks after the Russian Empire collapsed. This history is why Russia is acting now to push for Ukraine not drift completely away. It is also what makes Ukraine different from Poland which has cultural ties to Western Europe. It is why the US or Germany is not willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, as it would over Poland. It is also why Russia may not see war as the best option as about one third of Ukrainians say they will fight to defend their country, according to this report. The situation is complex and this is why both sides want to negotiate some way out in which Russia wants the US and NATO respecting its sense of connection with Ukraine in its history with Kyiv as the place Russian state started, and Russia not going further. Russia's tangible proposal is for no to Ukraine joining NATO or the European Union. The US and Germany want something else- the right of Eastern European nations that suffered from Tsarist or Soviet domination or German Hapsburg domination to finally be able to assert their own right of self-determination as democratic countries. This would include Finland. And also Sweden. Ukraine is not another small Eastern European country. Population is 44 million and it is the second largest by area in Europe after Russia.  Russia may also see the move to bring this up at this time as a way to unify the country against what it sees as threat from NATO. As Brendan Simms of Cambridge notes in his recent book -Europe, France went through a period after 1600 when it needed external danger as a way to unify the country, as much as unity of the country to fight external danger. The economic costs after building Nordstream II pipeline are to0 great for both Russia and Germany, and for the US and Russia during the pandemic, which means there is a real need to find a way out for all sides.     ...

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Turner and Travis get ideas of what a better prison system would look like in German prisons- showing a different way to treat and rehabilitate prisoners, a system with a human face.

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Issues in dialogue with the Europeans include Guantanamo Bay prisoner relocation, missile bases in Poland and Czech Republic, tensions with Russia, nuclear development in Iran, and Afghanistan.

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BT Group PLC acquired mobile company EE from Deutsche Telekom of Germany and Orange SA of France for 12.5 billion pounds in cash and stock. EE is the UK's largest mobile company and BT Group the largest fixed line telecom company. With this acquisition BT Group can now bundle fixed line, mobile lines, and television services, to increase subscriber revenue. Deutsche Telekom with a 12% stake is now the largest shareholder in BT Group. Orange will have a 4% stake. The acquisition provides BT Group with a faster 4G network and 30 million EE customers, 24.5 million direct mobile and 834,000 broadband.

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A professor of economics of innovation and public value at University College, London, says one-off deals such as the one with Land Rover to produce electric car batteries is not an adequate response to the big industrial strategies of the US and the European Union. Mariana Mazzucato says in this Guardian article the UK's decision to leave the EU is costing 100 billion pounds in output. Of 100 leading Uk manufacturers about half say their suppliers in the EU are more cautious about doing business in the UK. She compares the US industrial strategy that combines public and private investment of $3.5 trillion over the next decade, and the EU's for $2 trillion with Britain's effort. She says of the UK that it has nothing like this and worse with austerity it is moving in the opposite direction. Another problem is the change in governments of the Tories and new industrial policy every time there is a new minister. Business investment in UK is 19% less than the G7 average. The civil service needs investment, as she says Britain has become addicted to outsourcing the core functions of the public sector. Mazzucato says the government for aid to the private sector should do what Germany and France have done to expect reduction in carbon emissions, or as the US has done with Biden's Chips Act of giving aid given that there are no share buybacks by companies.   ...

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Chancellor Merkel of Germany proposed bilateral or trilateral deals between smaller groups of countries as a temporary solution till some agreement can be reached on immigration. She said "The European Council will not yet provide an overall solution to the migration problem." Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic which have opposed a quota system for asylum seekers did not attend.  Austria, Denmark, and Italy with the new government openly opposing immigration, attended the summit. Merkel said  a "lot of goodwill" was created, and leaders agreed that borders need to be better protected to prevent people from entering illegally, and reducing immigration at its source points in Africa. The migration problem has persisted as an issue long after the huge surge in immigration in 2015 has diminished to a trickle, and after chancellor Merkel has accomodated critics with new policies strictly limiting new immigration. New governments in Denmark, Austria and Italy, and the government in Hungary under Viktor Orban, have kept the issue alive by running on anti-immigration platforms. The European summit in 2018 was used by Merkel to reduce disagreement on this issue by allowing different countries to express their views and working in smaller groups for mutual benefit. It also reduces tension inside her CDP-CSU coalition after Bavaria based CSU decided to run in 2018 state elections on a platform calling for securing borders. ...

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Obama fever and the toning down of it after the first Berlin visit, and the feeling that things are coming back to normality between Germany and the USA.

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Corruption in Greece, just as the Greek economy burdened with some of the largest debt in the European Union. The threatens to weaken the EU with the prospect of Germany and other countries having to help Greece avoid adefault on its debt. This would only draw markets attention to other economies like ireland, Britain and Italy which are also burdened with large debt.

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The economic crisis is global because with a few exceptions like Germany the housing prices have seen a bubble around the world, worse than in the US in places like Ireland and the UK, and similiar to Florida and California in Spain, and also in places like China and India whwere a stock market bubble helped sustain housing price increases. In China and India the crisis comes in the shape of higher inflation, food prices, and huge stock market declines, along with the housing declines, and lower economic growth as China shifts from an export model to domestic consumption letting a third of the low cost factories in Guangdong province close down. Look for serious effects and global economic slowdown from a series of intertwined crisis housing credit and in Asia stock markets.

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A recent poll by Forsa, independent polling institute, shows the governing parties in German chancellor Merkel's coalition have only 34% support. Forsa does surveys for German magazine Stern. By contrast the Social Democrats and the Greens have 47% support. Merkel lost an election in May 2010 in North Rhine-Westphalia. Merkel has three years remaining in her term.

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Sluggish sales of GM cars in mature markets like Germany and in markets with exacerbated credit crunch like Spain lead to decliing sales for GM's Opel brand in Western Europe. GM announced that sales in western Europe declined by 11% during the first three quarters of the year. The Opel brand is the higher margin brand for GM and is prominent in western Europe. Its Chevy brand is prominent in Eastern Europe and these sales increased by 43%. In Russia the mood is uncertain as September sales for Chevy declined by 2% and Ford's sales slipped 13%. GM's shares dropped 19% on Thursday October 9 to $5.57.

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Berlin's Neues Museum destroyed during the war, is painstakingly built using the bricks and stone from the ruins, by the London architect David Chipperfield. As for many public buildings in Germany the past is opportunity, and the scraps of the old building were used, with "millions of decisions" technical, aesthetic and political in a vast jigsaw puzzle handed down by Stuler the original architect of the building- which opened in 1855 to promote "the elevated interests of the people." Chipperfield built a new building using the remains of the old. And based on the long lines in Berlin, waiting for hours in the cold March weekend and stretching for half amile, the building works for the people of Berlin. Of the grand central stairway that edges on upward through the old brick and into the new structure, upward to more light, the NYT writer Kimmelman says that this space is a metaphor for Germany today. In their response to its history Berliners are keeping the history as part of the large jigsaw puzzle of human experience and response....

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The title is misplaced- does India have an edge with development in Uttar Pradesh after many administrations since Jawaharlal Nehru's time in his home city of Allahabad. Can water and electricity, Jal Jeevan and Swacch Bharat (Clean India) make a difference in India's largest state. Is development for all impartially given, funds impartially allocated indifference shown to caste and religious lines for delivery of services by the state and federal governments? India and China were at about the same place in 1990 as both countries opened up- can India close the gap. Can Indians stretch the imagination to set stretch goals like China has done. Most of the Indians who fail to stretch the imagination fail to remember that Beijing was mostly filled with bicycles for transport during 1990. China remained undaunted in 1990, she persevered against all the odds. So must India. In the US and European Union competition with China it looks to India for restructuring the supply chain. Is Uttar Pradesh a good place for domestic and foreign investment? Water and electricity goals are being achieved in Uttar Pradesh. Fundamental to development is the rule of law, as this sets the basis for development. Adequate infrastructure, a clean India, is what creates a good climate for investment from outside the state and from other countries such as Japan, the US and Germany. Uttar Pradesh now has the potential to lead the way.    ...

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Veering between reckless intervention and doing nothing has led to some of the problems the US faces even today.  Barrack Obama created the hope for Arab Spring at Cairo University in 2009, which he failed to follow up on. Ronald Reagan and his Arab envoy Donald Rumsfeld, Defense minister Weinberger, supported a reckless intervention on the Iraq side against Iran in 1980 after winning the election following the capture of hostages in the American Embassy in Iran. Reagan was reckless in such intervention not understanding what was happening in a religious sectarian and Arab Socialist ideologies war in which US interests were not involved. Le Monde of France recounts how Barrack Obama hesitated to followup on his warnings in 2011 after the Arab Spring. This led to Obama doing nothing in the face of just what he had stated at Cairo University of people "having the ability of speaking their mind and having say in how they are governed," and US intention "we will support them everywhere." Another instance of no action was with a failed state situation and  millions of refugees in Venezuela after a Bolivarist Chavez ideological economic collapse similar in some ways to Arab ideologies Iraq and Syria. US did not follow the Monroe Doctrine on non intervention of foreign European powers on the American continents. Obama's speech and then inaction may be at the root of today's problems of migration and the divisions it has caused. Millions of Syrian refugees left for Greece, Hungary and Germany in 2015-2016. It was followed by Brexit again on migration. And in 2016 migration and the Border in the US election. And again in 2022 and 2024 the Border and migration the big issue in the US election. In a speech at Cairo University in 2009 during a visit to Egypt. Obama said: "I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere." On September 11, 2012 following the death of Libyan dictator Muammar Khadafi and the beginning of civil war in Libya, the Libyan mission in Benghazi was attacked with US ambassador Christopher Stevens killed just 2 months before the US presidential election.  Faced with use of chemical weapons Obama issued a warning to Syrian regime in Damascus- then following the Libyan experience did nothing. Le Monde cites an interview with president Hollande of France in 2015 who expressed his frustration with France willing to act.  Obama underestimated the ISIS in the region says Le Monde, leading to the situation by 2015 of the eastern part of the country linked to the region around Mosul going under ISIS. By 2016 the problem of ISIS was left to next US president DJT to tackle by Obama, a result of the inaction in 2012-2013 on Syria, says Le Monde. And like Angela Merkel in Germany on migration, Barrack Obama simply rationalized his action, with the US and the EU left to tackle the results of these actions.     ...

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The Buick Regal is turning out to be just the car for going after younger buyers, and going after Gen Y buyers, buyers who have appeared so elusive for GM. It handles like European cars in its ride, and this reviewer compares it to a Peugeot. It was almost an accident in the way it was developed. It started as the development of a global, midsize front-drive platform at GM's Opel division in Russelsheim, Germany in 2004. At the time it was to be the next generation Saturn Aura for the US, but with Saturn closed down, it was renamed Buick. In Germany its called Opel Insignia. In China where Buick sales are growing rapidly, this car is called a Buick. This car is getting great reviews and is a part of the new rebirth of GM.

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The Berlin conference in 2020 on Libya is an effort taken seriously by chancellor Merkel and French president Macron, supported by president Trump, for an "inner-Libyan reconciliation process" with "a sovereign Libya" that would prevent another larger large scale emigration to Europe from North Africa. On one side is a UN backed government of Mr. Fayez Sarraj, that controls Tripoli and the west and on the other a group of Militias under Mr. Haftar that controls the south and east.  Various foreign powers are fueling the conflict and the goal is have them disengage and drop support for their faction- Turkey for the Tripoli government and the Saudis and UAE, with Egypt, Russia supporting the rival government. All hope to gain influence, for what that means, at the risk of large scale refugees and further destruction, and dislocation of European unity through large scale emigration to Europe. It is almost like the Thirty Years War when Sweden, Austria, and the French fought proxy wars in Europe in other countries mainly in German states and central Europe. That period? - 1618-1648, losses of 8 million dead from wars, famine and plague, with loss of 20% of the German population. What started as Catholic- Protestant ended up with Austrian Hapsburg- French rivalry wars, today local religious factions conflict with secular factions ending with rival power conflict.  The foreign policy expert for Merkel Mr. Hardt says "it is key to the further stabilization of North and West Africa. If we succeed in leading Libya into a peaceful future, it would be a milestone for the entire region." ...

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Ford Motor Company will be a much smaller company and this looks like a structural change not a cyclical one as more automobiles are made in the developing world and fewer automobiles and smaller automobiles are made in the mature US market and like Germany and Japan the market here may have peaked. This would be seen in the employee numbers also. Ford had 34500, salaried workers in 2005, now its down to 23,700, with another cut in salaried workforce cuts by 15% by August 1, 2008, recently announced and even more cuts in 2009 if the market numbers fall further, the salaried workforce may be below 20,000.

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Cars that will be seen at the Frankfurt auto show show the direction the industry is taking. Fuel saving technologies, hybrid engines for cars by BMW and Porsche better know for gas guzzling high performance engines. With environmental consciousness high in Europe the pressures to reduce auto emissions are building up in Germany and the rest of the EU. BMW will show concept car that has the higher ride of a sport utility and the hybrid engine running on gasoline and electricity. BMW is trying to change its image to become more in line with the environmental friendly that the German public requires. Mercedes Benz will show its new fuel saving technology and Prorsche will show a hybrid version of its Cayenne SUV. The other focus in Europe on coming up with smaller cars for sale in Asia and elsewhere, and for light driving in Europe. VW is coming up with a city car concept that cand be sold in Asia and also in Europe, it has a rear engine similiar to the VW Beetle and would come in different body styles that can be built for regional preferences but built off a single platform which is cost efficent to turn out....

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The collapse of the will of people around Yanukovych, including a deputy interior minister, as fighting units moved with weapons taken from an armory in Lviv towards Kiev, may have been the decisive event that decided the fate of the Yakunovych government. The deputy interior minister then negotiated with a protest leader Levus realizing that other than the front line of police the rest of the police were ready to abandon the fight. Levus then negotiated a safe corridor for the police to withdraw. As the Polish diplomat Sikorski came out to the square he found to his complete astonishment the police simply disappearing from the Square in Kiev. Hours earlier he had warned protesters that a crackdown was coming and they would all be wiped out, according to a report in the WSJ by Benoit, Norman and Fidler, 2/22/2014, so that they should accept a deal which would set a date for new elections but not lead to the immediate resignation of Yakunovych. That deal it also appears came after a Putin call to Yakunovych and not simply from diplomatic pressures, and it is probable that Putin had realized earlier than the diplomats that most of the police were not going to fight. Bringing in the army would have had dangerous consequences for relations between Germany and Russia in particular- as German public and chancellor Merkel felt strongly about the situation in Ukraine- and relations with the European Union and the U.S. Putin, Yakunovych, and even the EU diplomats may have missed the depth of feeling in Ukraine and the organization of the protest movement. Germany and chancellor Merkel, with her determination to make things come out right in Europe after a flawed history, gave hope to the protest movement. ...

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David Behre is a German paralympic sprinter who won gold in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 for relay 4 X 100 meters, silver in 100 meters, two bronzes including one in London 2012. Here DW.com looks at his first vocation that of helping other athletes using prosthetics. He brings hope and helps others who are amputees to live a normal life.  It is now 14 years since David Behre was hit by a train at a level crossing in town of Moers in west Germany, while riding his bicycle. The barrier was open. Both legs were amputated. David Behre saw aTV report about South African para runner Oscar Pistorius and he decided the wheel chair was not the end. Four months later he was able to walk again with prosthetics. Five years later he won his first medal at the Paralympic Games in London. Then Rio. Then Tokyo. These days he is busy visiting amputees in clinics and bringing new hope. He says that when he shows them his prosthetics, many amputees cry- "they are tears of joy as they can hope again." He has a little daughter and family, he works in a company that makes prosthetics. David makes this part of his life helping amputees and bringing hope into their lives the core of his life along with the rest.   ...

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DW.com's Science section provides this report that shows detailed graphs, and information on the dangerous use of pesticides that lead to poisoning  for 385 million people in agriculture every year. Farm workers in countries like India are particularly affected. The Heinrich Boll Foundation of The Friends of the Earth, Le Monde, and Pesticide Action Network Germany, supported this 50 page report presented in Berlin recently. The business of pesticides is worth $35 billion for large companies, yet brings with it many dangers for food contamination, water pollution, environmental damage.  Prime minister Modi in India has shown foresight and vision in tackling the problems from plastics pollution in cities and from pesticides pollution in agricultural areas. He has warned farmers about its dangers and the need to use some of the traditional methods for agriculture that avoid extensive chemical fertilizer and pesticide use. The alarming use of pesticides leads to the highest pesticide contamination of water, soil and air in the world happening in Latin America. In Nepal and India alternatives to pesticides are found in a mixture of herbs and cow urine put on the plants. Pesticide prevention in organic agriculture is also done by banning synthetic pesticides, and crops rotated in a way to prevent monocultures while encouraging insects and birds to thrive. French farmers promote organic farming with many methods they have pioneered that also promote biodiversity, which can be copied in India and rest of Asia, Latin America, Africa. ...