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German national soccer team coach Joachim Low has used 7 different defenders in the last 3 games as he tries to find a winning formula after replacing Hummels and Boateng, says this report in DW.com. He also replaced Thomas Muller and it will take some time before the German national team coach can find the new younger players to replace the old ones. This approach is not unique to Joachim Low alone as other national teams are also looking for younger players. The Spanish national team and the Portuguese national team have many younger players in an effort to bring new faces to the game who excel at soccer. Younger German players being called to play on the national team include Philipp Max, Robin Gosens, Nico Schulz, Mahmoud Dahoud, Nadiem Amiri, Florian Neuhaus, Jonas Hofmann. The only way to play other national teams who are bringing in younger players is for Low to tap into younger talent in Germany and let the process bring results.

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Putin's Russia year end QA sessions- "Direct Line" Marathon of 3 million questions. Two from the BBC. Answering the BBC Putin said "if you don't cheat us like you cheated us with Nato's eastward expansion", there would be no more war activity from Russia. Putin believes NATO and European leaders had promised no expansion to Gorbachev before the Soviet Union collapsed. Archives from 1950 show that NATO was formed as Soviets expanded after World War II. At the time Truman took up defense of Turkey and Greece from Soviet expansion. As Eastern Europe became part of the Soviet sphere the situation went on from 1950 to 1990 of 40 years with regional wars in Korea, Vietnam. The Russian leaders including Putin who set Russia on the path to economic recovery had a deep sense of loss of respect as Russia was treated as another European country by Netherlands, Britain and France, Germany former colonial powers that had difficult relations with Russia. It is this deep sense of loss of respect that these leaders felt after the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia suffered economic and political decline from 1990 to 2000 which was reversed by decades of economic growth. This was a period of economic growth in China. As China asserted itself in Hong Kong, Russia pushed back in Crimea and Ukraine regions that had long ties with Russia of language and culture. Had western leaders disbanded NATO and formed a new alliance with new goals with a vision for peaceful coexistence with Russia in the east the situation could have turned to be different. In 2025 the European powers Germany, France and Britain are not willing to see Russia gain points from the outright invasion of Ukraine presenting new obstacles to a peaceful settlement. Ukrainian sentiment is also a factor as giving parts of Donetsk would be unpopular.  ...

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U.S. president Obama visits Germany in April 2016 just as Chancellor Merkel is under pressure in Germany for her stand supporting refugees right to stay in Germany. Merkel has modified her position to accomodate public opinion by controlling the flow of refugees through a treaty with Turkey that returns refugees back to Turkey.

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Lars Kingbeil SPD parliamentary head March 2025 negotiations with CDU head Merz for a new government in Germany following federal elections. Combined the 2 parties have 45% of the vote with the Left having 9% and the Greens 12% in Opposition and AfD having 21%. In addition Wagenknecht and FDP received 9% of the vote. About 80 percent of the German vote still went to non far right parties in a period of immigration anxiety and economic contraction. Strong action on immigration should by Merz and the CDU that was missing from Scholz and SPD, and weak economic leadership from Scholz limited by the FDP's Lindner Finance minister replaced by CDU under business friendly Merz should change Germany's situation in the next 4 years. It will making immigration issues fade by 2027 and help Germany's economy rebound with investments in key areas.  Merkel and Merz are very different leaders. Merkel a pastor's daughter with a physics background lacks the business background in capital markets of Merz and the ability to understand the mood and thinking of Germans in the industrial west and south of the country and in Bavaria's Munich region (CSU). ...

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The Harz labor reforms in Germany in 2003 changed the way unemployment was treated. The idea was to get the government to work more closely with private employers through several initiatives to fund jobs that did constructive work within these companies. This helped reduce structural unemployment because of the almost indefinite unemployment benefits that existed earlier, reducing it from 12.7% in 2005 to 7.1% in November 2008. In November 2009 even after a year of recesion it stands at 8.6%. Are there lessons for other countries in the German experience? THe Harz reforms directed the German Labor Agency to work closely with private employers to fund newly created jobs. One such program paid a Dutch staffing agency Randstad to teach 15,000 Germans information technology, business English an other skills. THe Labor agency funds jobs at a Daimler truck facility in Worth, near Stuttgart, where short term employees instead of being laid off work as mechanic trainees. Another initiative pays parts of the wages of workers hired from those who are jobless, so that the costs of retraining are shared by the government and the employer, making it more attractive to take a chance and go out and hire. And if you lose your job the Harz reforms made it possible to get unemployment benefits for an additional 6 months, if you went out and started a small business. Like the case of an employee who worked at a Kawasaki motorbicycle dealership, who started his own bike repair shop. There are political pressures to extend unemployment benefits as the recesssion becomes more severe. And the structural mismatch in jobs going unfilled, and the number turned out by universities is still a problem. One study by Adecco Institute, shows 29% of large German companies having trouble filling technical jobs, which is why these companies try to keep all their experienced employees....

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Policies of four term chancellor Angela Merkel and positions of SPD's Steinmeir, Schroeder, come under serious scrutiny following the Ukraine invasion with millions of refugees and attacks on civilian population. Their serious miscalculations are now seen in a different light of daily reports of the war and the devastation in Ukraine. Increasing Germany's dependence on energy supplies from Russia from 36% after annexation of Crimea to 55% today is seen as a serious error of chancellor Merkel by the German people, whose views are changing following the millions of refugees and new reports of attacks on civilian population in Ukraine.

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The 2022 industrial trade fair in Hanover, Hanover Messe, is covered here in DW.com with 2500 exhibitors showing how they are responding to a changed world after the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine with support from China. Export oriented companies have to rethink their strategy says Thilo Brodtmann, the executive director of the German Engineering Federation, Supply chain disruptions and the pandemic have led to many German companies reexamining their reliance on Chinese suppliers. Human rights and democracy are now part of the reorienting of business in a new direction. The war in Ukraine is also having an impact. Reducing CO2 emissions is also a major part of the reexamination. Chancellor Scholz told the Hanover Fair at the opening ceremony -"We need to bring along with us emerging and developing countries, whose demographics and economic dynamics are turning them into new centers of power." Brodtmann says the solution is "to become independent and to have a completely different value chain." The head of the German Associaltion of Electrical and Electronics Industry Wolfgang Weber says "I'm quite sure that German companies are ready to invest in any of these countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to diversify their supply chains." However such new markets are not very well represented at the Hanover Fair, so that policymakers and German business have a lot of work to do to open up new markets across the world in Asia, Latin America and Africa. India, Indonesia and Vietnam are considered to offer good prospects for diversifying Germany's supply chain and a lot of work needs to be done. ...

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The IMF's changing views on the value of fiscal austerity. In the current debate about the value of fiscal austerity, there is the IMF view, a German view based on its own experience, and the views of other countries in Europe. The IMF's view has shifted over time. The IMF World Economic Outlook 2010, describes its view of the effects of austerity measures in the form of spending cuts and tax increases- "Fiscal consolidation typically has a contractionary effect on output. A fiscal consolidation equal to 1% of GDP typically reduces GDP by about 0.5% within 2 years and raises the unemployment rate by about 0.3% percentage points." Over the longer term there are benefits as the private sector is not crowded out in the search for captal funding by the excessive government borrowing. The IMF's economic models suggest that it would take 5 years before reaching the breakeven point when the benefits of austerity measures exceed the effects of austerity. The German view held by German central bankers is that the actions stimulate growth in the short term. Manfred Neumann, professor emeritus at the Institute for Economic Policy at the University of Bonn, says this is called the "German hypothesis" as it reflects the experience of Germany from austerity actions taken by Germany. Laurence Ball, professor of Economics at John Hopkins University, is critical of the "German hypothesis" and its application across Europe in different situations. Germany is a large exporting nation and exports helped counterbalance the effects of austerity measures. Within the eurozone with fixed exchange rates the exports of less competitive countries cannot be boosted through devaluing the currency to gain price competitiveness. The other problem is that with interest rates close to zero in the euro zone the central banks cannot cut rates aggressively to counteract the effects of spending cuts. The problem gets compounded when a number of countries are taking austerity measures at the same time accentuating the downturn....

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On foreign policy the new German government of Olaf Scholz seeks to build a stronger European Union. Scholz will also follow a policy of close ties with the US. On relations with China Scholz has not stated much. Greens party foreign minister Baerbock's views and Scholz's views suggest a close relationship with the US - a call with president Biden will follow visits to Paris and Brussels. Scholz says "It is now clear what binds us together," referring to democratic values.

Video of all members of the new German cabinet is shown in DW.com, individually with each minister's background, part of the new government of SPD's Olaf Scholz. Wolfgang Schmidt is Chief of Staff and Minister for Special Affairs for Mr. Scholz. Vice Chancellor and Economy+ Climate minister is Robert Habeck. Education, Digital and Transportation Infrastructure, Finance, went to the FDP. Other ministries were divided between the Greens and the SPD. 

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IMF forecasts are always behind the curve and come out a month or so after some event has happened. For fast paced events the lag makes the forecasts obsolete in a short time. Even so the IMF says the impact will be to reduce world growth from 3.2% to 2.5% based on situation today, a slight drop in growth. More impacted are the country's with weaker financial situation going into this period including countries in the Middle East and Africa, Asia. There are also indirect benefits from the naval blockade which is to accelerate the move to renewable energy reducing fossil fuels as a percentage of each country's energy mix with more room for nuclear and solar energy, and getting more efficient use of energy with Germany and Japan as examples.

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Germany's president Steinmeier is emerging as a key figure in the current effort to form a majority government in Germany under chancellor Merkel, reports Griff Witte in the Washington Post. This is because the FDP under Lindner with 11% of the vote has pulled out of the coalition talks, and the only alternative is for the SPD to change its position and agree to join the talks. Under Schulz the SPD has for 2 months turned down any effort to join the coalition talks. Partly because the SPD has not done well in recent elections and lost some of its worker base support. Some in the SPD have blamed this on the previous coalitions with the CDU party of Merkel. Steinmeier is a leader from the SPD who was foreign minister in the previous coalition of the CDU-SPD, and has greater influence on the SPD.  Steinmeier has pushed all parties to make another effort. This includes the SPD and Schulz now says the SPD shoulders "a responsibility to the country." After some prodding by Steinmeier and a 8 hour party meeting the SPD now says it will not say no to the talks. One SPD leader, a former mayor of Munich, says the SPD should be careful about what it says because we don't want to sound like "an agitated heap of chickens." In that case Schulz may step aside. ...

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Violation of international law or tacit approval of drug states and suppression of the election results in Venezuela- position taken by Oxford's Dill and Germany's Steinmeier is itself controversial. Merz's is realistic. For those concerned about international law is it restricted to any particular period? Then the British policy in China supported by the other powers Japan, Russia, Germany and France to suppress the Boxer rebellion in 1901 and expand Treaty ports that forced opium on China in the period 1850 to the 1930's was not just a egregious violation, horrendous violation of basic human rights on a scale unimaginable in modern times. Much of the prosperity of the Netherlands and Britain, France was achieved through such policy in Asia. Yet Oxford's Dill and Steinmeier have chosen not to look at European history and the Empires of Europe in Asia and Africa for 300 years since 1700. By comparison Venezuelan action comes after the great patience of well meaning people, and the silence of elites in the US and Europe about massive migration encouraged by the regime in Venezuela of one third of its population about 9 million people to neighboring countries including the US, and suppression of free elections, complete mismanagement leading to 150% inflation destroying its economy.  It was not only these elites in the US and Europe that were responsible through their silence, but also the Bush and Obama wars in the Middle East which sapped the resources of the United States. Why is this happening when the Venezuelan people are the main benificiaries of the action taken by the US president to send in its military. All oil sales revenue will no longer go to a corrupt "drugs" state but be used to directly help the Venezuelan people achieve a better standard of living, bring down inflation  and invest in modernization, in these unusual circumstance a program run by Bessent at US Treasury. Those who dislike the unconventional but well meaning style of the US president and his occasional poor choice of words, find every opportunity for criticism even ignoring facts and common sense. Under Chavez and Maduro the Venezuelan economy was simply mismanaged to the point of being destroyed and an affluent country reduced to poverty and inflation so bad that one third or 9 milllion people left for neighboring countries. On this Dill at Oxford and Steinmeier have only this to say- it is somebody's else's problem. we will remain silent. Similarly on introducing nuclear weapons in the Middle East -where most nation states have intermittent wars and economic mismanagement for the last 50 years the artificial states from the Ottoman Empire of Syria and Iraq, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan every state impoverished by war and economic mismanagement - Dill at Oxford and Steinmeier in Germany also have only this to say- it is somebody else's problem not ours, we will remain silent. ...

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German leader Angela Merkel's own past in East Gerrmany guides her in her relationship with Russia with ther keen interest in what the then German Democratic Republic lacked, oppposition, press freedoms and independent smaller states in Europe that could manage their own affairs free of foreign pressures.

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Preliminary results show the SPD Social Democrats leading in Germany. The SPD had 25.7% of the vote, ahead of Merkel's CDU at 24.1%. This is the worst showing for the CDU in German elections. The environmentalist Greens Party came in at 14.8% of the vote. The pro-business FDP Free Democrats came in at 11.5%, the far right AfD at 10.3%, and the socialist Left party at 4.9%. Parties calling for big infrastructure investments in Germany with tax increases emerged as big winners reflecting the public mood in Germany after CDU led coalitions with SPD for the last eight years focused on the eurozone crisis and opened migration into Germany, while neglecting much needed investment in broken infrastructure. Both the SPD and Greens are calling for big investments and taking on additional borrowing to do so. They now have a combined 42% of the vote, and 47% when combined with the socialist Left. The Afd with 10% remains mainly a fringe party - and primarily a result of Merkel's decision to open migration from war torn Arab countries which she later reversed, and from from the CDU's failure to tackle social and economic problems of eastern Germany.    ...

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An Indian born researcher takes on the mission of saving German forests and making them more resilient to climate change. Somidh Saha is at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. In this video from DW.com he shows what is being done in Germany to protect forests.  Woodlands are under threat worldwide from urbanization and industry. About 80% of German trees are not in good health according to a German government study. Damage is shown being done by the bark beetle to trees already weakened for other reasons including drought. Saha says one has to be careful in evaluating how much of a country's space is healthy forests. In India he says it is sometimes said that 21% is forest land. Yet this includes plantations of many kinds- tea, rubber, coconut and so on. The healthy part of forests of high quality and suited to wildlife is a much smaller part of India. The COP26 in Glasgow was unique in one way- for the first time a zero deforestation target was set for the world. World leaders promised to end deforestation by 2030. Protecting forests protects the planet from climate change as forests act like a carbon sink.   ...

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Merkel visits China in August 2012 with a large trade delegation including heads of SAP, Siemens, VW and BASF. Germany's largest export market is in the eurozone, at the same time growth in exports has surged to China and India. Between 2005 and 2011, German exports to the EU countries increased by 24%, to the U.S. by 6.3%, and to China by 206%, according to German government data. German investment in China was 26 billion euros in 2011. By contrast China's investment in Germany is small- only about 1.2 billion euros. The impression is that large firms such as VW and Siemens make up most of the investment. In actual fact the German Chamber of Commerce in China says 5000 German companies operate in China, employing 220,000 people, and three fourths of this is from the German "Mittelstand," midsize family owned companies. The Foundation for Family Businesses, representing 400 German Mittelstand companies says it needs more help regarding intellectual property protection in China and is not as well represented in the German trade delegation....

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German Radio started on Dec. 22, 1920. Astonishingly private Germans were not allowed to listen to the broadcasts till 1923 when the ban from the Treaty of Versailles was lifted. And the radio programs came under the Ministry of Posts, the Reichspost. It was a great relief to Germans to listen to radio programs, plays and music on radio, and liberating at the time because of the economic hardship and inflation. At the beginning in 1923 467 listeners and end of 1923 1 million listeners, on to 4 million paying subscribers, and 4 million non paying ones by the end of the decade. New genre was the radio play, also composers and music, and football games. Add to this on location reporting by journalists in 1929. A picture is shown of the "Nauen" broadcasting station in Brandenburg in 1919.

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The Europeans led by France and Germany demand stricter regulation and a financial regulatory system that oversees the entire financial system, and oversees all the larger countries. The US in contrast wants to see a lighter regulatory system, and lighter regulation of parts of the financial system like hedge funds. For the USA where the crisis originated, the emphasis is on larger stimulus spending. For the Europeans which have a larger safety net that they would like to see considered as part of their stimulus- and their social arrangement such as reduced hours in Germany to avoid layoffs, and the presence of a large public sector in France that is about 52% of GDP- the situation as they see it does not require breaking the EU's committment to control large deficits. The cultural and historical roots are also different. Germany was hit by hyperinflation in the period between the two wars, and there is thought there that this helped the rise of demagogic leaders and the collapse of democracy there. At that time the issue was war reparations that Germany found difficult to absorb in an economy devastated by the first war, which strained German finances. France and Germany also have no foreclosure crisis, and car sales and consumer spending are not in the deep decline that is seen in the USA. In fact car sales have increased in the two countries with the refunds for scrapping old vehicles, with no such plan in place in the USA. Making there is a credible position on the European side. Germany does see itself hit by the collapse in international trade. Germany and France face the prospect of helping their banking systems deal with the large bad loan situation facing them in Eastern Europe. At the same time Germany and France want to save some firepower for coming to the aid of key parts of the European community like Spain, Greece, and Ireland, which are facing a worsening crisis. In short both sides have credible positions, and some form of accomodation as events unfold may be a better desired outcome than some unified outcome. And little has been said of the position of the other countries in the G20, the emerging countries like Brazil, India, China, Russia, Indonesia, Argentina and others, and the position of the World Bank speaking for the poorest countries. These countries may favor stronger stimulus, and would favor the stricter regulation and supervision of global financial systems favored by the Europeans. This is because they may rightly feel that the messups in the global financial system have stolen their chance, at just the point where they were turning the corner in their efforts at bringing better standards of living to their peoples....

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Former finance minister Peer Steinbruck will be the SPD candidate for chancellor of Germany in the 2013 elections. He is is trusted in Germany for his economic experience and handling of the economy during 2008-2009, especially with the eurozone crisis worsening. Helmut Schmidt, a former chancellor has endorsed Steinbruck. He could draw some right wing support from Merkel. Merkel is personally popular in Germany but the CDU has lost elections in key states, and its partner the Free Democrats is considered weak.

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With the lack of action from House Speaker Mike Johnson on a bill for $61 billion in Ukraine aid bill which passed in the Senate  France, Germany and Britain are speeding up their defense supplies manufacturing and making larger investments with a coordinated effort with other EU nations. The problem say former NATO officials is the lack of investment in spare facilities. Rheinmetall is working on the German side and French defense firms are contributing to increased defense manufacturing.The European Defense Agency's deputy chief executive says production will require sustained investment ant finalized contracts. The European Defense Agency says EU nations have invested $52 billion in 2022 on defense gear.

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Germany has shown that low tech contact tracing efforts work- no apps needed, a phone, a desktop computer with a centralized database, and most important the human relations skills of the person doing the calls. The  sensitivity to the situation facing each person being called, being able to talk to the person in the language they speak in a multilingual environment such as California, is shown here. A 40 person team operates in San Francisco consisting of public health officials, clinicians, medical students and librarians. They call the contacts of people with coronavirus, arrange tests, and as needed send packages of food and medicines to hotel rooms or homes. Every call is expected to last 15 minutes but all sorts of questions are handled.  English and Spanish are used. Here one of the persons doing the contact tracing says she does not use apps, just an open source software used in the fight against Ebola. Definitely low tech, no waiting, get going is the message to every city in the world. She says apps software such as what Google and Apple are putting out can tell you whether the person went to some place, but cannot tell you more about that person, cannot tell you about problems the person is having being tested, and how they are having difficulty providing for families. One of the big lessons from Germany and efforts such as this one in San Francisco, and in other places such as Paris, Singapore, Taiwan, is that there is a complex nature to contact tracing that cannot be solved by tech. In fact the best thing to do is to get started immediately, with a phone and a database on a computer, as long as you have a person who has the motivation and skills, empathy with people, a lot can be done. Waiting for apps is a dangerous waste of time is shown by the low tech German experience, and the experience in other places. Most important is starting immediately. The example shown here of working with migrant workers in contact tracing shows in the most vulnerable places it is these human relations skills that count, that no tech app can do. It requires detective skills to find out and get people to share their history of movements and contacts for 14 days . In Singapore crowded dormitories house 300,000 of 1.4 million migrant workers. Singapore using an app also but its use is secondary. Apps don't work in many situations but fail in the most critical situations such as these dormitories and other eccentric or atypical situations such as faced by South Korea with religious groups and gay communities, elderly people in Europe, that generate the worst dangers of spread and need to be cluster isolated quickly. Human contact tracing has a history of being an effective method and was used in China and South Korea during the 2003 SARS epidemic. More countries need to adopt the method used in Asia and in Germany, particularly Britain, the U.S., France and India. It is OK that Britain's NHS and India's national government with Aarogya Setu app have put out their own apps which balance privacy concerns with the need to act immediately and cover the entire country, but the hard slog of human contact tracing teams in each district is indispensable. This is why the former Health minister in Britain calls it Britain's national mission to do this. Speed is key- putting together teams across the country in every district from skilled volunteers or government workers, and pulling together the phone and a centralized database on a computer as basic equipment. The fact that this is easily doable and people with human skills needed can always be recruited as they have been in Germany- from public officials in local government who are less busy in lockdowns, medical students, clinicians, volunteers, people from different professions- makes it inexcusable not to learn from others experience and get going. Just Do It. You want to reopen business, professions, offices and public services- Just Do It, it makes this possible. You want to prevent spread of the virus- Just Do It, it makes this possible. You want to limit damage to the economy and get the recovery going- Just Do It, it makes this possible. People of all shades of opinion can agree on this- its the only thing that works, even when there is a lack of enough proper accurate testing. ...

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Bangladesh is seen as doing better than India and Pakistan in life expectancy, hunger, fertility rates, and other key development indicators. The new Padma Bridge over the Ganges river operational in 2019 will link different parts of the country and is expected to add 1% to GDP growth. Other infrastructure projects are being planned with $30 billion in projects planned with China including a new port south of Chittagong. The Vision 2021 Plan plans to take Bangladesh out of the poorest nation group by 2021, the 50th anniversary of independence. Germany is the second largest donor and the gender equality in Bangladesh with coeducation in schools is seen by experts as unique among all Muslim countries. The growth of Dhaka and the social and economic change from 5 million garment workers, mostly women and rural could lead to social and cultural change that may be underestimated, says DW.com, providing the view from Germany. DW.com also warns that there are risks for Bangladesh in relying on remittances from Gulf countries, and in not diversifying so that it is not dependent on textile exports alone. Overall German view is that development aid works, and Bangladesh is welcomed from that perspective in Germany. ...

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Jerome Boateng was 2016 Footballer of the Year in Germany. Here he talks about his own experience playing for teams after growing up in Berlin. He was born  in Berlin in 1988 of a Ghanian father and German mother, and practiced on Berlin streets before joining Hertha Berlin, Hamburg and then Bayern Munich. He has been an important part of the German team. 

Here he says education is important, most important, no child is born a racist. Boateng says " What we really need is to get stuck in and do something, be that working with children and doing integration projects. Everybody can help." The best thing is to be active in the community and helping in every way to educate children.

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In Germany the mood is changing in favor of vaccination as people are try to cut into the line for vaccinations based on age groups. Younger people even say they are caring for older parents to get vaccinated in this report from Hamburg and other cities.

This may be an encouraging sign even though it may not be following the rules because Germany's vaccine skeptics are giving way to vaccine envy. The word "Impfneid" refers to the feeling vaccinated people get with vaccine documents enabling them to travel freely. German took 52 million vacations in 2019, and only half that in 2020. In New York city people do not answer or say they do not want to get vaccinated in a door to door drive reported in NYT.

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A new loan disbursement to Greece of $8.5 billion euros goes ahead in June 2017. Greece has to repay 7 billion euros in July 2017. The German parliament set as a condition for approval that the IMF also participate in the Greece bailout. Germany's finance minister Schauble stated that it was particularly important to increase Greece's competitiveness,  to help Greece "stand on its own  two feet" by the middle of 2018. The IMF under Christine Lagarde, and the eurozone group say that Greece has implemented the reforms requested. Greece's ruling party Syriza split over accepting the reform package, with its leader Tsipras finally accepting the need for the Third Bailout program following a referendum and parliamentary elections in 2015. The IMF under Lagarde has stepped in to support Greece in its effort to seek conditions that make the debt program workable for Greece.