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Axel Springer buys London's The Telegraph newspaper( allied with the Conservatives) for $793 million. Axel Springer also owns The Politico website in the US. “To be the owner of this institution of quality British journalism is a privilege and a duty,” says Mathias Dopfner, CEO of Axel Springer, the German publisher. He says Axel tried to buy The Telegraph 20 years back. It will preserve the editorial independence of the newspaper and invest in its digital development and AI related work.

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Coordinated action by the governments of France, Britain and Germany each with its own package depending on its own circumstances but committing over a trillion dollars to rescue plans for financial institutions. In Britain the government moved to take majority stakes in 2 of its largest banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the newly combied bank of Lloyds TSB and HBOS in exchange for a $64 billion capital infusion. In Berlin the German government setup a 480 billion euros package consisting mostly of loan guarantees, with 400 billon euros in guarantees for inter-bank loans and another $80 billion euros for direct injections of capital to help weak balance sheets and purchase toxic or illiquid assets of German banks that are at the brink of collapse. The French have setup their own 360 billion euros package. The French government will create a fund to raise money to guarantee debt for upto 5 years in a bid to make cash available to banks. The banks can access these funds in exchange for putting up their own collateral, including debt not currently accepted by the ECB. And a state sponsored company will provide upto 40 billion euros in direct capital injections to banks that request it in exchange for equity stakes. In addition Netherlands made $220 billion euros available for capital injection into banks and other efforts and Spain will insure upto 100 billion euros in bank debt. Britain's step are the boldest ones yet and Britain's crisis is also likely to be one of the worst because of years of leveraging and overborrowing. But the German financial system is also under heavy strain and strong swift action was necessary to keep its banking system functioning. While other countries have setup the funds for capital injection like other European countries and the USA, Britain has also take the lead in taking majority stakes in two of its largest banks by Monday, October 13, with the departure of the executives who got these banks into such a mess. Gordon Brown has shown cosiderable leadership in this crisis and has been at the forefront in proposing and acting on workable solutions and swift response while Germany and the USA lagged behind. France's Sarkozy's contribution has been in the area of global coordination which he has argued and worked for and successfully achieved during the last 2 weeks....

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With high unemployment at 11% in France, only 41% of the people in a Pew Research Center poll gave favorable impressions about the European Union. This is down from 60% in 2012. In Germany 60% of those polled gave a favorable impression of the EU in 2013. The number remained steady in Britain at about 43%.

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After the German election the next election in France in 2022 will provide new direction for Europe. As in Germany with Olaf Scolz of the Social Democrats, in France an alternative is emerging with Xavier Bertrand of the Les Republicains. Like Scholz Bertrand was Labor Minister working to tackle difficult problems of increasing employment in the French economy going back a decade. In recent elections the party French president Emmanuel Macron created as a member of Francois Hollande's government has floundered. Macron hastily put together the En Marche in Amiens on April 16, 2017, when he was minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs in the government of president Hollande. During the eight year period in which the centre right Christian Democrats CDU and center left Social Democrats SPD had ruled in a coalition government in Germany some version of centrist politics and government had also prevailed in France. After the Sarkozy years 2007-2012 under the centre right Les Republicains party  France turning to the centre left Socialists under Francois Hollande. As a young minister 39 years Macron lacked experience, and the initial enthusiasm that helped him win the 2017 presidential election is now missing. As in Germany voters are looking for change not just in slogans but in substance in a new Trans Atlantic partnership of US, Germany and France to tackle the may problems that were neglected in the last two decades of changing administrations in US and France and the Merkel administration in Germany- problems of social cohesion, of income inequality, division of country into rural and urban, eastern and western in Germany, southern and northern in the US, neglect of infrastructure, and failure to invest in the future.  France is now turning to the Les Republicains party in recent elections, and away from Le Pen's far right party and Macron's party.  Both Macron and Le Pen did very poorly in recent regional elections. This report in FR24 points out that the candidate for the Les Republicains party will be chosen at a convention, and not at a primary as happened in 2017 leading to the elimination of former Republicains president Nicholas Sarkozy. The president of the Haute France regional council Xavier Bertrand is the leading candidate from the regional election results. Bertrand was Sarkozy's minister of Labor and Solidarity from 2007 to 2009, and Minister of Labor, Employment and Health in 2009. Today Olaf Scholz, winner of the German elections in September 2021 was also Minister of Labor- in the Social Democrats/ Greens government under Gerhard Schroeder 1998 to 2005. Voters now realize that it is important to value experience, stability, combined with humility and a determination to get things done, compared to charismatic leaders with little to show in results, and tangible improvements in the quality of life, in national renewal.      ...

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Germany faces the unique challenge of phasing out coal and nuclear energy at the same time. Germany's response to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan was for Chancellor Merkel to announce that all plants would be closed over the next decade. By the end of 2022 all 17 nuclear energy facilities will be shut down.

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Of the 27 nations represented at the EU summit meeting on January 30, 2012, all except Britain and the Czech Republic agreed to the new measures for budgetary discipline. The new fiscal compact will come into effect after 12 eurozone countries have ratified the compact. This prevents one or two countries holding up the agreement. This provides the Merkel government in Germany an agreement on concrete measures for budgetary discipline- evidence of specific action to dissenters inside the Christian Democratic party and in German public opinion- which would enable it to support efforts by the ECB, the IMF and the EU to address the crisis, including the funding of the European Financial Stability Fund. The text of the fiscal compact makes it harder to block sanctions against countries that fail to impose budgetary discipline, while at the same time making allowance for countries with excessive debt such as Italy.

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This report in the WSJ shows in an extraordinary detailed way going back 20 years how under each administration Bush, Obama, Trump in the US and Angela Merkel in Germany, Hollande and Macron in France, the serious differences in the world view and thinking between president Putin of Russia and western leaders were simply ignored or overlooked. Mr. Putin truly believed in Ukraine and Russia as one people, researched history on his own and wrote an essay that made him more convinced than ever about his views that separation of Ukraine from Russia was an artificial construct, more so in the last two years.  By integrating the German and European Union economies with Russia and China without coming to terms with the large separation in views of the world and ignoring Russian views because of its economic size as an economy the size of France, both Merkel and Obama's policies failed to grasp what was happening. This report shows in much detail each event since 2005 that led to increasing distrust by Putin of western leaders.  The integration of the economies of the west and the integration of supply chains with China and Russia continued even after serious concerns had developed during the Trump administration. US and European business was operating on a completely different path not taking this into account in any way. It was only in the Biden administration and after the election of Scholz in Germany in 2021 that the situation was becoming clear. On the other side Ukraine itself and its people had changed in ways that were not anticipated by people in Germany or Russia, much less the leaders in Germany or Russia. There was a genuine sense that Ukraine was a national identity leading to the Ukraine resistance and a prolonged conflict. Brendan Simms, Cambridge historian shows how Europe went through conflicts and wars in its history as each of the major European nations sought advantage from 1453 to the present in his book, "Europe- The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present." Small gains were made in these wars that dragged on bringing great suffering to ordinary people.These wars involved England, France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Russia. ...

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Bayer CEO, Marijn Dekkers, plans to divest its plastics business, called Material Science. The plastics division requires large investments with lower returns than can be made in health care or the agricultural crop science business. Crop Science generated earnings before interest and taxes of 1.81 billion euros in 2014, and Health Care helped by 5 new prescription drugs reported EBIT of 3.58 billion euros, compared to poor returns of 555 million euros on the polyurethane and polymers used for laptops to soccer balls in the Materials Science division. CEO Dekkers is a Dutch born executive who worked for 25 years in the U.S. Since taking over in 2010 he has brought a significant culture change to Bayer, by insisting on speed and agility from executives. Division heads with marketing backgrounds are preferred to science degrees, and the planning orientation of the company is being changed to one where the company executives are not afraid to take risks based on incomplete information. Dekkers prefers an IPO for the $10 billion plastics business to generate more cash and reduce the debt of 20 billion euros. He acquired the over the counter drug business of Merck for $14.2 billion, and has boosted drug sales with the introduction of Xarelto in partnership with J&J, eye treatment Eylea, cancer drugs Stivarga and Xofigo, pulmonary hypertension drug Adempas. Sales of these 5 drugs are expected to go up from 2.9 billion euros in 2014 to 4 billion euros in 2015, contributing significantly to Bayer's profits. Dekker's venture capitalist type focus on profit margins is showing results in share price performance- Bayer's share price has advanced 60% in 2015 mid-March price of 145.85 euros compared to the prior year month. In the small town of Leverkusen, Germany, where Bayer is located, there were initially fears that Dekkers was "too American" and too focussed on shareholder value to understand the need to respect tradition. Since then Germans have realized that Dekkers understands tradition and is only bringing necessary change- the transition to being a life sciences company makes sense to shareholders in Germany, for employee representatives on the supervisory board the guarantee of current level of 17,000 jobs in the plastics division for a few years shows his concern for job protection during the transition period. For Dekkers who left Holland in 1985, and has a U.S. passport with an American wife and kids who speak no Dutch or German, the important thing is to get the right balance- he says the system of 99-1 where 99% of the information had to be in before a decision could be made is making the change to 90-10 where only 90% of the information is now necessary to go ahead, even if he would like to see it at 80-20. Bayer still sponsors the local soccer team known as Bayer Leverkausen, and 26 other clubs. Dekkers steps down at the end of 2016....

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By June 7 US stocks were up 11.5% in the first half of 2026, showing a resilient stock market whatever economists say about tariffs and other policies. There is a lot of misinformation on the changes in trade policy. Sure the deficits over $1 trillion had become so excessive to be a burden for the US ( this is not even to address the 20:5:2  the 20 trillion transfer in US wealth to foreign countries, 5 million jobs lost and the 2% low growth since 2000 that USTR Lighthizer and Jamieson point out in Foreign Affairs magazine in 2026).  Greg Ip comments on this in today's WSJ that betting against DJT trade and economic policy is not working. Here we have another flashback to Brexit and why a similar situation of misinformation had the opposite result. The value of the pound dropped from $1.55 to $1.35 to the US dollar in June 2016 the day Brexit referendum was won by Reform UK and the Conservatives. Today it is $1.33 in June 2026. Here is some history of Britain's tussle with the European Union. When did it start? In 1961 Britain applied to join. The French never too eager to have the British inside rejected in 1967 under nationalist De Gaulle. It took 12 years  not till 1973 did Britain get in with Denmark and both kept their currencies. As soon as Britishers complained about the bureaucracy in European Union Brussels headquarters conservatives like Boris Johnson drove this to a high pitch. He even said only way it would affect Britain was in the price of a Mars chocolate bar. Well in 2026 it is much more than that. Labour's Wes Streeting calls it a disastrous step for the UK economy to isolate it from Europe.  As usual the French don't care and the Germans showed little interest, so Britain was left to its own devices not being careful would mean bearing the costs. Manchester's mayor Burnham in Labour says he grasps this but there are other priorities that are pressing and shelves this for another time. It took 12 years to get UK into the European Union- it took just a few years under shortsighted Cameron, May and Johnson to get out when after austerity policies imposed by Cameron a lot of anger had shifted to Labourites and Blair's policies like the shortsighted policies of Bush and Obama, for the 20 trillion US lost to foreigners in their watch. Will it take another 12 years again for UK to get it right and get France and Germany to enthusiastically support Britain in the EU? ...

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The US president tells the King it was special that all members of Congress stood up for a standing ovation many times- something that in recent years rarely happens. The King "has shown his class" in the last 24 hours says BBC, it is now up to Starmer and the British government, DJT and the Americans to make it count. Notable DJT sharing that the King agreed with him that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. The King also talked about the NATO alliance and its role in keeping the peace for 80 years in the world. In the King's words-  "the international rules that have allowed us to trade and have kept power in balance for 80 years." Adding that the US should not go it alone- "The challenges we face are too great for any one nation to bear alone." However the King is only doing what his is role as monarch to present British interests, and it is important to recall that Britain's interests were once colonial interests around the world, that opposition to these colonial interests led to the Declaration of Independence by Jefferson and Washington in 1776. And caution in Washington's advice to America in Annual messages when it comes to these Empires. Right after 1945 when NATO was created- as it was throughout its Empire in Asia  in 1750-1950- Britain opposed Russia and was the most vocal opponent of Soviet Russia in 1950's and saw NATO in this mission. Times have changed with the emergence of Russia after 1990, China in 1950 and again in 1990's, and America as a world power is best following Washington's advice not to get involved in or inherit the British anti-Russian attitude as it has interests in the Western hemisphere and around the world that require cooperation with other world powers such as Russia, China, India, and Germany to create a peaceful world  and not the kind we have today that puts Russia and China on the wrong side just for opposition, as no powers have any interest in drug and people trafficking in the western hemisphere form places like Mexico and Venezuela, or creating small wars in other parts of the world. A situation NATO as seen by Britain in 1950 as Anti-Russian creates for the US- Lord Hastings Ismay first Secretary General of NATO set British goal for NATO (not the US interests or consistent with George Washington's advice to distance from) in 1949 as "Keep the Russian Out, the US Involved, and the Germans Down." ...

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NYT's Landon Thomas gives this exceptional report on how Deutsche Bank changed from a lender to the German auto industry and safe banking practices to enter the derivatives business and other opaque financial products that led to taking on huge risks. Deutsche Bank has agreed on Dec. 22, 2016 to settle with the U.S. Justice Department paying a fine of $7.2 billion for practices relating to faulty mortgage securities. This report says the problems started in 1995 with Deutsche Bank's leadership hiring Edson Mitchell of Merrill Lynch to promote the investment banking business at Deutsche Bank. Mitchell hired two derivatives traders Broeksmit and Anshu Jain. Mr. Mitchell died in plane crash in 2000 when he was 47 years age, Mr. Broeksmit committed suicide in 2014, 58 years in age, Mr. Anshu Jain, 53 years old, is the only surviving person of the three. Under Mr. Jain Deutsche Bank assumed more and more risk, and was involved in complex and opaque financial products leading to the toxic mortgage crisis, and manipulation of the lending rate for London banks.  It also lent $300 million to Donald Trump's businesses. Most of the profits generated from this venture have evaporated, with analysts estimating $15 billion in fines and penalties owed of the $20 billion that these ventures generated. Not counting the serious damage to the bank's reputation in Germany and the U.S. This report points out the role played by the CEO from 2002 to 2012 of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, in encouraging these ventures converting the bank from its original loan as a contintental lender to business to a bank selling opaque financial products for most of its profits. Landon Thomas also describes the events and days leading up to the suicide by Broeksmit, including a visit to a psychiatrist and Broeksmit's facing enormous stress about the investigations underway in Germany and the U.S. looking into the opaque financial products and practices of Deutsche Bank. This is also a cautionary tale about what happened in banking from the late 1990's leading to the collapse in 2008, leading to the problems of today- the need to rescue the economy in 2008-2009 and the low rate world that ensued damaging the savings of ordinary people, the infrastructure that was never built, the parallel crisis of the hollowing out in manufacturing as a false prosperity boomed in banking and finance. In a sense it is also a story of everyday lives that were damaged in the high flying boardrooms of finance in New York, London and Frankfurt. The revolving door between regulators and the banks made it harder to monitor and control banking risk letting this story unfold over decades, damaging the credibility of governments and the established political parties without clear alternatives from outside; as the dominance of Wall Street executives in the new outsider Trump administration shows.  ...

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Church membership in Germany declines to 45% in 2025 from 69% in 1995. 611 churches in Germany close since 2000. This report shows a church converted into a bicycle shop. The Protestant and Catholic Church have lost over 1 million Christians from deaths and people leaving the church.

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Differing opinion and the election in September 2009 making the 1 billion euros funding guarantee requested by Opel a dilemma for German Christian Democrats and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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Ukrainian view on surrendering the 25% of Donbass it does not control for peace deal are shown here in interviews by DW.com in that region near the frontlines. The Kviv Institute of Sociology survey shown here is that 71% of Ukrainians are against giving up the 25% of Donbass. Survey in the Donbass region show 47% opposed, 29% undecided and 24% support giving up tereritory for a peace deal. About 200,000 people mostly pensioners and people who do not want to see their home being looted still live in the Kviv controlled Donbass areas near the frontlines. What about elections? If elections are held and an Ukrainian party including that of Zelensky were to agree to surrendering the Donbass how would the Ukrainian 71% opposed or undecided react. Other attitudes to giving up the rest of Donbass is that there is afeeling even among people who might favor this for a peace deal that Russian forces might continue the war at a later time. Germany's Merz is investing heavily to build up the Bundeswehr and recharge the German economy- the German response is to coordinate with UK, France and Italy and the EU to set up a bloc independent of the US to respond to the peace overtures of the US president with one's of it's own that do not include giving up the Donbass, and to create guarantees that the war ends here, no sporadic starts as in the last 2 decades. ...

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This unbelievable story from Berlin, Germany, where dozens of police officers are injured and three hospitalized trying to disperse 20,000 people gathered to protest anti-pandemic measures. 130 people had to be arrested. 1100 officers had to be deployed to monitor the gathering even though there is a spike in cases in Germany. The gathering was done with people not wearing masks and not social distancing. Berlin mayor Michael Muller said they risked the health of other people. The gathering was a mixture of hard left and hard right supporters in a strange mix with shouting "we are the second wave" as the protest reached the Brandenburg Gate. Police had to use loudspeakers to get people to leave the area. And launched legal action for "non-respect of hygiene rules." Some officers were hit by shards of glass.

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The Gallois Report commissioned by the new government in France to restore France's manufacturing competitiveness. Louis Gallois is the former head of aerospace firm EADS. It calls for a 30 billion euro cut in payroll taxes to help French companies compete in global markets. Gallois proposes 22 main measures to "stop the slide and support the economy." He called this a "competitiveness shock." Gallois points to France's 70 billion euro trade deficit in contrast to booming German exports. The cost to the economy was 2 million French jobs over 3 decades, says the report. Unemployment today is around 10%. Measures suggested include the payroll tax cuts of 1.5% of GDP for salaries upto 4900 euros a month, and employee representatives to sit on board of directors of French companies similiar to Germany.

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Is a Win-Win possible for the US/Israel and Iran possible with the US/Israel strikes and operations started March 1, 2026. Not just for the American and Israeli people, but for the people of the Arab countries and for the people of Iran, and for the people of Russia. Greg Ip in the WSJ, Marc Thiessen in the NYT, and Bret Stephens of the NYT have looked at this in this way and offer an alternative view of what might happen, even though the tendency of the WSJ and the Washington Post is to be skeptical and the NYT with an opposition to all things DJT offering pessimistic version. First, all the anticolonial writings that were read by Khamanei in Moshaad are no longer the case as the US is no longer acting to secure some benefit to itself as the British and French colonial powers did for themselves or their oil companies in pre1960's Iran. Second the US truly wants to learn the lessons of 30 years of troubles in the region at every level of the DJT administration which is to extend a true olive branch to the subdued foe as it did to Germany and Japan under generals Eisenhower and McArthur. Third moderates in Iran could emerge as in Germany ( Adenauer) and in Japan Shigeru Yoshida who worked to adopt the 1947 Japanese Constitution under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Behind the student protests and now national protests there is a realization in Iran that living perpetually under sanctions is not the way to live, that it can increase oil production, get investment in its industry, and raise standards of living, by doing something different. That nuclear weapons development, supporting movements overseas, perpetual conflicts with Arab states, these things have been tried and are not working. That this is the last chance to build a prosperous Iran before fossil fuels are replaced by renewable energy over 10-15 years and which will make it that much harder to modernize and develop Iran for the benefit of Iran's future 110 million people. The gap with India will only widen as India catches up with China, the way China caught up with Japan. It is better to accept that these anticolonial writings that emerged from decolonizing Arab North Africa applied to the British and the French, and that the world is a different place today as the Indians and the Chinese have realized modernizing ancient societies with ancient religions is possible with the help of the Americans and the Europeans, working with the Americans and the Europeans. Theodore Roosevelt says in his Autobiography that one should be careful to judge people as the best have some negative aspects and the worst have some positive aspects, an experience he described in his dealings with progressives and those who opposed changes. Adenauer and Yoshida had contacts and dealings with earlier governments defeated in the war, but wanted to search for an entirely different path for rebuilding their countries having learned from experience. A thoughtful moderate Iranian outcome is possible as happened in Germany and Japan and which is beginning to develop in Venezuela.   ...

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 President DJT has several options after SC Tariffs decision -Sections 122 Trade Act of 1972 has 150 day limit and 15% maximum tariff rate, and Sections 232 and 301 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 is specifically designed for China and countries with high trade deficits. DJT pointed out at the press conference following the Supreme Court decision pointed out that he had these options at the beginning in April for tariffs. He chose IEEPA instead because the other options required work that would take several months showing the unfair treatment of the US by other nations. It is likely that the president used IEEPA for speed yet kept open the options to replace it with the option that would work best. The new studies will have been started much earlier in 2025 so that the president can introduce all his tariffs under new arrangements. Another aspect of this is that the president has negotiated Free Trade Agreements with most of the nations that are large trade partners from India, China, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan to UK, EU, Germany, France with the idea of boosting the US economy with tariffs of 10-15%. ...