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German federal and state leaders meet on acceleration of the vaccination drive. Steps will be taken to allow family doctors to give vaccinations after Easter. About 15.4 million vaccine doses should be available in April. The goal is still is to make vaccine available to every German citizen by summer.

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US president Biden says efforts are being made to provide emergency assistance to India for vaccine making supplies, as well as therapeutics, ventilators and other equipment. The White House says "The United States has identified sources of specific raw material urgently required for Indian manufacture of the Covishield vaccine that will be immediately be made available for India." Joe Biden said that "Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need." This assistance is now being coordinated at the highest levels and being done round the clock. Chancellor Merkel of Germany - "The fight against the pandemic is our common fight. Germany stands in solidarity with India and is urgently preparing a mission of support."  The European Union's von der Leyen said "The EU is pooling resources to respond rapidly to India's request for assistance via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. We stand in full solidarity with the Indian people."   ...

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Angela Merkel's handling of the coronavirus crisis wins praise from world leaders and leaders in Germany. Public opinion from Argentina and New Zealand to Britain and the U.S. gives her a lot of credit for the way she has tackled the situation. She now has the highest approval ratings in Germany since 2017, after a period of 2 years during which her popularity waned with the migrant crisis.  Much of her period in office was consumed by crises- the eurozone financial crisis, the migrant crisis, and now the coronavirus crisis. She brings her style of a scientist rationally looking at the situation, her experience, and her willingness to take bold positions under much criticism. Today even one of the premiers in Thuringia from the socialist Left party praises Merkel for being "pleasantly calm and goal oriented, particularly evident in the well structured video and telephone conferences." He says he prefers a leader "a quiet scientist" rather than "pompous men who as populists, dangerously ignore the facts of the danger." Merkel now assumes the 6 month presidency of the Council of the European Union on July 1.  Germany faces the future in rebuilding its economy, in rebuilding its infrastructure and public services, for now Merkel provides the leadership needed for this time. As Andreas Nick, vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe puts it she is "always analytically scrutinizing and carefully weighing up, soberly Protestant and refreshingly unpretentious, a trained scientist with life experience in the downfall of an all too self-confident ideological system."   ...

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After France makes vaccination mandatory for health care workers Germany's Merkel says she has ruled out mandatory vaccination in Germany. Merkel visited the Robert Koch Institute on July 12 to urge everyone to get vaccinated. Following a slow start 43% of Germany's population is now fully vaccinated. Merkel says "I think we can gain trust by advertising vaccination and also by letting people become ambassadors for the vaccine from their own experience."

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France has reacted faster to the economic crisis presented by the pandemic. It shielded its economy earlier with government support and household consumption has held up better. Its presidential system led to faster decisions than Germany's decentralized mode leading to some experts saying it should borrow this aspect from France. France also has 70% of its energy from nuclear, Germany by contrast depended too long on Russia and Merkel's decision to completely get out of nuclear and to let overconcentration of supplies of energy from Russia happen was a mistake. Merkel also supported the auto industry without anticipating changes taking place after the Copenhagen Climate conference in 2009 and preparing for the future. The auto industry has taken a hit in Germany as it relies too much on imported EV batteries from China and was slow to make the transition to EV's and hybrids. In fairness to the SPD's Scholz and Greens Habeck considering the economy handed to them by Merkel they had to scramble after the Russian war in Ukraine in the middle of the pandemic. Germany made it through in record 1 year's time to be independent of Russian oil and gas, a huge achievement. Over time Germany will recover as it makes a transition of business away from overconcentration in China, another of Merkel's and German business failures to develop a vision for the future. China's slowdown has affected Germany. Germany has to invest in other parts of the world including in India and Japan to diversify the supply chain. Overall score card would give Habeck and Scholz a lot better score, Merkel and German business leaders of the time a low score, and Frnce and Germany about the same score. France for a steady response, and Germany for the speed in which the oil and gas crisis handled considering also that both countries have a centralized and decentralized system based on their respective history and culture. ...

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Germany will reach 85% of gas storage with Russian gas reduced to 10% of consumption by September 1, 2022. The next target is to get it up to 95% for German gas storage facilities by November 1, 2022. "The reservoirs are filling quicker than planned," German Economy Minister Habeck told Der Spiegel. The big part of gas supplies are now from Norway and Netherlands. And LNG supplies will come from France. 

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Germany will provide Ukraine with $200 million for aid to internally displaced people. About 7 million people in Ukraine are internally displaced inside Ukraine. Most of the refugees are women, elderly and children. The internally displaced are in addition to the millions of people who are refugees in Poland and other countries.

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The German labor union GDL is negotiating with Deutsche Bahn. It seeks a 35 hour work week, the reduction of work week for shift workers in rail transport to 35 hours from 28 hours a week. It is also seeking collective agreement for parts of rail infrastructure in Germany. Deutsche Bahn has not accepted this. GDL says there were confidential details of the negotiations leaked to the press including the Bild, and quit negotiations in the recent turn of events. Two strikes affected the rail system as talks fail to reach an agreement.

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Problems for women and for childcare in Germany after the Merkel administration's failure to invest in child care. This DW.com report looks at this problem. Mothers have to send their children to grandparents or pay for expensive private day cares and nannies if they are able to do this. If they are not able to do this the mother usually reduces her work hours or delays returning to her job entirely. A German Youth Institute DJI study is cited which shows that in 2020 49% of parents with children under age three said they require child care. Of these only 24% were able to secure a place at a child care center for the necessary hours. For children over age three 97% needed childcare and only 71% said the necessary hours were covered. This problem was bad before the pandemic, during the pandemic it has only become much worse for women. A similar problem is happening in the US, so that this problem has consequences for women in both the EU - in Germany, France, Italy- as well as the US. It places additional burdens on women with children in the workplace. ...

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Germany's aging rail system, the Deutsche Bahn, will get a makeover with a 86 billion euro inverstment over 10 years. FOr years it has suffered from delays, broken bridges, older trains, and lack of modernization. As the economy slows down infrastructure investment which has suffered from the Tech years, is now back in popularity with the public mood shifting across Europe and the U.S. A current five year plan budgeted just 5.6 billion euros per year and is replaced with a ten year plan with 86 billion euros so that it sends a signal for the economy, but more importantly creates planning security for investments, and makes building sites cheaper to run. As a sign of the times trains running 6 minutes were considered as "on time" in recent years. Merkel's CDU was not pursuing infrastructure investment during the austerity decade 2008-2018. As finances are being cleaned up in Europe and the U.S. and the banking mess clears, the shrinking of banks such as Deutsche Bank as a vivid and educational example, and the mood of the public shifts away from the flashy Tech years, there is a sense of the value in the public mind of the investments in infrastructure that benefit all, that prevailed in the post war years. ...

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Lindner met with senior FDP leaders in Potsdam to plan breaking away from the Scholz government 2 months before it happened on November 5. Lindner was fired that day by Scholz after making unacceptable demands including scrapping climate action targets, and reducing investments in infrastructure. The supplementary budget passed by Scholz was to reidirect 60 billion euros of unspend Covid money to needed infrastructure and climate action projects. The German Constitutional Court declared it unconstitutional. 

The FDP is polling 4% which means it is headed to the situation a decade back where it had no seats in parliament. Which explains Lindner's actions seen as a betrayal by the Scholz government. The greens had advocated investment 4 years back which never happened because of Lindner and FDP opposition hurting the German economy's resilience.

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During a critical 4 weeks in March 9 to April 9, 2025 Germany finds itself without a newly elected government following elections Feb 23, 2025. Only on April 9 is a new CDU/CSU and SPD coalition government in place led by CDU chancellor Merz. Tariffs came to the forefront, the critical issues of world trade and the effect on stock markets, without an elected government in place in Berlin to speak for the European Union and participate in discussions.  Japan's Ishiba and India's Modi offered the US some support as it sought to restore the world trading system to where it was before the serious distortions from China joining the WTO. Much of it the result of American companies outshoring American manufacturing and turning their backs on American workers, and the dignity and pride of workers who rebuilt the US and Europe, and Asia after the Depression and the Second World War.

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How European countries Germany, Poland, Britain, France, and Italy are increasing their defense forces and defense budgets to counter Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its military preparations is shown here in DW.com. Under chancellor Merz Germany plans to invest 5% of its GDP in defense for the first time and build Bundeswehr defense forces as the best in Europe. A key factor says DW.com was the speech of chancellor Scholz three days after the invasion of Ukraine, a speech that changed minds in Germany about the needs for defense in the 21st century. It is called the Zeitenwende or turning point speech on Feb 27, 2022.

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As daily coronavirus cases hit 5000 in Germany Merkel warns of exponential growth and restrictions are imposed on public gatherings.

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Studies that show coronavirus cases are just as prevalent in the younger age groups 15-34 years as with older Germans. One such study uses data from the Robert Koch Institute and published in Eurosurveillance, a journal on infectious diseases. In this study scientists conclude that relative risk (RR) for coronavirus for residents of Germany 15-34 years, and particularly 20-24 years, was noticeably higher than in all other age groups. This study also determined that similar patterns emerged in South Korea where 20-29 years old age group had the highest number of detected cases.

This DW.com report attributes this higher coronavirus cases in younger age groups to work in high contact jobs in service industries, and to greater use of public transport. Laxity early on in following social distancing guidelines is also mentioned as a cause. Other causes could be greater attendance in sports stadiums and music venues.

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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.