Bopinion

on what matters to me

[bopinion]

2025 / 23

Aperçu of the week

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

(Sonnet by Emma Lazarus, inscription on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty)

Bad News of the Week

I can still remember 1992, when serious riots broke out in Los Angeles after the police officers who had mistreated African American Rodney King a year earlier were acquitted. The images that made their way to Europe conveyed exactly the same sequence of events as Rodney King's arrest itself: a minority commits a relatively harmless offense, and the state responds with disproportionate force. After four days, there were 53 reported deaths, several thousand injured, and property damage amounting to approximately one billion US dollars.

Right now, I wish I were experiencing some déjà vu - but unfortunately, it was reality back then. And it is now. It started with increasingly reckless actions by ICE (United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement), which now even snatches parents of minors born in the country off the street and takes them to detention centers with the intention of deporting them without due process. It is obvious that civil society should resist this. Especially when plain clothes and neutral vehicles cast doubt on whether these are actually representatives of the authorities.

The whole situation is now apparently escalating in two ways. On the one hand, protests are increasing in other parts of the country. This is out of solidarity, but also because the division of the population is progressing everywhere and everyone knows someone with an unclear residence status who hardly dares to leave their home because they could be caught in the supermarket parking lot and deported. Unfortunately, the readiness to violence is also increasing.

And on the other hand, the federal government is not shying away from any kind of martial measures. First the National Guard, then even the Marines. Both against the express wishes of Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom, and serves nothing good but adds fuel to the fire. Why is Trump doing this? Does he want to show the two Democrats who's boss? Does he want to demonstrate to his unsettled voter base that he is a strong man who can still act where others fail? Or is he simply willing to use any means necessary to combat his arch nemesis called immigration?

Only one thing seems certain: this US president doesn't give a damn about rules, conventions, standards, processes, regulations... in short: limits. Donald Trump simply does what he wants. In 1776, the United States of America declared its independence from the Kingdom of England in order to establish a democracy. Viewed from the outside, it almost seems as if the nation is now regressing back into a monarchy. That would be fine if the people had decided to do so of their own free will. But as it stands, they are simply being gradually stripped of their power - essentially a coup d'état.

Good News of the Week

So-called rare earths are crucial for our economic future. Without them, there would be no high tech. Take lithium, for example: this alkali metal is often referred to as "white gold" and is a basic component of rechargeable batteries. Without rechargeable batteries, there would be no digitalization or electric mobility.

When we think of the origin of rare earths, we think of China - with its dubious reliability and commitment to contracts. We think of Australia - with its questionable environmental standards. Or Chile - with its poor labor standards, not to mention child labor in the mines. And then Angela Merkel went to Ulaanbaatar a few years ago to strike a deal with Mongolia. Never heard anything about it again? Exactly.

Germany, like virtually all other established industrialized countries, must therefore consider how it can meet the growing demand for raw materials for the development and production of components for future technologies. And in doing so, it is dependent on international agreements, commonly known as globalization. Which is currently not really trending to put it mildly. It is a pity that there is practically no mining left in Germany after ore and coal ceased to be an issue or became cheaper to purchase than to extract.

"Berggeschrey" ("Mountain clamor") is an old term that appears already in Grimm's dictionary and refers to the loud, widespread news of the discovery of rich ore deposits in the mountains, which puts the entire region in a state of excitement - some kind of gold rush atmosphere. In 1168, it was silver in Saxony. The discoveries marked the beginning of an era of prosperity and wealth. For 800 years, the mining of silver, tin, cobalt, and uranium shaped the country. "Everything comes from the mines," say the Saxons. With the fall of communism, it was all over. For good. For good?

Now, according to news magazine Der Spiegel, the clamor for legendary findings is audible once again. Niobium, lithium, tungsten, nickel, and indium are raw materials in high demand worldwide. And they lie beneath the ground in Saxony. Mining could be a billion-dollar business that could bring another boom to the nowadays relatively structurally weak region of Saxony.

There is still local resistance to the renaissance of mining. Many people still associate mining with environmental damage and health risks from the days of the GDR. Ironically, this is where the world's oldest mining academy trains students and where Alexander von Humboldt once conducted research. However, with modern mining technology and the protective regulations for people and nature that are now in place, there is no need to fear. Instead, people can look forward to well-paid jobs and a little more independence. Good luck!

Personal happy moment of the week

Last week, colleagues from all our offices got together for a summer party in Ulm, on the border between Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Those of us from Munich traveled there together by train. It turned out to be an unexpected adventure, as instead of a two-hour ride on one train, we ended up spending five and a half hours on four different trains. But we didn't let that spoil our good mood. The evening was very nice and delicious, and the night was short. Almost all of us slept through the return trip the next day. With a little smile of satisfaction on their sleepy faces.

I couldn't care less...

...that even after its bad experiences with Brexit, Great Britain is still seeking salvation in isolationism. A current example: foreign nursing staff. Without them, nothing would function on the island in this regard - because they make up the majority of the workforce. Labour now wants to get rid of them for opportunistic reasons, even though there are no citizens to fill the jobs that will then be left vacant. The main thing is to stop migration. Even if it means shooting yourself in the foot.

It's fine with me...

...that rhinos are now being deliberately "dehorned" in South Africa's famous Kruger National Park. Scientists at Nelson Mandela University have proven that between 2017 and 2023, the number of rhinos killed by poachers in eleven reserves fell by three quarters after the horns of these endangered animals were trimmed. Unfortunately, there are still enough men in Asia who believe that rhino powder is a remedy for impotence. Yet it consists only of keratin - just like human fingernails.

As I write this...

...I think back to a danger I wasn't even aware of. I was driving in a taxi with colleagues across a bridge over the Rhine in Cologne. Later that same day, three huge American aerial bombs from World War II were found at exactly the same spot. This led to the largest evacuation since that very war. Twenty thousand residents had to be evacuated, 58 hotels were cleared, the city center was completely emptied, and ship, train, car, and air traffic were halted. And then, after a good hour, the defusing was over. And so was the strange feeling in my stomach.

Post Scriptum

This year, our second home, Canada, is once again being ravaged by devastating forest fires, with a new sad record looming. According to Canada's national forest fire report, there are currently well over a hundred fires burning across all provinces, causing unimaginable damage. Exceptional dryness and wind have contributed to the formation and spread of the fires. Over 25,000 people in sparsely populated areas have been evacuated as a precaution. Even in more distant cities such as Toronto and Montreal, the air quality is now so poor due to the smoke that there are health risks. We are talking about the second largest country on earth!

Normally, most Europeans only hear news from North America that has something to do with Donald Duck or Donald Trump. This year's forest fires are different. And you don't even have to look at the TV to see it, just look up at the sky. We haven't been able to see the Alps for days now at our home because the air is so hazy. And the sunsets have a strange pastel orange hue. That's because the emissions have now traveled 7,000 to 8,000 kilometers over the Atlantic to Europe. For the third year in a row, the situation is extreme. This also applies to the climate: the journal Nature has calculated that the total carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions from the fires between May and September 2023 was comparable to India's annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Ouch.

[bopinion]

2025 / 22

Aperçu of the week

"The True North strong and free!"

(Excerpt from the Canadian national anthem "O Canada!")

Bad News of the Week

Poland is doing well. Society and individual citizens have become more prosperous over the past two decades, infrastructure has been renovated, foreign policy influence is growing, the nation has become self-confident, the economy stronger - Poland is on the map. So Poland should be sailing in calm European political waters.

Karol Nawrocki is doing badly. No one knew him, he had no political experience or media support, but he did have contacts in the red-light district and among right-wing extremist soccer fans. The historian and civil servant should therefore have lost by a landslide when he ran as an independent candidate for the right-wing PiS (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość / Law and Justice) party in the election for the Polish presidency.

But the former was not enough to prevent the latter. Nawrocki was elected - with virtually no political program, but with a political stance. He was director of the Museum of the Second World War and head of the Institute of National Remembrance. In other words, a credible representative of isolationism and nationalism. And against Germany and Europe. It is frightening that this is enough to get elected.

Poland's contribution to the European Union (EU-27) budget in 2023 amounted to around 5.7 billion euros. At the same time, Poland received around 14.1 billion euros from the EU budget. The state's financing is based on this annual imbalance. The EU affords this because it is committed to expanding the internal market and strengthening its external weight. This is done within the framework of a common set of democratic values. In this respect, Poland is a European misinvestment. But how could this happen?

Just a year and a half ago, the Poles elected Donald Tusk, a liberal pro-European, as prime minister. However, he was hardly able to implement his progressive agenda because the incumbent PiS president, Andrzej Duda, made full use of the extensive veto powers that define the office in Poland. And now the wafer-thin majority has swung back to the right.

Nawrocki had already declared during the election campaign that his goal was to bring down the Tusk government: "Prime Minister Tusk must prepare himself for strong resistance from the presidential palace." A rigorous policy of obstruction could wear down the coalition and unleash centrifugal forces. The first reaction has already come: Tusk wants to call a vote of confidence in parliament on June 11. In other words, he wants to clarify whether he still has the backing of his coalition. This could have a disciplining and motivating effect - but it could also backfire.

If new parliamentary elections are held, another shift to the right would come as no surprise. Look at the Netherlands, where, according to polls, the right-wing extremist Geert Wilders will once again benefit from the new elections he forced. This is because the narrative of right-wing populists is most effective in times of uncertainty. They channel latent prejudices into a fundamental question of identity: do you want to be a true Pole or just a German-European puppet? If the political discourse narrows to this, democracy and the European idea have already lost.

Good News of the Week

The unholy alliance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk is over. The paths of the most powerful and the richest person on the planet are diverging. From the outset, this was not a bromance, but a relationship based on a cool assessment of mutual benefits with a small dash of misunderstood father-son complex. The fact that this could not and would not last long was already evident in his official position as "special government employee" as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, with the associated limitation on his participation in the government to 130 days (per year).

So it is not the end itself that comes as a surprise, but only the bumpy way it happened and, above all, the quick backlash. Trump's political relationships are never long-lasting and are based on a simple principle: loyalty to the king. Conversion is welcome - Cruz, Graham, Vance, Rubio, Kennedy... the list of former enemies who have embraced the MAGA faith is long - but renunciation is punished with excommunication, which can range from complete ignorance to fierce revenge attacks.

In this case, too, the loser is clear. Musk invested in Trump. Money, time, media presence, and personal reach. It worked. Some political analysts even believe that Trump would not have become president without the support of Musk (and the tech entrepreneurs who followed him). But what was expected in return? More government subsidies for Neuralink, perhaps, or direct contracts for Starlink?

That didn't happen. On the contrary, the volume of orders from the US to SpaceX only accounts for about a tenth of Tesla's loss in value, which can be seen as a direct consequence of Musk's political involvement. In doing so, the sociopathic visionary probably misjudged his political influence. "Trump has 3.5 years left as president, but I will be around for 40+ years ...". That's what I call a solid narcissistic self-overestimation.

If Trump now drops him completely, no one will listen to him anymore. Because all he has is money. But he has no administrative positions to offer or political influence to wield. Fortunately, that drop will now be the case. Because the damage he has done in what is actually a ridiculously short 130 days with just a few dozen young people and DOGE is immense. The de facto abolition of the USAID development aid agency alone will cost millions of lives in the Third World -- from a lack of food and medical care to a lack of technology such as drinking water purification.

The damage he continues to cause solely through his questionably targeted misinformation on the propaganda platform X, formerly the balanced microblogging service Twitter, continues unabated. But perhaps his demystification as the "Dogefather" - measures that disappoint even with inflated figures and are often stopped by the courts - will be enough for him to lose his status as a mouthpiece for many lazy-minded convenience MAGA heads. The same would apply here: less Musk is better than more.

Personal happy moment of the week

Father's Day is always a bit of a chore, as it needs to balance out Mother's Day, which is actively celebrated (and probably just as much an invention of the florist lobby as Valentine's Day). And my children didn't neglect me. My adult daughter gave me a kind of picnic basket with snacks for movie nights at home. It included non-alcoholic wine - because, of course, she couldn't resist offering some educational criticism even on this day. And even my son got me a card, a forward-thinking move (because Ascension Day is a public holiday when the shops are closed), which is nothing short of a logistical masterpiece for him. Thank you!

I couldn't care less...

...that the famous "Black lives matter" sign in Washington DC was removed this spring under pressure from the Trump administration, which found it "problematic" and threatened sanctions to the city administration. It has just been five years since the death of George Floyd now, after which the slogan became a memorial facing police violence against African Americans. Even on this side of the Atlantic, the memory remains alive. And it will remain so as long as this latent racism exists.

It's fine with me...

...that the speech from the throne at the opening of the Canadian Parliament was not read by the Governor General as representative of the British Crown, but by Canada's official head of state himself. King Charles III took the opportunity to praise healthy patriotism and emphasize the country's sovereignty and democratic and cultural values - especially in relation to its intrusive neighbor to the south.

As I write this...

...early summer is taking a break. It is getting cool and, above all, rainy. This is a good thing, as the lack of meltwater from winter and hardly any rainfall in spring has left the countryside far too dry. Unlike Canada, we have been spared forest fires so far, but we are a little apprehensive about the summer, which is expected to be extremely hot throughout Europe this year.

Post Scriptum

When the European Union introduced emission limits for the vehicle fleets of local car manufacturers, the aim was to promote electric drives on the one hand, but also to make combustion engines cleaner on the other. However, this led to several vehicle manufacturers investing their technical expertise less in exhaust gas purification and more in methods of circumventing the relevant tests - the so-called "Dieselgate" scandal then came to light in 2015, when Volkswagen, then the world's largest car manufacturer, had to admit to manipulation.

Special software ensured that the engines complied with nitrogen oxide limits on the test bench but emitted many times the toxic exhaust gases on the road. This resulted in losses of 33 billion euros, which are still weighing on the group's balance sheet - mainly due to compensation payments to buyers whose vehicles had lost their resale value. Normally, that would have been the end of it: like other white-collar criminals, they would have been able to buy their way out with money.

But now, following a ruling by the Braunschweig Regional Court, two top managers will actually have to go to prison - without parole. The head of diesel engine development will spend four and a half years in prison, and the head of powertrain electronics two years and seven months. One downside, however, is that the two were only convicted of fraud. They were not hold responsible for the immense damage they caused to the environment. That is still not a criminal offense. And nature is not allowed to be a joint plaintiff.

[bopinion]

2025 / 21

Aperçu of the week

"The English are not happy unless they are miserable."

(Eric Arthur Blair - writer, Englishman, and specialist in dystopias. Better known as George Orwell)

Bad News of the Week

I can only vaguely remember the record-breaking heatwave of 2003. My daughter had just been born, so we had two reasons to stay indoors, where it was sticky but not quite as hot. There were days when it was unbearable outside. According to the WHO, almost 8,000 people died in Germany that summer as a result of the heat. Across Europe, the death toll was around 70,000. That is more than three times the number of traffic fatalities in a year.

And now Europe is apparently facing another hot summer. A review of 2003 analyzed quite accurately that this extreme heat was coming. According to the three-dimensional atmospheric model - basically a digital replica of the entire planet that can be used to play out different scenarios - of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, it can be assumed with "high probability" that it will now happen again.

One important indicator is the warming of the Atlantic. According to findings from the German Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, once the curve has been rising for three years, a kind of tipping point is reached. Using this and other criteria, the last 11 hot summers could have been predicted. It is expected that we will soon be able to work out a few months' lead. This is important for agriculture, for example, which could then refrain from water-intensive corn cultivation during a hot and dry summer.

Unfortunately, this is of little benefit to us humans. Neither our urban planning nor our general way of life can be changed overnight to better prepare for a hot summer. Nor can a Central European simply acquire the greater heat resistance of, say, an Aborigine. So there will probably be tens of thousands of deaths again this summer.

At least it's somewhat fair that it's not just animals, birds, and fish that are dying. Unlike them, we had and have the opportunity to do something about climate change, which is, after all, man-made. From this perspective, it's okay that Europe is currently the continent warming the fastest. After all, we invented industrialization, which is now coming back to haunt us all.

Good News of the Week

"The island" and "the continent" have always had a complex relationship. The British and Europeans have always belonged together in some way. But in another way, they haven't. Some things will probably never be appreciated on the mainland - such as mint sauce or lukewarm beer. Others are very much appreciated - especially in pop culture, where the British footprint is many times larger than its population would suggest. Apparently, different standards apply on the island. And I don't just mean the imperial system.

That's why continental Europeans didn't understand why the majority in the UK voted for Brexit just under nine years ago. In the EU membership referendum, 52% voted to leave the European Union. The catchy slogan of the Brexiteers was "Taking back control." Since then, there has been wrangling over fishing rights, aviation safety, drug approvals, residency rights, and the harshness of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Above all, however, there have been and continue to be significant economic disadvantages for the British. This is probably why only 30% nowadays think Brexit was the right decision.

But it is very important to remember that Europe is more than just the European Union. After all, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is still a member of NATO, the G7 and the G20. And informal pragmatic contact has always been maintained.

For example, it was clearly more than just a ride-sharing arrangement when the newly elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited Ukraine for the first time and was accompanied not only by EU neighbors France (Emmanuel Macron) and Poland (Donald Tusk), but also by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. This once again made it clear that we still belong to a community of values.

We mainlanders are therefore very pleased that a rapprochement is now taking place. For the first time since Brexit, there has been a summit meeting between the leaders of the EU and the UK, at which a general agreement was reached on closer cooperation, with talk of a classic win-win situation.

While Commission President von der Leyen and Council President Costa speak of a new chapter in which Europe shows that it is united, Starmer is downright euphoric: "Britain is back on the world stage." Yes, one could now ask spitefully why they split in the first place, but no one wants to spoil the good mood.

Personal happy moment of the week

A few weeks ago, I discovered that the train station shop - in the suburb from which I commute to downtown Munich twice a week - has a pretty good marzipan croissant. Since then, I've been ordering one with a cappuccino grande every time before I go to the office. And now the employee there has memorized my words: "Good morning! I'd like a large cappuccino..." with a smile and "...and a marzipan croissant, I know. Have a nice day!" And I felt right at home.

I couldn't care less...

...that Israel has responded to the endangerment of EU diplomats in the West Bank with "warning shots." In the city of Jenin, Israeli soldiers fired shots during a visit by European diplomats who were on their way to visit a refugee camp. Excuse me? This incident is unacceptable in many ways. Let's start with the simple fact that the Israeli military has no business being in the West Bank.

It's fine with me...

...that Thailand's Sawang Janpram won the gold medal in the men's shot put at the 2025 World Masters Games in Taipei, Taiwan, even though he was the only participant. That is, in his age group, 100+. At 105, Janpram is the oldest participant ever in the games.

As I write this...

...I discover a new style of music. Or rather, a new crossover blend. It's called "Amapiano" and suddenly appeared as its own tile in the Discover section of Apple Music. It's a groovy drum 'n' bass music that incorporates elements of deep house, jazz, and lounge. Above all, it features African vocals, which is where it comes from in the south. The sound manages to be stimulating enough in the morning to get you going for the day and chill enough in the evening to help you wind down. Smooth.

Post Scriptum

Europe flexes its muscles and makes decisions. With thumbs up or thumbs down. This week, it was thumbs up for Syria, with all economic sanctions being lifted. Yes, there is still a lot of uncertainty and violence in the ravaged country. But, as EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul emphasize, the new Syrian leadership should simply be given a chance. That is good. Because without the prospect of an economically viable future, no failed state can get back on its feet.

Thumbs down, however, for Hungary. In a cross-party letter, EU parliamentarians from the conservative, social democratic, liberal, and green parties are calling for the money tap to be turned off for Viktor Orbán's government once and for all. Apparently, the latest measures against minorities and NGOs were the famous straw that broke the camel's back. Quote from European politician Moritz Körner: "Those who care nothing about respecting EU values deserve nothing from the EU budget." That is good. Because nothing will change unless the pocket-picking despot in Budapest is shown another finger very clearly. The one in the middle.

[bopinion]

2025 / 20

Aperçu of the week

“Hope dies last”

(German proverb that probably goes back to the saying “Dum spiro spero” - As long as I breathe, I hope - by Cicero)

Bad News of the Week

The internationally renowned human rights organization Amnesty International has been banned in the Russian Federation. The Russian state news agency Interfax reported that the Prosecutor General had declared it an “undesirable organization”. This means that Amnesty must cease all work in Russia. According to a law passed in 2015, participation in such organizations is a criminal offence. Anyone who cooperates with or supports them can also be prosecuted. And will be prosecuted, there is no doubt about that.

Amnesty International describes the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine as a violation of international law. And documents the most serious human rights violations and war crimes committed by Russian soldiers. Founded in London in 1961, the organization is one of the best-known and most established NGOs in the world and has 10 million members. AI has never shied away from calling a spade a spade with regard to and in Russia. Not only in the context of Ukraine, but also against a wide range of other human rights violations. This will not stop in Russia - but we will hear much less about it.

There will always be shining lights like Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny or Pussy Riot, who make it into all the media abroad and at least into alternative media in Russia. And who convey hope on both sides. Abroad, that not all Russian citizens can be taken for fools, let alone that they are convinced Vladimir Putin fans. And in Russia, that you don't have to accept everything, but that you can also stand up - even if that requires incredible heroism. And sometimes costs lives.

With ever fewer organizations that actually have the means to be heard, it will be difficult. Because the Kremlin's propaganda machine is always beating loudly. There are already (independent!) surveys that show that the majority of the Russian population nowadays believes that Ukraine with its Nazis at the top is to blame for the war. I very much hope that the Russian opposition will remain strong and not lose courage and hope. And that Amnesty International does not give up - but rather goes underground.

Good News of the Week

Last Sunday, elections were held in three European countries. And in all three there were results that a democrat can live with. Even if, of course, things have been better in the past. But these days, as we all know, you have to be happy if an arch-conservative populist doesn't come to power. Let's take a quick look at the three elections.

First of all, there is Romania. The new president of this northern Balkan country was elected after an election that was annulled due to massive electoral interference. The non-partisan math professor Nicusor Dan was originally a protest candidate, but turned into a liberal reform politician. As a pragmatist completely unconcerned by the usual accusations of corruption, he beat the radical right-wing George Simion in the run-off election with a pleasing increase in voter turnout. So the people got their act together and consciously made an undogmatic, rational decision.

Then there were parliamentary elections in Portugal. Here, the conservative incumbent head of government, Luís Montenegro, at least managed to retain a relative majority against the shift to the right. As the Socialists are at least just ahead of the right-wing radicals of Chega (“Enough”), a progressive policy that has to organize a majority from project to project is at least possible and also likely.

And finally, the presidential election in our neighboring country Poland. And this could still be really exciting. It is important to note that the country has been more or less at a standstill for a year and a half now. Although the convinced European Donald Tusk won the parliamentary elections with a liberal party alliance under the leadership of his PO (Platforma Obywatelska / Civic Platform), he was unable to push through practically any legislation. This is because President Andrzej Sebastian Duda of the right-wing nationalist PiS (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość / Law and Justice) simply refused to give his obligatory signature on any laws.

In the first round of voting, the liberal-conservative candidate Rafal Trzaskowski from the government camp has a two percent lead over PiS representative Karol Nawrocki, but the second round is wide open. Either Nawrocki succeeds in uniting the votes that have so far gone to two other right-wing parties behind him. Or the population mobilizes and consciously decides against a relapse to the right by voting for Trzaskowski. The Romanian model, so to speak.

Either way, the crossroads of the general shift to the right could be over, at least in Europe. First, the right-wing election winners were no longer able to form a government like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands or Herbert Kickl in Austria. And now there are fewer and fewer right-wing election winners. For me, these are candles of hope that have now started to burn. As I said, a democrat can live with that.

Personal happy moment of the week

After going to a Vietnamese restaurant for my daughter's birthday, it was time for my son's birthday - not even a week later (but originally more than five years) - at an Indian restaurant. Not only was it delicious, but the atmosphere was also unexpectedly relaxed. For one thing, the grandparents were also able to attend, even though my mother still has to contend with considerable motor impairments. And secondly, there were no confrontations between the divorced parents and guardians. So I was able to enjoy the good food without any restrictions.

I couldn't care less...

...the absurd overreactions that occur in the USA out of fear of repression from above. In Georgia, a 30-year-old woman is on artificial respiration and “kept alive”, even though she was declared brain dead three months ago. Because she is pregnant. And the clinic fears that it will violate the US state's abortion law if it turns off the machines.

It's fine with me...

...that a rainbow flag flied over the Reichstag on May 17, even with a right-wing majority in the German Bundestag. That's because it's International Day against Homophobia, which dates back to 1990, when the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to remove homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses. That makes me happy. Even if I think 1990 was alarmingly late.

As I write this...

...I am pleased that the gardening season has begun. Yes, now the neighbors are mowing again and always when I have to concentrate in my home office. And the farms around us are also getting louder and louder too. But before that, an entire house was demolished on a neighboring property. Compared to that, it almost seems like meditation music to me now.

Post Scriptum

The liberal German party FDP (Free Democratic Party) is probably in the biggest crisis in its history. After being kicked out of the Bundestag, it is in danger of falling into insignificance. The party is already familiar with this, as it happened once before in 2009 - but with less political competition back than. Christian Lindner then became party leader (for a record eleven and a half years), re-entered parliament in 2013 and finally joined the government in 2021. Then the so-called “traffic light” coalition of the red Social Democrats, the yellow Liberals and the Greens collapsed. Mainly because of Christian Lindner.

He has now resigned from office and was bid farewell by the party with much positive emotion. The new leader is called Christian again - this time Dürr. And was previously head of the parliamentary group. Hopes are now pinned on him. Not mine any more. Because although I think a lot of liberals, the FDP is no longer a liberal party. The liberal ideas have long since ceased to apply to society or justice, but only to the economy - and against the state, just like the Republicans in the USA at the moment. Fortunately, we still have a liberal party in Germany, as their extremely mature handling of the special funds for security and infrastructure has shown lately: the Greens.

[bopinion]

2025 / 19

Aperçu of the week

"I have come to reach out to you. I do it for you. Be human beings."

(Margot Friedländer - Holocaust survivor, activist, bridge builder - died at the age of 103)

Bad News of the Week

After the Russian attack on Ukraine and the war in Gaza, the fuse is now burning on a third powder keg: India and Pakistan. And as in the Middle East, the dubious honor for this pre-programmed conflict stove belongs to the British. When they gave up "British India" in 1947, Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan were created, consisting of two parts of the country at the time.

During their withdrawal, the British made two geostrategic mistakes that still have repercussions today. Firstly, they annexed the Kashmir region, albeit Muslim, to the Republic of India. Secondly, they lumped the Muslim parts of the country together, even though orthodox Pashtuns and Sunnis, for example, are not really on the same wavelength. But that's how it always worked in (post)colonialism, when clueless and uninterested old white men bent over maps with pencils and rulers and divided up the world.

I don't need to say much about India, but perhaps I do about the much less well-known Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world (after India, China, the USA and Indonesia). In the Human Development Index, Pakistan is classified as "underdeveloped" and ranks only 161st. The "Islamic Republic of Pakistan" suffers from ethnic conflicts with oppression of religious minorities, terrorism and human rights violations, authoritarianism and corruption, discrimination against women as well as poverty and rural exodus. Yet it boasts the sixth largest army in the world - and even nuclear weapons.

The latent hostility between Pakistan and India has already erupted into war three times. Immediately after the founding of the two states, the first war was fought over Kashmir, a region claimed by both sides, and the second in 1965. Finally, in 1971, India intervened in Pakistan's war of secession, which resulted in the independence of what is now Bangladesh (until then East Pakistan). In 1999, heavy fighting broke out again over Kashmir, but this did not lead to the declaration of a state of war. Since then, people have been sitting in trenches that are increasingly criss-crossed by cobwebs - a classic "frozen conflict".

Triggered by an assassination attempt on Indian Kashmiris, the latest hot chapter of this enmity has left the territory of Kashmir for the first time. Both parties attacked way into the enemy's country with missiles and drones. At least this involved military bases, there were few civilian casualties. Currently, a ceasefire has been agreed (which Trump is taking credit for, although only Vance and Rubio have spoken on the phone), but both parties are accusing each other of violating it. The next flare-up seems a matter of time. New Delhi has made it clear that any perceived terrorism attack would be considered an act of war and would be met with a harsh response.

The news magazine Der Spiegel summarizes: "The red lines have shifted. What was once unthinkable - two nuclear powers directly attacking each other deep into the heartland - has become a reality." This turns a regional threat into a global one. There is also a big question mark: China. This much larger (also nuclear-armed) power, which borders the northern neighbor of both countries and also administers part of Kashmir, is keeping a conspicuously low profile. The geopolitical dominance that Beijing under Xi Jinping is increasingly vehemently grasping for suggests that China would not be unprepared in the event of a hot Kashmir war. No one knows how. But everyone knows that it would certainly not be a democratic peacemaker.

Good News of the Week

Friedrich Merz has been elected Federal Chancellor. However, he was only elected in a second round of voting as he did not receive enough votes at first - despite the majority of his coalition of conservatives and social democrats. This had never happened before in Germany. Moreover, according to the parliaments rules of procedure, the second round of voting was only possible with the active consent of the Left. A kind of low-level cooperation that, according to the "incompatibility resolution", should not actually exist.

After the unexpectedly constructive cooperation of the Greens on the special funds for infrastructure and security, this is now the second time that an opposition party with no prospect of political capital of its own has pragmatically found common ground across the aisle. One could also speak of the foundations of a democracy. On which the players do not play their party political games, but actually dedicate themselves to the good of the people - who, after all, elected them for precisely that purpose.

Then the ministers were sworn in. A reasonably balanced personnel tableau, in terms of gender, region and age. And with a few surprises. For example, the newly created Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernization has a manager from the private sector with the appropriate technological expertise. And there are cabinet members that even I have never heard of. It remains to be seen whether this will be the much-anticipated generational change that will give ambitious people from the second tier a chance. Or rather the rampant dilletantism of newbies who have no idea how to run an authority.

The first trips abroad are also noteworthy. Chancellor Merz was traditionally in Paris and Warsaw on his first working day. On the second in Brussels with the EU and NATO. And then in Kyiv. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, in turn, traveled first to Kyiv (after Paris and Warsaw, of course) and then to Israel - including the Palestinian territories. The aim is to show that Germany is capable of acting again. And that it is aware of its European responsibility.

So far, the start of the government has gone reasonably smoothly. Well, there was the flop in the first attempt to elect a chancellor. And in both parties, a minister has got a bloody nose with a programmatic initiative. And of course the opposition is talking about a false start. But compared to most of the scandal-ridden government launches in recent times, I actually find this downright boring normality very pleasant. Germany is making a comeback.

Personal happy moment of the week

Last week I was a son and father. On the same day, I was able to celebrate Mother's Day with my mother and my daughter's 22nd birthday with her. I am obviously a happy man.

I couldn't care less...

...that the far-right AfD (Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany) once again feels disadvantaged. This time in the presidium of our parliament. Traditionally, each party represented in the Bundestag gets a vice-presidential post, with the strongest party getting the president. Julia Klöckner from the CDU now holds this in terms of protocol second-highest office in Germany. But the AfD came away empty-handed. This is because the aforementioned tradition is not law. Instead, all members of the presidium are elected. And the far-right candidates simply did not get a majority. I would call this a self-cleaning mechanism of the system.

It's fine with me...

...when justice comes late. The main thing is that it comes. Which is not always clear. More than ten years ago, a Malaysian Airlines passenger plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine near Grabovo. After lengthy investigations, the UN aviation authority ICAO concludes that Russia is responsible for the downing of flight MH17. And thus for the death of 298 people. Compensation? Doubtful. Unsurprisingly, Moscow rejects any blame.

As I write this...

...I am gradually increasing the pressure on my son to finally develop a minimal sense of order. Just kidding: apparently I have to force him to do the basics. At the parents' evening at school last Tuesday - which was otherwise rather positive, as the young man is currently quite active and interested in class - his principal teacher showed us his locker. Because he had asked her not to. So now I know that he is at least consistent in his chaos.

Post Scriptum

"Habemus papam" is the centuries-old Latin proclamation for a successful conclave: We have a pope! Leo XIV is the name of the new Pontifex Maximus, Bishop of Rome, Holy Father, Sovereign of the Vatican, Your Holiness, etc. Robert Francis Prevost is American, was Prior General of the Augustinian Order for over a decade, served as a bishop in Peru for many years and has been Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops since 2023.

Above all, however, he is only 69 years old - almost a teenager by Catholic standards. He is therefore at the beginning of a very long term in office. It will depend on him whether the Church opens up to a progressive development after the hopeful beginnings under Pope Francis or suffocates in reactionary traditions. He has not yet positioned himself programmatically.

Prevost is regarded as a pragmatic diplomat. And his election as a compromise between the conservative and liberal camps. His motto as Pope is "in lilo uno unum" ("in the One we are one"), and in his first address he called for bridge-building and peace. I hope that Leo XIV can give the world's largest religious community guidance in difficult times. And above all hope. Because we already have enough despair.

[bopinion]

2025 / 18

Aperçu of the week

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

(William Shakespeare)

Bad News of the Week

There is a Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Germany. Its task is to identify and monitor "anti-constitutional aspirations and developments with the aim of defending the values of the basic order" and to "ward off dangers emanating from enemies of the free democratic basic order". Of course, this is based on the constitution, which defines what constitutes our democratic basic order.

The Office carries out its work independently and non-partisan. This is why parties or individual representatives occasionally come under scrutiny. This is what happened to The Left, for example, when it called for the expropriation of key private-sector industries, as this contradicted the constitutionally guaranteed protection of property. And with Hans-Georg Maaßen, even the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution lost his post when there were doubts about his neutrality in office due to right-wing populist statements. So bias or even political instrumentalization does not even come to mind.

After years of observation and months of analysis, the Office has now classified the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany) as "definitely right-wing extremist". Not just individual state associations as before or the youth organization, which is often even more radical, but the entire party. The resumé of over a thousand pages was already finished before the election. But it was held back so as not to be accused of influencing the election. Was that a surprise? No. Came it as a surprise? Partly.

This raises many difficult questions. For example, whether a police officer can reconcile his oath to protect democratic society with membership of a party that attacks the foundations of this social order. Or whether a party that acts against the rule of law of a country should be financed by it. And, of course, the discussion of a party ban has also been given new momentum. Although experts believe that the chances of success are too low and that it could backfire.

There has already been an attempt to ban the NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany) 20 years ago. However, according to the Federal Constitutional Court, the German Supreme Court, the party was "anti-constitutional in terms of content, but in view of its insignificance in the political arena, the court did not consider a ban on the party to be justified." Today, with the AfD, it is the other way around: as the largest opposition party, which is getting ever closer to the leading conservatives in the polls, there can no longer be any talk of political insignificance. On the contrary. And that is precisely the problem: the AfD is already too big, these considerations are simply coming too late.

So there is only one thing left to do: these right-wing extremists must be confronted with reality in day-to-day politics. They have no viable program and no qualified personnel. They only feed on the discontent of disappointed voters. In the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, there was an interesting debate with Boris Palmer, the mayor of Tübingen near Stuttgart and enfant terrible of the Greens, which he had to leave because he regularly attracted attention for being uncomfortable. He had never wanted to ban the AfD, but rather keep it down through pragmatic politics. That could be true. At least the AfD only achieved 6% in Tübingen in the federal elections - the lowest figure of all German cities.

The US Secretary of State has vilified the categorization of the AfD by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution: "Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That's not democracy - it's tyranny in disguise." The German Foreign Office responded: "This is democracy. (...) We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped". Yes, that is true. This development coincides with the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. And Germany is cultivating a painful culture of remembrance. But the last contemporary witnesses are dying. The horror in our memories is fading. We must not allow right-wing extremism to become socially acceptable again. Not in Germany. And not anywhere else.

Good News of the Week

"Trump loses the next election" is the headline in the news magazine Der Spiegel. And is referring to Australia - after Canada. Because first the Liberals, who were thought to be dead, won in North America with their new leader Mark Carney. And then in Oceania, the Australian Labor Party with the pale Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Both incumbents were far behind in the polls and forecasts for a long time. Both were challenged by conservatives who called for radical change, a rejection of woke issues, a focus on national pride, a reduction in migration, a dismantling of the state.

Does that sound familiar? Sure, that's the MAGA playbook. Pierre Polievre and Peter Dutton thought to themselves as soon as Donald Trump's election victory became apparent: Great, I'll surf that wave. And so, consequently, they got caught up in the maelstrom of Trump's chaos. It's their own fault. Anyone who doesn't care about their own program but simply blows the loudest horn of the moment doesn't deserve to be in government. And anyone who is actually a convinced right-wing populist should not be given it, as they will divide society in the medium term and destroy it in the long term.

The sovereign - i.e. the voting population - in these two states, which have actually always been pro-American, has apparently learned from the experience of the Americans in the first 100 days of the Trump II administration. While the Canadians (elbows up!) simply won't bow to the colonial claims of their southern neighbor (on election day, Mango Mussolini posted something truly unbelievable: "Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America.") and are patriotically united, in Australia it is actually the specific US reference that tipped the scales.

Down Under, the opposition had almost gone for a copy of the Trump theater. From the tasteless slogan "Make Australia great again!" to the original idea of setting up an organization to reduce the state workforce. The pleasant normality of the incumbent Albanese was simply enough to get him re-elected. "Kindness is not a weakness" is how the public broadcaster Tagesschau labeled its standing - which can also be seen as a demarcation from the aggressive attitude of Trump and his goons.

Of course, it is too early to rejoice that the trend towards right-wing populist protectionism could be coming to an end. Arch-reactionary exclusion still seems to be in vogue. In addition to origin, language, skin color and religion, gender is also increasingly in vogue again - and I don't even mean trans, but simply female. It's not just tradwives who make me feel that our liberal societies are recklessly abandoning what they have already achieved. But the Canadians and Australians have clearly positioned themselves against this - by propagating open, human values. Perhaps it is no coincidence that these two countries are still and always have been places of longing for us Europeans...

Personal happy moment of the week

As expected, my short three-day break at beautiful Lake Achensee in the Austrian Tyrol was wonderful. Everything was there: a great spa, nice weather, excellent food, beautiful nature, inspiring reading, well-balanced activities, a relaxed wife - but unfortunately I missed some of it because I found it hard to switch off. But it was still a great time. And I'm putting switching off on the back burner for when we take another little break in six weeks' time.

I couldn't care less...

...that with the conservatives now sitting at the levers of power in Germany, doubts about climate policy are once again arising. Should we perhaps shake up the ban on combustion cars after all? Does climate neutrality really have to come as soon as 2045? How about a little more coal mining? Or at least reactivating nuclear power plants? Excuse me? According to the Global Footprint Network, Germany has delayed its Earth Overshoot Day by a single ridiculous day. However, the beginning of May still means that we need three planets whose resources we can suck dry. Frustrating.

It's fine with me...

...that Amnesty International is primarily blaming Donald Trump for a veritable global human rights crisis. Because it's true. Trump's re-election threatens "the end of the rules and institutions that were created after the Second World War to ensure peace, freedom and dignity for all people in the world", said Secretary General Julia Duchrow. His social exclusions, his attacks on DEI, his undermining of the rule of law, his stopping of development aid etc. are unprecedented. The developments were already there, but now the White House is pouring gas into the fire. Thank you for nothing.

As I write this...

...an unusual image is reflected on the display of my iPad. Myself with very short hair. This is remarkable because I only ever realize the need to go to the hairdresser when my wife, children or friends have been urging me to do so for months (and that's no exaggeration!). Colleagues, customers and bosses are probably just too polite for that. That's why I always have my hair cut quite short so that I can have my peace of mind for as long as possible.

Post Scriptum

Malaria is still present on our planet, especially in the tropics. According to the WHO, around 263 million people contracted the disease in 2023 - of which around 650,000 died, sadly mainly children under the age of five. The complexity of combating the disease lies in the fact that the pathogen is not a virus or bacterium, but a parasite that goes through a complex life cycle in our bodies and repeatedly develops resistance to medication.

German scientists from the universities of Munich and Regensburg have now succeeded in developing a promising active substance against malaria. By manipulating a protein complex, all life stages of the pathogen are killed and infection through blood transmission is also prevented. That's simply a game changer.

On the way to a real treatment, the Bavarian researchers and the international scientific community now just have to be faster than the Trump administration. This is because the database required for their work worldwide was for over 20 years operated by the National Institute of Health, an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services. And is now to be canceled.

[bopinion]

2025 / 17

Aperçu of the Week

"I'd like to be pope. That would be my No. 1 choice."

(Guess who on what topic...)

Bad News of the Week

My daughter, probably like her father, really has an opinion on everything and everyone. And she fights for them, sometimes like an activist. After years of campaigning for education in the Third World - the first item on her Christmas wish list for many years was a donation to UNICEF - she is now campaigning for women's rights. Which she is (again) absolutely right about. Because as long as there are Taliban in Afghanistan and a gender pay gap in Germany, there is still a lot to be done in this area.

One important point is, of course, the field of self-determination. And in this complex, the issue of sexual self-determination. From “Only yes means yes” to the right to abortion. I'll never forget how my daughter managed to get the right to a presentation on the topic of “pro-choice” at school - in Catholic religious education! Even in Germany, abortion is still a punishable offense for doctors (§ 218 of the Criminal Code), but is not prosecuted. A legal gray area that an enlightened society should actually be ashamed of.

Speaking of lack of self-determination and being ashamed of something: Turkey and Erdogan. He has imposed a ban on planned caesarean births without medical necessity in private clinics. The Ministry of Health published a corresponding decree in the official gazette, which is intended to help the country achieve increased population growth. This is because while women can become pregnant again quite quickly after a vaginal birth, a longer recovery period is often recommended after a caesarean section.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had declared 2025 the “Year of the Family”. His government's Ministry of Health therefore launched a campaign against caesarean sections a few months ago. The aim is to “promote normal births and keep population growth at a sustainable level”. Naturally, the autocrat does not like the fact that, according to the World Population Review, 584 out of 1000 live births in Turkey are carried out by caesarean section. Incidentally, of the 19 members of the current “Erdogan V” cabinet, only one is a woman. Why I'm not surprised.

Good News of the Week

For me, nuclear weapons are the epitome of irrational madness. A technology designed to deliver the ultimate destructive strike. Not only has it defined completely new standards of explosive power, but it also contaminates the target area with long-term radioactivity - mission "rebuilding" impossible. And it has led to the paradox of nuclear deterrence. Acquiring weapons and more and more weapons to make oneself unassailable. Because the opponent has not enough to put against the counter strike. An expensive tool that was created never to be used.

Two memories shaped my youth (in the 1980s) in a nuclear way. In 1983, the first US Pershing 2 missiles were stationed in Germany in accordance with the NATO Double-Track Decision and the so-called “nuclear sharing” began. I took to the streets to protest against this, but in vain. In 1986, there were multiple meltdowns at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl and the uncontrollability of the matter became apparent. Unfortunately, I was on the streets - we Central Europeans only found out later that the rain those days had elevated Becquerel levels.

In the meantime, we watched the rather documentary-like movie “The day after” at school. And learned that in an emergency (yes, that was still the Cold War, which threatened a divided Germany in particular) you should get under a table. Even better, in a subway tunnel. Then you would live a few days longer before perishing in a mixture of fallout, food shortages and incipient anarchy. Back then, we agreed among our friends that we'd rather watch the apocalypse from the roof: then we'd be treated to an incredible show before we died quickly and painlessly.

Later, I refused to do military service and got involved as a youth cultural ambassador for international understanding. Then the iron curtain fell down and reason seemed to have won. I was on the right side. But then came various turning points, an increasing social divide, media and power abuse, and suddenly there it was: the new normality. Or perhaps better: the absence of any norms that we were actually used to, that we believed in. There are no more certainties to rely on. Only interests. Which, as we all know, can change, often faster than we expect.

In this new unstable framework, I find it difficult to maintain my pacifism. I welcome it if Putin can be deterred from attacking other former Soviet republics. I think it's good that a compulsory “social year” is being discussed, which you can do in a social institution, in environmental protection, in development aid or even in the military. I think it is right to define a new security architecture on a European scale. I think it makes sense not to be dependent on third countries for weapons systems and ammunition. And I am pleased that the French, of all people, are reaching out to us when the Americans question our nuclear umbrella. I don't know whether I'm on the right side this time. But I do know that cohesion is still a good worth striving for.

Personal happy moment of the week

Speaking of French: My son got a D in an important French exam. That's remarkably good for him. Because usually the goal is not to get an F - he hates the subject and struggles to show any shade of effort or even diligence. As he wasn't feeling well in the run-up to the test and was excused from school immediately afterwards, I had already mentally prepared myself for an F-ailed. This would even have jeopardized his promotion at the end of the school year. In this respect, I'm now very relieved - because a D isn't enough to be proud of, of course.

I couldn't care less...

...that Prince Andrew's “punishment” for sexually abusing minors is merely that he is no longer allowed to wear a military uniform of honor or be in the Windsor family photo. His then victim in the bizarre pedophile cosmos surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the 17-year-old Australian Virginia Giuffre, never recovered from this and has now committed suicide. Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward, Duke of York, has always denied his actions, but nevertheless paid millions for an out-of-court settlement. Innocence looks different to me. I sincerely hope he is now at least tormented by nightmares about how he is burning in hell.

It's fine with me...

...that former US Congressman George Santos has been sentenced to prison for fraud and identity theft. Although the 36-year-old former member of the House of Representatives had presented himself - of course, he is a Republican after all - as the victim of an overreaching, politicized public prosecutor's office, he did not get away with it. His web of lies, bizarre appearances and forgeries ultimately contained enough criminal elements to send him to prison for seven years in addition to a fine of around 580,000 US dollars.

As I write this...

...I'm looking forward to what my “Happy Moment of the Week” will be next week. Because my wife and I will be spending a long weekend at one of my personal “happy places”, a resort in the Austrian mountains. With a constellation of triple enjoyment: food, spa and reading.

Post Scriptum

Over 1.3 billion believers currently have no head. If you want to look at it that way, because the head of the Catholics is actually God himself, in whatever variety. So let's rather talk about the leading manager of the earthly faith organization called Church. Because after the pope is before the pope. “Apostolica sedes vacans" (Vacancy of the Apostolic See) is the name given to the time when there is no pope in the Vatican. Even with his own coat of arms. But soon the conclave convenes.

This is when the cardinals entitled to vote gather in the Sistine Chapel - which is anything but a cute chapel, but rather an impressively magnificent hall - to elect the next pope from their ranks. All cardinals who had not reached the age of 80 at the time of Pope Francis' death are eligible to vote. Of the current 252 cardinals, this applies to 135 men. That alone says quite a lot. Because this completely outdated body should actually abolish itself. Won't happen.

[bopinion]

2025 / 16

Aperçu of the week

"Et benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super vos et maneat semper. Amen."

"And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, come down on you and remain with you forever. Amen."

(Final passage of the traditional Easter blessing 'Urbi et orbi', which the Pope gives on Easter Sunday)

Bad News of the Week

The Kremlin has a new press spokesman. Who blames Kiev for the Ukraine war - both the start and the duration. And who wouldn't dream of returning the territories conquered by Russia if peace agreements were reached. Not to mention Crimea, which was annexed in 2014. And does the current Ukrainian government even have a mandate for negotiations, as it is no longer actually elected? None of these are surprising positions. The only surprising thing is the similarity between this Moscow representative and the US President. Wait: oh my gosh - it is Donald Trump!

It's unbelievable how "Mango Mussolini" is throwing Ukraine under the bus. His negotiator Steve Witkoff openly raves about how splendidly he gets on with the merciless warmonger and notorious treaty breaker Vladimir Putin. At the expense of a nation that relied on the Budapest Memorandum, in which Moscow gave Ukraine territorial security guarantees in return for its renunciation of nuclear weapons. But nobody could have guessed that the Nazis would come to power in Kiev. Yes, that's sarcastic. And it makes me sick.

There are plenty of Russian war crimes on record. Missiles on hospitals, drones on schools, countless dead civilians - men, women and children. The Kremlin is not keeping any promises. The latest example: the alleged Easter peace. The invaders have not even missed this festival to spread suffering. The fact that the democratically elected most powerful man in the world - because Xi Jinping is not exactly that - is siding so flimsily with the aggressor is actually inconceivable. Bromance on the world political stage. And I thought we'd hit rock bottom after the best buddy photo ops with Kim Jong Un. But no...

Good News of the Week

They do exist, the good things. Because of people who get involved, develop ideas, pursue a perspective, simply get something going. Ideally, their actions also benefit others. Because they can, but above all because they want to. I came across such a heart-warming story in the news magazine Der Spiegel. From India.

A couple of doctors are saving lives there. The lives of the most vulnerable people of all, namely newborn babies. And millions of them. Abhay and Rani Bang have set up a small clinic in the middle of the forest in Gadchiroli, one of the poorest districts in the Indian state of Maharashtra. To care for those who could not manage the journey to hospital: too far and too expensive. That's worthy of all honor. But the Bangs went even further.

What about those who can't make it to the clinic to benefit from the medical treatment there? Then the treatment has to come to them. Or already be there, because sometimes every second counts. Take newborn babies, for example. The infant mortality rate was immense: every eighth baby in the villages of Gadchiroli did not survive. The villagers could only pray when a very small child no longer had any vital signs. The Bangs wanted to change this. And they did.

The idea was that one woman in every village should know how to care for an infant in an emergency: resuscitate, make a basic diagnosis, give antibiotics, give injections, etc. The women are called "community health workers", who usually help on a voluntary basis where no one else can. Or "Asha", Hindi for hope. And their success proves Abhay and Rani Bang right: today, only one in 33 newborns dies in Gadchiroli. And the principle is spreading across the entire global South. I am so impressed.

Personal happy moment of the week

Last evening, our visitors from Canada wanted to go out for schnitzel again - they discovered it for themselves in Bavaria and Austria. As the usual sightseeing spots had already been explored, I showed them my former hood in Munich. My first three places to live and my first two places to work were there. Together we discovered that my former favorite pub still exists. Still with a good atmosphere, still with good beer - and still with good schnitzel. Nice.

I couldn't care less...

...if the US wanted to kill its innovative spirit by cutting research funding, changing curricula, defunding universities and driving out scientists. Canada and Europe can only benefit from this brain drain. After all, the usually curious, open-minded and free-spirited researcher is unlikely to wear a cap that says "Make America Great Again". But a battle against time is currently underway. The international science community is literally an extremely well connected network - and the servers of this network are often located in the USA.

Take the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example: previously the world's central database for climate and weather, it is now simply to be dissolved. This is why the "data refuge" operation has now kicked in. To prevent data loss, several German research institutions are currently creating backup copies of particularly endangered US data stocks. This involves hundreds of terabytes of data and algorithms that US scientists are particularly concerned about. They are already reporting systematic restrictions on central data flows, targeted access restrictions and drastic budget cuts. The first platforms are to be shut down as early as May. The clock is ticking.

It's fine with me...

...that the South African-Australian singer Troye Sivan found a big stage at the Coachella Festival with more than just his music. He was wearing a T-shirt by US designer Connor Ives with the inscription "Protect the Dolls". Both are campaigning for trans rights - currently one of the hottest potatoes to touch in US society. The shirt is currently sold out, so many people don't fear the heat. Good.

As I write this...

...I am reflecting about whether K2-18b should occupy me in any way. Because on this exoplanet, 124 light years (!) away, carbon-based molecules were discovered for the first time ever in the atmosphere of a planet in the habitable zone of a star. And now so-called bio-signatures, namely chemical compounds which, according to current knowledge, are only produced by living organisms, albeit microbial ones. On the one hand, anything could have happened on K2-18b in this immeasurably long time. On the other hand, I have to think of the saying that the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there somewhere is that no contact has been made with us.

Post Scriptum

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has died after a long illness. His pontificate as Pope Francis could only fail because of the high expectations of reform. Although Bergoglio was a "man of the people", above all a credible and authentic advocate for the poor and oppressed, he was unable to significantly reshape the Catholic Church's outdated structures and traditions. His last official act was to receive the US Vice President J. D. Vance, of all people.

After all, he has always gone where it hurts: his first trip as Pope took him to a refugee camp on Lampedusa. He washed the feet of homeless people and prisoners and received trans people in the Vatican. He drove an old Fiat and did not want to live in the papal pompous apartment. He appointed women to committees and exposed pedophile bishops to prosecution. The final highlight of his life was meeting the representative of the Antichrist on Easter Sunday. For me, that fits. May he rest in peace.

[bopinion]

2025 / 15

Aperçu of the week

"If you have visions, you should see a doctor."

(Helmut Schmidt, Social Democratic German Chancellor 1974-1982)

Bad News of the Week

Following the German federal elections and the corresponding exploratory talks, the conservative CDU/CSU and the social democratic SPD have concluded their coalition negotiations, the coalition agreement is in place, they want to govern together and the portfolios have been allocated. Even if there are still a few hurdles to overcome, Germany now has the prospect of a new government made up of conservatives and social democrats. Unfortunately, this is bad news.

There have already been three "Große Koalitionen" in this country (grand coalition, as it consists of the two strongest parties), often abbreviated to 'GroKo' - which can also stand for "Großer Kompromiss" (grand compromise). Because it is often nothing more than that: a compromise. In a relationship, one would speak of a marriage of convenience, as opposed to a marriage of love. Because the only thing that matters is whether the alliance is reasonably viable, whether it can endure.

But that is not enough. Like many other countries, Germany is facing fundamental challenges that call for nothing more than actively shaping the future. And it will come - quickly and brutally. The only question is whether we will be overrun by it or not. You can surf the crest of a wave or drown in its depths. And that is exactly what it will be about.

The harmonious handling of both "ecosystems" - ecology and economy - will be decisive for a positive future for our society (what can be seen globally). And especially at a time when certainties such as available energy, relaxed peace, social cohesion and democratic cooperation, which were previously thought to be secure, are suddenly no longer valid, we must be prepared to go beyond day-to-day politics and question more fundamentally and uncomfortably and respect the answers. As a work assignment that must be implemented, even against the resistance of inertia, when "business as usual" is simply no longer enough.

I would like to see a government that thinks outside the box, recognizes changing realities and acts accordingly. I would like a plan. Maybe even a vision. But it doesn't look like that. After the astonishingly unorthodox move for the budget-independent special fund for infrastructure and security (into which the Greens, who agreed, negotiated many climate-relevant and realistic aspects), the two parties are falling back into old patterns of behavior to which they subordinate everything else: for the Conservatives, relieving the economy is the most important thing, for the Social Democrats, expanding the welfare state.

It is obvious that this cannot be a question of either/or. Because one is necessary to be able to finance the other. And yet both sides are trying to draw a dividing line between the two. This is why the coalition agreement contains so many conjunctives, reservations and vagueness. And in the statements published by the political partners lately, these are already being interpreted so differently that it almost sounds like an election campaign by political opponents. That won't be enough to get in front of the wave again.

Good News of the Week

Following the German federal elections and the corresponding exploratory talks, the conservative CDU/CSU and the social democratic SPD have concluded their coalition negotiations, the coalition agreement is in place, they want to govern together and the portfolios have been allocated. Even if there are still a few hurdles to overcome, Germany now has the prospect of a new government made up of conservatives and social democrats. Fortunately, this is good news.

Because the only party that can really be satisfied with the election result is the far-right AfD (Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany), which exactly doubled its share of the vote to 20.8% and thus finished in second place. The leading conservatives had originally hoped to be able to govern with the Liberals. And the Social Democrats with the Greens. However, the junior partner did not even get into parliament for one of the desired constellations (as a 5% threshold applies there), and both partners performed far too poorly for the other. So only one possible constellation remained if the firewall against the right was to be maintained.

It is therefore good that the Conservatives and Social Democrats have managed to find enough common ground on which to build a coalition agreement. One could almost say that they have thus fulfilled their democratic obligation. Otherwise, it would be inevitable (as official cooperation with the AfD can still be ruled out) that the Federal President would call new elections. From which the right would have emerged even stronger.

One could even read from the coalition agreement that one party acts as a corrective for the other. For example, the Conservatives will cut back the "citizen's allowance" (social assistance), which began its unjustified proliferation with the Social Democrats. And the Social Democrats, for example, will prevent the Conservatives from waiving the solidarity surcharge even for the rich and companies. The pragmatism that has already been demonstrated with the special fund for infrastructure and security can therefore continue. If ideology can be kept under wraps. What we need now is practice. And not theory. I'm happy to allow myself a little optimism for this, the times are bleak enough.

Personal happy moment of the week

Due to a planning error at my 16-year-old son's school, he had to find a position for a student internship in less than two weeks. Which (of course) didn't work out. So, out of necessity, I parked him in my office. I thought he would get bored and get on my colleagues' nerves. But then two things went wrong that presented us with unforeseen problems where we could really do with an extra pair of hands. The young man, who can otherwise be a real pain in the ass, also got on really well with the other employees. One of them even included him in appointments and invited him to lunch. Thank you, Bernhard.

I couldn't care less...

...that there are still idiots who think the death penalty is a deterrent. Because it has been proven not to. According to Amnesty International, a ten-year high was reached in 2024 with over 1,500 death sentences carried out. This is mainly due to corresponding increases in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. The only Western-oriented country that wants to increase executions is the USA. Why am I not surprised?

It's fine with me...

...that the proverbial biggest combustion engines will now also be asked to pay for their emissions. At their meeting in London, the member states of the UN organization IMO (International Maritime Organization) decided on a minimum tax on greenhouse gas emissions from global shipping. Observers note positively that this is practically the first global tax on emissions ever to be introduced. At the same time, they criticize that more could have been done to speed up the transition to green powering in this transport sector. Incidentally, the USA has not only decided not to participate in the meeting, but has already announced that it will "take countermeasures" if the taxes are actually introduced in 2028. Why am I not surprised?

As I write this...

...I am delighted to host a visit from Canada. Because my wife's cousin is stopping by on her way to Vienna. And she is accompanied by her daughter, who gets on well with my children. So we all get something out of it. Even the guest room is happy to have been tidied and cleaned on this occasion. So this visit is a win-win situation for all of us.

Post Scriptum

When the US dollar has the sniffles, the whole global economy coughs. Right now it looks like a more persistent infection. And the patient is denied medicine because the pharmacist thinks it's the fault of the doctor, who has a penchant for alternative medicine. A treatment error that will lead to the patient infecting the whole family. Which could at least kill the already weakened grandma.

Unfortunately, the consequences of the irresponsible actions of US President Donald Trump and his MAGA heads in economic, trade and financial policy go even further than that. They are deliberately spreading the virus and anyone whose immune system cannot cope with it does not deserve to survive. As in an artificial acceleration of natural selection. The fact that they are proceeding with the usual dilletantism - in Europe, the term "erratic politics" has now become established for the current US executive - does not (surprise!) make it any better.

This is why stock market prices are increasingly resembling a fever curve. This does not bode well for a society that likes to invest its reserves and retirement provisions in shares. The average American now has to contend with the fact that inflation and consumer prices are not falling, job losses are imminent and savings are losing value. Historically, this mixture of personal lack of perspective has often led to revolution. I would be satisfied with a clear defeat in the midterms.

[bopinion]

2025 / 14

Aperçu of the week

"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground."

(Theodore Roosevelt, inspiration for the Teddy bear and US president, who was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after making a significant contribution to ending the Russo-Japanese War)

Bad News of the Week

If all the clouds in the world were condensed into water, they would cover the globe with a film of just 0.1 millimetres. Just as thick as a sheet of paper. This seemingly minimal hint of moisture has an incredible effect. If it were to decrease by just 4 percent, the Earth would rise by two degrees Celsius due to the lack of a cooling effect - which would be the death of much of today's vegetation, biodiversity and food supply. As if humanity, which is a very stupid species, were not already working very effectively on global warming.

Unfortunately, it is not so easy as just to stop wishing that the sun would please come out again soon. Because the cloud cover is currently decreasing by 1.5 percent every decade. So that's a lot. In 1997, NASA launched the Ceres satellite-based Earth observation program. Among other things, it records how much radiation from the sun hits the earth's atmosphere and how much is thrown back into space by the earth - a kind of energy balance. Which is currently positive. Which is negative. The Earth absorbs more energy than it emits, so it heats up.

This sets a lot of things in motion. A very simplified example: the more heat there is, the more ice melts at the polar ice caps. The more ice melts, the less sun-reflecting surface there is. The ice that melts into water in turn makes the water deeper and therefore darker, so it reflects less. This generates more heat. Melting more ice. That's what I call a vicious circle.

Aerosols offer another explanation for the alarming Ceres data. In the course of industrialization, smog has settled around the earth as a fine veil of tiny particles. These catch sunlight, reflect it back into space and thus cool the Earth. More recently, however, the trend has reversed: air pollution control measures have significantly reduced smog emissions. This is good for health, but bad for the radiation balance. The cooling veil is dissolving, resulting in warming. Absurdly, this puts us in a strange dilemma: we could almost choose between two evils.

Normally, everyone involved in an ecosystem comes to an arrangement with each other. Because only then is joint survival ensured. Zoology has a term for this. It is called symbiosis. Selfishly seeking our own interests without regard for the losses of those around us seems to be our thing. A colleague of mine recently said that human existence makes no sense in this respect. Humans behave as if they are not of this world, as if they have learned nothing from evolution. Zoology also has a term for this. It is called parasitism.

Good News of the Week

Marine Le Pen, figurehead of the at least right-wing populist, if not right-wing extremist Rassemblement National (RN) party in France, made a very clear statement: anyone who steals should lose their passive voting rights - for life. Why not? After all, politicians should clearly subordinate themselves to the rule of law, if not be a role model. After all, it would be absurd if the legislator himself would not abide to the law. This is why French case law provides for the loss of eligibility for public office for defined crimes - yes: crimes, not misdemeanors or administrative offenses.

And that is exactly what Le Pen is now facing. Because she has stolen. She diverted several million euros from the EU budget into her party's coffers using non-existent jobs in her group in the European Parliament. She has now been sentenced for this. The four years in prison hardly matter. Two of them were suspended, the other two she is to spend in house arrest and wear an electronic ankle tag. More decisive is the loss of the right to stand for election. Because in 2027, the French will be asked to go to the polls again for the presidential election. And Marine Le Pen, who already came close to incumbent Emmanuel Macron in 2022, is clearly leading in the polls.

For me, it's simple: no one is above the law. And anyone who commits a crime should be prosecuted for it. That's why I don't understand the current uproar that the ruling could be politically motivated. Because none of this is new. For example, Alain Juppé lost his right to stand for election in 2004, although the then mayor of Bordeaux was supposed to be the candidate of the conservative UMP party in the 2007 presidential elections. And former President Nicolas Sarkozy is also currently wearing an electronic ankle tag - for illegal campaign financing.

So the rule of law simply works here. Just as it should be. I can live with the fact that - as a positive side effect, so to speak - a far-right politician is being denied access to France's highest office. But one thing must not be forgotten: The chairman of the RN is Jordan Bardella, who is just 29 years old. And even against his hypothetical candidacy, the incumbent Macron would currently lose. But he still has two years to turn things around. Because right now we need nothing more than convinced Europeans. And certainly not separatists.

Personal happy moment of the week

Fortunately, there is a lot of culture whose relevance I can agree on with my children. And with some of my passions, their enthusiasm even overtakes me - as is the case with my daughter and the "Rocky Horror Picture Show". For Christmas, she gave me tickets to Richard O'Brien's original musical. Now we were in the theater, feather boas and lipstick included. And had a great evening. Thank you.

I couldn't care less...

...that Boris Becker is now also being accused of a Hitler conspiracy theory. The former German prodigy on the tennis court has had an unprecedented fall from grace: first a national icon, pop culture superstar and Wimbledon legend, then bad investments, insolvency, prison. It seems very desperate when someone who is only good enough for the C-list celebrity jungle camp is so desperate for the limelight that he loses all style in the process.

It's fine with me...

...that the civil courage of civilian aid organizations does not shy away from a military regime. Myanmar is suffering from the consequences of a severe earthquake with thousands of victims. Fortunately, the military junta, which is back in power after a brief democratic interlude with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, is allowing external aid into the desperately poor country. And the aid is coming. Even without the USA. There are few things that deserve as much admiration as the civil courage of these people. I know one of them personally, she is going to Chad in a few weeks with "Doctors without Borders". Respect.

As I write this...

...I realize that not only people who stand up for others deserve my honors. Sometimes it's also animals that provide valuable services to humanity that we can't do ourselves. Ronin the mine-detecting rat from Cambodia has now been entered in the Guinness Book of Records for his incredible sniffer nose. The five-year-old rodent has detected 109 landmines and 15 unexploded ordnance since it began its mission three and a half years ago. With better accuracy than technical detectors. Respect.

Post Scriptum

When something doesn't seem complicated, people like to say that it's not rocket science. After all, this still seems to be the pinnacle of engineering. And it seems that this field is not to be left to the American trillionaires, for whom space travel apparently serves to top superyachts. More and more European companies are also managing to mobilize the not inconsiderable financial resources to conquer space for communication and science. But there are often misunderstandings.

A Munich startup - aptly named "Isar Aerospace" - launched its first rocket in Norway, which did anything but land in the water. It exploded after 30 seconds and you couldn't help but wonder why the employees were still downright euphorically happy. I learned two things: firstly, that the decisive factor (despite all the computer simulations) is the launch - when the rocket takes off, you've already won. And secondly, that the explosion is intentional. Because shortly after the launch and still over controlled terrain, the wreckage can simply be collected again - for technical analysis and so that it doesn't fall on inhabited areas. Fly me to the moon, Frankieboy would probably comment now.

[bopinion]

2025 / 13

Aperçu of the week

"Move fast and break things"

(Former motto of Facebook)

Bad News of the Week

"Opposition in the shadow of Trump: Where are the Democrats?" asks the German news medium Tagesschau. That's right. Good question. At least on the eastern side of the Atlantic, nothing can be seen, heard or read. Apparently the state of shock after the lost election is lasting longer than the hellish pace of the firestorm of Donald Trump and his entourage needs to burn society down to rubble.

The Democratic Party in the US is more unpopular than ever before. For the party base, the reason is clear: the timid handling of the Trump government's policies. The party leadership officially believed that the Republicans would disqualify themselves with their nonsense. In the meantime, the realization is gaining the upper hand that the party is simply being washed away by the "flood the zone" actionism of the Trump team. However, the party leadership is clearly not managing a change in strategy. Or doesn't even want it, as can be seen from the unexpectedly uncritical approval of the last budget plan.

This is not just about party politics, but about the sovereign, the people. Anyone who no longer has a political home, who no longer sees any prospects for their personal life with any political provider, will turn away. And not just from their current party, but from politics in general. This leads to a drop in voter turnout. And in this case, that doesn't strengthen the fringes, but the powerful. Trump and his gang would only be right if the annoying population simply stayed out of it and let the top ten thousand do what they want. I actually expect a party that has named itself after democracy to prevent this. But it doesn't look like that, the democrats remain pale.

Small correction: we in Europe did notice something from the Democrats the other day. Namely the "Fighting Oligarchy" tour by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders. Mind you, the former is anything but establishment and the latter isn't even in the party. But I see that the same way as a liberal judge in Wisconsin (Susan Crawford) or an out-of-touch Republican from Wyoming (Liz Cheney): Anyone who takes a stand against the takeover of the U.S. by MAGA-heads and the rich is doing a valuable service to democracy.

Good News of the Week

Once again, things were looking grim for Syria. Initially, there were many positive signs that gave hope that the battered country could find peace after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad. For example, the announcement of the complete destruction of chemical weapons. With the help of the international community and under the supervision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague. The new rulers appeared to make an effort to appear moderate, open and progressive rather than Islamist extremists.

But then shots were fired again. Apparently, armed supporters of the ousted Assad government had attacked security forces in the alevitcoastal province of Latakia. And the interim government responded with a large-scale military operation, in which artillery and tanks were also deployed. With a total of 1,300 casualties in just a few days, it was reminiscent of the days of the civil war. Was the new leadership also to rule by force and not integrate all peoples in the country? That was to be feared.

But the former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa seems to have resisted the temptation. He had promised to form a transitional government that would not only work towards free elections, but would also represent all important groups of the population. A cabinet of 22 ministers has now been appointed. Naturally dominated by al-Sharaa's militia and allied groups. But also with representatives of the Alevis, Druze and Christians. The head of the White Helmets civil defense organization. And a woman. My hope remains alive.

Personal happy moment of the week

Friends made spanakopita, a Greek spinach and feta strudel. Served with a fresh salad, home-smoked bacon and a few bottles of white wine. And the children were out of the house. The perfect recipe for a lovely evening. Thank you.

I couldn't care less...

...about the double standards that apply to US Republicans. When Hillary Clinton, as Democratic Secretary of State, sent official e-mails via a server that may not have met the highest security standards, no information was made public. And yet she should be crucified for it. When J.D. Vance (Vice President), Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense), Marco Rubio (Secretary of State), Mike Waltz (National Security Advisor), Tulsi Gabbard (Director of Intelligence) and others exchanged details about the attack on Huthi rebels in Yemen in a chat group on Signal in the unnoticed presence of a journalist, a lot of information - and very little style, see emoji comments - was released to the public. And it's not their fault, but the journalist's. You're almost lost for words.

It's fine with me...

...that the socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is continuing to work on the green transportation revolution. Around 220 of the more than 6,000 streets in Paris are already car-free. In some cases, cars are not allowed to drive near schools in particular. In large parts of the city, the speed limit is 30 km/h. In the city center, there is now a zone where through traffic is prohibited. And there are higher parking fees for heavy cars. And now the citizens of Paris have voted (albeit with a very low turnout) to create 500 new car-free streets. More space for pedestrians and cyclists, less exhaust fumes and noise, more space for greenery and urban life. Exemplary.

As I write this...

...I am still feeling the effects of last weekend's time change. An irritation that always lasts as long for me as a veritable jet lag on another continent. But now it's summertime. Or spring for a start. It's light for longer in the evenings and it's getting mild. I'm already looking forward to my first trip to the beer garden.

Post Scriptum

Diversity, equality, inclusion: a social catastrophe for the 47th US executive branch. Which sees this as systematic discrimination against white men - of all people. And not only have DEI programs been stopped in all government institutions, it is also being pushed through in the economy. For example, T-Mobile, which is actually German, had to officially confirm the discontinuation of its programs, as otherwise the takeover of the cable network operator Lumos would have been prohibited by the responsible regulatory authority. So much for the free market. And US embassies write to their local suppliers with corresponding questionnaires. For example, a media company has to be told that it should comply with the Trump administration's requirements - after all, the embassy subscribes to its newspaper. Unfortunately, this is no joke.

The impact on US culture is just as radical. After the ban on provocative words - which includes 'climate crisis' and even 'women' - and the removal of "divisive ideologies" from museums - including the history of slavery - the next Big Brother attack on freedom is now underway. A large-scale deletion campaign is underway in US archives to eradicate DEI presence and explicitly directed against women, gays, lesbians or transgender people, minorities, disabled people, etc. With curious side effects. For example, the historic plane that dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 has since been erased. It was named after the pilot's mother. And her name was "Enola Gay". Unfortunately, this is no joke either.

[bopinion]

2025 / 12

Aperçu of the week

"Until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends and with whom we enjoyed working closely - but that time is over."

(Mute Egede, outgoing Prime Minister of Greenland. A quote that could have come from almost any other European head of government...)

Bad News of the Week

It almost seems as if Benjamin Netanyahu is jealous that Donald Trump is paying more attention to the Ukraine conflict than to Gaza. And like a toddler who then angrily throws a plate on the floor, he throws bombs on the Strip. Of course, this picture doesn't do justice to the tragic reality, but I can't help feeling that the actions of various Supreme Leaders are actually driven more by a wounded ego than by professional calculation. That costs lives.

You almost get the impression that Netanyahu is now acting even more ruthlessly than before. Aid supplies have been cut off again, electricity is down, UN missions attacked, hospitals bombed, journalists killed, the hardliners reconciled. Why is he doing this? Because they let him. Especially the USA. Because he doesn't care about the opinions of other nations and politicians anyway. And Trump lets him get away with it, backing him against the Houthis in Yemen, for example, and dreaming of the Riviera of the Eastern Mediterranean.

This is devoid of any strategic calculation. Trump just doesn't care about the Middle East any more than Vance, Hegseth or Rubio do. A basic attitude to which USAID, the world's largest development aid organization, has also fallen victim. The Secretary of State put it in a nutshell just a few days after his appointment: "Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?".

No, protecting the Palestinians is not on the agenda of the former world policeman. Just as the UK and France seem to have forgotten that they have left the Middle East to chaos while withdrawing. And how Germany prefers to keep its mouth shut anyway, so as not to attract the slightest suspicion of anti-Semitism. An entire nation is left to perish, women and children die every day - from bullets and hunger. And the world doesn't even watch, it looks away. With its eyes open.

Good News of the Week

Turkije literally plays a role on two continents: Asia and Europe. The history of the Ottoman Empire is long and varied. What was once Constantinople and Byzantium is now Istanbul. And it is a large country with many inhabitants: twice the size of Germany and just as many people. And definitely a geopolitical player. Thanks to its geographical location and military strength, Turkey is involved in everything in the region. For better, as in the negotiation of free shipping for Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea, and for worse, as in the persecution of Kurds and Yazidis on Syrian territory.

With well over 400,000 active soldiers under arms, Turkey has the largest military apparatus in NATO after the USA and has a strong arms industry in the country. For this reason, and due to its proximity to the classic migration routes to Europe (from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq), many European countries are focusing on more intensive cooperation, which has been stagnating for years in other areas such as rapprochement with the European Union. If only it weren't for the Sultan. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been leading the nation in an increasingly autocratic manner for over 20 years now.

And so far, neither hyper-inflation, the Gülen movement nor freedom-seeking protests have seemed to be able to do him any harm. Until now. Because now he may have overreacted. In his treatment of the first opposition opponent who could obviously pose a serious threat to him - because there is no other explanation for his heavy moves. The next presidential election will not take place until 2028 - and yet it is already on the agenda. Ekrem İmamoğlu, the current mayor of Istanbul and one of the leading figures of the largest opposition party CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi / Republican Peoples Party), is popular, is considered pragmatic, is relatively young, is a convinced social democrat, has drained the swamp of Erdoğan's AKP in Turkey's largest metropolis and is considered a promising challenger.

Now İmamoğlu has been arrested and landed in custody on corruption charges. Coincidentally, a few days before he was to be officially named as a presidential candidate. At the same time, action was taken against many supporters and political associates, the CHP was declared a criminal organization and İmamoğlu was stripped of his university degree - a prerequisite for the office of Turkish president. In the protests that followed, not only were over a thousand Turks arrested, but also a number of foreign journalists.

The accusations are of course bullshit. And by no means do they mean the end for İmamoğlu. Erdoğan was also mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He was imprisoned for four months in 1999 for inciting the population to hatred and enmity by referring to differences in religion and race. And graduated in economics and administration from Marmara University in 1981 - strangely enough, a year before the institute was even founded.

What is decisive, however, is the support that İmamoğlu enjoys. In his party, which chose him as its candidate even in prison. In international politics, which has condemned the action against him with rare vehemence. But above all in the population, which is rebelling against it. If Erdoğan can no longer stand up to his competitors in elections, but only with the help of compliant judges, that will be the beginning of his end. The people, on the other hand, are hungry for democracy and are prepared to make sacrifices for it. The people want to open up the country to values of freedom and towards Europe. The people, aware of their strength, would assume regional responsibility. The signs look pretty good to me.

Personal happy moment of the week

Visited my 87-year-old mother in rehabilitation again (after a double stroke). A week earlier - the clinic is unfortunately two to three hours away each way - I was shocked at how bad a condition she was in. And I was seriously worried whether she would be able to pull herself together again. Now she was not only physically better again, but also much more present, interested and even in a good mood. I am very relieved and see a silver lining on the horizon again.

I couldn't care less...

...that Andrew Tate has to face justice in Romania. The violent poster boy of misogyny has to answer for deprivation of liberty and sexual abuse. His poisoned bubble should actually be deflated - as he wants to deprive a good half of humanity of basic rights. Instead, he now has 10 million followers on X. Oh, that's right: X belongs to Elon Musk. Who, as we all know, has his own opinion on freedom of expression. And has already attracted attention for being sexist. I'm slowly beginning to get the picture...

It's fine with me...

...that Kirsty Coventry is the first woman to be elected head of the International Olympic Committee. The two-time Olympic swimming champion is only 41 years old and comes from Zimbabwe - so young and not from Europe or the USA is also a novelty. But the second sentence of her acceptance speech, after she had already won an absolute majority in the first round, is decisive: "I will proudly lead this organization with values at its core". Until now, it seemed that you could only become a leading sports official through corruption. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the values of fair competition.

As I write this...

...I wonder about things that really seem to concern others. For example, the Erfurt road traffic regulations initiative wants to rotate crosswalks by 90° - to remove the visual barrier for pedestrians. If we don't have any other problems, that's fine by me.

Post Scriptum

After the exploratory talks between the Conservatives and Social Democrats to form Germany's new government initially seemed to be going smoothly - see the billion-euro packages for defense and infrastructure - there is now an audible grind in the actual coalition negotiations. This is not about differences over personnel or details, but also about very fundamental issues such as raising (SPD) or lowering (CDU/CSU) taxes. Now that 16 working groups have concluded their talks, the ball is back in the court of the party leaders.

The media are already discussing whether the new coalition could be more stable than the "traffic light" coalition of the last legislative period, which went furiously to the wall. With limited common ground, either the left wing of the Social Democrats or the right wing of the Conservatives might not feel sufficiently considered - or both. Analysts are already starting to explain what a minority government or the path to new elections might look like. Please don't. We have neither time nor energy to waste in these difficult times.

[bopinion]

2025 / 11

Aperçu of the week

"Power to the people, right on."

(John Lennon - nothing more to add here)

Bad News of the Week

I must already assume that the decline of the United States of America under Donald Trump will dominate my bad news this year. Not because there is a lack of other bad news that enlightened people have to deal with. It's simply because so much is going so wrong in our former role model country that it seems more monstrous than so much else. Even in a week in which the civil war in Syria is rearing its ugly head again, the ceasefire in Gaza is becoming more fragile and the Kremlin is still destroying Ukraine.

Donald Trump resembles an ancient god of vengeance who arbitrarily punishes anyone who does not pay him proper homage or question his genius. He clearly suffers from narcissism, which is a serious mental disorder and not just a strange self-image. In his infallibility, he assumes that anyone who doesn't see his personal standards, which are unfortunately anything but democratic, as the ultimate, is simply too stupid. Or malicious or ungrateful. And so he throws his lightning bolts from the Olympus of the Oval Office down on unworthy earthlings.

He is so predictable that he can easily be instrumentalized by those close to him. For example, Elon Musk, who persuaded him to promote Tesla, which was of course not a personal favor, but merely an underlining of the economic policy dogma that a good American must of course drive an American car. Or from JD Vance, who remarked that he had not yet received enough recognition that day and was therefore able to throw Volodymyr Selensky under the bus with a single perfidious sentence about his alleged lack of gratitude. After just two months in office (although you can't really say that about Musk), both of them have been certified as puppet masters.

It is now completely unclear whose interests are behind three seemingly harmless trifles that Trump has initiated in recent days. He puts Bhutan, a tiny peaceful Buddhist country in the Himalayas, on the list of red states, from where nobody is allowed to enter the US - just besides Afghanistan and Yemen. He invokes the Alien Enemies Act from 1798 to deport hundreds to El Salvador - despite a federal judge ruling a restraining order against it. He puts words like “climate crisis” or “indigenous people” on a list of 200 terms that federal authorities are no longer allowed to use. These three bizarre details stupidly represent three fundamental views that are highly questionable.

The example of Bhutan illustrates that literally anyone can be caught in the crosshairs without even suspecting it. While a travel ban for North Corea or Iran is still understandable, it is not for the “Land of Happiness”. Some sources suspect visa overstay rates and security vetting concerns behind that decision, according to recently published Department of Homeland Security data. The fact that this is enough to be lumped together with Libya shows frighteningly clearly that proportionality is not exactly being cultivated in the White House at the moment.

The example of the Alien Enemies Act illustrates that the separation of powers is obviously no longer respected. The law, which has only been used three times in history and most recently during the Second World War for the temporary internment of Japanese in the USA, is per se difficult to reconcile with the rule of law. It is inconceivable that a judicial decision is simply ignored in the process. And when the collaborator in this breach of the law, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, posted the court order with the comment “Oopsie... too late.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio also reposted it. Not even Viktor Orbán has ever allowed himself such a shrugging attitude towards the legal system.

The example of the speech ban illustrates that dissenting opinions no longer even have the right to free expression. Just like the banning of the Associated Press from the White House briefing room - because of the continual use of the term “Gulf of Mexico” - nothing other than censorship is happening. As already practiced in school libraries in Republican-leaning states (where classics such as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin were banned because they “put slavery in a bad light”), a cancel culture from the right is taking place here. After the demonization of self-determination, inclusion and diversity, in which woke became a dirty word, there is now an arch-conservative furor. This no longer has anything to do with the “land of the free”, but rather with Myanmar.

All in all, this leaves me with a stale aftertaste. And even if Trump and his MAGA heads don't destroy everything in the world because they stay in NATO and don't invade Panama, the damage to the country itself will be immense. With a divided society in which racism and sexism are resurgent, more environmental damage and climate change consequences, an abolished Ministry of Education, a down-top distribution of money, a health minister who recommends cod liver oil against measles, a dysfunctional administration, alienated neighbors and much more - as mentioned: it's not even two months yet. That leaves 46. Ooph...

Good News of the Week

Angela Merkel's comparatively quiet 16 years at the head of the German government were based on four foundations: cheap energy from Russia, outsourcing security policy to NATO and the USA, reduced infrastructure maintenance and the fetishism of the so-called "debt brake". Today we are in dire straits, as the first two foundations no longer exist and the last two are currently blowing up in our faces. In principle, I appreciate Merkel, who has done a lot of things very right. But she also has done some things very wrong.

We now have the energy crisis more or less under control. Thanks to an increasing proportion of renewable energy sources and a significant increase in imports of liquid gas (mainly from Qatar and Norway, but also from the USA). This has caused prices to rise considerably, both for private consumers and for industry. While the former “only” hurts, the latter has become a real location issue. This is a veritable problem, as many industries in which Germany is strong - such as chemicals or mechanical and automotive engineering - are very energy-demanding. Together with high wage costs and social security contributions, this presents us with a fundamental problem that needs to be tackled.

While the state can only create the framework conditions in which companies and entrepreneurs can then operate when it comes to the necessary restructuring of our economy, it is itself the actor when it comes to security policy, infrastructure and the relevant financial budget. It is therefore a major plus that the two probable coalition partners in the next German government - the conservative CDU/CSU and the social democratic SPD - have already addressed this issue in the initial exploratory talks. And as much as I hate to admit it to the future Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whom I consider to be simply from the day before yesterday, he is doing a pretty good job of it.

The first decisive step was the realization that yes, Germany has to spend a lot of money on the necessary investments in security and infrastructure. Which is only possible with debt if you don't want to make massive cuts to the welfare state. However, in order to be able to incur this debt, the debt brake must be reformed, which sets strict limits on financial policy and makes it practically impossible to take on more debt. This is a point that has been under discussion for some time - mainly because Germany can afford it. For comparison: Japan has a national debt of 261% of its gross domestic product, Italy 145%, the USA 122% and Germany 67%. So there is no reason to stand on the brake.

The second decisive step was pragmatic logic: as the debt brake is in the Basic Law (our constitution) you need a 2/3 majority in parliament to change it. The Bundestag elections at the end of February ensured that the far-right AfD and the Left Party represent more than 1/3 of the new Bundestag, i.e. they have a blocking minority. And both do not want the debt brake to be relaxed, albeit for completely different reasons, as they have nothing in common politically. This means that the Greens would have to be persuaded to participate in the amendment to the Basic Law in the old parliamentary composition, in which the Social Democrats were not yet so massively weakened.

This has now been achieved. Since the Greens are still a fundamentally pacifist party, but not idiots who ignore the changed reality. This is why the Greens are now supporting the party alliance that will replace them in government - for the greater good. At the same time, they have negotiated perfectly sensible aspects into the plan. For example, the topics of intelligence services and cyber security in the financial package for defense. Or that sustainable aspects and climate neutrality are not neglected in the infrastructure, which not only includes railroads, highways, bridges, energy grids and digital, but also daycare centers, schools and healthcare.

There are still a few hurdles to overcome - such as the approval of the federal states - but it seems feasible. If you want to put a negative spin on it, you could call Friedrich Merz the biggest election liar in history. After all, he has now slaughtered the sacred cow of the debt brake during the election campaign even before the official coalition negotiations. But on the altar of pragmatism. Germany is thus demonstrating its ability to act in Europe. Which fits in well with the fact that his party colleague and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is also becoming clearer in her tone when she refers to Europe not just as an economic area, but blatantly as a geopolitical power. It looks like we've got the message.

Personal happy moment of the week

My Canadian wife and I were at the immigration office again after years. What an awful experience: facilities from 30 years ago, lots of forms, the charm of a hospital with security gates, unfriendly staff... You just don't feel comfortable. Nevertheless, there was one highlight: instead of a date and in line with our wedding vows, we entered “forever” in the “planned duration of stay” field. A small but heartfelt moment of happiness that even elicited a small smile from the strict official behind the glass.

I couldn't care less...

...about the Norwegian ski jumping cheating scandal. If secretly reinforcing seams in a suit really has a significant impact on performance, sprinters should also be banned from eating beans on the eve of the race - after all, they could fart illegal jet propulsion.

It's fine with me...

...that there are sometimes pretty fashionable allusions on the world political stage. First King Charles III wore a Canadian military uniform and then the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas wore the Canadian national colors at the G7 summit in Québec (!). Both wanted to send a stylish message to the USA that they should drop their colonial claims. Baerbock's smug question to Marco Rubio “Do you still enjoy your job?” fits in with this.

As I write this...

...there are snow flurries in Munich at zero degrees Celsius. While at the same time it's eleven degrees plus in Montreal in the middle of the night. Crazy. Yet both my cities can count themselves lucky that they are only suffering from capricious weather and are neither burning nor being flooded.

Post Scriptum

All the media hyperventilation about the USA, Ukraine and Russia as well as the USA, Palestine and Israel, not to mention Europe and Germany, has allowed some things worth mentioning to slip through the cracks. After a lot of posts in the North American media, I actually had to go searching to discover some great news in the German media, namely a courageous uprising for democracy and pro-Europe, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets. No, not in Berlin, Paris or Madrid, but in places where precisely these values have had a hard time recently: in Romania, Serbia and even (drum roll please) Hungary!

This gives me hope, as Poland has also managed to leave a rather dark era behind it and has clearly bought a ticket to the future. In Donald Tusk, our eastern neighbors now have an avowed European as head of government who is increasingly less held back by the shackles of the past. I am therefore very sure that our new Federal Chancellor's first three trips abroad will be to Brussels, Paris and Warsaw - in whatever order. This welcome development was rounded off by similarly oriented demonstrations in Italy and even Georgia. Europeans are fighting not to lose democracy and freedom - or to get them in the first place. A momentum that makes me proud.

[bopinion]

2025 / 10

Aperçu of the week

"Donald. You're a very smart guy. This is a very dumb thing to do."

(Departing Canadian Prim Minister Justin Trudeau to Donald Trump on him starting a trade war)

Bad News of the Week

Next year's World Cup will take place across North America. In addition to the USA, Mexico and Canada will also be hosting the games. And why not? After all, these three countries are not only closely intertwined economically - such as the USMCA trade agreement pushed through by Trump - but are also good neighbors. There are well-established, almost friendly ties with the US neighbor to the north in particular, and the two have not seen eye to eye for decades. But now the USA has declared war.

Trump already made some strange geopolitical statements during the election campaign. He wanted to repeat the Panama Canal. To annex Greenland, which is essential for national security, if necessary. And use “economic force” to get Canada to join the USA as the 51st state. And the first weeks of Trump's second presidency - yes, it hasn't even been eight weeks since the fraudulent dealmaker has been back in the White House, even if it feels much longer - show that this was not campaign bluster that has nothing to do with day-to-day political reality. No: Trump means everything he says exactly as he says it. He means it seriously.

At least in this one moment. Because the next day, what he means may have changed fundamentally. And then it becomes (new) facts - often also “alternative facts”. That's what makes this infernal duo of Trump and multifunctional jack-of-all-trades Elon Musk so dangerous: they shoot from the hip without thinking twice. And then row back just as quickly. Like with their waves of redundancies in the public sector. Who cares? Everyone!

It's astonishing that two people who consider themselves business geniuses are making sure that small money and big money are worth less at the same time. Small money, because inflation and prices for everyday necessities and food have not only not gone down, but are being driven up by import duties. And the big money, because the financial markets and internationally active corporations and investors value reliability and solid framework conditions and not unforeseeability and unpredictability.

If an autocratic despot in some landlocked African country does something economically stupid at the expense of his people, it is his unfortunate people who suffer as a result. When this happens in the United States of America, the global leader in so many respects, it is the entire globalized world that suffers. It is no consolation that the Billionaires Boyband around Trump, of all people, is probably rubbing its eyes. Of all people, the two richest men in the world Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, for whom literally not even the sky seemed to be the limit, are currently experiencing a considerable decline in their wealth. Perhaps this will even result in a strange alliance for better times, who knows. After all, there are obviously no longer any certainties.

Good News of the Week

Just the other day I wrote that Europe would be well advised to wake up. Before the American dream of the post-war era turns into a nightmare after the current turning point in international relations. And there is indeed movement in this continent, which otherwise likes to be sluggish and static. This is due to the fact that there is not only a separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judiciary, but also a multi-level political system has been established.

In which the European level decides what the national level has to decide, which decides what the individual federal states, regions, countries or communities decide. These, in turn, are organized in several levels downwards - in Germany, for example, into administrative districts, then into counties and finally into municipalities, some of which are subdivided into towns or precincts. Yes, that sounds like organizational madness. Because you have to master it first. Which in any case always costs two things: Money and time.

After the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the Europeans had to act to create alternatives to Russian natural gas, which had previously been the main source of energy. They did so quickly and pragmatically. And they also threw ideological baggage overboard in the process. The images of a green minister for the economy and climate traveling to Qatar to negotiate liquefied natural gas supplies on behalf of Germany, for example, are unforgettable. Because sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

And the same seems to be happening now with the issue of armaments. Yes, we were all happy about the end of the Cold War with its insane arms race. And yes, we all want to live in peace and without weapons. But as long as there is a bully on a playground, you have to put him in his place before he terrorizes all the other children. And to do that, you have to be stronger than him. Because then it should be enough to look angry and rattle your sabre so that it doesn't even come to a fight.

In this respect, it is good that Europe and its political leadership have apparently understood that we have to stand up to Vladimir Putin and not rely on Donald Trump. 800 billion euros - and a euro is still worth more than a dollar - is what the major European nations now want to spend in order to become militarily independent. At the same time, they have recognized that they should be technologically compatible with each other and not be dependent on the USA as a supplier. The United Kingdom is also involved, even though it is no longer a member of the European Union. Yes, we in Europe are sticking together. And it makes me incredibly sad that this is no longer the case in North America.

Personal happy moment of the week

Last week, my son left his backpack on a train. To be fair, I have to say that both me and his sister were with him. He was arguing with her at the time of the train change - so he was distracted. Nevertheless, it was of course a big bummer. Especially because his glasses were in his rucksack. Which, on the one hand, he needed and, on the other, weren't exactly cheap. Fortunately, an honest finder handed the luggage in to a police station. And a helpful policeman (who, amusingly, has the same first name as my son) successfully investigated: there was also a physics book in there. In which the school was noted. Which he contacted. At the third appointment at the second lost and found office, there was a happy ending. Thank you!

I couldn't care less...

...that Donald Jessica Trump - my wife stumbled across a nickname today that I think is great: “Mango Mussolini” - is not only cutting funding to the University of Columbia, but is also taking an axe to the tree of science in general. Because I very much agree with what could then happen: an exodus of bright minds to Europe. An intercontinental brain drain. Because scientists often don't care much about politics. Because they are interested in real facts. Which is something you can't really say about Washington DC right now.

It's fine with me...

...that the Danish postal service has stopped delivering letters. Good, that makes sense. Even in this country, I don't think the traditional delivery of a physical letter is very relevant anymore. Let's be honest: letters are bullshit. They take up to five days to reach us. And usually in a negative sense: as a reminder for an invoice that we have overlooked. As a notification from an authority that we don't actually want to receive. Or as cheap advertising that ends up in the paper recycling anyway. Please leave me alone with this spam in paper form!

As I write this...

...I realize that I somehow missed a good old friend this year: Oscar. The Academy Awards completely passed me by. Maybe because I find Conan O'Brien significantly less funny than Jimmy Kimmel. That wouldn't matter to me. But maybe also because I have no idea what's relevant in the movie industry right now. That would matter to me. I need to talk to my wife - because she's from North America and she's also a cinephile. Because otherwise I'm missing out.

Post Scriptum

There finally seems to be hope for an end to the war in Ukraine. Unfortunately only as a compromise, which will probably cost Ukraine the parts of the country that Russia is occupying. But since the USA wants a dictated peace for its own interests - from the potential savings in military aid to the president's personal affection for Putin - and can probably enforce it, the Ukrainian leadership really has no other choice. Because the only alternative would be an ongoing war of attrition with fewer resources.

A statement by the responsible US special envoy Keith Kellogg, who justified the suspension of American arms and ammunition deliveries by forcing the Ukrainian leadership to the negotiating table, is emblematic of this. “The best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose: You got their attention.” It's strange how a (former?) partner acts like a hegemon and ignorantly withdraws at the very same time.

[bopinion]

2025 / 09

Aperçu of the week

"I know foreign policy is not for the faint of heart, but right now, I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world."

(Lisa Murkowski, US Senator for Alaska since 2002 - and member of the Republican Party)

Bad News of the Week

It is already written in the Bible: “He who is not with me is against me” (Gospel according to Matthew). Which is of course black and white. Without shades of gray. So beyond any reality. Nevertheless, it is often used in political absolutism, which is also increasingly taking hold in democracies. Germans are familiar with this from their ambivalent relationship with Israel. Anyone who is not actively pro-Israel or criticizes any specific detail of the government's actions is a blanket anti-Semite. The way Republicans use the word “American” borders on the religious, but is at least ideological. “Un-American”, on the other hand, is the ultimate fall from grace: how can you not recognize and revere the obvious ideal as such.

We Europeans know Americans in our continental memory as liberators. Which was in fact the case during the Second World War. Without the Americans, Hitler's imperialism could not have been stopped in the Second World War. Afterwards, we were happy to accept support from the “Marshall Plan” (officially the European Recovery Program) for the reconstruction of the countries of Europe - from which, incidentally, Great Britain and France benefited the most. Then came Coca-Cola, Hollywood, Marlboro, Ford, Hot dog, Elvis Presley, Mars, Levi's, credit cards, Kellogg's, Disney, bubblegum. Everything that crossed the Atlantic was good and great. Which hasn't changed much to this day - McDonalds, Microsoft, hip hop, Nike, Marvel, super models, teleshopping, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Taylor Swift, etc. - you name it.

Anyone could have seen that where there is a lot of light, there is also a lot of shadow. The McCarthy era, Three-Mile Island, the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Watergate or the Korean and Vietnam wars could have been a warning that not all that glitters is gold. But when the Iron Curtain fell and the capitalist model of society seemed to have triumphed so clearly over socialism, the 20th century finally entered the history books as the “US century”. Unfortunately, this apparently led to a feeling of superiority, almost to a bubble of fundamental infallibility. Economically, militarily and financially real, the claim was also made to define morals and values.

“America First” is much older and more fundamental than the reign of Donald J. Trump. A closer analysis clearly shows that the USA has never done anything simply pro bono. All international programs from the Marshall Plan to USAID have always served their own interests. And multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, whose processes are based on the economic weight of its members, are also instrumentalized. Things get interesting when the organization wants to act independently - like the World Trade Organization (WTO), which Trump is currently threatening to leave - or is defined as independent from the outset - like the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which the US has never recognized.

For a long time, all (Western) Europeans saw themselves as transatlanticists. Big brother America would take care of us. But it has been in retreat for a long time. 200,000 soldiers were stationed in Germany until 1990. Today there are still 35,000 - who primarily look after themselves, see Rammstein as a hub for interventions in the Middle East. Just around the corner from us in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, all that remains of the former Flint barracks on General-Patton-Street in Bad Tölz is the bowling alley.

The current dealings with Ukraine fit precisely into this pattern. Does supporting or dropping Ukraine serve American interests? This obviously depends not only on the subsequent reward in the form of natural resources, but also on the submissiveness shown. The next step is to stop military aid. “The president has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well. We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution,” says the White House officially. What it means is rather to be committed to Trump and contributing to American interests. Résumé: The American Dream can easily become a nightmare for anyone outside the US. Europe better wakes up.

Good News of the Week

As children in Germany, we all read Karl May. While most of us preferred the Wild West stories about the Apache chief Winnetou and his pale-faced blood brother Old Shatterhand, I found the so-called Orient cycle about Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar more interesting, my favorite book being “Through Wild Kurdistan”. I can still remember searching in vain for the country of Kurdistan in my school atlas. Before I learned the background thanks to many Turkish “guest worker” children at elementary school and in the neighborhood. Because many of them came from south-east Anatolia. Which should actually be called Kurdistan.

After the Tamils on the Indian subcontinent, the Kurds, who number at least 35 million, are the largest people without their own country on the planet. They are geographically spread across Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria as well as the diaspora - as they are oppressed practically everywhere, many Kurdish families seek their well-being abroad. The Kurdistan Workers' Party PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê) plays a major role in this. What sounds harmless is not only regarded as a terrorist group by Turkey, but is at least critically observed in the rest of Europe. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the German branch of the PKK is with around 13,000 members the largest “foreign extremist organization in Germany”.

The head of the PKK is Abdullah Öcalan. He has been in prison for over 25 years. The Kurdish leader is now calling for a renunciation of violence: “All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must disband.” This is the first peace initiative in over a decade in a conflict that is believed to have already claimed tens of thousands of lives. And it has been coordinated with the Turkish ultra-nationalists of the MHP party, of all people, who are part of the government.

If the followers listen to their leader, this would have a variety of effects - all of them positive: no more terror attacks on Turkish institutions. No more exaggerated state and police assaults on Kurds. A real chance of democratic representation regionally and in Ankara. Economic development opportunities through the establishment of businesses in Kurdistan. Increasing prestige for Kurds worldwide. And no more deaths.

Personal happy moment of the week

My mother had two strokes and a brain haemorrhage. For other 87-year-olds, that could have been the end. But this tough girl just fought her way back. And actually seems to be able to recover. I am so relieved.

I couldn't care less...

...for carnival. As on New Year's Eve, I often struggle to feel like partying just because it's on the calendar. But carnival is primarily made up of dumb humor, flat music, bad alcohol and dubious traditional customs that often descend into sexism - see, for example, the “women's hunt” in the Baden carnival. Thank you, I don't need any of that.

It's fine with me...

...that the conservatives of the CDU/CSU are currently attracting the indignation of civil society. And many politicians from other parties are even talking about a frontal attack on democracy. The parliamentary group (which is still in opposition) had submitted an official request to the federal government regarding the possible state funding of non-profit organizations, including through subsidies. This is because Campact, Grannies against the Right, Greenpeace, Foodwatch and PETA are all NGOs that can be classified as rather left-wing. It is perhaps no coincidence that they have only recently called for resistance against the conservative shift to the right. Honi soit qui ma y pense...

As I write this...

...I listen to the music of the Brit Awards. As I've never heard of most of the nominees, I shouldn't be surprised that I've never heard their music either. And I've never clicked skip so often. But when the radio in the car is set to “AbsolutebOldies” and I realize already from the title that “A Complete Unknown” must be a biopic about Bob Dylan, I guess I'm just out of time. PS: With Ezra Collective, a cross-generational link has been found after all. It looks like jazz always stays avant-garde.

Post Scriptum

After the whole state last Sunday, the federal state of Hamburg has now voted this Sunday. And the result is fundamentally different: the ruling red-green coalition of Social Democrats and Greens has lost percentages, but retains a majority. Alternatively, an alliance between the leading Social Democrats and the Conservatives would also be possible. A pleasing side aspect: the far-right AfD is only in 5th place - after the Left. And the pro-European Volt won more votes than the Liberals. It would be nice if this example set a precedent nationwide.

[bopinion]

2025 / 08

Aperçu of the week

“I want them to give us something for all of the money that we put up. We're asking for rare earth and oil, anything we can get.”

(US President Donald Trump subsequently puts a price tag on the previous government's support for Ukraine)

Bad News of the Week

In contrast to the presidential election in the USA last November - where there was occasionally reason to hope that there would be no return of a political revenant - we Germans knew exactly what we were in for in the parliamentary elections, in which the executive is elected at the same time. The leading candidate Friedrich Merz of the conservatives (CDU/CSU) would win and would then be able to form a mathematical majority with the Social Democrats (SPD - likely) or the Greens (unlikely). The far right (AfD) would double its share of the vote and become the largest opposition party. Of the smaller Die Linke, the Liberals (FDP) and left-wing populists (BSW), only the first party would make it into the Bundestag, while the other two would be relegated to insignificance. The rest - from the pro-European Volt (a pity) to the right-wing populist Free Voters (well...) to clientele parties such as the Party of Bible-believing Christians - are gathered in the “Others” category. And that's how it turned out.

It is interesting, but also regrettable, to look at the generations. The older and elderly prefer to vote on the right, the young on the left. The so-called youth vote (14 to 17-year-olds) was led by the Left and the SPD last weekend, with the CDU/CSU and AfD in third and fourth place - and the Animal Welfare Party won more votes than the FDP and the BSW. In other words, this is exactly the kind of mood that the average over-60-year-old conservative voter rejects. Example: Almost four times as many CDU/CSU voters are over 70 than under 25. A colleague of mine at work just said on Friday that elections set the course for the future. So you actually vote for your children. He's right - only I would add the grandchildren.

Unfortunately, a line can be drawn just as clearly between the East and the West. The AfD has secured first place in all five eastern German states. The former GDR still feels left behind. And those with a low level of education and a low income in particular tend to see their ballot paper as a lesson to teach - and vote for fundamental opposition. To really show “them up there”. While the earlier shift to the left could still be explained by nostalgia, the current shift to the right is truly frightening. And stupid. After all, analyses show that it is precisely the typical AfD voters who would suffer most from their policies.

Sunday's result now opens up the following coalition options: the strongest coalition would be the conservative CDU/CSU with the far-right AfD - together, this “Austria option” would have a whopping 360 seats out of the 316 needed. In other words, a loose majority, which has so far been categorically ruled out by the chancellor-to-be Friedrich Merz. Whereby evil tongues point out that a) neighboring Austria has already had a conservative-right-wing governing coalition several times, b) the joint vote against migration could have been a test balloon to see whether the approval ratings would suffer (they did not) and c) US Vice President JD Vance only met with two German politicians on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference - the top candidates of the CDU and AfD - and would therefore have the blessing of big (watching) brother for this constellation. My expectation: no.

There is no majority for a coalition without the conservatives. Unless again with the far right, which is definitely out of the question for the Left or the Greens, for example, and most likely for the Social Democrats. This leaves only the “black-red” CDU/CSU and SPD, which together have 328 seats. This is because 293 seats are simply not enough for the “black-green” alliance discussed in the run-up to the election. Theoretically, the due to their party colors so-called “Kenya coalition” of Conservatives, Social Democrats and Greens would remain, but there is simply too little overlap in terms of political content and goals - see our tiresome experience with the traffic light coalition.

In addition to the clear shift to the right - because the CDU under Friedrich Merz no longer has anything to do with the CDU under Angela Merkel - there is a second aspect that makes these elections bad news: the loss of direct mandates. Until now, the winner of each constituency (the so-called first vote) was guaranteed a seat in parliament. If this deviated from the overall result of the party (second vote), this was balanced out by so-called overhang and compensatory mandates. The result was that the Bundestag expanded unexpectedly. A reform per se therefore made perfect sense.

Now, each party only gets as many seats as it is mathematically entitled to based on its share of second votes. These are then allocated to the strongest winners in the constituencies, while the weakest go away empty-handed. The bottom line is that many constituencies will no longer be represented in parliament - currently it looks like 23 (out of 299) constituencies will be left out. The votes of the people there will therefore be worthless. I still don't understand why alternatives were not considered at all. After all, a new layout of larger constituencies would have produced the same result of fewer MPs, but would still represent all regions and voters in the Bundestag. It is no coincidence that MPs are called “representatives of the people” - so they should also represent the (whole!) people.

By the way, a positive side note: the last time there was a voter turnout of almost 84% was after German reunification. And that was 35 years ago. And regardless of the outcome: that's good. Even if all political certainties no longer count, at least the people have delivered.

Good News of the Week

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the day Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. And it could be the last anniversary. Unfortunately, not because the nation under attack was able to successfully defend itself against the aggressor with the help of its supporters. But probably because the most important supporter - the USA - is simply changing sides. Just because its erratic president has a strange penchant for dictatorships. And Europe is not in a position to compensate for this. Because it is not taken seriously by the key players.

“In a world where the right of the stronger applies, it is better to be among the strong,” writes editor-in-chief Dirk Kurbjuweit in an editorial last week in Der Spiegel, the leading German news magazine. And he continues: “Germany cannot be strong on its own, it is too small for that. It can only be strong together with other Europeans, it can only be strong in the EU. One of the most serious mistakes of German politics was that after Helmut Kohl no chancellor was wholeheartedly committed to Europe. (...) Now Europe lacks leadership and cohesion.”

The analysis is correct. On paper, Europe, with its population, its economic power and yes, even its military strength, could act on an equal footing on the world stage. I am deliberately referring to Europe and not the European Union, as the United Kingdom, for example, would not be part of it. And it is not only Germany that has deficits in its European commitment. Many EU members see Europe exclusively as a free trade zone, while others deliberately want to act in a more national and isolationist way. And even France only ever sees itself as primus inter pares. I exclude Belarus, by the way, as this dictatorship only commits to the rules of European values at the Eurovision Song Contest.

For centuries, and when the world felt much smaller, conflicts dominated our continent. From the end of the Second World War until the Russian attack on Ukraine, there was not a single hot war between two countries (because in Yugoslavia it was in fact a matter of internal civil and secessionist wars). 77 years is an eternity in our increasingly fast-moving times. After the end of the Cold War, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, cooperation and cohesion dominated - people looked for common ground and found it.

This can confidently be called a recipe for success. Which is now endangered by two factors. The first is the increasing threat from outside. From the military threat posed by Russia to the security policy risk posed by the withdrawal of the USA and the economic policy attack by China. The second is the increasing threat from within. The aforementioned drifting apart of individual special interests to the detriment of the greater good. This could now come to an end, as external pressure is simply becoming too dominant.

According to Wikipedia, external pressure is the “total pressure that acts on a system from the outside and thus increases its density”. I was always bad at physics. But I always understood that you can't have different opinions about it. After all, the laws of physics are natural laws. In this respect, I hope that the increasing pressure that Europe is experiencing from outside will lead to a consolidation of its community of values. The chances have not been this good for a long time. We can now find a new form of commonality that will make us all stronger. If we recognize our common interest as such and then act accordingly. As the United States of Europe. Come on, let me just dream a little...

Personal happy moment of the week

We celebrated my mother's 87th birthday. A proud age. We were able to celebrate together in an Italian restaurant as both parents were fit enough. They'll also go on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords in a few weeks. It's nice that they can actively enjoy their retirement.

I couldn't care less...

...about the moaning from the housing sector and construction industry about the oh-so-poor framework conditions. Currently, residential building permits are at their lowest level for 14 years. And all this while the housing shortage is getting worse and rental prices - you can't buy anything in this country for a long time - are going through the roof. Housing should be seen as a basic right. I believe that everyone involved has an obligation to be constructive on this in the truest sense of the word.

It's fine with me...

...that Germany complied with all European air quality limits in 2024 - the first time ever. The Federal Environment Agency reports that, following the fine dust limits, all 600 measuring stations have now also complied with the limits for nitrogen dioxide. This positive development, which is primarily based on the use of catalytic converters, must be maintained at all costs. This is because the, according to WHO experts, outdated limit values will be tightened considerably as early as 2030.

As I write this...

...I am delighted that Canada has won the NHL's prestigious “4-Nations-Face-Off” ice hockey tournament. Against the USA, whose president called them the “51st state” in the first leg. “You can't take away our country - and you can't take away our game,” summarized outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, referred to by Trump as ‘Governor Trudeau’. In your face, Donald!

Post Scriptum

It is looking very good that Austria will not be another European country governed by right-wing extremists. First, the Austrian Peoples Party (ÖVP / Österreichische Volkspartei) resisted the temptation to submit to the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ / Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs / Freedom Party of Austria) in coalition negotiations following its success in the National Council elections at the end of September. Then the Green Federal President Alexander van der Bellen refused to be pressured into considering a minority government or new elections. And now the conservative ÖVP, the social democratic SPÖ and the liberal NEOs are taking positive stock of their initial coalition talks. Van der Bellen even sees them “on the home straight”.

The current ÖVP party chairman Christian Stocker can certainly chalk this up as a success. Because back in January, his predecessor and former Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer failed at precisely such coalition talks. Now it looks like the first “Zuckerl coalition” (Jelly Bean coalition) which is named after the colorful party colors turquoise, pink and red. I much prefer this sweetness to the sour political program of FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, who would even have overtaken Hungary's Viktor Orbán on the right with his restrictive “Fortress Austria” stance. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that after turning onto the home straight, they will also make it to the finish line. After all, I would still like to visit our southern neighbor without any stomach ache.

[bopinion]

2025 / 07 - Catch up issue

Aperçu of the week

“After all, we now have so many strangers in the country that a Holocaust would be worthwhile again.”

(Marcel Grauf, parliamentary staff member of the AfD in a chat transcript)

Bad News of the Week

Two attacks shake the Alpine region: in Munich, a perpetrator deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people; in Villach in Carinthia, Austria, a man attacked others with a knife. In both cases, the crime took place in broad daylight. In both cases there were fatalities. In both cases, the attackers were Arab asylum seekers. As a result, the focus is almost reflexively only on the migrant background. Once again, a fanatical radical who has no place here. Close the borders!

This is happening at an inopportune time in both countries. There are elections in Germany next Sunday. And the more right-wing parties have managed to ensure that the political discourse is almost exclusively focused on the topic of migration - or even remigration, if the far-right AfD (Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany) has its way. In Austria, on the other hand, coalition negotiations have just broken down and new elections are on the cards. In which the already leading right-wing populists of FPÖ (Freedom Party für Österreich / for Austria) with their slogan “Build Fortress Austria” would gain even more support.

The mood is changing all over Europe. Arab-looking fellow citizens are increasingly becoming victims of prejudice, “knife men” and “headscarf girls” are still among the more harmless nicknames that have now become socially acceptable. The overreaction will not only make actual immigration more difficult, but will also act as a deterrent to highly qualified foreign specialists that Germany actually urgently needs. As we Germans are not having enough children, are an ageing society and the baby boomer generation will be retiring at a high cost in the coming years, we need almost half a million young immigrants who are willing to work hard for the labor market. That's not exactly good PR for recruiting.

Good News of the Week

The USA is currently rumbling through the Ukraine issue with heavy equipment. First, President Donald Trump says he expects Ukraine to provide rare earths worth 500 billion and that they should relinquish territories occupied by Russian troops. Then Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg justifies a phone call between Trump and his despot buddy Vladimir Putin, which was not coordinated with either Ukraine or the allies, by saying that his boss "wants to take the peace deal project into his own hands". At the same time, Defense Minister Pete Hegseth makes it clear during his inaugural visit to the Brussels headquarters of the defense alliance that the Europeans are expected to provide peacekeeping troops - without the support of the USA. Vice President J. D. Vance also confirmed that NATO membership for Ukraine was no longer an option. And then it was said by whoever that the interests of the Europeans would be taken into account, but that they would only be consulted and not directly involved in the negotiations. Boom.

From the perspective of an Ukrainian, I would ask myself whether these imperialist approaches from the other side of the Atlantic could be a sell-out of my country. The US plans and what Trump has negotiated are an “absolute strategic point victory” for Putin, analyzes ex-NATO strategist Stefanie Babst. It shows that an aggressor can commit war crimes and then be “rewarded” with a “bilateral meeting” with the new US president: “This means that we cannot be talking about any kind of peace agreement here, but ultimately about Ukraine's terms of surrender”.

To my great and positive surprise, the first thing this par force attitude with farcical aspects brought about was resistance. And from the whole of Europe. Volodymyr Selensky made it clear that his country could not be blackmailed and expected Europe to sit at the table during peace negotiations. And practically all of Europe forbade that geostrategic developments on their continent would be agreed over their heads. Solutions can only be found together, emphasizes the current EU Council President and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. That would indeed be an echo that neither Trump nor Putin would have expected: Europe more united than ever and armed with a solid self-confidence.

Personal happy moment of the week

I overlooked the holy florist holiday this year - Valentine's Day. But since my wife did the same, we were able to laugh about it together. So I was lucky...

I couldn't care less...

...about the ignorance and negligence that more and more countries are displaying when it comes to dealing with climate change. Only 10 out of 195 countries have submitted their climate plans on time in accordance with the Paris Agreement. Absurdly, this includes the USA, which will be pulling out. And not Germany, which still has a green party in government. But why should something work well in theory that fails in practice anyway?

It's fine with me...

...that Deutsche Bahn and the Railway and Transport Union (EVG) have been able to agree on a new collective wage agreement. Especially in winter, I don't want to have to read on the display board on a draughty platform that my train has been canceled because of a strike.

As I write this...

...I'm looking forward to a business meeting in the evening. To do me a favor, it's taking place in a restaurant where I really appreciate a specific meal. Since then I have been indulging in culinary anticipation.

Post Scriptum

I've been a few days behind with this blog since the beginning of the year and have only just managed to post my review at the end of the following week. Which is why it has been a little out of date recently. As there are federal elections next Sunday, which will bring fundamental change to Germany one way or another, I've kept this time rather short in order to be up to date again. Thank you for your understanding.