Category Archives: Germany

Covid live: France announces boosters for all adults and stricter mask rules; EU approves Pfizer jab for children aged five to 11

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French health minister holds press conference to announce new measures; EU regulator approves vaccine for younger children

Alberto Nardelli (formerly of this parish) and John Follain have a story leading the Bloomberg site at the moment, claiming that the EU is to propose a nine-month limit on Covid vaccine validity for travel. They write:

The European Union will recommend a nine-month time limit for the validity of Covid-19 vaccinations for travel into the bloc and also propose prioritising vaccinated travellers.

The European Commission will propose that member states should continue welcoming all travelers inoculated with shots approved by the bloc, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. It also calls for countries to reopen as of 10 January to all those who have used vaccines approved by the World Health Organization.

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From environment to economy: what to expect from new German government

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Analysis: coalition wants Germany to remain Europe’s ‘anchor of stability’ but there will be some changes

Led by a party that has acted as Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner for 12 of the last 16 years, and two parties with an energy to do things differently, Germany’s next government represents an odd mix of status quo thinking and reformist instincts.

The coalition agreement presented by the Social Democratic party (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democratic party (FDP) on Wednesday gives a hint of how German could change – and how it could stay the same.

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German parties agree coalition deal to make Olaf Scholz chancellor

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Social Democrat, Green and liberal parties agree to form government after two months of talks

Germany’s new three-way coalition government of Social Democrats, Greens and liberals has addressed the public for the first time, pledging to put climate protection at the top of its agenda but stressing its first priority was to control the coronavirus pandemic.

Replacing Angela Merkel as chancellor after 16 years, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats used his opening speech to deliver a dramatic appeal to Germans to get vaccinated, announcing a seven-point plan to tackle the health emergency, which he called “very serious”, stressing that hospitals were close to capacity, and that his government would be considering the introduction of a vaccine mandate.

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Covid live news: cases increase in 75% of UK local authorities; France reports sharp rise in cases

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Latest updates: Torridge in Devon had the highest rate in UK followed by Mid Ulster in Northern Ireland; France reports over 30,000 cases

Here’s the latest from Reuters on the situation in Germany, where the acting health minister called on Tuesday for further restrictions to contain a “dramatic” surge in coronavirus cases as the country’s infection rate hit a record high and the United States advised against travel there.

The seven-day incidence rate - the number of people per 100,000 to be infected over the last week - hit 399.8 on Tuesday, up from 386.5 on Monday, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed.

Access to healthcare is expensive and, in an emergency, villagers are forced to walk for hours to the nearest health facility. For women, the lack of facilities, combined with patriarchal attitudes, means they have had no control over their reproductive health. But Communities Health Africa Trust (Chat) organises mobile healthcare outreach to poorly served communities such as Lekiji. Chat identifies vulnerable communities with limited access to health facilities and significant family planning needs, and brings health provision and education to their door.

Lack of roads is no barrier to their work. If they cannot reach the communities by car, they switch to an older form of transport: camel. In the past three years Chat has reached more than 100,000 people with behaviour-changing messages that focus on family planning but include TB, HIV and Covid prevention services across 14 counties in Kenya.

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Pandemic hits mental health of women and young people hardest, survey finds

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Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups

Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.

The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.

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Germany and Netherlands face fresh Covid rules as Austria enters lockdown

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Reintroduction of restrictions has led to violent protests in European cities

Germany and the Netherlands have been told they should face still tougher Covid restrictions as the German health minister, Jens Spahn, made the startling prediction that most of his compatriots would be “vaccinated, cured or dead” by the end of winter.

With Europe again the centre of the pandemic, ushering in tighter controls mainly on the unvaccinated across the continent, on Monday Austria became the first west European country to re-enter lockdown since vaccination began earlier this year.

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Instability grips a weakened Europe as global predators smell blood

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Threats from Russia and China, a weaker US security alliance and internal discord expose fundamental strategic weaknesses

Is Europe entering a dangerous new age of instability? Not since the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union has it looked so vulnerable to hostile forces.

Accumulating external threats and internal divisions, coupled with a weakening US security alliance, relentless Russian subversion, and power-hungry China’s war on western values are exposing fundamental strategic weaknesses.

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‘Storm clouds’ over Europe – but UK Covid rates remain high

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Analysis: likes of Slovakia and Austria have worse figures but UK’s have topped EU average for months

As Covid infection rates surged again across Europe, Boris Johnson spoke this week of “storm clouds gathering” over parts of the continent and said it was unclear when or how badly the latest wave would “wash up on our shores”.

The situation in some EU member states, particularly those with low vaccination rates, is indeed dramatic. In central and eastern Europe in particular, but also Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, case numbers are rocketing.

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German health chief urges Covid crackdown to avert ‘very bad Christmas’

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Country facing ‘extremely dismal days’ as it set ninth consecutive record for daily case numbers

The head of Germany’s disease control agency has said the country is heading for a “very bad Christmas season” if drastic measures are not taken to dampen the spread of coronavirus.

Lothar Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), said that even if measures were taken Germany faced a period of “extremely dismal days” during which hundreds of people would die out of those currently infected.

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Support for populist sentiment falls across Europe, survey finds

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YouGov/Guardian poll finds ‘clear pattern of decreasing support for populism’ in European countries

Support for populist sentiment in Europe has fallen sharply over the past three years, according to a major YouGov survey, with markedly fewer people agreeing with key statements designed to measure it.

The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project’s annual populism tracker, produced with the Guardian, found populist beliefs in broadly sustained decline in 10 European countries, prompting its authors to suggest the wider electoral appeal of some may have peaked.

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Lukashenko has got the ear of the EU at last – but it won’t help him

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The Belarusian leader may have won phone talks with Angela Merkel but Europe remains united against him

As migrants camped out in the woods prepared for another night of sub-zero temperatures, the Estonian foreign minister, Eva-Maria Liimets, on Tuesday revealed to an evening news programme the gist of what Alexander Lukashenko demanded of Angela Merkel in the first call between a European leader and Belarus’s dictator in more than a year.

“He wants the sanctions to be halted, [and] to be recognised as head of state so he can continue,” she said he told Merkel.

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Nazis based their elite schools on top British private schools

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Eton and Harrow among those whose ‘character-building’ qualities were admired by German educators in 1930s and 1940s

Nazi Germany’s elite schools, which were set up to train future leaders of the Third Reich, used British private schools such as Eton and Harrow as their models, a new book reveals.

The historian Helen Roche has written the first comprehensive history of Nazi elite schools, known as Napolas. Drawing on research undertaken in 80 archives in six countries as well as testimonies from more than 100 former pupils, Roche discovered just how keen the Nazis were to learn from the “character-forming” example of the British system.

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Germany suspends approval for Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline

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Move follows mounting politcal pressure to scrap project in setback to Kremlin-backed project

Germany has suspended its approval process for the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline which would double its reliance on Russian gas following growing geopolitical pressure to scrap the project.

Energy markets across Europe surged after the German energy regulator suspended its certification process, in a big setback to Kremlin-backed Gazprom’s plans to extend Russian gas dominance via a new pipeline across the Baltic Sea.

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Why is Europe returning to the dark days of Covid?

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The continent is now the centre of the global epidemic – again. As countries from the Baltic to the Med brace for harsher winter measures, we look at what’s driving the fourth wave

It was almost as if the pandemic had never happened. In Cologne, thousands of revellers in fancy-dress jostled side by side in a tightly packed throng as they counted down to the start of the annual carnival season at 11am on 11 November.

In Paris, the bars and clubs were open late and filled to bursting on Wednesday, with Armistice Day a national holiday. In Amsterdam, it was business as usual in the overflowing cafes and coffee shops around the Leidseplein.

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Scholz pushes new measures to tackle Germany’s rising Covid cases

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Chancellor-in-waiting sticks with plan to lift nationwide state of emergency

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz has pushed ahead with a plan to phase out a state of national emergency by the end of the month, despite the country recording the highest coronavirus case numbers since the start of the pandemic.

“The virus is still here and threatening the health of our citizens,” Scholz said in a parliamentary debate on Thursday, as he called on MPs to support a catalogue of new measures to curb the spread of Covid that would replace the state of emergency. “Therefore it is very, very important that we take all measures to ensure we can protect their health.”

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German Christmas markets face second year of closures as Covid rates soar

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Many markets have already announced they will not be going ahead amid record case numbers

Soaring coronavirus rates in Germany are threatening plans for a rollout of the country’s famous Christmas markets, due to open in about a week’s time.

There had been considerable fanfare over municipalities’ plans to stage the markets this year after they were called off a year ago.

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Antihero to zero: VW rises from ‘dieselgate’ to lead charge on electric vehicles

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Volkswagen embraces the future with €35bn investment, including in its Zwickau plant

Two bronze statues that guard the entrance to Zwickau train station in Saxony tell the tale of Germany’s struggle to wean itself off fossil fuels.

A crouching miner cradles a lamp in a nod to the lignite, a particularly dirty form of coal, that was dug from this part of former East Germany, fuelling its factories and power stations. His companion, an engineer, represents the car industry that dominates Germany’s industrial heartland.

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Few willing to change lifestyle to save the planet, climate survey finds

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Exclusive: poll of 10 countries including US, UK, France and Germany finds people prioritising measures that are already habits

Citizens are alarmed by the climate crisis, but most believe they are already doing more to preserve the planet than anyone else, including their government, and few are willing to make significant lifestyle changes, an international survey has found.

“The widespread awareness of the importance of the climate crisis illustrated in this study has yet to be coupled with a proportionate willingness to act,” the survey of 10 countries including the US, UK, France and Germany, observed.

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Berlin honours couple who helped Jewish families flee Nazi Germany

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Plaque for Malwine and Max Schindler is installed at Pariser Strasse 54 outside couple’s former Berlin home

A Berlin couple who dedicated themselves to spiriting Jewish families and political dissidents out of Nazi Germany via a clandestine network disguised as an English-language tutoring service have been honoured in the German capital for the first time since their story fell into obscurity half a century ago.

A commemorative plaque was installed on Thursday by Berlin authorities at Pariser Strasse 54 in the Wilmersdorf district, outside the former home of Max and Malwine Schindler. Their legacy was rediscovered two years ago through a cache of letters and photographs found in a garden shed in Australia.

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Covid: Germany enveloped in ‘massive’ pandemic of the unvaccinated

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Health minister says wave ‘far from over’ as vaccination rate flatlines and clinics report rising numbers of Covid-19 patients

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, has warned that his country is going through a “massive” pandemic of the unvaccinated.

“The pandemic is far from over,” said Spahn, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “We are currently experiencing a pandemic of the unvaccinated, which is massive. There would be fewer coronavirus patients on intensive care units if more people would let themselves be vaccinated.”

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