Friday, August 25, 2017

German News, Friday

Rome cops shut down migrant house. (Focus article).  Cops arrived at warehouse type situation in Rome yesterday and did a forceful removal of roughly 800 migrants who'd been squatting on the property for a while.  The majority of the group....from Ethiopia and Eritrea...had been around for a while.  Some days....some months.  It's a curious story because a judge's order had been sitting there for almost two years with no action taken by city officials.

Metropolitan cities in Germany on push-back.  (Focus article).  There are probably a thousand lessons learned on the migration crisis in Germany and we've finally reached one of the more interesting ones.  Cities are talking to the German federal government and urging them to develop a different method of handling all future migrants and immigrants coming into Germany.  The cities say that on initial arrival....no one should be destined for any metropolitan city situation.  The period to be held at the initial facilities?  Long enough to complete all asylum procedures and ensure identification. The emphasis here is that most of the cities are reaching some point on affordable housing, child-care, and school facilities.  Acceptance by the federal government?  Unknown.  It would have to mean dedicated facilities, and likely anger future arrivals as they spend several months at some rural area.

Three Hessen cities test on the potential diesel driving ban. (HR Article).  Three major Hessen cities (Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Darmstadt) will go through a series of tests and drills to see how a diesel car ban would be made to work.  As far as I know....no one has gone to this degree of knowledge development.  So they are building computer simulations with traffic data and trying to figure out how far this would go.  One idea of converting all of Frankfurt's taxi operation to electric cars....resulted in a .2-percent reduction in nitrogen oxide rates....which makes that idea mostly worthless.  The odd topic missing from all of this is where exactly they expect the diesel drivers to park their cars, and how the local transport system would enlarge itself to cover the massive growth.

Election polling. (ARD article).  Election period is winding down and it's a brief three weeks left to go.  Numbers?  ARD did nation-wide polling.  The CDU rests at 38-percent, with the SPD sliding down to 22-percent (dismal fall from January with roughly 33-percent).  The Linke Party rests at 9-percent and Greens at 8-percent.  The FDP at 8-percent.  Finally....the AfD Party has risen two points and sits at the 10-percent level.  No doubt that Merkel wins....but the coalition-building is now questionable with either the FDP or Greens....it simply won't be enough votes to secure 50-percent.  So, we are back to the CDU-CSU-SPD team once again....something that most all Germans are against.

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