Saturday, September 3, 2022

Five German News Stories

 1.  EU President van der Leyen is a German, and has a farm-like residence in Germany where the husband and kids reside, while she works in Brussels.  Apparently in the last day or two....the Shetland pony that was a pet of the family, was attacked and killed by a wolf.  It's not page one news, but it's a reminder that wolves are multiplying and becoming a nuisance once again.

2.  The G7 Finance Ministers announced a price cap on Russian oil this week.  The Russians reacted by shutting down the transport of the oil.  I expect by next week....this price cap discussion will be dumped entirely.

3.  Rather interesting story out of Focus this AM....concerning neo-Nazis, or the lack of neo-Nazis.

Back in the summer around Aachen (far NW of Germany near the Dutch border)....this local Green Party political figure....Manoj Subramaniam...started to report death threats being made to him.  Then he brought up mail arriving with razor blades.  Then he reported the tires on his car being cut.  Then came up this swastika graffiti and the term “Jew” written on his car.  

All of this got the police hyped-up, and then came the whole community in a united front against the evil neo-Nazis.  Political figures of all parties were hyped-up and standing tall against the neo-Nazi folks.

Well....the prosecutor there has wrapped up the investigation and says the whole thing was faked-up.  There never were neo-Nazis....which brings them back to the Green Party guy.  

No one says much over what happens next.  Maybe the 'story' of the neo-Nazi thing can continue on, but I doubt it.  

4.  WELT reports this AM that this whole discussion around the natural gas 'extra' levy/tax idea has issues.

It would appear that the Ministry of Economics allowed the gas industry to write most of the wording and formulas....with their own data, and it might not be clear or fair.  Adding to this effort....no one from the customer base was allowed to contribute.  

Probably will force some clean-up of the levy/tax before it is finalized.

5.  Finally, an odd piece....with the potential electrical grid shortage....Ukraine came up and offered to sell Germany some of it's nuke power this winter.  No one says how much, and you'd think that this would get the Russians all hyped-up to take control of these plants.  Cost-factor?  No one says much.

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