1. Looking at Focus this AM....there's a piece to discuss the housing crisis for refugees in Germany. For those who haven't watched much of this....states in Germany are being given a number of asylum/refugee folks, and they distribute them down to the city-level.
Well....the cities have run out of housing and if you try to mount a 'container-housing' situation....it draws a lot of criticism from local populations.
This new issue? Bavaria has now demanded a 'summit' to occur with the coalition folks (SPD, Greens, FDP). If you peel apart the discussion....there's a massive amount of money that the states want the federal gov't to hand down...to cover cost. Yeah, it's an exact repeat of the end of 2014 (same script).
There's a gentle push to force the gov't to come to the realization that there are limits, and each person you take in.....has a cost impact upon the nation.
2. After watching a couple of different updates on the Nord Stream I/II explosions....being explained as a Ukraine-run operation.....I'll say three things: (1) if this operation were true....folks went to a significant amount of planning (fake passports, minimum of 1k kilograms of high explosive, did their homework on location, trained combat divers, etc). (2) So far, the Ukrainian gov't has denied any involvement. (3) On social media, German reaction is about 60-percent belief the story is BS or made-up.
I would add this as well....if the story is true that a Ukrainian team blew up the pipes....they are demonstrating the capability to make life for Germans a bit miserable, and this will lessen the German belief that Ukraine is a 'victim' in this war.
Frankly, the minute you say this Ukraine special operation 'team' is running this whole thing....it sounds James Bondish. Then you have the leak of the intelligence story via the New York Times? Sorry....on my BS scale....it's still pretty high.
3. Kinda funny....there are 3,000 natural gas 'tubes' left over from the Nord Stream project. Germany would like to buy the tubes for a liquid natural gas project. Problem? Well....they say the money can't go to Russia. Ownership? Gazprom. So it's hard to see how you avoid the money going to Russia.
4. Retirement age in France will be forced up to age 64 (currently at 62). Going to be a fair amount of protest and frustration.
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