from the series “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” with Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the central character, there have been a worrying number of resignations to report. The conservative politician with the image of the party master in the midst of dreary lockdown days has lost four of his closest employees in a very short time. Most recently, Chief of Staff Dan Rosenfield resigned, and Main Private Secretary Martin Reynolds no longer wanted to.
The resignations of communications chief Jack Doyle and longtime chief political adviser Munira Mirza complete the measure. She was furious with Johnson for not apologizing to opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer. oh well
In parliament, the prime minister had previously accused the opponent of not taking action against the late BBC star presenter Jimmy Savile for sexual abuse in his previous role as chief of the public prosecutor’s office in hundreds of cases. When it comes to “Partygate”, we agree with the English playwright Noël Coward: “Criticism of others has never spared anyone their own performance.”
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Now that the nuclear and charcoal piles are disappearing, it turns out: Germany has been (almost) exemplary in expanding renewable energies, but reducing its dependency on Russian natural gas is not enough. Our big weekend report shows Vladimir Putin’s state-owned company Gazprom operating the regulators. Energy expert Hans-Wilhelm Schiffer meticulously calculated: around half of the imports of natural gas and hard coal to Germany come from Russia. Oil also flows in abundance.
The downside is that the monopolist Gazprom does not even deliver half of the agreed amount of natural gas through the Ukraine transit pipeline. Overall, Moscow is fulfilling the contracts, but is not responding to additional orders. On the positive side, Putin’s government needs the handsome income from business with the West just as much as the German living room heaters need stuff from Siberia. For the note: 37 percent of Russian trade is with Europe, while deals with Russia only account for 4.8 percent of trade.
The head of the EU Commission says the upcoming EU sanctions could also hit oligarchs “sensitively”.
In an interview with the Handelsblatt and “Les Echos”, EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen speaks about Ukraine, Russian propaganda and a conceivable energy embargo by Moscow against Europe – introduced in Brussels as “Gas Armageddon”. In detail, the CDU politician says about…
- Putin’s gas policy: “Gazprom’s business conduct is strange. In times when gas prices are through the roof and demand is huge, the company keeps its customers short. Russia is exerting military pressure on Ukraine and using us as leverage over gas supplies.”
- Possible sanctions: “Of course, people close to Putin and oligarchs could be hit hard. On the one hand by being included on personal sanctions lists, but above all by the financial and economic sanctions that we are preparing.”
- other gas suppliers: “We basically talk to everyone, starting with Norway, the supplier with whom we have been working reliably for a long time. But also with Qatar, Azerbaijan and Egypt. Of course, the USA plays a major role.”
You read the EU leader’s interview and you think: the art of threats makes up a good part of the art of war.
The Facebook founder also has to cope with a record crash on the stock exchange personally: Large parts of his private assets are in meta shares.
(Photo: imago images/photothek)
The extremely high market valuation of tech stocks had made investors nervous in recent weeks. Now some even panicked, because the Facebook group Meta Platforms has evaporated more than $ 230 billion in market value, almost 25 percent of the original volume. Founder Mark Zuckerberg has thus qualified for an entry in the timeline, because never before has a US stock lost so much in one day. Shortly before that, everyone had realized that one million daily active members had migrated to Zuckerberg’s ecosystem in the quarter, presumably to the video app Tiktok.
In earlier times, the social network empire would simply have bought the disruptor – but now Meta has to push the specially developed counter-product Reels for a lot of money. In the wake of the Facebook crash, Snapchat shares initially lost more than 23 percent. But then the operator of the messenger service informed that the number of users had risen from 306 million to 319 million and sales had grown by 42 percent – the share shot up by more than 47 percent. The Facebook blues seems to be a special feature of the Big Tech scene.
My cultural tip for the weekend: “Das Vorspiel” this Friday at 8:15 p.m. on Arte. A highly acclaimed feature film with the versatile, high-spirited Nina Hoss as violin teacher Anna Bronsky, who takes care of a young musician with commitment, but freaks out on this educational tour de force. A drama about a woman who is caught between the highest demands and the lowest fear of failure and who at least finds support in her German-French family. It is an authentic piece from a not uncomplicated milieu of musicians.
And then there is CDU renegade Max Otte, who appears in two functions in relation to the AfD party, which is further to the right. The first one was known: It is that of a marionette figure (candidate for the upcoming federal presidential election). The second was unknown: that of a generous big spender. WDR and NDR bring to light that the previous head of the Values Union has donated at least 30,000 euros to the ultra-right party under his real name Matthias Otte.
In the spring of 2020 and in January and February 2021, Otte transferred amounts to various sections of the party, twice to the district association of AfD federal spokesman Tino Chrupalla. He confirms that Otte’s gifts would later be published in the Bundestag’s annual report. Incidentally, all those involved strictly deny any connection between money and candidacy. But in the end we agree – just like that, in general – with the legendary Fiat industrialist Gianni Agnelli: “I love the wind because you can’t buy it.”
I wish you a relaxing weekend with nature experiences. For two weeks I hereby say goodbye, due to vacation. My colleague Christian Rickens takes care of the wake-up service in the tried and tested way.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
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