all people are the same – this is not only known to those who walk around with the Basic Law under their arm. During the lockdown it was even heard that this virus makes everyone equal, the rich and the poor, the “happy few” and the others. That was not true in the initial phase of the corona pandemic.
In the UK, a pierced email surrounding Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed that his troop cheerfully celebrated a party in the garden of the headquarters at 10 Downing Street on May 20, 2020 – in the middle of the first lockdown. A top official invited more than 100 employees from the government headquarters, with the note: “Bring your own booze” – bring your own alcohol. Johnson is said to have participated in the “socially distanced drinks” together with his wife Carrie (then his fiancée).
At the major Swiss bank Credit Suisse, António Horta-Osório, who was brought in as chief renovator, ignored the corona rules. When the Chairman of the Board of Directors returned to Zurich from a trip from London at the end of November, he would have had to be quarantined for ten days.
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After the banker had unsuccessfully applied for an exemption from the government in Bern, he nevertheless took off on the next trip. The most recent revelations by “Blick” contrast very much with previous assurances by Horta-Osório that he “unintentionally” violated the regulations and “sincerely regrets this mistake.”
The Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic attended public events without a mask, although he had previously tested positive for Corona – for the second time. On December 16, a PCR test confirmed the infection, but the following day the vaccine skeptic received several children in his tennis center without a mask, and they posed for selfies. And the next day, the world number one attended a photo shoot on the occasion of the “Champion of Champions 2021” awards ceremony. Because of his unclear 2G status, the Australian government does not want to allow him to enter the “Australian Open”, a ban that a court in Melbourne initially overturned.
Conclusion: The elite have apparently found their own rules of the game for the arduous life with the corona plague. Many are the same, some are the same.
Omikron is also getting China and its strict “zero covid” strategy into a mess. Because the health commission reported 157 infections in the country yesterday alone, Beijing now speaks only of a “dynamic zero”. In fact, after the metropolis of Xi’an, Omikron has now also erupted in the port city of Tianjin. From there, many residents commute to the capital in just over half an hour. Quarantine has already been ordered for two parts of the city in Tianjin.
With the recent outbreak, concerns among organizers of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which begin in less than four weeks, are growing. The virus should be kept away from the Olympic site and any contact with the population should be prevented. The traffic police are already warning Beijing citizens to stay in the car if they have a traffic accident with one of the buses in which the Olympians are being chauffeured.
Such a discount is a nice thing – That is what industrial customers thought when doing business with their gas suppliers. The clause that the gas might actually fail seemed unrealistic. But now the unexpected occurs: The German gas storage facilities are only 53 percent full, and the gas price hovers in the uppermost regions.
“It cannot be ruled out that contracts with interruptible deliveries will be drawn this winter”, explains Timm Kehler, head of the industry association “Zukunft Gas”, in our cover story. But he also assures, just like the Federal Ministry of Economics, that the system is stable. Apartments do not have to worry about gas delivery stops, private customers are particularly protected. And because of the high heating costs, the state will even pay housing benefit recipients a one-time grant of at least 135 euros in the summer.
Among the messenger services of the world, Signal is a hope in many places. Anyone who wants to escape the well poisoners on Telegram and the Facebook data tappers on Whatsapp has a home here. It is somewhat unusual how Moxie Marlinspike says goodbye as boss there. He wrote the Android and server codes, operated the service phone by himself and developed the product.
But now after almost ten years it is enough. He also went public with his farewell letter in order to find the best CEO for the team, which has grown to 30 employees. So if you are interested …
(Photo: dapd)
And then there is the US financial investor who, probably overestimating his own possibilities, calls himself “Cerberus” after the multi-headed hellhound, who in the Greek legend guards the entrance to the underworld. In the German banking system, this “demon of the pit” soon no longer guards anything: the Americans threw thick blocks of shares onto the market that had only been acquired in 2017, reducing their stake in Deutsche Bank from three to two percent, and in Commerzbank from five to three percent.
Gone are the Wolfgang Petry fantasy that one could – “madness (hell, hell, hell)” – forge a merger between the two banks, which is why Cerberus even wanted to buy the federal government’s 15 percent stake in Commerzbank. In the dispute they had already got rid of the CEO and head of the supervisory board.
Now, however, it means: away with damage, the remaining parts are also available. A Napoleon quote can be dedicated to the Cerberus people as a goodbye: “It is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.”
I wish you a successful day, avoid the sublime.
I warmly greet you
Her
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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