Celebrities who come to Davos for the World Economic Forum like to make two commitments: one for a better world, the second for free trade. But never before has anyone here in the mountains of far-sightedness combined this so elegantly as Robert Habeck did on his Davos debut.
The Federal Minister of Economics spoke plainly: “Both energy policy and parts of the economy have too often made themselves unilaterally dependent on authoritarian regimes for reasons of profit.”
And that is why the Green Vice Chancellor is calling for a new European trade agenda, including fair agreements between the EU and other regions – “which focus much more on the well-being of employees, climate protection and sustainability goals”.
The best answer to the crises of the time are open markets, but not as playgrounds for “unbridled globalization”, but with new rules. For a party that once thought TTIP (with the US) and Ceta (with Canada) to be the devil’s stuff, the new Davos Man’s free trade messages come as a surprise.
China’s communist leadership is currently analyzing how Europe and the USA – commonly known as “the decadent West” – are reacting to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, as if with an X-ray machine.
The cadres in Beijing want to one day incorporate Taiwan as it is just a breakaway province that split away in 1949. It is to be reunited with the mainland. “No one should underestimate the strong determination, firm will and powerful skills of the Chinese people,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi trumpeted to Joe Biden.
At a press conference in Tokyo, the US President had pledged that the US would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an attack. And Biden accused the Chinese government of its many military maneuvers, saying they were “flirting with danger.” The US President wants to tame system rival China through closer cooperation with Japan.
When someone goes on a journey, they have a lot to tell. My two Munich colleagues know this only too well, after they took the train home from Düsseldorf late in the afternoon last week.
Suddenly, train one could no longer accelerate at more than 150 kilometers per hour and had to stop in Montabaur so that the traffic jam behind it could clear. Train two was standing on the opposite platform at Frankfurt Airport, so they changed trains.
But in Stuttgart the next debacle was announced, the ICE suddenly had no more light supply. So again change to the platform opposite, where happened to be a train to Munich. Train three actually brought the colleagues home, where they arrived just before midnight.
Why am I telling this? Because Deutsche Bahn AG, once a stock market candidate, is now Germany’s biggest crisis product. And a “green placebo”. Last Friday alone, 309 trains stood still at the freight transport subsidiary DB Cargo – the transport of goods in Germany is to be slowly shifted from the motorway to the rails.
In April, only two out of three long-distance passenger trains were on time – the others were standing still somewhere. Of course, the railway has also built up a respectable network, but more and more construction sites are preventing the leap forward.
The pressure on Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) and Bahn boss Richard Lutz is increasing. Our report shows the whole chaos. Incidentally, such reflections used to end with a little joke. Question to Radio Yerevan: “Will the train bring us a green future?” Answer: “In principle yes – it just has to drive.”
At some point, when the madness surrounding Vladimir Putin has resolved, the debate will start: Who was the perpetrator, who was a follower, who spoke out against the murderous coercive system?
Boris Bondarev, a Russian diplomat at the UN headquarters in Geneva, will belong to the third category. The high-ranking counselor garnished his voluntary departure from service with the sharpest word ammunition. The war of aggression against Ukraine is a crime against the Ukrainian and Russian people, he wrote on the LinkedIn platform of the US company Microsoft: “I have never been as ashamed of my country as I was on February 24 of this year.”
Those who planned this war wanted to stay in power forever, live in tasteless palaces and sail on yachts comparable in size and cost to the entire Russian Navy: “For this they are ready to sacrifice as many lives as necessary. “In the Russian Foreign Ministry, disinformation and propaganda had reached the level of the Soviets in the 1930s, it was about “warmongering, lies and hatred”. Conclusion: Bondarew should now be on the lookout for bodyguards.
Both the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock, and DWS, a fund subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, got the rap of “greenwashing” some time ago. It was found: The ESG criteria for ecological, social and corporate good behavior are a fine thing, but they have to be lived and not just claimed. Fake news can get expensive here.
There is now a precedent. The American stock exchange regulator, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), reports that a subsidiary of the bank BNY Mellon paid $ 1.5 million for false ESG information. Between July 2018 and September 2021, BNY Mellon Investment Adviser advertised that it had put all its investments through their paces and ESG – which wasn’t always true. The bank promptly announced that it was happy to have resolved the matter amicably with its six US funds.
And then there’s Sir Richard Dearlove, 77, ex-Chief of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency MI6, who sounds like he’s read every volume of John Le Carré twice since retiring.
It is a well-known fact that such reading stimulates the imagination extraordinarily. And so, in a podcast, Dearlove predicted the end of the regime in Russia for next year at the latest. Putin will be replaced non-violently in the next few months: “I think he will be gone by 2023 – probably in the sanatorium, from which he will not emerge as the leader of Russia.”
There is currently even more speculation about Putin’s health than about Queen Elizabeth II. Sometimes the president has cancer, then Parkinson’s again, but always a psychosis.
According to James Bond world futurist Dearlove, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev will position himself once Putin is in the mental hospital. However, the newcomer would not immediately end the war.
The MI6 legend may have also read Norman Mailer alongside Le Carré: “What begins as science fiction today may have to be finished as reportage tomorrow.”
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor