The situation on Saturday: The alleged killer came from Russia

We wonder today what politics has failed to do over the past few years to make our forest more resilient, what the number on the passport can reveal, and whether the dual point is the panacea of ​​the future.

The dwindling forest

More in the SPIEGEL

Issue 36/2019

Can we be rescued?

Digital Edition | Printed issues | Apps | SUBSCRIPTION

If you look at the television pictures of the burning rainforest in the Amazon, these incredibly large areas that are blazing and smoking, you quickly forget that the forests here are burning regularly as well, for example in Brandenburg these days, on the former military training area Jüterborg. At least 110,000 hectares of forest have dried up in Germany in the past two summers, have been attacked by the bark beetle or burned.

So you can grumble for the unruly and extremely right-wing president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, but you can also prejudge our politicians, who in the past few years have reduced the German forest to ecologically worthless wood plantations, to pure profit centers, the profound threats like can not withstand climate change.

Victor Moriyama / Getty Images

Burning rainforest on the Amazon

The cover story in the new SPIEGEL is dedicated to the dying forest, the title picture looks accordingly sad and frightening. But the text that my colleague Philip Bethge has written with colleagues opens up paths of hope. "There is still time, and there are many strategies to stop the forest disappearance - and perhaps also climate change," writes Bethge. "It only takes courageous politicians to implement them."

• "Walduntergang" - The title story in the new SPIEGEL.

A tremendous suspicion

MIRROR ONLINE

Suspected murderer Sokolov

A murder in the middle of Berlin. Executed by a contract killer, as the investigators suspect quite quickly. This man, who calls himself Vadim Sokolov, traveled to Germany at the end of July with a fake identity. This was the result of joint research by SPIEGEL with the research projects "Bellingcat" and "The Insider". The passport number of the alleged murderer points the way to a unit of the Russian Ministry of Interior, which in the past also issued documents for identified agents of the Russian military intelligence service GRU. All coincidence? May be. But the many clues and details that have found out my colleagues nourish the tremendous suspicion that there may have been a state-initiated assassination attempt on Berlin soil.

Do you remember the case of Skripal?

Do you remember the outcry of the West that existed then?

• He came to kill: killers on behalf of Moscow? (Read the whole story here.)

Two is Better

In Zerbst, Saxony-Anhalt, meets today an extraordinary state party convention of the SPD, it should be decided, inter alia, on the introduction of a dual point of man and woman. Double points are very popular with the SPD, as can be seen in the candidacy for the presidency (read a sentiment from the SPD here). Perhaps also because a special double point is highly envied in political Berlin: Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck of the Greens seek the break in tandem in vain. So harmonious, so recorded - the inflationary term Dreamteam really fits here.

The manager magazin, which also belongs to the SPIEGEL publishing house, has already dealt four years ago with the phenomenon of dual leadership and wondered, for example, why the duo Jürgen Fitschen and Anshu Jain on the board of Deutsche Bank did not work. One result was: "People with ego problems and a lack of team spirit, mimosas, control freaks, greedy people, gamblers, divas, and supposed charismatics are just not suited for double tips."

Now it is clear to me why the successful double peaks in the political enterprise are rather scarce.

The story of the day: "A roll was poisoned"

Hardly any journalist knew the deceased VW patriarch Ferdinand Piëch as well as SPIEGEL author Dietmar Hawranek. Here is his very personal obituary.

Winner of the day ...

... is the Federal Chancellor. The Leipzig Business School today awards her an honorary doctorate. It is already the 18th title of this kind to Angela Merkel. The university wants to honor the "leadership performance" of the Federal Chancellor.

Their kind of political leadership is not only highly valued worldwide, it also corresponds to the core idea of ​​the Leipzig management model developed at HHL, according to the explanatory statement. That Angela Merkel leads well, is beyond question, she has been chancellor for 13 years. That their leadership is not necessarily marked by passionate visions, is also known. It would be interesting to find out what exactly the quality of the Leipzig leadership model and thus the leadership style of the Chancellor is. I look forward to the eulogy.

The compact news overview in the morning: current and opinionated. Every morning (weekdays) at 6 o'clock. Order directly here:

The latest news from the night

• Allegedly on the way to Syria: US impose sanctions on Iranian tanker "Adrian Darya-1"
• Mercosur agreement: Schulze demands certification for Brazilian meat
• Kohl lover Beatrice Herbolt: "He was drained, a broken man"

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

• Fires, drought, pests: forest sunset
• Former Chancellor Schröder on Ferdinand Piëch: "Without him, VW would be a takeover candidate today"
• Trouble buying real estate: What to do if the legal expenses insurance does not want to pay?
• 80 years after the raid by Hitler: In Gdansk, where the war began
• YouTuber Rezo: A random grandma would have received no apology from the dpa
• Juso boss: Just saved Kevin Kühnert the grand coalition?
• With Helge Schneider through Saxony and Brandenburg: In the country where the cucumbers live
• Brandenburg three times: prosperity, wasteland, fear
• Boris Johnson sabotages British democracy
• Podcast "Saying what is": Learning to preach, to inhale the Bible - who does it?

Enjoy moments of boredom today. It is weekend.

cordially

Your Martin Knobbe