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News of the day: flood disaster, floods in Passau, corona rules in England

2021-07-19T16:15:58.780Z


The country needs to arm itself better against extreme weather. Should there have been better warnings about the floods? And: The time of the corona restrictions in Great Britain is over. That is the situation on Monday evening.


1. Germany wants to improve in terms of climate and disaster control

The river levels are sinking and in the Ahr valley many village communities hold together to clean up.

On the fifth day after the devastating storm, there is still little reason to look optimistically into the future, even if CSU boss Markus Söder called for a “climate jolt” in the ARD morning magazine and Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet (CDU) recently found: “That Climate grants no respite. "

Enlarge image

Clean-up work in Ahrweiler

Photo: Thomas Lohnes / Getty Images

The dead are still being recovered in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Their number rose from Sunday to Monday by 17 to 117. At noon, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) visited Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in Rhineland-Palatinate, among other places.

The question that accompanied his trip to the crisis area looks back to the near past: Should there have been better warnings about the floods in western Germany?

The British hydrologist Hannah Cloke criticizes the fact that the forecasts of a European warning system for floods were apparently not heeded in many places, although experts saw the current disaster in the flood areas four days in advance.

In an interview with my colleagues Martin Knobbe and Jonas Schaible, the Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock also accuses the federal government of failing to protect the population and calls for more competencies to be pooled at the federal level in the future.

"Germany was very fortunate to have had to experience relatively few natural disasters over the decades," says Baerbock.

But that also led to "that disaster control measures were not sufficiently expanded - although experts have been warning of extreme weather events caused by climate change for years."

Seehofer (CSU) does not want to shake the federal structure of disaster control.

"Centralism doesn't improve anything here," he said during his visit to helpers from the technical relief organization on site.

  • Read the entire SPIEGEL conversation with Annalena Baerbock here: "It makes your heart contract"

2. Passau reacts calmly to rising water levels

Destructive flash floods like those in Rhineland-Palatinate or North Rhine-Westphalia are not to be expected in Passau in Lower Bavaria.

On the other hand, after the long rains of the last few days, one is afraid of flooding.

The "three-river city" lies on the Danube, the Inn and the Ilz.

Even when I was studying there 15 years ago, people were used to floods.

Our bicycle cellar was regularly full, at some point no one noticed the musty smell of our flat share walls.

In 2013, however, there was the flood of the century.

Enlarge image

The Danube in Passau: »Just a normal flood«

Photo: Armin Weigel / dpa

My SPIEGEL colleague Birte Bredow was a student in Passau at the time, she freed cellars of mud and dragged soaked carpets from destroyed shops.

Today she called Bianca Teumer from Passau, who founded Flood Aid Passau in 2013.

She describes that the sandbags are currently piled up in the old town and large parts of the promenade are flooded.

But she also believes that the Passauers will get off lightly this time.

  • Read the whole story here: »Something like 2013 can happen«

3. Be careful at London supermarket checkouts

Despite the increasing number of infections, nobody in Great Britain has to wear a mask or keep their distance as of today.

The day, dubbed “Freedom Day” by the press, was enthusiastically celebrated by partygoers from midnight.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in quarantine because his health minister fell ill with corona despite being vaccinated.

Johnson called to his compatriots: "Please, please, please be careful."

Enlarge image

Leeds night owls: toast to freedom

Photo:

Ioannis Alexopoulos / dpa

The Londoners seem to be sticking to this for the time being.

London correspondent Jörg Schindler wrote to me: "I was outside briefly this morning and couldn't see that the subways or buses are now much fuller than they were before." Apparently, people weren't striving to return to the office en masse.

"Practically everyone in the supermarket continues to wear masks," Schindler observes.

"It seems to me that people are using their newfound freedom, at least on day one, much more cautiously than some feared."

Schindler reports of people from his London circle of friends, "who have now become really cautious because they are afraid of being peded by the app and being sent into self-isolation shortly before their vacation."

  • Read the full story here: Johnson Takes Freedom

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What else is important today

  • Biontech buys cancer specialists in the USA:

    Biontech made billions with the corona vaccine.

    The company is now using the money to focus more on its original research goal.

  • Abrupt edge in Erftstadt is another risk:

    the image of the crater that the flood in Erftstadt eroded into the landscape is symbolic of the horrors of the flood disaster.

    The situation around the giant hole remains extremely dangerous.

  • More corona cases among Olympic athletes:

    The organizers claim that they have "the situation under control", but there are already new corona cases at the Olympics: a Czech beach volleyball player and a US gymnast tested positive.

  • Biden government transfers first Guantanamo prisoner: In

    2016, a commission recommended the release of Abdul Latif Nasir from Guantanamo.

    Then came Donald Trump.

    The prisoner has now been brought to his home country of Morocco.

My favorite story today: 

data analysis of election programs

Enlarge image

What are the priorities of the parties represented in the Bundestag before the election?

Photo: Sascha Steinach / Z6944 / picture alliance

As a CSU expert in the SPIEGEL capital city office, I recently narrowly passed a challenge: I had to study the 140-page

electoral program of the Union

without falling asleep.

My conclusion at the time: "The thing is simply illegible, inflated and full of hollow general spaces."

Today I followed the data analysis of the voting programs of my colleagues

Sophie Garbe

,

Lisa Goldschmidtböing

and

Achim Tack with

great awe

.

They report that the parties currently represented in the Bundestag broke a record this year: together, their election manifestos exceeded two million characters.

That is "more text than in the first three Harry Potter books put together".

Your

evaluation of the election programs since 1990

not only shows very clearly what content has moved the German party landscape in the past.

It also analyzes which programs have historically been particularly difficult to read, namely those of the Left and the FDP.

As a Union rapporteur, I cannot therefore complain.

  • Read the full story here: Two million characters, difficult to read - and the Union rarely speaks of women

What we recommend today at SPIEGEL +

  • Zero clicks until total loss of control:

    The NSO company sells state Trojans to authorities to monitor terrorists and criminals.

    But Amnesty used forensic means to discover traces of the almost invisible software in journalists as well.

  • Japan and the madness with the Olympics:

    The Japanese government is implementing its Olympic plan against the will of the people.

    Only a German is currently hated even more than the Prime Minister.

  • "The vaccination requirement is legal":

    Anyone who works in a Greek nursing home must be vaccinated by August 16 - or is given unpaid leave.

    Why, according to constitutional lawyer Nicos Alivizatos, this is compliant with the law.

Which is less important today

Enlarge image

The Olympic village in Tokyo: sturdy cardboard beds

Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa

  • The beds in the Olympic Village in Tokyo are made of cardboard.

    Allegedly to prevent sex between the athletes.

    Before the Olympic Games began in Tokyo on Friday, three athletes had already tested positive for the corona virus.

    The athletes are called upon to »avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact«.

    The Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan has now checked the myth about the »anti-sex« beds and exposed it as »fake news«.

    In a video on his Twitter channel, he bounced up and down the mattress six times without the sustainable construction collapsing.

Typo of the day

, now corrected: "It is considered the most important prize of its kind in the world."

And tonight?

Enlarge image

Verena Lugert's gimbap

Photo: Helga Lugert

You can of course test the resilience of your own bed.

Be it with team sports or with a printed election manifesto of the party of your choice.

Or you can cook the filled Korean rice rolls from our SPIEGEL “nerve food” columnist Verena Lugert.

Gimbap is the “hearty relative of the highly noble sushi” and the “Korean equivalent of the German cheese sandwich,” writes Lugert.

You can fill the rice rolls not only with raw fish, but with everything your heart desires: Viennese sausages, omelets or canned tuna.

Only radish and kimchi should not be missing.


A lovely evening.

Sincerely,


Anna Clauss

Here you can order the "Lage am Abend" by email.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-07-19

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