Signal for the west?
The Presidents of France and the United States,
Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden, will meet in Rome today
, on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
Macron was recently angry with his colleague because he had forged an alliance with Australia and Great Britain and lured the Australians away from a submarine deal with France.
Now they are buying boats in the USA.
It would be nice if both of them remembered that what the West is today essentially came into being at the end of the 18th century, when some of the North American colonies and France, after their revolutions, became democracies and committed themselves to human rights.
This West urgently needs a signal that it is not slowly dying out
, but
that it
has a perspective.
This would be a good day if Biden and Macron were to send that signal.
Australia's Submarine Treaty with the United States: The Anger of the French
Farewell in Athens
On her big farewell tour around the world, the Executive Chancellor
Angela Merkel
has a very special date today.
She is visiting a country from which she has asked a lot - and vice versa: Greece.
From the end of 2009 to mid-2015, Greece was deeply in an over-indebtedness crisis that threatened the euro.
The Bundestag had to pass aid package after aid package, each time accompanied by protests.
During this time, the AfD was founded as an anti-euro party; at demonstrations in Athens, Merkel was infamously shown on posters with a Hitler mustache because she only wanted to support Greece against harsh reforms.
That was a hysterical time in which Merkel failed to hold Europe together and give it new momentum with a little more generosity.
It was then that the EU began to tear apart.
Greece was saved, but not the European idea.
They are even worse off today than they were then.
After all, it is a nice gesture by Merkel that she is paying a farewell visit to the country that she has put a lot of pressure on.
16 years of Angela Merkel's foreign policy: The world diplomat
There is still time
The
Netherlands
are currently experiencing a dubious record:
226 days after the election date, there is still no new government
, which is one day ahead of the previous negotiating marathon.
The coalition negotiations continue in Berlin today, on day 33 since the election date.
Hopefully it won't be until June.
Head of the Green Youth on traffic light negotiations: "We only approve the coalition agreement if something really changes"
Homeland Germany, homeland Turkey
Sixty years ago the Federal Republic of Germany signed a recruitment agreement with Turkey.
The first "guest workers" who came here at that time have long since retired, sometimes in Germany and sometimes in Turkey.
How did the change of home shape the biographies?
And what about German history?
60 years - who from the first generation of immigrants found their home in Germany?
And who of the descendants says: Of course I am GERMAN (R)!
The linguistic and racism researcher Dr.
Reyhan Şahin alias "Lady Bitch Ray" and the Green politician Cem Özdemir with the SPIEGEL editors Özlem Gezer and Özlem Topçu.
Sunday, October 31, 2021 at 11 a.m.
Thalia Theater, Alstertor 1, 20095 Hamburg
Tickets are available here.
We are giving away 3x2 free tickets among the readers of the location.
Please write an email to info@events.spiegel.de by 12 noon today.
Winner of the day ...
... is
Jonathan Franzen
.
What could be nicer than immersing yourself in a novel, joining a strange family and wandering through their lives with new relatives for days, months, years?
Franzen can genuinely create this family feeling, now also in his new novel "Crossroads", which is about the Hildebrandt family from New Prospect.
The father is a pastor and has just fallen in love, his wife is fed up with her life, the four children do not do what is expected of them.
Sounds somehow familiar, you've heard or read something like that before, but not from Franzen.
He makes a big story out of it, which, despite the greatest fatigue, regularly captivates me in my reading chair until well after midnight.
The latest news from the night
»Leude, the emergency is over, but it's still serious!«:
Is there a moral obligation to vaccinate?
That was one of the questions at "Maybrit Illner".
In addition, it was about the end of the epidemic emergency - and why that does not mean »Freedom Day« for a long time
Oklahoma executes convicted murderer:
It was the first execution in the US state of Oklahoma in six years: John Grant was killed by lethal injection.
He murdered a kitchen helper in 1998
US Department of Justice pays attack victims $ 88 million:
Nine people were shot in the attack in a church in Charleston six years ago.
The victims and their relatives now receive money from the US judiciary - because the perpetrator was able to buy a weapon despite his criminal record
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
The four sticking points at the summit in Glasgow: This is how we (maybe) still get the curve in the fight against the climate crisis
Investigations in the Ministry of Finance and Justice: "There was a risk that information would be lost"
A week in Frankfurt's Bahnhofsviertel (5/6): »The niches for outsiders are becoming fewer«
Halloween Dramas: How My Son Overcome His Fear Of Costumes
I wish you a good start to the day.
Yours Dirk Kurbjuweit