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The situation in the morning: The new dream job: simple MP

2022-01-13T04:58:19.892Z


Who will take the lead in the mandatory vaccination debate? A torture trial is entering its final round in Koblenz. And: Boris Johnson's excuses. That is the situation on Thursday.


Banger Chancellor

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in favor of mandatory vaccinations,

but does not want to pursue it as Federal Chancellor

.

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach is in favor of mandatory vaccinations,

but does not want to submit a bill as Federal Health Minister

, as he told the news portal "The Pioneer".

He had to remain neutral, he added heartily.

The men who absolutely wanted to get to the top of the executive are now mainly MPs, simple MPs, as the saying goes.

The hour of the executive has expired, long live parliament, the heart of democracy, which has recently been beating a bit.

The Federal Chancellor is only one of many (very many even: the new Bundestag has 736 seats), as is the Federal Minister of Health.

Egalité à la Germany.

Can we proclaim the end of the democratic crisis (see below)?

I'm afraid not.

In my opinion, Scholz and Lauterbach do it out of fear.

You don't want to get too involved with the controversial vaccination requirement, which does not have a majority in the Ampelkoalition.

Leadership - a word that Scholz likes to use, also in the Bundestag yesterday - is not.

  • Scholz on the compulsory vaccination: The Chancellor's counterattack

Double-edged

The verdict on

Anwar Raslan

is expected to be pronounced in Koblenz today.

He was a colonel in a Syrian secret service until 2012 and allegedly responsible for countless tortures.

In the course of the Arabellion he broke away from the regime, deserted and fled.

In Germany he lived undisturbed for years until he was charged with crimes against humanity according to the principle of universal law.

Raslan has been on trial in Koblenz since April 2020.

Witnesses reported the intolerable conditions in Syrian custody.

My colleagues Hannah El-Hitami and Christoph Reuter reported in a differentiated story in SPIEGEL about Raslan and his trial.

Your conclusion made me think: "It is double-edged to hold the deserters accountable for the misdeeds of a dictatorship." This story is my reading recommendation for this day:

  • Torture, rape, murder: what good is a trial of Syrian intelligence officers - in Koblenz?

The embodied nightmare

Ten years ago today, the cruise ship "Costa Concordia" glided through the rough seas off the Italian island of Giglio, too fast, too close to the shore.

A rock scratched the left flank, the ship tilted to one side and sank, 32 people died.

Who was not the last to disembark: the captain, Francesco Schettino.

This made him world famous and earned him the nickname "Captain Cowardice".

Schettino is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence for behaving irresponsibly around the accident.

For me he is more than a prisoner, but the embodiment of the nightmare of failing at the point where one must not fail under any circumstances.

A captain is the last to disembark, that's that.

A journalist is committed to the truth, that's that.

  • Tenth anniversary of the "Costa Concordia" accident: the captain's watch stopped at 0.14

World without words

Yesterday I went to The New Institute in Hamburg, a relatively new think tank, to talk to the political scientist Philipp Manow about the crisis in democracy.

Manow sat in front of a wall of books, surrounded by works by Habermas, Streeck, and other political thinkers.

We were talking about Francis Fukuyama when I noticed a box of books on the floor.

A hidden object book by Ali Mitgutsch was clearly visible, and I was as happy as I was sad.

Mitgutsch died on Monday at the age of 86.

I looked through his books many times with three children, and it was at least as fun for me as it was for them.

Mitgutsch painted little idylls that were teeming with people with red cheeks, people to whom nothing bad happened, at most that a cat stole a freshly caught fish or a little boy played a joke.

People who were pleasantly idle or busy, and

they lived in a world without a crisis of democracy, in a world almost without words

.

I found a lot of joy and relaxation in these books.

I still have one more thing, "Come to the water with me," which happens to be the same one that keeps works by Habermas company at the New Institute.

I will keep it forever, a hidden object book by Mitgutsch is also useful as an adult if one or the other crisis presses your soul.

  • On the death of Ali Mitgutsch: dreamers in the ferris wheel

Loser of the day ...

... is

Boris Johnson

.

Isn't it pathetic how prominent, powerful people want to wriggle themselves out, how they cover up mistakes or crude justify them?

We don't even want to talk about tennis player Novak Djoković, but only about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who attended a garden party without permission when his country sank into lockdown.

Now he claims to have thought it was a working lunch.

Phew

Johnson must expect that he will lose the support of his party and with it his office.

He's already my loser of the day because he resists it with such a pathetic excuse.

The latest news from the night

  • Bulgaria no longer issues "golden passports":

    Money for passport: Those who invest enough have so far been granted Bulgarian citizenship.

    Rich Russians and Chinese were pleased. Now the new prime minister wants to end the practice - to the delight of the EU

  • Panel wants to ask top Republicans about Trump's behavior during the storm on the Capitol:

    He is said to have spoken to the then US President during the storm on the Capitol.

    Now the Republican McCarthy has been asked to comment - including whether Trump wanted to influence him because of the investigation

  • "The Ronettes" lead singer Ronnie Spector is dead:

    In the sixties, the band "The Ronettes" celebrated success with hits like "Be My Baby" and "Baby, I Love You".

    Now the lead singer Ronnie Spector has died.

    According to the family, she died of cancer

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

  • Education and care: where are the health insurance companies in the pandemic?

  • New findings from school research: does the smartphone help with learning - or does it harm?

  • The story behind the picture: How my mother thought she had lost her family in April 1970

  • Manners in the corona crisis: How can I react politely if someone harasses me?

I wish you a good start to the day.

Yours Dirk Kurbjuweit

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-01-13

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