1. Winter is coming
Gas in Germany is becoming significantly more expensive.
Crisis communication professional Robert Habeck did not bring the bad news from his government department to the people himself.
Instead, in the morning the company "Trading Hub Europe", a joint venture of the gas transmission system operators, of which probably not only I had never heard before, announced: The amount of the state gas levy will increase to 2.419 cents per kilowatt hour.
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Gas compressor station: Allocation should benefit gas suppliers
Photo:
Rupert Oberhäuser / picture alliance
The surcharge is intended to benefit gas suppliers who have to buy a replacement for the missing, cheaper gas volumes from Russia at high prices.
It applies from the beginning of October - but will probably not be visible immediately on the invoices, but with a slight delay, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs in a press release published at the same time.
For a household with a single-family house and an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours, the additional costs due to the gas surcharge amount to around 484 euros per year.
From now on, the government is asked to encourage citizens to fill Olaf Scholz's promise "You'll never walk alone" with content.
On my way to the office, I've been cycling past a pink advertising poster from Habeck's Economics Ministry for the last week: "Thank you for saving energy." It says "Thank you for saving energy."
»Thanks to you, the gas consumption has already dropped noticeably!«
How about if the economy minister didn't collectively call his people "du" but open the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to combat gas price increases caused by shortages?
Our columnist Nikolaus Blome makes this somewhat unconventional suggestion today.
He finds it "unworthy and contradictory" that the federal government is keeping one gas pipeline closed while at the same time begging Putin for more to flow through the other.
Now that the extent of the impending burden on the population is becoming ever clearer, politicians are under pressure to specify the extent of the promised relief measures.
»It is high time, also think leading Social Democrats and Greens.
But it will take some time to convince the FDP of this,” predicts my colleague Christian Teevs from our office in the capital.
"The traffic light parties will probably find a compromise, but the fact that this is so long in coming will damage the coalition's reputation."
More on the topic: How the state could relieve gas customers - four suggestions in the check
2. Farce Minister Lauterbach
China is implementing its zero-Covid strategy with great severity.
Scenes from Shanghai show what this can trigger: employees of the state health service triggered a collective flight reflex among the customers of an Ikea market in the popular Xuhui district because they wanted to quarantine those present.
As the “Handelsblatt” reports, one of the customers had apparently been in the vicinity of a corona infected person for a long time.
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Ikea branch in China: escape reflex triggered
Photo: A2800 epa Azubel/ dpa/dpaweb
However, the spontaneous lockdown did not lead to those present complying.
On the contrary - everyone was still trying to reach the exit at the last second before the doors closed.
Videos on social media show people falling on top of each other.
In the spring, the government put the residents of the 25 million metropolis under house arrest for two months to slow the spread of the virus.
In Germany, apart from the obligation to wear masks on buses, trains and planes, there are currently no protective measures at all.
And to the few others that still exist on paper – does Health Minister Karl Lauterbach at least feel bound by this?
He recently got sick with Corona.
Since he lives in Berlin, the local quarantine regulation applied to him, which states: “If you want to end the isolation before the end of 10 days, you must have remained without any signs of illness for at least 48 hours.”
Lauterbach answered last Tuesday in an ARD interview when asked whether he was negative again: "I'm not quite fit yet." The very next day, however, Lauterbach ended the isolation and visited the cabinet.
A former Berlin member of parliament for the Free Voters has filed a complaint against Lauterbach, raising the question of whether Lauterbach acted correctly in leaving isolation.
“People are quite rightly asking if I've broken isolation rules.
Because if you do that, you endanger your fellow human beings,” Lauterbach told SPIEGEL.
But he just had no more symptoms, no sore throat or headache.
He just wasn't fit yet and took the elevator to his office on the sixth floor instead of walking.
He's not doing any sport for the time being.
My colleague
Milena Hassenkamp does not believe that the matter will have legal repercussions for the minister.
"Free of symptoms" is not a protected term that dictates that you should not be short of breath.
"Anyone who wanted to prove that Lauterbach was dishonest about his symptoms would have had to pull out a thermometer at the cabinet meeting - and prove that Lauterbach still had a fever."
More on the topic: Did Lauterbach violate the Corona rules?
3. Against the GAU
For me, nuclear power plants are places of horror.
I have always perceived the steam column of the Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant, which you can see from my parents-in-law's balcony in Lauffen, Swabia, as threatening.
Maybe because, as a kid in the 80's and 90's, I grew up with the Simpsons and thus with the stingy and cruel nuclear power plant owner Montgomery Burns.
Or because the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster burned itself deep into my childhood fear DNA.
One of the largest nuclear power plants in the world is currently a theater of war and I read with concern every new message about what is happening there.
Today, for once, they were good: Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin now allegedly wants to allow a team of international experts to go there.
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Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (August 7, 2022)
Photo:
Ed Jones/AFP
Everything necessary will be done so that specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can be on site and make a correct assessment, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
In doing so, she alluded to the "destructive actions of the Ukrainian side," which, however, cannot be independently verified.
For days, Russia has been blaming the Ukrainian side for the attacks on the nuclear power plant in the city of Enerhodar, which in turn has blamed the Russians.
Most recently, the Russian occupiers proposed a ceasefire in the area.
Find all the latest developments on the war in Ukraine here: The News Update
(Would you like to receive the "Situation in the evening" conveniently by e-mail in your inbox? Here you can order the daily briefing as a newsletter.)
What else is important today
Myanmar's ex-prime minister Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced again:
The judiciary in Myanmar, controlled by the military junta, has passed further sentences against Aung San Suu Kyi.
Once again, the trial against the 77-year-old took place under unfair conditions.
HSV rejects an offer of 120 million euros from investor Kühne:
Klaus-Michael Kühne wanted significantly more say in Hamburger SV – and his plan failed.
The club rejects Kühne's demands, but leaves a back door open.
"The Horse Whisperer" author Nicholas Evans is dead:
His debut was a worldwide success: Nicholas Evans wrote the "Horse Whisperer" as an unknown journalist.
The novel was made into a film starring Robert Redford.
The author died at the age of 72.
RBB editorial committee demands disclosure of all bonuses and contracts:
The Broadcasting Council is advising on the dismissal of the resigned broadcaster Patricia Schlesinger.
The RBB editors emphasized that the committee had to ask itself why all the control mechanisms had apparently failed.
My favorite story today:
Against oblivion
On today's anniversary of the Taliban's takeover of power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Western troops, my colleagues Susanne Koelbl, Britta Sandberg and Lina Verschwele have collected touching stories from women who are almost on the verge of breaking up because of the difficult situation in their home country.
"The Taliban imagine a political system without women. Our presence alone is a problem for them, our very existence," says 23-year-old Afghan journalist and women's rights activist Majabien Safvan.
She experiences the new everyday life in Afghanistan like someone buried alive, has the feeling that all of humanity has forgotten her and the other girls and women in the country.
»I used to go to the office in the morning, I earned money, I had something to say.
i was creative
I exercised for an hour every day.
I met friends in the restaurant and we could laugh.
Now I'm just at home."
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Photo: [M] DER SPIEGEL;
Photos: private;
Christian Werner / DER SPIEGEL;
Roya Heydari;
Ebrahim Noroozi / dpa;
Private
Unlike Safvan, who is tormented by suicidal thoughts, the student Maryam Ahmadi, 22, is not intimidated by the brutality of the Islamists.
She is fighting the Taliban with her own resources, with »overflowing courage«, as Susanne Koelbl writes – despite the deadly risk.
And then there are those who fled Afghanistan.
The photographer Roya Heydari now has a residence permit for ten years in France and lives in Paris.
She has not yet visited the Eiffel Tower, life in freedom feels very fragile to her.
Only former Afghan MP Halima Sadaf Karimi seems optimistic.
She waited nine months in an Albanian beach hotel for a residence permit - now her new life is to begin in Canada.
My impression is that we Germans could do a lot more to help Afghan women who have fled or are stuck in the country.
The bare minimum is to keep looking and not be jaded by the horrible reports that reach you from the Taliban's misogynistic rule.
Read the full story here: »Afghan women believe that all of humanity has forgotten them«
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL+
“We are experiencing a moment of belligerence”:
the presidential elections in Brazil begin at the beginning of October.
Here ex-incumbent Michel Temer talks about fears of a coup d'etat and why he jumped to the side of Jair Bolsonaro last year.
A woman is deprived of 140 million - by her own daughter:
A collector's widow believed faith healers would free her child from a curse.
But that was a set-up, the gang stole paintings and jewelry.
Until the woman made a difficult decision.
»Only ten percent are active climate deniers and conspiracy theorists«:
Dry lakes, forest fires, droughts: Yale scientist Anthony Leiserowitz explains how black and white thinking paralyzes us and why the fight against global warming still has a chance of success.
Can apps help with mental health problems?
The offer is huge: Apps promise to strengthen mental health - many are even available on prescription.
This is how the applications work on the mobile phone.
Which is less important today
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Photo:
Lino Mirgeler / dpa
"Bunte" message:
actress
Maria Furtwängler
, 55, and publisher
Hubert Burda
, 82, have split up.
Apparently things haven't been going well for a long time.
It seems amazing to me – in addition to the age difference between the couple – that the marriage lasted more than 30 years.
In show business, to which the crime scene inspector and the publisher (»Bunte«, »Focus«, »Superillu«) belong, that's a very long time.
In a statement on behalf of the spouses, which is available to the dpa news agency, it is said that they remain "friends and family members".
Typo of the day
, now corrected: »1 garlic clove«
Cartoon of the day:
Fish deaths in the Oder
And tonight?
Read Salman Rushdie.
For example his combative speech »Künstler sind Vulnerable«, which he gave at the World Voices Festival 2012 and which we published today in German translation.
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Photo:
David Levenson/Getty Images
The knife attack on 75-year-old Rushdie last week shows how true this sentence is.
According to information from those around him, the British-Indian author is doing better.
"Despite his serious and life-changing injuries, his usual fierce and defiant sense of humor is intact," his son Zafar Rushdie tweeted yesterday.
I wish you a nice evening.
Cordially,
your Anna Clauss
Here you can order the »Situation in the Evening« by e-mail.