Incidentally, the agreement on the diesel delivery was made in violation of international sanctions. In addition, according to Trump, Ukraine should “damn it,” stop the attacks on Russian refineries and oil export ports (as if they were the reason for the high fuel prices in the USA and not the completely unnecessary war against Iran) and look for a new president. It is only logical that Trump has now suspended a package of sanctions against Russia approved by Congress for the time being (more on this here). How dramatic this decision is remains to be seen.
What do you do when the most powerful man in the world wants to make you a scapegoat (which might be bearable) and at the same time is, shall we say, volatile in his support? How long will Trump's latest turn away from Ukraine last? Memories of the beginning of 2025 are brought back, when Trump and his deputy JD Vance Zelenskyj made a name for themselves in front of the whole world. In the meantime, the US President also attacked Putin more sharply, sometimes saying: "Vladimir, STOP!" or: "He's gone completely CRAZY!" A bit like the children's game "Little tree, change!": If you don't sprint fast enough, you'll get missed over the air. It's just that Ukraine's very existence is at stake.
What just happened? Just a few weeks ago we were talking about students who (rightly) took to the streets because of poor conditions in their ailing schools - since last weekend at the latest, France has been dealing with a nationwide wave of protests. People took to the streets all over the country. And no longer just the young, not just a certain political direction, but a broad layer of people, according to official figures around half a million, who, among other things, rebelled against the high cost of living.
In many places the protest turned violent. Our Paris correspondent Leo Klimm, who is observing the protests on site for us, reports on young men dressed in black, masked, who threw objects at the police (you can read his report here). Many from the banlieues, the socially disadvantaged areas where large numbers of immigrants live. The French police, on the other hand, are not exactly known for seeing de-escalation as a police task (more on that here). Shops were looted, cars were set on fire, as was a town hall, and public property was destroyed - to a level that even shocked the hardline French demonstration society.
In the capital, those investigating the matter, Elif Eralp (Left), Werner Graf (Greens) and Steffen Krach (SPD), were relieved that things were still going ahead. In the old Federal Republic capital, on the other hand, there was talk of a "cultural break", there was a demand for this coalition (if it existed) to be "outlawed" by "all democrats", a red-green-red state government had to be excluded from information from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Criminal Police Office - in short: viewed from this perspective, the body incarnate may soon rule in Berlin.
It is not completely unreasonable, as a right-of-center party person, especially as a young savage, to consider everything that is left or far left of center to be absolutely intolerable. And you also have to fight real anti-Semitism, no matter where you stand. One of the open flanks of the left under election winner Elif Eralp, which has to get its business under control in this regard (more on this here). But this cannot be a free pass for political opponents to introduce hysteria as a means of politics. Where is this measure and the middle when you need it?
More background here: “Red Front” and “Honecker 2.0” – Berlin government formation puts a strain on the federal coalition
...is the feeling of shame.
On October 9th, Jewish students blocked the newly appointed deputy president of the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt and right-wing extremist pioneer of the AfD, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, from entering the synagogue in Halle. Tillschneider wanted to take part in the memorial service in memory of the 2019 attack, in which a 27-year-old wanted to murder Jews. Fortunately, the shooter did not manage to break into the synagogue. However, he later shot two other people.
The Jewish students apparently didn't want to have to watch a representative of a partly right-wing extremist party feign remembrance - Tillschneider had put the attack into perspective in the past. There is a video of the AfD politician in which he says during a lecture that the Central Council of Jews is using "Islam" to "bring about multicultural conditions" in Germany and that it is about "the abolition of our people."
The blockade has repercussions - but not for Tillschneider, but for the students, as the Berlin "Tagesspiegel" first reported. The police are investigating insults because they are said to have called Tillschneider a “Nazi.”
More background here: How Jewish students defied AfD politician Tillschneider
