Former U.S. President and current GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the press at Mar-a-Lago on February 16, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
MUNICH, Germany â NATO members on Saturday weighed the U.S.’ possible withdrawal from the military alliance if Donald Trump returns to the White House, with Hillary Clinton saying he would waste no time in quitting if re-elected.
Clinton urged delegates at the Munich Security Conference to take her one-time presidential rival’s tough talk “literally and seriously” as anxiety mounts over the future of the U.S.-led pact.
“He will pull us out of NATO,” Clinton told attendees during a lunchtime session.
Trump stoked fresh concerns over the U.S.’ commitment to NATO last weekend when he said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any member that doesn’t meet its spending targets. He has long criticized the alliance’s failure to ensure members make good on their obligation to contribute 2% of gross domestic product to defense.
Amid such rhetoric, the U.S. Congress passed a bill in December aimed at preventing any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing from the alliance without congressional approval.
U.S. Republican Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, on Saturday dismissed talk of the U.S. quitting NATO, saying: “We have answered that question.”
“It would take a two-thirds vote in the United States Senate to get out â that is never going to happen,” he told CNBC in Munich.
Clinton said, however, that Trump could actually just refuse to fund the alliance. “The U.S. will be there in name only,” she said.
Concerns over the U.S. and Europe’s continued military coordination have dominated discussions at this year’s annual defense summit in Germany, as the specter of a second Trump presidency looms large and a contentious aid package for Ukraine hangs in the balance in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte earlier Saturday referenced constant “moaning and whining” at the event about the future of NATO under Trump.
“Stop moaning and whining and nagging about Trump,” he said.
He was one of many European voices, including that of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who said that Europe needed to become self-sufficient in the face of a more uncertain future with its closest diplomatic ally.
“No matter what happens in the U.S. … we have to be able to protect ourselves,” Frederiksen said.
Indeed, Germany’s defense minister said that his country’s commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense should be just the start, noting that the threshold could rise to 3.5% if necessary.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg struck a more sanguine tone on transatlantic coordination, however, saying that believes the U.S. will remain “a staunch and committed NATO ally” whatever happens in the upcoming election.
“I expect that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, the U.S. will remain a staunch and committed NATO ally,” he told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro.
“It is in the security interests of the United States to have a strong NATO,” he added.
Stoltenberg acknowledged Trump’s frustration with member spending, but said “that is now changing.” On Wednesday, NATO announced that 18 of the alliance’s 31 members will meet the 2% spending target this year.
The alliance will mark its 75th anniversary this year at an annual summit to be held in Washington in July.
Senator Risch said he would like to see all members committing to meeting their target by that point.
“Talk about it happening years in the future isn’t now, and we’re always interested in now,” he said. “That’s helpful to the relationship: everybody keeping the commitments that they made.”
“This is Russia’s war against any rules at all,” Zelenskyy said, to applause from the auditorium, adding:” If you do not manage to act now, Putin will make the next years catastrophic for other countries as well.”
Zelenskyy’s appearance in Munich is part on an ongoing campaign to strengthen Kyiv’s ties with its Western allies. Before coming to Munich, he was in Berlin and Paris to sign security agreements, adding to a similar pact with the United Kingdom.
Although Russia has more ammunition, the war is also causing problems, forcing it to plead for help from ramshackle dictatorships. “For the first time in Russian history, Russia bowed to Iran and North Korea for help,” said Zelenskyy.
Despite problems like ammunition shortages and retreats from cities like Avdiivka, Zelenskyy insisted that Ukraine can prevail in the war against Russia, especially if its allies give it more arms and ammunition.
“We can get our land back, and Putin can lose,” he said, adding: “We should not be afraid of Putin‘s defeat and the destruction of his regime. It is his fate to lose — not the fate of the rules-based order to vanish.”
Germany’s Ministry of Defense announced an additional $100 million in military aid for Ukraine as Berlin ramps up its support of Kyiv’s armed forces against Russia’s invasion.
During a recent meeting with Ukraine’s newly appointed commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, Berlin’s highest-ranking military officer General Carsten Breuer pledged a new defense package to provide Ukraine with “short-term support,” including mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, explosives to arm small drones, medical supplies, 77 multi 1A1 trucks and spare parts for a variety of weapon systems.
The package in total is worth around $107 million.
“Overall, we are very close to what is happening in Ukraine and what Ukraine needs,” German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said in a statement Thursday.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius answers journalists during a defense ministers’ meeting of the North Atlantic Council at NATO headquarters in Brussels on February 14. Germany pledged an additional $100 million in defense aid to… German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius answers journalists during a defense ministers’ meeting of the North Atlantic Council at NATO headquarters in Brussels on February 14. Germany pledged an additional $100 million in defense aid to Ukraine on Thursday.
JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images
Newsweek reached out to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry for comment.
The new deal follows a day after Pistorius pledged to increase Ukraine’s artillery supplies “by three to four times” in 2024 during a meeting in Brussels for the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. The defense minister added that Germany is planning on spending $3.75 billion on ammunition production in the year to come, an “unprecedented” amount for the country.
Berlin’s government has doubled its budget for military assistance for Ukraine this year, a lifeline for Kyiv as support from its largest ally, the United States, is held up in Congress. The Bundestag, or Germany’s parliament, approved the country’s 2024 budget on February 2, which included an allocated $8.2 billion in funding for Ukraine—the country’s budget a year prior allocated $4 billion in military aid.
According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, as of January 15, Germany is the second-largest supporter of Ukraine behind the U.S., pledging over $19 billion in total in military assistance since the start of the war in February 2022. Washington has pledged $42.2 billion to Kyiv in military aid in nearly two years.
President Joe Biden has requested U.S. lawmakers to pass a $95 billion foreign aid package for emergency defense spending, which includes $61 billion in aid to Kyiv. House Republicans, however, have refused to take up the deal unless the federal administration takes action to address what they describe as a “crisis” along the U.S. southern border.
The Senate passed Biden’s spending bill, which also includes aid for Israel and Taiwan, in a 70-29 vote on Tuesday. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby warned earlier this week that withholding the additional military assistance could impact American troops down the line, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s aggression in Ukraine poses a threat to the NATO alliance.
“So, we got to take this seriously because I’ll tell you if you think it costs a lot right now to support Ukraine, think about the cost to American blood and treasure if, in fact, [Putin] goes after our NATO ally and then you got American troops on the ground involved in combat,” Kirby said while appearing on CNN This Morning on Wednesday.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
The truth is, Europe only has itself to blame for the morass. Trump has been harping on about NATO’s laggards for years, but he hardly invented the genre. American presidents going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower have complained about European allies freeloading on American defense.
What Europeans don’t like to hear is that Trump has a point: They have been freeloading. What’s more, it was always unrealistic to expect the U.S. to pick pick up the tab for European security ad infinitum.
After Trump lost to Biden in 2020, its seemed like everything had gone back to normal, however. Biden, a lifelong transatlanticist, sought to repair the damage Trump did to NATO by letting the Europeans slide back into their comfort zone.
Even though overall defense spending has increased in recent years in Europe — as it should have, considering Russia’s war on Ukraine — it’s still nowhere near enough. Only 11 of NATO’s 31 members are expected to meet the spending target in 2023, for example, according to NATO’s own data. Germany, the main target of Trump’s ire, has yet to achieve the 2 percent mark. It’s likely to this year, however, if only because its economy is contracting.
The truth is, Europe was lulled back into a false sense of security by Biden’s warm embrace. Instead of going on a war footing by forcing industry to ramp up armament production and reinstating conscription in countries like Germany where it was phased out, Europe nestled itself in Americas skirts.
Here are the takeaways from Putin’s sit-down with Carlson.
Putin isn’t done with his war
The main message Putin sought to convey to Americans: There’s no point helping Ukraine with more money and weapons. And Carlson, who has himself previously questioned U.S. support for Ukraine as it seeks to defend its people and its land in the face of Russia’s assault, was all too happy to help deliver that message.
“If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks. That’s it,” Putin claimed, adding that it was up to the U.S. to tell Ukraine to come to the negotiating table.
But that’s not really the full story, as Putin himself made clear in two telling responses to Carlson’s follow-up questions.
First, asked whether Russia had achieved its war aims, Putin said: “No. We haven’t achieved our aims yet because one of them is de-nazification.” The claim that Russia is seeking to “de-nazify” Ukraine is widely seen as code for the removal of the country’s democratically elected (Jewish) president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In a strong indication of what he meant by his comment, Putin said “we have to get rid of those people” who he claimed, without basis, “support” Nazism.
Second, when Carlson asked whether Putin would “be satisfied with the territory that you have now,” the Russian autocrat refused to respond, returning to his point about de-nazification and insisting he hadn’t yet finished answering the previous question. We’ll take that as another no.
Years ago, archaeologists found a 35,000-year-old ivory artifact in a cave in Germany. Now, a study identified it as tool for weaving thicker ropes.
Photo from H. Jensen and University of Tübingen via Conard and Rots (2024)
Sometimes archaeologists dig up easily recognizable objects, like plates or bowls or coins. Other times, they uncover much more unusual and ambiguous finds.
Years ago, archaeologists in Germany unearthed one such puzzling artifact. Now, researchers think they’ve solved the mystery.
Archaeologists found the mysterious artifact while excavating Hohle Fels Cave in 2015, according to a study published Jan. 31 in the journal Science Advances. The prehistoric item was made from a mammoth’s tusk and broken into about 15 fragments.
Pieced back together, the fragments formed “a well-preserved and nearly complete perforated baton, with four holes containing precisely carved spiral grooves,” researchers said. Photos show this roughly 8-inch-long ivory “baton.”
The “baton” was made by the Aurignacian culture at least 35,000 years old and was still sharp, the study said.
Archaeologists also found several similar batons decades ago, but the purpose of these carved sticks remained poorly understood.
“Many interpretations have viewed these finds as symbols of power, ritual objects that are sometimes associated with burials or artworks of various kinds,” the study said.
But researchers had a different idea.
“We suspected that the holes with spiral grooves were made to have something fed through them,” the study said, “which led us to hypothesize that the artifact may have served to align fibers to make rope or twine.”
Several close-up views of the ivory artifact (A), the spiral hole carvings (D to K) and plant matter found on the tool (B and C). Photos from H. Jensen and University of Tübingen; D. Cnuts and University of Liège; and V. Rots and University of Liège via Conard and Rots (2024)
To test their idea, researchers tried two approaches. First, they studied the residue left on the baton and found traces of “plant fibers.”
Next, researchers built a replica baton and tried using it to make rope, the study said.
After trial and error, researchers discovered that the replica baton “works very, very well for making rope,” the study’s lead co-author Nicholas Conard told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “You can make about 5 meters (16 feet) of rope in about 10 minutes after you get used to using the system.”
The replica tool worked best by feeding “bundles of cattail leaves through the holes” then pulling the baton along, the study said. “Behind the tool, the strands combine automatically into a rope as a result of their twisting tension.”
Based on these tests, researchers identified the “baton” as a rope-making tool specifically used for “making thicker, stronger rope consisting of two to four strands.”
Experts generally believe that prehistoric cultures used rope and twine, but archaeological evidence of this is “rare,” the study said.
The rope-making “baton” found at Hohle Fels Cave offers one way that the Aurignacian culture manufactured such an essential material, researchers said.
Hohle Fels Cave is in southern Germany and about 340 miles southwest of Berlin.
The research team included Conard and Veerle Rots.
Aspen Pflughoeft covers real-time news for McClatchy. She is a graduate of Minerva University where she studied communications, history, and international politics. Previously, she reported for Deseret News.
The EU’s unrelated effort to funnel cash to Ukraine from its central budget faced serious political resistance, prompting governments to look at alternative sources of money. It took weeks of diplomatic backchanneling before leaders convinced Hungary on Feb. 1 to lift its veto over the EU’s €50 billion cash pot for Ukraine.
Financial stability
The assets confiscation plan could generate over €200 billion to support Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction, according to backers of the proposal. G7 countries are aiming to come up with a coordinated roadmap amid growing pressure from the United States, which, along with the United Kingdom and Canada, has fewer qualms than EU countries such as Germany, France and Italy.
In Europe, there are fears Moscow might retaliate by lodging a flurry of appeals against Euroclear, a Belgium-based financial depository that holds the vast majority of Russian reserves in Europe.
“An institution like Euroclear is a very systemic financial institution,” Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem said | Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga/AFP via Getty Images
“An institution like Euroclear is a very systemic financial institution,” Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem told reporters at the end of January. “We should … try to avoid an impact [of Russian asset confiscation] on financial stability.”
In a sign of the sort of retaliation countries fear might come, Russian entities have already filed 94 lawsuits in Russia demanding payback to Euroclear, which operates under Belgian law, after their investments and their profits in Europe were frozen, according to a Belgian official with knowledge of the proceedings.
Top Russian lenders, including Rosbank, Sinara Bank and Rosselkhozbank, filed legal claims against Euroclear worth hundreds of millions of rubles.
One of the largest banking groups in Germany intends to launch crypto trading services for interested customers this year.
According to a Bloomberg report, the cooperative financial group, comprising more than 700 local banks, a central bank, specialized service providers, and institutions, plans to enter the project’s pilot phase soon.
DZ Bank to Lead Crypto Trading Project
The DZ Bank, a central bank in charge of the project, leads the cooperative financial network. Souad Benkredda, responsible for capital market operations on the central bank board, told Bloomberg that primary banks would soon begin test trading Bitcoin (BTC) and a wide range of other cryptocurrencies with customers.
“Over the course of the year, we will enter the pilot phase for retail trading of cryptocurrencies with the first cooperative banks…We don’t just want to offer trading of one cryptocurrency, but a variety of cryptocurrencies. This is important to us,” stated Benkredda.
Initially, DZ Bank was to work with Deutsche WertpapierService Bank AG (DWP Bank), a securities service provider for savings, cooperatives, and private banks, on implementing the new project. However, the deal has been nixed as the former now has a new undisclosed partner.
An Opportunity For Self Decision Making
Benkredda explained that the trading services would provide an opportunity for self-decision-making as customers will trade the crypto assets independently, without advice. She revealed that the need for such services among cooperative banks is strong, quoting a study by the Geno Association, which found that every second bank wants to activate the solution for their customers. However, the institutions have to make the decision themselves.
While the cooperative banks are keen on introducing crypto products to their offerings, the German savings banks have remained more cautious. The committees of the latter have even urged banks in their association to refrain from offering crypto trading services to their customers.
The latest move by the cooperatives comes about a year after DZ Bank entered a partnership with Swiss firm Metaco and orchestration platform Harmonize to offer digital asset custody services to institutional clients. DZ said the platform for the offering has proven to be a remarkable solution and was selected through an extensive proof-of-concept and diligence process.
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DZ Bank, Germany’s second-largest financial institution, plans to launch a cryptocurrency trading pilot.
Souad Benkredda, a board member at DZ Bank, stated that the Frankfurt-based bank aims to offer a variety of cryptocurrencies. The initiative is designed for customers who prefer to invest independently without seeking financial advice.
“According to a study by the Genoverband, every second bank wants to offer this solution for their customers.”
Souad Benkredda in an interview with Bloomberg
However, Benkredda noted that the decision to adopt such a service ultimately rests with each individual institution. Genoverband is a key auditing and consulting body for over 2,500 cooperative organizations.
With assets under management amounting to $627 billion, DZ Bank has already taken steps into cryptocurrency. In November, the bank launched a cryptocurrency custody platform with Ripple. This followed its announcement to utilize Metaco’s technology solution for developing crypto-related services.
Deutsche Bank on Thursday smashed fourth-quarter earnings expectations, reporting net profit of 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) and announcing a further 1.6 billion euros in shareholder returns for 2024.
Shares were 4.6% higher in morning trade in Europe.
The German lender also announced plans to hike share buybacks and dividends by 50%, returning a total of 1.6 billion euros to shareholders.
Deutsche said it is planning an additional share buyback of 675 million euros, which it aims to complete in the first half of the year. This follows 450 million euros of repurchases in 2023. It also plans to recommend 900 million euros in shareholder dividends for 2023 at its Annual General Meeting in May.
For the year as a whole, the bank reported 4.2 billion euros in net income attributable to shareholders — beating expectations of 3.685 billion euros expected by analysts.
“Pre-tax profit at 5.7 billion is at a high, we grew year-on-year despite some items that in this year created some noise, but what’s really exciting is the momentum we see in the business,” Deutsche Bank CFO James von Moltke told CNBC on Thursday.
“We had a 10% year-on-year growth in our investment bank in the fourth quarter, and admittedly in a year that was still retracing the very strong performances of 2021 and 22, so 9% down for the full year, but we see momentum especially now going into ’24 in origination advisory and very strong, I think consistent, performance in our FIC [fixed income and currencies] franchise.”
As part of a 2.5 billion euro operational efficiency program, Deutsche Bank said it expects to cut 3,500 jobs, mainly in “non-client-facing areas.”
Deutsche Bank shares
As of the end of 2023, savings either realized or expected from completed measures under the efficiency program grew to 1.3 billion euros, the bank estimated. The program’s goal is to reduce the quarterly run-rate of adjusted costs to 5 billion euros, with total costs falling to around 20 billion in 2025.
In a statement Thursday, Sewing said the bank’s 2023 performance “underlines the strength of our Global Hausbank strategy as we help our clients navigate an uncertain environment.”
“We have achieved our highest profit before tax in 16 years, delivered growth well ahead of target and maintained our focus on cost discipline while investing in key areas,” Sewing said.
“Our strong capital generation enables us to accelerate distributions to shareholders. This gives us firm confidence that we will deliver on our 2025 targets.”
Other fourth-quarter highlights included:
Net revenues grew 5% year-on-year to 6.7 billion euros, bringing the annual total to 28.9 billion.
Net inflows of 18 billion euros across the Private Bank and Asset Management divisions.
Credit loss provision was 488 million euros, compared to 351 million in the same period of 2022.
Common equity tier one (CET1) capital ratio — a measure of bank solvency — was 13.7% at the end of 2023, compared to 13.4% at the end of the previous year.
Amid concerns about bank profitability and reports that the German government is considering a sale of some of its company holdings, including its 15% stake in Commerzbank, Deutsche has emerged as the subject of merger speculation in recent months.
However, CEO Christian Sewing told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that acquisitions were not a “priority” for Germany’s largest bank.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Deutsche Bank’s results were released on Thursday.
It’s no secret that cannabis can work as an alternative to other longstanding medicinal options as it pertains to curbing and treating pain and related symptoms. A number of studies have already confirmed the efficacy of cannabis and its compounds as it relates to pain management, though a new study suggests that patients believe it may be even more effective than conventional treatments.
A recent survey of German patients published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine explored experiences with cannabis products, with more than 200 anonymous participant perspectives. As with many previous studies, patients largely reported reductions in their daily pain after starting cannabis therapy along with other benefits.
Notably, they reported “greater satisfaction” with cannabis, calling it “more effective” than their previous treatments.
Exploring German Prescription Cannabis for Pain
Researchers note that part of the intent behind the research is to explore “perspectives of patients whose experiences are not well enough known to date.”
Using a web-based survey of prescription cannabinoid patients, conducted between May 31, 2021 and June 2022, researchers conducted the research anonymously “to reduce treatment provider influence and stigma.” Subjects were asked to complete questionnaires regarding their cannabis therapy twice in the same session, once for the time of the survey and another for the period prior to their cannabis treatment.
Participants were asked to rate their daily pain levels, along with questions around the details of the cannabinoid prescription process — namely any issues they ran into obtaining the medication — and their general attitudes around cannabis.
Chronic pain was the most common diagnosis, with 72% of participants indicating that pain relief was the primary reason for their prescriptions.
Germany is currently making waves in the global cannabis space for its pending legalization of recreational cannabis, though plant cannabis and cannabinoid treatments were legalized by prescription use in the country back in 2017. Cannabis medication is also typically only authorized when patients are unresponsive to traditional options.
Researchers also note a study finding that the most common reason for German cannabinoid prescriptions from 2017 to 2022 was for pain.
Patients Report MMJ Benefits for Pain Treatment and More, Despite Access Barriers
“The results of this cross-sectional study suggest that most of the surveyed outpatients treated with prescription cannabinoids in Germany subjectively experience health benefits and symptom reduction associated with these therapies,” researchers state in their discussion.
Across all diagnoses and symptom groups, authors report that participants shared positive effects on physical functioning, emotional states and quality of life. Additionally, they reported fewer problems around fulfilling their social roles and their pain symptoms were perceived to have a lesser impact on their daily lives. Satisfaction was rated by perceived effectiveness, side effects and overall satisfaction.
Researchers suggest that the stress-reducing effect of cannabis drugs could be a “significant mediating factor,” in that opioids may have “more ambivalent effects on stress regulation because the kappa opioid receptor signaling pathway is activated by stress stimuli that produce both aversion and dysphoria in humans and other animal species.”
Prior to cannabis therapy, participants generally had a neutral to slightly positive attitude toward cannabis, which shifted to “predominantly positive” during therapy.
Most of the problems during the prescription process didn’t originate with physicians but rather with reimbursement issues involving health insurance providers. Approximately 25% of participants with statutory health insurance coverage reported that they opted to pay out of pocket.
“This is likely due to the current legal situation in Germany, where the prescription of cannabinoid medications is characterized by significant complexity and administrative hurdles, comparable to those encountered when prescribing off-label drugs, both for patients and practitioners,” researchers said.
‘Starting Points’ for Further Research
The study notes that comparable studies, in which German patients are directly questioned about cannabinoid therapy, are rare, with most surveys only questioning physicians. Those studies similarly found that pain was the main reason for cannabis prescriptions.
Standing apart from much of the current research in the region, researchers note risk of selection bias, in that patients may have been more willing to participate in the study due to successful treatments. They also note potential “expectation bias,” in that the high access barriers for cannabinoid therapies in Germany give many eligible patients high expectations, which could lead to a more favorable evaluation of such therapies, among other potential limitations.
“This observational study nevertheless provides starting points for further discussion in the context of planning clinical cannabinoid trials and formulating appropriate research questions, involving the patients’ perspectives,” researchers concluded.
An increasingly belligerent Russian President Vladimir Putin could attack the NATO military alliance in less than a decade, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned.
“We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day … so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” Pistorius told German outlet Der Tagesspiegel in an interview published Friday.
While a Russian attack is not likely “for now,” the minister added: “Our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible.”
Following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has upped its aggressive rhetoric against some of its neighbors — including the Baltic countries and Poland, which are all members of NATO, and Moldova — prompting top European defense officials to warn of the risk of a major conflict.
On Wednesday, the chair of NATO’s military committee of national chiefs Admiral Rob Bauer said the military alliance faced “the most dangerous world in decades” and called for a “warfighting transformation of NATO.”
Earlier this month, Sweden’s commander-in-chief General Micael Bydén similarly called on Swedes to “prepare themselves mentally” for war.
The same day, Sweden’s Minister for Civil Defense Carl-Oskar Bohlin also warned that “war could come to Sweden.”
In his interview with Der Tagesspiegel, Pistorius said the Swedish warnings were “understandable from a Scandinavian perspective,” adding that Sweden faced “an even more serious situation,” given its proximity to Russia. It is also not yet a member of the NATO alliance, waiting for approval from Turkey and Hungary to join.
“But we also have to learn to live with danger again and prepare ourselves — militarily, socially and in terms of civil defense,” Pistorius warned.
Poland, which is spending more than 4 percent of its GDP on defense this year, is also worried about Russia’s unpredictability following the unexpected attack on Ukraine in 2022.
“Russia is defying logic. What happened in 2022 seemed impossible. We must be ready for any scenario,” Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said in a television interview earlier this week.
Late last year, Germany revamped its military and strategic doctrine for the first time since 2011, aiming to turn the Bundeswehr into a war-capable military.
“War has returned to Europe. Germany and its allies once again have to deal with a military threat. The international order is under attack in Europe and around the globe. We are living in a turning point,” said the first paragraph of the new doctrine.
Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, an outspoken Putin critic who has been one of the loudest voices in support of Ukraine in the EU, on Thursday called on Europe to speed up preparations for more Russian aggression.
“There’s a chance that Russia might not be contained in Ukraine,” Landsbergis told French newswire AFP at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “There is no scenario in this that if Ukraine doesn’t win, that could end well for Europe,” he warned.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday he plans to sign a bilateral security agreement with Kyiv during a visit to Ukraine next month.
Macron said France would “continue to help Ukraine to hold the front line and protect its skies,” and that the two countries “were finalizing a deal.” Speaking at a Paris press conference, Macron also announced the delivery of 40 Scalp long-range missiles and “several hundred” bombs to Ukraine in the coming weeks.
France has been working on a deal for several months, aiming to shore up Ukraine’s defenses and finances in the long term. Macron’s statement comes in the wake of last week’s visit to Kyiv by British PM Rishi Sunak, during which he signed a bilateral security deal and pledged €3 billion in military aid to Ukraine over the next two years.
European partners are under pressure to up their military support for Ukraine as Russia continues its relentless air strikes and U.S. aid seems stalled in Congress.
Earlier this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz issued an unusually stark call to other EU countries to deliver more weapons to Ukraine. The arms deliveries planned so far are “too small,” he said, despite Berlin’s pledge to double its military aid to Kyiv to €8 billion this year.
According to the Kiel Institute, which tallied military aid to Ukraine in the public domain, Germany was the second-highest donor last year after the U.S., with €17.1 billion, followed by the U.K. with €6.6 billion, and then Nordic and Eastern European countries. France, in comparison, has only contributed €0.54 billion, Italy €0.69 billion and Spain €0.34 billion.
Macron also said France and Europe would have to take “new decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” likely a reference to talks in Brussels to resolve a dispute over a €50 billion aid package to Ukraine.
LIGHTS flashing and horns blaring, 3,000 tractors trundled through Hanover in Germany bringing its streets to a gridlocked standstill.
Stepping down from his cab, arable farmer Axel Friehe told me his beleaguered nation’s economy is “breaking down”.
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Tractors of protesting farmers line the streets in front of the Brandenburg Gate in BerlinCredit: Getty
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Major German cities have been paralysed by demonstrating agricultural workers, truckers and small business peopleCredit: EPA
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Turnip farmer Christoph Berndt said ‘The AfD use the demonstrations to draw attention to themselves’Credit: Louis Wood
“We hope our protests are the start of something big,” he said of the tractor cavalcade being cheered by locals.
Farmer Friehe, 51, may soon have his wish.
Troubled Germany’s major cities have been paralysed by demonstrating agricultural workers, truckers and small business people.
Some 500 tractors gathered at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate and 5,000 paraded through Munich’s streets.
While French farmers have made protesting something of a national pastime — infamously torching a lorry full of British sheep in 1990 — their German counterparts are traditionally less militant.
Yet a heavy-handed bid by its government to slash a tax break on diesel used in agricultural machinery — worth around £2,500 a year to each farmer — has made zealots of German country folk.
I watched on Wednesday as locals in Hanover gave farmers hearty cheers and the thumbs up despite the traffic tailbacks in the north German city of 536,000 citizens.
For the tractor strike is a symptom of a wider malaise gripping Germany.
The country’s once booming export market made it the industrial powerhouse at the heart of Europe.
Yet since the pandemic its sluggish economy has grown by just 0.3 per cent — compared to 1.4 per cent in the UK — making it by far the worst performer in the G7 group of nations.
Stringent green initiatives, including the rolling out of heat pumps, have been unpopular with many.
‘Hungry, naked and sober’
And mass migration — last year Germany had more than 350,000 asylum applications — has become a major political flashpoint.
Its ruling coalition of the left-of- centre Social Democratic Party, the Greens and liberal Free Democrats have been trying to plug a near £15billion budget black hole.
Into this economic and social maelstrom has stepped the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, who critics say are “infiltrating” the farmers’ demonstrations.
Last week it was reported that high-ranking AfD officials were caught at a secret conference where a “masterplan” for the forced deportation of millions of migrants to Africa was discussed.
The meeting, at a luxury hotel last November, featured a talk by far-right Identitarian Movement activist Martin Sellner, who is permanently banned from the UK for extremism.
It was claimed that the “remigration” proposals discussed at the event, infiltrated by news network Collectiv, included deporting immigrants with German passports.
Those in attendance — reportedly alongside neo-Nazis — included Roland Hartwig, a personal aide to AfD leader Alice Weidel, and AfD MP Gerrit Huy.
The AfD denied it had a “secret plan” but added: “We need passport withdrawal for criminals and remigration!”
At last week’s Hanover protest, turnip farmer Christoph Berndt, 31, insisted: “The AfD use the demonstrations to draw attention to themselves.
“They say the farmers are on their side, which isn’t true.”
Driving nearly 40 miles on his green John Deere tractor to be at the good-natured demonstration, he added: “The politicians in Berlin make it more difficult for us to work and make money.
“So we go on to the street and try to animate people to understand us and what we do in the fields.”
German flags fluttered from tractor cabs with signs on their front loaders reading: “No food without us.”
Another read: “Without agriculture you’d be hungry, naked and sober.”
Air horns sounded in the sub-zero chill as farmers gathered outside Lower Saxony’s regional parliament building in Hanover.
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Locals cheered the tractor cavalcadeCredit: @UNCOFILM
Expressing the fury felt by many, Volker Hahn, who helped to organise the demo, said: “The Government needs money and they will take it from the farmers. It’s a horrible situation.”
Volker, 55, who tends pigs, chickens and potatoes at his 600-acre farm, added: “We don’t welcome the support of AfD.
“They’re extreme.”
To add to the air of despondency felt by many, Hanover and other German cities have also been crippled by train driver strikes this week.
At the parliament building I met Sonja Markgraf, from the Rural People of Lower Saxony group, which also helped to organise the tractor protest.
She said: “The French people were always on the barricades but in Germany everyone felt comfortable.”
Now, she says, times have changed, with farmers seething at being asked to help plug the Government’s budget gap.
She added: “We are very happy that the protests are peaceful — but loud. The population stands behind us.”
Sonja, 53, says people from all backgrounds are facing unrealistic demands on environmental issues.
She added: “Heat pumps are a good example. It’s not wrong to do it, it’s the way they do it.
“It was too quick, wasn’t well explained and people are worried about the price.
“Reforms are necessary but you have to take the people with you.
“This feeling is in every part of the population, whether you’re poor, rich or middle-class. It’s not great for the general mood.”
She blames people’s fears over illegal immigration for AfD’s rise, saying: “Even three or four years ago it wasn’t an issue.
“Now the municipalities say they have no rooms, no flats or apartments so it’s more visible now.
“So the AfD tries to profit from it.”
Germany has long been renowned in British minds as a land of efficiency, where everything works.
It was praised for how it faced up to its Nazi past and built a vibrant, liberal democracy with a turbo-charged economy.
That booming post-war Germany was summed up in Audi’s 1980s advertising slogan “vorsprung durch technik”, meaning “progress through technology”.
Now its famed export trade of cars and machinery is in deep trouble.
German car makers produced almost 40 per cent fewer vehicles in 2022 than they did a decade previously.
And politicians have failed to tackle creaking infrastructure, a housing shortage and high-speed internet rollout.
Labelled the Sick Man of Europe — an historic term that was used to describe Britain in the 1970s — its economy is predicted to perform worse than Britain’s in the next decade.
Though expected to return to growth this year, Germany — the world’s third biggest economy — is forecast to be overtaken by Japan in 2026 and India in 2027.
At Hanover’s regional parliament building I met the AfD’s Frank Rinck, who denies his far-right party has “infiltrated” the farmers’ demos.
The MP and chairman of the Lower Saxony AfD said the group were “simply engaging with these demonstrations like any other political party”.
Frank, an agricultural contractor, says the Government’s subsidy cut will lead to a “further death” of the farming sector.
He added: “At some point our domestic agricultural sector will not be able to feed indigenous people.”
He said it was news to him that AfD politicians had attended a “remigration” conference, describing reports as “a storm in a teacup”.
He added: “In Germany things like this tend to come up when problems arise and people demonstrate.”
Watching the AfD’s rise warily are the centre-right Christian Democratic Union party, currently Germany’s leading party in opinion polls.
Its agriculture spokesman in Lower Saxony’s parliament, Dr Marco Mohrmann, ruled out working with the AfD in a coalition.
The dad of three told me: “A big part of the AfD is extreme right — and that’s not our way.”
While accepting Germany should take in asylum seekers and skilled migrants, he admitted Britain’s stuttering Rwanda policy may also be a way forward for his country.
Conservative-leaning Marco, 59, said: “I think the model the UK is doing with Rwanda is interesting.
“It’s a third-country solution where you can look at someone and decide if they can get asylum or not.
“A year ago we couldn’t discuss something like this but now we can, and we have to.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tried to contain farmers’ rage by phasing out the diesel tax break over time and scrapping plans to abolish tax exemption on agricultural vehicles.
Yet the scale of the protests — and their support across German society — suggests he has not done enough.
Yesterday 5,000 tractors and 10,000 protesters blockaded Berlin in a climax to a week of protest. Fresh talks with Government representatives are set.
Rural People of Lower Saxony’s Sonja Markgraf insisted: “If it’s not good for the farmers then we say, ‘We go on’.”
Germany’s Great Tractor Revolution may still only be in first gear.
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Volker Hahn helped to organise the demonstration in HanoverCredit: Louis Wood
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tried to contain farmers’ rage by phasing out the diesel tax break over time and scrapping plans to abolish tax exemption on agricultural vehiclesCredit: Getty
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Sonja Markgraf, from the Rural People of Lower Saxony group, also helped to organise the tractor protestCredit: Louis Wood
EXCLUSIVE: German director Wim Wenders has scored his best box office performance in 15 years with Japan-set, comeback featurePerfect Days, according to collated figures released by sales agent The Match Factory.
The Tokyo-set drama, starring Japanese actor Koji Yakusho as man with a love of trees who mysteriously opts for a simply life by working as a toilet cleaner, premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where its star won Best Actor.
The movie, which is now on the nominee short-list in the Best International Feature Film category at the 2024 Academy Awards, is currently playing theatrically in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal and the Baltics.
It enjoyed a strong opening in Germany on December 21 by Berlin-based distributor DCM, achieving 19,859 admissions for a $209,014 (€190,611) gross in its first week. It has since racked up a total of 171,298 admissions for a $1.8M (€1.64M) gross.
In France, where the film is in its seventh week on release for Haut et Court, it has sold 356,109 tickets for a $2.8M (€2.57M) gross.
The film also looks set for a successful run in Italy where it opened for Lucky Red on January 4, ranking no. 2 in the charts, and has since racked up 142.007 admissions for a $1m (€962,450) gross.
“Although not all territories are out, the worldwide box office Perfect Days is $8,566,110,” announced The Match Factory in a note on the film’s box office performance.
“These numbers surpass the box office results of Wim Wenders’ feature films in the last fifteen years and mark a historical comeback of the director of Wings Of Desire and Paris, Texas,” it added, referring to his 1987 Cannes Best Director winner and 1984 Palme d’Or victor respectively.
Perfect Days opens in Spain and Sweden this weekend and is also set to launch theatrically in Norway, Denmark, Finland, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, UK & Ireland, Latin America, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand in the coming weeks.
Further theatrical launches are expected across 2024 given that the film sold out for The Match Factory in the wake of its buzzy Cannes premiere..
Neon is bringing the film to U.S. theaters on February 7, 2024.
BERLIN — As the far-right Alternative for Germany continues to rise — and its radicalism becomes increasingly pronounced — a growing chorus of mainstream politicians is asking whether the best way to stop the party is to try to ban it.
The debate kicked off in earnest after Saskia Esken, the co-chief of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), came out earlier this month in favor of discussing a ban — if only, as she put it, to “shake voters” out of their complacency.
Since then, politicians from across the political spectrum have weighed in on whether a legal effort to ban Alternative for Germany (AfD), while possible under German law, would be tactically smart — or only further fuel the party’s rise.
Like so much of German politics, the conversation is colored by the country’s Nazi past. In a society mindful that Adolf Hitler initially gained strength at the ballot box, with the Nazis winning a plurality of votes in federal elections before seizing power, a growing number of political leaders, particularly on the left, view a prohibition of the AfD — a party they view as a dire threat to Germany’s democracy — as an imperative rooted in historical experience.
Others fear the attempt would backfire by allowing the AfD to depict their mainstream opponents as undermining the democratic will of the German people, desperate to ban a party they can’t beat.
Indeed, the AfD appears to be trying to turn the debate to its tactical advantage.
“Calls for the AfD to be banned are completely absurd and expose the anti-democratic attitude of those making these demands,” said Alice Weidel, co-leader of the party, in a written statement to POLITICO. “The repeated calls for a ban show that the other parties have long since run out of substantive arguments against our political proposals.”
The debate is assuming greater urgency in a key year in which the AfD appears set to do better than ever in June’s European Parliament election as well as in three state elections in eastern Germany in September. The party is currently in second place with 23 percent support in national polls; across all the states of the former East Germany, not including Berlin, the AfD is currently leading in polls.
Calls for a party ban grew louder this week following revelations that AfD members attended a secretive meeting of right-wing extremists where a “master plan” for deporting millions of people, including migrants and “unassimilated citizens,” was discussed. The news sent shockwaves across the country, with many drawing parallels to similar plans made by the Nazis. One of the people reportedly in attendance was Roland Hartwig, a former parliamentarian and now a close personal aide to Weidel, the party’s co-leader.
In a post on X, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suggested it was a matter for the German judiciary.
“Learning from history is not just lip service,” he said. “Democrats must stand together.”
Many of the AfD’s most extreme leaders operate in eastern Germany, where the party is also the most popular. In two of the three states where the AfD will be competing in state elections next year — Thuringia and Saxony — state-level intelligence authorities have labeled local party branches as “secured extremist” — a designation that strengthens legal arguments for a ban.
Saskia Esken of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) called for a ban on the AfD party to ‘shake’ up complacent voters | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
Germany’s constitution allows for bans of parties that “seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order” — essentially allowing the state to use anti-democratic means to prevent an authoritarian party from corroding democracy from within.
In reality, the legal hurdle for imposing a ban is very high. Germany’s constitutional court has only done it twice: The Socialist Reich Party, an heir to the Nazi party, was banned in 1952, while the Communist Party of Germany was prohibited in 1956.
More recently, in 2017, the court ruled that a neo-Nazi party known as the National Democratic Party (NPD), while meeting the ideological criteria for a prohibition, was too fringe to ban, as it lacked popular support and therefore the power to endanger German democracy.
Given the AfD’s poll numbers, however, an effort to ban it would pose an entirely different dilemma: How would politicians handle the backlash from the party’s many supporters?
Germany’s postwar democracy has arguably never faced a greater test, and politicians — as well as the public — remain divided over how to respond.
Center-right conservatives, who are leading in national polls, tend to view a ban attempt unfavorably.
“Such sham debates are grist to the AfD’s mill,” Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, told the Münchner Merkur newspaper. In response to Esken, the SPD leader who favors exploring a ban, Merz added: “Does the SPD chairwoman seriously believe that you can simply ban a party that reaches 30 percent in the polls? That’s a frightening suppression of reality.”
For the SPD, the stakes in terms of their political survival are much higher. The party has experienced a sharp decline in its popularity, and in two states in Germany’s east it is dangerously close to falling below the 5 percent hurdle needed to win seats in state parliaments.
Even within the SPD — a party whose history of resistance to the Nazis is a source of great internal pride — there is sharp disagreement over whether a ban is a good idea.
“If we ban a party that we don’t like, but which is still leading in the polls, it will lead to even greater solidarity with it,” Carsten Schneider, a social democrat who serves as federal commissioner for eastern Germany, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “And even from people who are not AfD sympathizers or voters, the collateral damage would be very high.”
Western warplanes and guided missiles roared through the skies over Yemen in the early hours of Friday in a dramatic response to the worsening crisis engulfing the region, where the U.S. and its allies are facing a direct confrontation with Iranian-backed militants.
The strikes against Houthi fighters are a response to weeks of fighting in the Red Sea, where the group has attempted to attack or hijack dozens of civilian cargo ships and tankers in what it calls retribution for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Washington launched the massive aerial bombardment of the group’s military stores and drone launch sites in partnership with British forces, and with the support of a growing coalition that includes Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, South Korea and Bahrain.
Tensions between Tehran and the West have boiled over in the weeks since its ally, Hamas, launched its October 7 attack on Israel, while Hezbollah, the military group that controls much of southern Lebanon, has stepped up rocket launches across the border. Along with Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthis form part of the Iranian-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ opposed to both the U.S. and Israel.
Now, the prospect of a full-blown conflict in one of the most politically fragile and strategically important parts of the world is spooking security analysts and energy markets alike.
Escalation fears
Houthi leaders responded to the strikes, which saw American and British forces hit more than 60 targets in 16 locations, with characteristic bravado. They warned the U.S. and U.K. will “have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences” for what they called a “blatant aggression.”
“We will confront America, kneel it down, and burn its battleships and all its bases and everyone who cooperates with it, no matter what the cost,” threatened Abdulsalam Jahaf, a member of the group’s security council.
However, following the overnight operation, Camille Lons, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said there may now be “a period of calm because it may take Iran some time to replenish the Houthis stocks” before they are able to resume high-intensity attacks on Red Sea shipping. But, she cautioned, their motivation to continue to target shipping will likely be unaltered.
The Western strikes are “unlikely to immediately halt Houthi aggression,” agreed Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for the Near East. “That will almost certainly mean having to continue to respond to Houthi strikes, and potentially with increasing aggression.”
“The Houthis view themselves as having little to lose, emboldened militarily by Iranian provisions of support and confident the U.S. will not entertain a ground war,” he said.
Iran also upped the ante earlier this week by boarding and commandeering a Greek-operated oil tanker that was loaded with Iraqi crude destined for Turkey, intercepting it as it transited the Strait of Hormuz. The vessel, the St. Nikolas, was previously apprehended for violating sanctions on Iranian oil and its cargo was confiscated and sold off by the U.S. Treasury Department. Its Greek captain and crew of 18 Filipino nationals are now in Iranian custody, with the incident marking a sharp escalation in the threats facing maritime traffic.
Israeli connection
Washington and London are striving to distinguish their bid to deter the Houthis in the Red Sea from the war in Gaza, fearful that merging the two will hand Tehran a propaganda advantage in the Middle East. The Houthis and Iran are keen to accomplish the reverse.
The Houthi leadership claims its attacks on maritime traffic are aimed at pressuring Israel to halt its bombing of the Gaza Strip and it insists it is only targeting commercial vessels linked to Israel or destined to dock at the Israeli port of Eilat, a point contested by Western powers.
“The Houthis claim that their attacks on military and civilian vessels are somehow tied to the ongoing conflict in Gaza — that is completely baseless and illegitimate. The Houthis also claim to be targeting specifically Israeli-owned ships or ships bound for Israel. That is simply not true, they are firing indiscriminately on vessels with global ties,” a senior U.S. official briefing reporters in Washington said Friday.
Wider Near East crisis
The Red Sea isn’t the only hotspot where American and European forces and their allies are facing off against Iran and its partners.
In November, U.S. F-15 fighter jets hit a weapons storage facility in eastern Syria that the Pentagon says was used by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Shia militants it supports in the war-torn country. The response came after dozens of American troops were reportedly injured in attacks in Iraq and Syria linked back to Tehran.
Israel’s war with Hamas has also risked spreading, after a blast killed one of the militant group’s commanders in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, earlier in January. Hezbollah vowed a swift response and tensions have soared along the border between the two countries, with Israeli civilians evacuated from their homes in towns and villages close to the frontier.
All of that contributes to an increasingly volatile environment that has neighboring countries worried, said Christian Koch, director at the Saudi Arabia-based Gulf Research Center.
“There’s a lot at stake at the moment and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and others are extremely worried about further escalation and then being subject to retaliation,” he said. “Now, the danger of regional escalation has been heightened further, which could mean that Iran will get further involved in the conflict, and this is a dangerous spiral downwards.”
While long-planned efforts to normalize ties between the Saudis and Israel collapsed in the wake of the October 7 attack and the subsequent military response, Riyadh has pushed forward with a policy of de-escalation with the Houthis after a decade of violent conflict, and sought an almost unprecedented rapprochement with Iran.
“Saudi Arabia has had one objective, which is to prevent this from escalating into a wider regional war,” said Tobias Borck, an expert on Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute. “It has attempted over the last few years to bring its intervention in the war in Yemen to a close, including through negotiations with the Houthis and actually from all we know from the outside, [they] are reasonably close to an agreement.”
The Western coalition is therefore a source of anxiety, rather than relief, for Gulf States.
“Saudi Arabia and UAE are staying out of this coalition because mainly they don’t want to have the Houthis attack them as they had been for years and years with cruise missiles,” said retired U.S. General Mark Kimmitt, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. However, American or European boots on the ground are unlikely to be necessary, he added, because “our capabilities these days to find, fix and attack even mobile missile launchers is pretty well refined.”
Far-reaching consequences
At the intersection of Europe and Asia, the Red Sea is a vital thoroughfare for energy and international trade. Maritime traffic through the region has already dropped by 20 percent, Rear Admiral Emmanuel Slaars, the joint commander of French forces in the region, told reporters on Thursday.
According to data published this week by the German IfW Kiel institute, global trade fell by 1.3 percent from November to December, with the Houthi attacks likely to have been a contributing factor.
The volume of containers in the Red Sea also plummeted and is currently almost 70 percent below usual, the institute said. In December, that caused freight costs and transportation time to rise and imports and exports from the EU to be “significantly lower” than in November.
In one indication of the impact on industrial supply chains, U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla said Friday it would shut its factory in Germany for two weeks.
Around 12 percent of the world’s oil and 8 percent of its gas normally flow through the waterway, as well as hundreds of cargo ships. Oil prices climbed more than 2.5 percent following the strikes, fueling market concerns of the impact a wider conflict could have on oil supplies from the region, especially those being shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, linking the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean and the world’s most important oil chokepoint.
The Houthi attacks on the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways, have already caused major shipping companies, including oil giant BP, to halt shipments through the Red Sea, opting for a lengthy detour around the Cape of Good Hope instead.
According to Borck, the impact on energy prices has been limited so far but will depend on what happens next.
“We need to look for two actors’ actions here. One is the Houthis, how they respond, and the other one is, of course, looking at how Iran responds,” he said. While Tehran has the “nuclear option” of closing the Strait of Hormuz altogether, it’s unlikely to do so at this stage.
“I don’t think the Strait of Hormuz is next. I think there would be quite a few steps on the escalation ladder first,” he added.
But Simone Tagliapietra, an energy expert at Brussels’ Bruegel think tank, warned that a growing confrontation with Iran could lead to tougher enforcement of sanctions on its oil exports. The West has turned a blind eye to Tehran’s increasing sales to China in the wake of the war in Ukraine, which has relieved some pressure on global energy markets.
A crackdown, he believes, “could see global oil prices rising substantially, pushing inflation higher and further complicating the efforts of central banks to bring it under control.”
However, Saudi Arabia and the UAE could help compensate for such a move by ramping up their own production — provided they’re willing to risk the ire of Iran.
Gabriel Gavin reported from Yerevan, Armenia. Antonia Zimmermann from Brussels and Jamie Dettmer from Tel-Aviv.
Laura Kayali contributed reporting from Paris.
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Gabriel Gavin, Antonia Zimmermann and Jamie Dettmer
Europe’s leaders and top officials are descending on Kyiv with pledges of fresh support as Russia continues its relentless air attacks against Ukraine.
Newly appointed French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said on Saturday in Kyiv that Ukraine will remain “France’s priority” despite “the multiplying crises” during his first foreign trip after his appointment last week. Séjourné hailed a “new phase” in joint weapons production with Ukraine during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.
Séjourné’s trip came on the heels of a visit Friday by U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during which he announced a multi-year security pact with Ukraine. The British leader committed £2.5 billion (€2.9 billion) in military aid to Ukraine for 2024/2025, as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
France’s Séjourné pledged to boost joint cooperation with Ukraine and “reinforce Ukraine’s capacity to produce on its territory” with France’s top firms. France has also been negotiating a security pact with Ukraine but the details have yet to be announced.
Poland’s Donald Tusk is expected to visit Kyiv this week, possibly on Monday.
The visits by European leaders come in the wake of weeks of renewed Russian air strikes against Ukraine and amid fears that U.S. help has stalled due to a blocked Congress and this year’s American presidential election. On Saturday, Ukrainian air defenses recorded a total of 40 attacks.
Earlier this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz issued an unusually stark call to other EU countries to deliver more weapons to Ukraine. The arms deliveries planned so far were “too small,” he said, despite Berlin’s pledge to double its military aid to Kyiv to €8 billion this year.
According to the Kiel Institute, which tallied up military aid to Ukraine in the public domain, Germany was the second-highest donor last year after the U.S., with €17.1 billion; it was followed by the U.K. with €6.6 billion and by Nordic and eastern EU countries. France, in comparison, has only contributed €0.54 billion, Italy €0.69 billion and Spain €0.34 billion.
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday urged other EU nations to deliver more military aid to Ukraine, saying Berlin has asked Brussels to check with countries on their planned support for Kyiv.
Speaking to reporters, Scholz warned that while his government is planning to double its military aid to Ukraine to €8 billion this year within a draft budget, “this alone will not be enough to guarantee Ukraine’s security in the long term.
“I therefore call on our allies in the European Union to also step up their efforts in support of Ukraine. The arms deliveries for Ukraine planned so far by the majority of EU member states are by all means too small,” he said. “We need higher contributions.”
The chancellor’s unusually frank remarks, delivered at a press conference with Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden, reflect the growing frustration and concern among German officials that other EU countries appear to be delivering insufficient military resources to Ukraine, about to enter its third year of full-scale invasion by Russia.
Scholz said other EU countries are “perhaps” planning further weapons deliveries, “but we are not aware of them” — and that, accordingly, Berlin has asked the EU to verify with member scountries what support they are planning. “At the latest” by the next summit of EU leaders on February 1, Scholz added, “we need an overview as precise as possible of what concrete contribution our European partners will make to support Ukraine this year.”
The chancellor also expressed optimism that EU countries can overcome Hungary’s objections to a €50 billion EU aid package for Ukraine, which is slated to be adopted during the February summit.
“I am confident that we will manage to get a decision by all 27 member states,” Scholz said. “That is what we are working on very intensively and where we are putting a lot of effort into actually making this possible.”
There are plenty of studies exploring how substances like cannabis and psilocybin can help treat depression, but far fewer research exploring how video games can positively treat that kind of condition. Recently in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers from the University of Bonn in Germany found that people suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) saw a reduction in symptoms after a 3D video game (in this case, participants playing Super Mario Odyssey a game that release on Nintendo Switch in 2017). It’s the first randomized controlled study of its kind to examine the effects of a six-week video game intervention on those with depression.
Researchers explained that people with MDD often experience “reduced affect, mood, and cognitive impairments such as memory problems,” but most treatments do not target the cognitive deficits, which is why they believed that video games could help. “Playing 3D video games has been found to improve cognitive functioning in healthy people, but it is not clear how they may affect depressed mood and motivation in people with MDD,” researchers wrote. “The aim of this study was to investigate whether a six-week video game intervention leads to improvements in depressed mood, training motivation, and visuo-spatial (working) memory functions in patients with MDD.”
Forty-six clinically depressed people were split into three groups: 1.) the experimental “3D video gaming” group, an active control group who trained with a computer program called COGPACK (which is a cognitive remediation program), and 3.) a group that received typical treatment methods such as psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. All participants were asked to perform a neuropsychological assessment, such as self-reporting questions.
The reason Super Mario Odyssey was chosen was in part because of a previous study from 2015 identified benefits of 3D-based games (the study used “Super Mario World” as an example) “can promote hippocampal plasticity, which consequently led to an enhancement in hippocampus associated cognitive functions, such as visuo-spatial memory” in comparison to a 2D game (the example was Angry Birds).
The results of the most recent study showed that there was a significant decrease in depressive symptoms. “Results indicate that after six weeks of training the 3D video gaming group showed a significant decrease in the proportion of participants with clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms by self-report and a higher mean training motivation when compared with the active control group,” researchers wrote in their conclusion. “Furthermore, results suggest significant improvements in tasks of visuo-spatial (working) memory performance during post-testing in both training groups, however, the 3D video gaming group demonstrates more selective improvements and does not perform significantly better than the other two groups.”
As of September 2023, Super Mario Odyssey is one of the highest selling Nintendo Switch games of all time, placed in fifth place on a list of games in units. In first place is Mario Kart 8 (57.01 million units), second is Animal Crossing: New Horizons (43.38 million units), third is Super Smash Brothers Ultimate (32.44 million units), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (31.15 million units), and finally Super Mario Odyssey (26.95 million units).
We’ve also seen a steady increase in studies relating to treating various depression conditions with psychedelic substances. Medical cannabis studies continue to showcase the benefits on a variety of conditions. In November an Australian study reported the benefits of medical cannabis that improved patients’ quality of life, as well as reduced pain, anxiety, and depression.
Psilocybin was found to be a promising treatment for people with depression in a September study conducted by the American Medical Association. Earlier in December, another study found that patients with bipolar II depression benefited from using psilocybin as a treatment.
Other studies have evaluated the effects of DMT for depression too, such as one that was conducted by a United Kingdom pharmaceutical company in January 2023. Researchers said that DMT offered “a significant antidepressant effect that was rapid and durable.”
Ketamine is also being studied as a possibility for treating severe depression, as seen in a June 2023 research initiative. ECT has been the gold standard for treating severe depression for over 80 years,” researchers explained. “But it is also a controversial treatment because it can cause memory loss, requires anesthesia, and is associated with social stigma. This is the largest study comparing ketamine and ECT treatments for depression that has ever been done, and the only one that also measured impacts to memory.”
There’s a lot of potential to be studied between these substances and depression, as well as many other conditions. And with the newest research putting the spotlight on 3D video games as a method of treating depression as well, it will be very interesting to see how these two separate methods of treatment continue to evolve, or even possibly overlap.
Super Mario titles have always represented the more wholesome side of video games. Maybe all Mario games have the potential to treat depression because of this, or maybe some Super Mario games are more likely than others to offer cognitive benefits to players. While we eagerly await more studies on these topics, check out our review of Super Mario Bros. Wonder which offers a delightful journey into the strange and hilarious unknown.
