SZ: Blofare and Erdogan lost

The German press refers to the US-Turkey dispute over the F-35s. Pandemic: What does anthroposophy have to do with low vaccination rates in the German-speaking world?

At the beginning of the week, German press reports were dominated by concerns about how European countries would halt the pandemic in the face of winter, as well as the question of what the Glasgow International Conference on Climate Protection did. of climate. Analysts are also concerned about developments on the new immigration front on the Polish-Belarusian border and Turkey’s stance.

Indicatively the newspaper The world hosts a report from Istanbul airport describing the huge disappointment of those waiting in line for a ticket to Minsk when they learned before the check even began that Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis were not allowed to fly to Belarus. “Some were shocked, others were cursed, an old woman was crying and shouting, ‘Our money is gone, what are we going to do? We sold everything in our house,'” said the German journalist. “The woman and her family of eight left the city of Zaho, in the autonomous Kurdish regions, for Istanbul with brothers, sisters, daughters and Bevar’s son. They paid $ 2,500 per head. Bevar shows the visa for Belarus. A total of $ 20,000 went to an agency in Iraq. I die “describes the reporter what he experienced at the Turkish airport.

“Every month Turkey loses part of its military power”

The newspaper Southgerman newspaper brings to the fore the US-Turkey dispute over the S-400s and the country’s expulsion from the F-35 fighter program. “The Turkish president likes to bluff, but he lost,” the daily said. “And now that Ankara is without modern fifth-generation fighters, the Turkish Air Force is in danger of falling behind.” Erdogan’s chances of correcting the mistake are slim. The only alternative to the F-35s is to modernize the obsolete Turkish F-16 jets, but they also come from the United States. Turkey loses a part of its military power every month. The fanfare announcement of the Turkish 5th generation jet, a digitized Stealth, is for the time being in the realm of dreams “.

The journalist describes the few ways out of the country and points out: “Because the weather is pressing, there is, according to experts, only one solution, the immediate modernization of obsolete F-16s. Ankara has 270, half of which need to be renewed. to buy 40 new F-16s from the US and upgrade 80 obsolete ones, only then would the Turkish Air Force be somewhat equipped against its age-old enemy, Greece, Athens not only getting F-35s from the US, but also 18 Rafale from France, the Turks are with a noose around their necks, Presidential Adviser Ibrahim Kalin said it would be better if his country could re-enter the F-35 program, but a US official told the Yetkin website “Turkey is out. Dot and hyphen.”

The Anthroposophists and the Covid-19 vaccine

A very interesting aspect of the pandemic is approaching Spiegel on its website. The columnist points out that according to recent statistics, the German-speaking area has the worst vaccination rates in Western Europe. Why; “For a lot of reasons,” he replies. “If you look at the map, Thuringia, Saxony and Bavaria are particularly affected by Covid-19. The geographical proximity to Poland and the Czech Republic, where the numbers are high, is considered one of the causes, but there is also “Another reason: The skepticism of a bourgeoisie centered in southern Germany and Switzerland. Most of them are anthroposophists.” The columnist outlines the worldview of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, regarding the vaccine as follows: “Steiner believed that diseases have their meaning in karmic development. Whoever made mistakes in his previous life will have to make up for it through the conditions of the disease. “The disease, the poison of civilization is injected into the body, it artificially accelerates what would normally last. It prevents the body from growing on its own and mobilizing its natural forces.”

But the reality in Germany cannot be confronted with karmic messages. And the emerging government under Social Democrat Olaf Solz is on the verge of failure, before it even takes office during the Handelsblatt, which reads the relevant article entitled “Soltis risks the wrong start”. The commentator writes: “The list of policy omissions is long. The abolition of the epidemiological situation on a national scale is wrong, the dismantling of beds in the intensive care unit, the assumption that everything will improve as soon as citizens are vaccinated is the most urgent. important means of managing the pandemic, but it is not a guarantee of its immediate end, because in addition to the negatives, there are also unprotected children, because no one knows the duration of protection against the vaccine. In Cologne, carnivalgoers celebrated in the streets, possibly as a transmitter of the virus, and anyone can tell stories of acquaintances who, despite having a coronavirus, went shopping. All the parties are responsible for this reckless attitude towards the pandemic: The Christians, because they rushed to preach the crisis as I ended it, the Liberal, because it has been identified with the attitude of laissez-faire and finally of Soltz, because it remained a spectator of the developments for a long time “.

Irini Anastassopoulou

SOURCE: Deutsche Welle