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by Fabio Cappelli

January 14, 2021

SZ


The man of the CDU


Merz, Laschet or Röttgen: the Christian Democrats decide, months late, who should lead them in the post-Merkel era.

The race is considered open and forecasts are difficult.

This is also due to the fact that it is the first digital party congress in the history of the Federal Republic.

Nobody knows how this will affect the outcome.

Instead of in a hall in front of 1001 delegates, Laschet, Merz and Röttgen will have to deliver their candidacy speeches in a Berlin studio in front of a camera.

The polls are also not very significant: none of the candidates should exceed 50% on the first ballot.

The Prime Minister of Hesse and Federal Vice President of the CDU Volker Bouffier has spoken out openly in favor of Laschet, Kramp-Karrenbauer also, indirectly.

The Federal Council of SMEs has come out in favor of Merz, as has the Junge Union.


Laschet, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, is also supported by Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn.

In case of election as president, Laschet will propose Spahn as deputy leader of the party.

Norbert Röttgen sided against a coalition with the liberals, provoking violent reactions from the latter.

"You can't rely on a party that sometimes wants to rule and then doesn't," he said.

The liberals accuse the Greens of binding hands and feet.



Handelsblatt


Time to decide


Let's look at the candidates' programs, what they mean for the economy and what they think in the business world.

Interview with Armin Laschet: "The Liberal Party is much closer to us than the Greens".

The prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia leaves no doubts: if he becomes president of the CDU, he also wants to become chancellor - and ideally form a coalition with the liberals.

Laschet set the electoral target of the Union.

"We are currently at 35% plus tot. If we stay the course, we can achieve the same result in the next general elections".

Laschet announced that the Union will fight for itself and not for a coalition.

"I am very surprised that everyone is already assuming that a black-green alliance will rule Germany after the September elections," he said.

This is not his dream alliance.



Liberation


CDU After Merkel, the big leap back


Modernized, feminized and led for 18 years by Angela Merkel, the CDU risks a step backwards with three candidates, all male, Catholic, from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous region in the country, and typically "West German".

In stark contrast to the Chancellor: a woman, Protestant, from the former communist GDR, divorced and childless.

A true return to "values", right-wing conservatives rejoice.

"In any case, the CDU has to step out of Merkel's shadow, whether she likes it or not," says Friedrich Merz. 


Liberation


the great anguish


the very precarious psychological conditions of young people, deprived of university courses and fully affected by the restrictions of the pandemic, are worrying



FAZ


New record of daily deaths from Covid-19: 1244


After his promising prognosis that the pandemic will be "under control" by the end of the year, the president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, painted a grim picture of the current pandemic situation.

There is a possibility that mutations in the virus "lead to even more cases in a shorter time".

Wieler therefore urged the Germans to take the restrictions much more seriously




Daily Telegraph


Shock data in nursing homes at levels never seen by the first wave


The infected more than tripled in a month as the vaccination campaign encounters unexpected delays


Metro


Sorry, there are no beds


Patients brought back to ambulances in London hospitals.

Over 4 and a half million sick people on the waiting list of the national health service



Daily Mail


At least the contagion rate is falling.

Amidst suffering and difficulties, thanks to the lockdown, the contagion index drops to 0.6% in most of England







The number of


500,000 vaccinations per day in the government plan is


expected to more than double from next week to achieve immunity for the most vulnerable in mid-February, a confidential government document reads






Le Parisien


France's curfew


from Saturday, all at home from 6pm. Strengthened restrictions and maximum effort to increase the number of mass vaccination centers 






Le Figaro


curfew at 18 to avoid confinement


Luca De Meo's plan to relaunch Renault








Les Echos


Is the political crisis in Italy a threat to your financial situation?


Two Italian ministers, from Matteo Renzi's party, left the government on Wednesday.

The prospect of a political crisis has already raised the cost of Italian debt, but the markets are not panicking, thanks to the massive asset purchase program put in place by the European Central Bank.





FAZ


Government crisis increases Italy's risk


The government crisis in Italy should not cause sleepless nights for ECB President Christine Lagarde.

Because Italy's risk premiums on the bond market are still far from the level that makes us fear the worst.





Razon


Conte seeks new partners to stay in power


The Italian prime minister resists his resignation and negotiates specific parliamentary support to keep his government afloat.

What Conte did was to buy time.

While his opponents asked him to make his position available to President Mattarella, he pulled once again on the old Christian Democratic strategy.

It's about negotiating in the shadows, delaying the situation and trying to put the pieces back together.

What Conte seems to have achieved is to compact the two main forces of the alliance, the Democratic Party (PD) and the 5 Star Movement (M5E).

The bet is risky, since the Italian government would be in the hands of a few senators without a specific political affiliation, but this seems to be the path chosen by Conte and his allies.



El Pais


Renzi irresponsible


Italy devours a prime minister every 14 months (67 governments since the Second World War).

The country has gotten used to navigating a perennial political crisis.

A context in which the Palazzo Renzi movement, the main architect of the latest government crises since it removed his party colleague Enrico Letta from the presidency of the Council of Ministers to take his place in 2014, is not surprising.

The arguments now advanced by the Florentine, who denounces the shortcomings of this executive and Conte's excess of personalism when it comes to making decisions - such as the management of European funds for recovery - can be partially shared.

However, the timing is completely inopportune and plunges the country into an uncertainty that is at the expense of itself and its European neighbors.

Renzi argues that the pandemic cannot be the only reason this government remains in office.

But none of the reasons given, despite their legitimacy, seem powerful enough to subject the country to the risk of months of political paralysis that an early vote would entail.



FT


Tony Barber: Political intrigue threatens Italy while fateful choices are looming


Matteo Renzi has injected uncertainty into the political outlook just as Italy needs stable leadership.

Italy must focus on its top priority: the efficient implementation of a recovery plan based on Italy's share of EU funds, more than € 200 billion, a sum that previous Italian governments could only dream of spending.

The outlook is not that promising.

Renzi has rightly identified shortcomings in the government's plan, even if its main objective seems to be to make itself indispensable in the Italian political landscape.

The task is to ensure that the European Union funds do not waste away in waste and corruption, but go to projects that increase Italian productivity and improve the public administration and the judicial system.

EU partners are all too familiar with these shortcomings.

Far from indulging in intrigue, Italian politicians should focus on the optimal use of EU funds.

If they fail, frustration with Italy will grow in the rest of Europe.



FAZ


The misery of Italy, by Nicolas Busse


n Italy, the political class has become accustomed to blaming the EU or Germany for the misery of the country.

It almost doesn't matter what it is;

more recently, the wicked German government allegedly snatched vaccination doses from Italians.

And what did the country's politicians blame their European partners because they were not immediately ready in the spring to put together huge aid packages for the member states hit hard by Corona.


Now the money is there, Italy receives the gigantic sum of 209 billion euros.

No other EU country receives more.

And what is happening in Rome?

What's been going on for years: The ruling coalition tears apart in an internal dispute and falls apart.

The criticisms expressed by former Prime Minister Renzi on the management of the so-called fund for the reconstruction of the EU are not unfounded.

There is too much clientelism and too few reforms are being undertaken.

Prime Minister Conte has approached the issue with too much arrogance and there are only ideological reasons why the five-star movement rejects the urgently needed health care money from the European MES fund.

But is he doing something better than Renzi has now broken the coalition?

If Italian politics has to confront itself again for a longer period of time, even if there are new elections, then the large amount of money from Brussels will also not help.



NYT


Biden Outlines $ 1.9 Trillion Package to Fight Viruses and Recession


The proposal includes more than $ 400 billion to fight the pandemic directly, $ 1,400 in direct checks to Americans, and more generous unemployment benefits.

The plan is a bold move by President-elect Joe Biden, coming at a time of acute crisis and just one day after President Trump's impeachment.





WSJ


the real toll of Covid deaths in the world is worse than the official one 


The number of deaths recorded by the Covid-19 pandemic since Thursday is close to 2 million.

The true measure is far worse.

More than 2.8 million people lost their lives in the pandemic, according to an analysis of data from the Wall Street Journal from 59 countries and jurisdictions.

This tally provides the most comprehensive view to date of the global impact of the pandemic.

Deaths in these places last year increased by more than 12% from average levels.





From the editorial staff



Nezavisimaya Gazeta 


In Russia, Alexei Navalny's supporters are preparing to welcome the politician at Vnukovo airport (Moscow), where the opposition leader will arrive from Germany on the evening of 17 January.

It seems that the coordinators of the regional centers of the Navalny facility are also on their way to Moscow to protect him from immediate arrest.

In the meantime, a court hearing has been set for January 29 to evaluate the possible replacement of Navalny's suspended sentence with a real sentence of imprisonment.

Experts noted that the Kremlin has plenty of time to work out its possible reactions to Navalny's return.

An airport arrest is unlikely, but if it were to happen, it would be a serious mistake on the part of the authorities.

Navalny is returning to Russia to become the main opposition politician.



DW - América Latina  


Venezuela's president Nicolás Maduro, during his annual message to the nation, acknowledged that the minimum wage is not enough.

These are "wounds" that force the government to multiply forms of protection for families through the provision of bonuses.

Since the year Maduro came to power, the Caribbean country has received 98.6% less revenue than in 2013.



The president also admitted that unemployment and poverty have risen, although the margins presented are far below the non-governmental estimates, according to which the vast majority of Venezuelans live in misery.

Finally, Maduro, in front of the National Assembly, acknowledged that the revenues from the state oil company PDVS between 2015 and 2019 have decreased, a phenomenon that has led the country to lose revenue of about 102.5 billion dollars.