Sky Eclat
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 17, 2012
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Germany
The coronavirus pandemic could unleash a revolution in Germany if the middle classes become “radicalised” through the resulting economic chaos, a senior MP has warned.
An abrupt financial slump after a long period of prosperity might lead to the “breakdown of the political order” unless the restrictions on public life are lifted as swiftly as possible, according to Marco Buschmann, the director of the economically liberal Free Democrat group in the Bundestag.
“Make no mistake, the people will not put up with this for long,” Mr Buschmann, 42, wrote in Der Spiegel. “To put it bluntly: revolution could soon be in the air if things carry on like this.
“Should the German middle classes notice that their businesses are bankrupt, their jobs are gone or their shareholdings are worthless, they will be radicalised. That’s not scaremongering — it’s a lesson from history.”
Mr Buschmann, a lawyer and civil liberties campaigner, said Germany’s descent into totalitarianism in the 1930s had been hastened by the wave of disruption that followed the hyperinflation crisis of 1921-23 and the subsequent Wall Street crash.
He also pointed to the French revolution and the work of the American political scientists Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama, both of whom have argued that the declining social status of the middle classes is a potential source of instability.
However, Britta Hasselmann, Mr Buschmann’s opposite number in the Green Party, accused him of getting carried away. “Alarmism is the opposite of the rationality and objectivity that are so urgently necessary at this time,” she said.
Economists predict that the crisis could knock as much as 20 per cent off Germany’s GDP but ministers appear to be at odds over when the country can begin to return to normality.
Angela Merkel’s chief of staff has ruled out any talk of relaxing the measures until at least April 20. However, Armin Laschet, the chief minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and the leading candidate to succeed the chancellor, called for an “exit strategy” to be drawn up without delay.
Italy
The coronavirus contagion rate is dropping with politicians looking at reopening schools on May 4 if the trend continues, just over eight weeks after they were closed.
Each virus sufferer in Italy is currently infecting slightly more than one other person, down from 2.5 other people at the start of the outbreak, said Giovanni Rezza, the head of the infectious diseases department at Italy’s national health institute.
“It has dropped because of Italy’s lockdown, but it must fall further, below one, before the alarm is over. Even if it is 1.2 or 1.3 there will still be growth,” he said.
Professor Rezza said other indicators suggested Italy’s outbreak was slowing. “Reports of symptoms, which arrive before people test positive for the virus, are down, as is the number of people needing care in hospital,” he said.
As well as schools reopening on May 4 selected industries may be allowed to reopen by April 20, Sandra Zampa, a junior health minister, said. “But these are just hypotheses and depend on the numbers,” she added.
As well as schools reopening on May 4 selected industries may be allowed to reopen by April 20, Sandra Zampa, a junior health minister, said. “But these are just hypotheses and depend on the numbers,” she added.
Ms Zampa said life would not return to normal overnight, with numbers of people sharing buses and trains to be limited and a possible staggered return to work for different age groups, with the oldest returning last.
“We need to imagine returning to a life which will be very different,” she said. Experts have warned that social distancing will remain in place until a vaccine is introduced.
“Bars and night clubs will be the very last things to reopen,” said Fabrizio Pregliasco, a virologist at the University of Milan.
Centenarian survives two pandemics
In Rimini, on Italy’s east coast, a 101-year-old man infected with coronavirus has recovered and returned home to his family from hospital, the town’s deputy mayor announced. Named only as Mr P, the man was born in 1919, the year the Spanish flu killed millions, meaning the centenarian has now beaten the two deadliest viruses of the 20th and 21th centuries. “He has seen everything,” said Gloria Lisi, the deputy mayor. “War, hunger, pain, progress, crisis and resurrection. After becoming a centenarian, destiny laid on this new, invisible and terrible challenge.”
Austria
Shoppers will be required to wear face masks in supermarkets, where they will be distributed at store entrances, in a bid to slow transmission, Sebastian Kurz, the chancellor, said. He added that the aim in the medium-term was for people to wear them in public more generally as well. Austria has closed schools, restaurants, bars, cultural venues and other gathering places, including non-essential shops. People have been told to stay at home and work from there if possible. The country has reported 108 deaths and more than 9,000 cases so far, fewer than its neighbours Italy and Switzerland and within its health system’s capacity for now, but Kurz said its intensive care capacity could be exceeded by mid-April.
China
President Xi visited the eastern port city of Ningbo, signalling that the country needed to restart an economy hard hit by the coronavirus in past two months, even as doubts grow about the quality of some equipment China is exporting to help fight the outbreak.
Beijing is facing some backlash from its so-called ‘mask diplomacy’, after several foreign governments complained of poor quality shipments either sold or donated by China.
The Netherlands recalled 600,000 masks made in China and at least two countries, Spain and Czech, said China-made testing kits were woefully inaccurate.
The Global Times, a party newspaper, warned against the “politicisation” of product quality during the health crisis, when production might be hurried and it was harder to co-ordinate standards.
“For China, we must place strict quality requirements on medical supplies for export and we shall not allow a few companies to place profits above social responsibility and morals,” the newspaper said. “Foreign governments and media should remain rational. They should not exaggerate the quality issue and label it as a ‘Chinese’ issue.”
On his visit to Ningbo in the eastern province of Zhejiang, which depends heavily on overseas markets, President Xi said: “To accelerate work in Zhejiang is important for the whole nation, and it is equally crucial to stabilising the global supply chain.”
The virus has killed 3,304 people and infected 81,470 in China. Overnight, the country reported 31 new cases, 30 of which involved travellers from abroad.
•In Wuhan, Dr Ai Fen, director of emergency management at the city’s Central Hospital and one of the most prominent doctors to expose China’s cover-up of the epidemic, has disappeared, according to the Australian television programme Sixty Minutes.
She began speaking out against the authorities two weeks ago, beginning with an interview that the censors in the country have sought to erase from the internet.
President Xi visited the eastern port city of Ningbo in the province of Zhejiang, signalling that the country needed to restart an economy hard hit in the past two months. The virus has killed 3,304 people and infected 81,470 in China. Overnight, the country reported 31 new cases, 30 of which involved travellers from abroad.
Russia
Moscow awoke to tough new coronavirus lockdown yesterday as the Kremlin intensified its efforts to tackle a growing outbreak. Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, announced unprecedented restrictions to force Moscow’s 12 million residents to stay at home until at least April 14. People will only be allowed to leave their homes for emergency medical care, to shop for food or medicine, walk their pets or take out the rubbish. People will also be allowed to travel to and from work, although many people are now working from home. Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister, yesterday ordered regional officials to introduce similar measures across Russia. Mr Sobyanin, 61, said people in Moscow would need special QR code passes to leave home, although it was unclear when they would be issued. The lockdown marks a dramatic reversal in policy after the Kremlin last week insisted the situation was under control.
“It’s necessary to implement all the measures required in this situation, even if they may look somehow excessive,” President Putin said in a video conference with regional officials yesterday. “As the saying goes, God helps those who help themselves.”
Russia has 1,836 confirmed cases of coronavirus and nine deaths. Critics say the true number of cases is likely to be far higher and accuse the authorities of a cover-up.
Mr Sobyanin has increasingly taken centre stage amid the coronavirus crisis. He publically warned Mr Putin, 67, last week that official statistics on confirmed cases of the virus were inaccurate. His comments triggered a change in the way health officials verify positive tests and the numbers of confirmed cases spiked overnight.
Israel
Israel’s prime minister and his close aides have been placed under quarantine after a staff member within his office tested positive. Binyamin Netanyahu, 70, and “his close staff would be in confinement until (tests) were completed” his office said. Netanyahu is widely expected to agree on an emergency unity government with his election rival Benny Gantz to tackle the pandemic.
Mexico
The opera singer Plácido Domingo has been hospitalised in Acapulco, Mexico, with complications related to coronavirus. The tenor announced on his Facebook page last week that he had tested positive for the disease. The 79-year-old Spanish tenor resigned as general director of the Los Angeles Opera last year, after being accused of sexual harassment. While Domingo denied all allegations, the Los Angeles Opera’s independent investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by Domingo were found them to be credible earlier this month.
Australia
Researchers are fast-tracking mass human testing to establish if a vaccine used for decades to prevent tuberculosis can protect health workers from the virus. The trial of the BCG (bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccine will be conducted with 4,000 health workers in hospitals around Australia to find if it can reduce Covid-19 symptoms, the researchers at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne said. The BCG is routinely given to more than a million children a year in countries with tuberculosis, and is known to boost “immunity training it to respond to germs with greater intensity,” the institute said in a statement.
March 30 2020, The Times
The coronavirus pandemic could unleash a revolution in Germany if the middle classes become “radicalised” through the resulting economic chaos, a senior MP has warned.
An abrupt financial slump after a long period of prosperity might lead to the “breakdown of the political order” unless the restrictions on public life are lifted as swiftly as possible, according to Marco Buschmann, the director of the economically liberal Free Democrat group in the Bundestag.
“Make no mistake, the people will not put up with this for long,” Mr Buschmann, 42, wrote in Der Spiegel. “To put it bluntly: revolution could soon be in the air if things carry on like this.
“Should the German middle classes notice that their businesses are bankrupt, their jobs are gone or their shareholdings are worthless, they will be radicalised. That’s not scaremongering — it’s a lesson from history.”
Mr Buschmann, a lawyer and civil liberties campaigner, said Germany’s descent into totalitarianism in the 1930s had been hastened by the wave of disruption that followed the hyperinflation crisis of 1921-23 and the subsequent Wall Street crash.
He also pointed to the French revolution and the work of the American political scientists Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama, both of whom have argued that the declining social status of the middle classes is a potential source of instability.
However, Britta Hasselmann, Mr Buschmann’s opposite number in the Green Party, accused him of getting carried away. “Alarmism is the opposite of the rationality and objectivity that are so urgently necessary at this time,” she said.
Economists predict that the crisis could knock as much as 20 per cent off Germany’s GDP but ministers appear to be at odds over when the country can begin to return to normality.
Angela Merkel’s chief of staff has ruled out any talk of relaxing the measures until at least April 20. However, Armin Laschet, the chief minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and the leading candidate to succeed the chancellor, called for an “exit strategy” to be drawn up without delay.
Italy
The coronavirus contagion rate is dropping with politicians looking at reopening schools on May 4 if the trend continues, just over eight weeks after they were closed.
Each virus sufferer in Italy is currently infecting slightly more than one other person, down from 2.5 other people at the start of the outbreak, said Giovanni Rezza, the head of the infectious diseases department at Italy’s national health institute.
“It has dropped because of Italy’s lockdown, but it must fall further, below one, before the alarm is over. Even if it is 1.2 or 1.3 there will still be growth,” he said.
Professor Rezza said other indicators suggested Italy’s outbreak was slowing. “Reports of symptoms, which arrive before people test positive for the virus, are down, as is the number of people needing care in hospital,” he said.
As well as schools reopening on May 4 selected industries may be allowed to reopen by April 20, Sandra Zampa, a junior health minister, said. “But these are just hypotheses and depend on the numbers,” she added.
As well as schools reopening on May 4 selected industries may be allowed to reopen by April 20, Sandra Zampa, a junior health minister, said. “But these are just hypotheses and depend on the numbers,” she added.
Ms Zampa said life would not return to normal overnight, with numbers of people sharing buses and trains to be limited and a possible staggered return to work for different age groups, with the oldest returning last.
“We need to imagine returning to a life which will be very different,” she said. Experts have warned that social distancing will remain in place until a vaccine is introduced.
“Bars and night clubs will be the very last things to reopen,” said Fabrizio Pregliasco, a virologist at the University of Milan.
Centenarian survives two pandemics
In Rimini, on Italy’s east coast, a 101-year-old man infected with coronavirus has recovered and returned home to his family from hospital, the town’s deputy mayor announced. Named only as Mr P, the man was born in 1919, the year the Spanish flu killed millions, meaning the centenarian has now beaten the two deadliest viruses of the 20th and 21th centuries. “He has seen everything,” said Gloria Lisi, the deputy mayor. “War, hunger, pain, progress, crisis and resurrection. After becoming a centenarian, destiny laid on this new, invisible and terrible challenge.”
Austria
Shoppers will be required to wear face masks in supermarkets, where they will be distributed at store entrances, in a bid to slow transmission, Sebastian Kurz, the chancellor, said. He added that the aim in the medium-term was for people to wear them in public more generally as well. Austria has closed schools, restaurants, bars, cultural venues and other gathering places, including non-essential shops. People have been told to stay at home and work from there if possible. The country has reported 108 deaths and more than 9,000 cases so far, fewer than its neighbours Italy and Switzerland and within its health system’s capacity for now, but Kurz said its intensive care capacity could be exceeded by mid-April.
China
President Xi visited the eastern port city of Ningbo, signalling that the country needed to restart an economy hard hit by the coronavirus in past two months, even as doubts grow about the quality of some equipment China is exporting to help fight the outbreak.
Beijing is facing some backlash from its so-called ‘mask diplomacy’, after several foreign governments complained of poor quality shipments either sold or donated by China.
The Netherlands recalled 600,000 masks made in China and at least two countries, Spain and Czech, said China-made testing kits were woefully inaccurate.
The Global Times, a party newspaper, warned against the “politicisation” of product quality during the health crisis, when production might be hurried and it was harder to co-ordinate standards.
“For China, we must place strict quality requirements on medical supplies for export and we shall not allow a few companies to place profits above social responsibility and morals,” the newspaper said. “Foreign governments and media should remain rational. They should not exaggerate the quality issue and label it as a ‘Chinese’ issue.”
On his visit to Ningbo in the eastern province of Zhejiang, which depends heavily on overseas markets, President Xi said: “To accelerate work in Zhejiang is important for the whole nation, and it is equally crucial to stabilising the global supply chain.”
The virus has killed 3,304 people and infected 81,470 in China. Overnight, the country reported 31 new cases, 30 of which involved travellers from abroad.
•In Wuhan, Dr Ai Fen, director of emergency management at the city’s Central Hospital and one of the most prominent doctors to expose China’s cover-up of the epidemic, has disappeared, according to the Australian television programme Sixty Minutes.
She began speaking out against the authorities two weeks ago, beginning with an interview that the censors in the country have sought to erase from the internet.
President Xi visited the eastern port city of Ningbo in the province of Zhejiang, signalling that the country needed to restart an economy hard hit in the past two months. The virus has killed 3,304 people and infected 81,470 in China. Overnight, the country reported 31 new cases, 30 of which involved travellers from abroad.
Russia
Moscow awoke to tough new coronavirus lockdown yesterday as the Kremlin intensified its efforts to tackle a growing outbreak. Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, announced unprecedented restrictions to force Moscow’s 12 million residents to stay at home until at least April 14. People will only be allowed to leave their homes for emergency medical care, to shop for food or medicine, walk their pets or take out the rubbish. People will also be allowed to travel to and from work, although many people are now working from home. Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister, yesterday ordered regional officials to introduce similar measures across Russia. Mr Sobyanin, 61, said people in Moscow would need special QR code passes to leave home, although it was unclear when they would be issued. The lockdown marks a dramatic reversal in policy after the Kremlin last week insisted the situation was under control.
“It’s necessary to implement all the measures required in this situation, even if they may look somehow excessive,” President Putin said in a video conference with regional officials yesterday. “As the saying goes, God helps those who help themselves.”
Russia has 1,836 confirmed cases of coronavirus and nine deaths. Critics say the true number of cases is likely to be far higher and accuse the authorities of a cover-up.
Mr Sobyanin has increasingly taken centre stage amid the coronavirus crisis. He publically warned Mr Putin, 67, last week that official statistics on confirmed cases of the virus were inaccurate. His comments triggered a change in the way health officials verify positive tests and the numbers of confirmed cases spiked overnight.
Israel
Israel’s prime minister and his close aides have been placed under quarantine after a staff member within his office tested positive. Binyamin Netanyahu, 70, and “his close staff would be in confinement until (tests) were completed” his office said. Netanyahu is widely expected to agree on an emergency unity government with his election rival Benny Gantz to tackle the pandemic.
Mexico
The opera singer Plácido Domingo has been hospitalised in Acapulco, Mexico, with complications related to coronavirus. The tenor announced on his Facebook page last week that he had tested positive for the disease. The 79-year-old Spanish tenor resigned as general director of the Los Angeles Opera last year, after being accused of sexual harassment. While Domingo denied all allegations, the Los Angeles Opera’s independent investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by Domingo were found them to be credible earlier this month.
Australia
Researchers are fast-tracking mass human testing to establish if a vaccine used for decades to prevent tuberculosis can protect health workers from the virus. The trial of the BCG (bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccine will be conducted with 4,000 health workers in hospitals around Australia to find if it can reduce Covid-19 symptoms, the researchers at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne said. The BCG is routinely given to more than a million children a year in countries with tuberculosis, and is known to boost “immunity training it to respond to germs with greater intensity,” the institute said in a statement.
March 30 2020, The Times
