Party in Liverpool becomes a nightmare – the situation in the morning

Good morning, dear readers,

I have already reported for you for almost a month Seoul. In between, the homesickness grabbed me, especially because I can no longer see the pasta dishes here. But when I looked at my cell phone this morning when I got up, my first thought was: I just stay here. Why? Because I haven’t felt so safe in any place in the world as in the South Korean capital and megacity.

Of course, the political situation is tense because of the neighbor North Korea. And here too, unusual and raids happen. But in the past few weeks I have never had the feeling that I had to avoid even a street and I was able to visit events without the idea of ​​knife attacks or cars that race into a crowd. At home in Europe the reality is unfortunately different, the news from the British port city shows Liverpool.

The football club FC Liverpool had won the championship and thousands of football fans wanted to celebrate. Then a car drove into the exuberant amount. 27 people had to be taken to the hospital, some of which were seriously injured, among them a child. A 53-year-old Brit was arrested. The police initially excluded a terrorist act. But the background is still largely unclear. You can read what we know so far:

The SPD clearly answers this question with no. The party is not alone with this requirement. In Germany, criticism of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip is growing after the government blocked humanitarian aid. Even Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz is now openly expressed criticism: “To affect the civilian population as in the same way as this has been increasingly the case in the past few days, it can no longer be justified with a fight against Hamas terrorism.” International law has now broken Israel with his offensive.

A year ago, nobody in Germany would have dared to say something like this. But times change and Merz speaks out what many people think here long ago. Can one express criticism of Israel and at the same time maintain solidarity? It is a wire rope act that Chancellor Merz must now master.

My capital colleague Jan Roskranz meanwhile spoke to Volker Beck. The Green politician and chair of the German-Israeli society sees it all a little differently. What bothers him about criticism of Israel can be heard in the podcast:

German television celebrated a premiere last night – at least if you can believe the moderator Sandra Maischberger: Because for the first time the French and head of the European Central Bank was sitting on a German talk show. What do you expect as a viewer? Big forecasts on the European economy? How will the euro continue?

Then it was rather less. Maischberger wanted to know what an ECB boss is doing. Lagarde failed due to the job description. I googled briefly (so that you don’t have to do it): prepare sessions, have talks, implement monetary policy. Sounds boring, bureaucratic and something really imagined.

For this, Lagarde came across very sympathetically in the talk show, my colleague Andrea Zschocher writes in her TV criticism. You can find out what was most exciting about the conversation here:

I wish you a pleasant Tuesday

Christine Leitner
(News editor)