Scholz, Olaf (1958- )
Vladimir Putin When Cornered Is More Dangerous Than Ever
Vladimir V. Putin’s menacing televised address on Wednesday was much more than a bid to change the course of his faltering war against Ukraine. It attempted to invert a war of aggression against a neighbor into one of defense of a threatened “motherland,” a theme that resonates with Russians steeped in patriotic history. Mr. Putin, […]
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Germany, Facing Energy Crisis, Gives Nuclear Another Look
LANDSHUT, Germany — When Angela Merkel pulled the plug on nuclear power after the Fukushima meltdown, she set Germany on a course to become the only leading industrial nation to abandon atomic energy in the world. The economic engine of Europe planned instead to fuel itself through a transition to renewable energies with cheap Russian […]
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Ukraine War’s Latest Victim? The Fight Against Climate Change.
BERLIN — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seemed like an unexpected opportunity for environmentalists, who had struggled to focus the world’s attention on the kind of energy independence that renewable resources can offer. With the West trying to wean itself from Russian oil and gas, the argument for solar and wind power seemed stronger than ever. […]
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Germany Ends a Nazi-Era Abortion Law That Criminalized Doctors
BERLIN — Lawmakers voted on Friday to end a Nazi-era ban on the advertisement of abortion services, a measure that had effectively criminalized doctors who provided information about the procedure. The law, though ignored for years, had recently prompted several high-profile legal cases against doctors. That, in turn, led to a sustained campaign by abortion-rights […]
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On Russia, Europe Weighs Competing Goals: Peace and Punishment
BRUSSELS — Losing ground to Russia’s brutal advance in the east, Ukraine on Monday demanded an arsenal of sophisticated Western weapons many times greater than what has been promised, or even discussed, underscoring the rising pressure on Western leaders to reconsider their approach to the war. The tactics that served the Ukrainians well early in […]
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How the Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Became Putin’s Man in Germany
But it was more than that, Mr. Schröder said. “I had been chancellor. I couldn’t go back to being a lawyer dealing with rental contracts. I needed a project,” he said. “Something I knew how to do and where I could serve German interests.” When Mr. Putin called Mr. Schröder on his cellphone the night […]
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Ukraine War Pushes Germans to Change. They Are Wavering.
BERLIN — Chancellor Olaf Scholz surprised the world, and his own country, when he responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with a 100-billion-euro plan to arm Germany, send weapons to Ukraine and end his nation’s deep dependence on Russian energy. It was Germany’s biggest foreign policy shift since the Cold War, what Mr. Scholz called […]
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Boris Johnson Urges Germany Not to Let Up Pressure on Russia
The risk for Britain, Mr. Powell said, is that it is viewed in other European capitals as merely a “running dog for the Americans.” That is convenient for the Biden administration, he said, because “they can always rely on him to come out and say something even more extreme than they do.” Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments […]
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Germany’s Dependence on Russian Gas Is Difficult to Break
LUBMIN, Germany — Past a nudist beach and a sleepy marina, a gigantic mesh of metallic pipes rises from the pine forest behind the tiny village of Lubmin on Germany’s Baltic coast. If few people have heard of Lubmin, from Berlin to Washington almost everyone seems to know the name of the two gas pipelines […]
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