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Mark Gongloff, Tribune News ServiceThe Dust Bowl of the 1930s was a devastating but temporary confluence of human cluelessness and natural accident. It was also a demonstration of humanity’s ability to wreck an environment when
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V NagarajanIndian real estate continued to witness strong participation from domestic and foreign investors alike in Q2 2026, with quarterly investments rising 70 per cent YoY to $2.9 billion.Even amidst global trade & capital deployment
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A late-night deal agreed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling coalition on a long-awaited package of reforms has the potential to give Germany’s anaemic economy a shot in the arm if implemented fully and quickly, economists and business leaders said. The measures to cut red tape, offer tax relief to working families, allow more flexible job contracts and boost investment in housing come on top of last week’s proposals to add a capital element to the state pension and gradually push back the retirement age. The latest moves come 15 months after a landmark agreement on a €500bn special fund for infrastructure and plans to largely remove defence investment from borrowing caps, paving the way for a spending surge that has nonetheless taken longer to materialise than many had expected. “If implemented, Germany can become a better place to invest and create jobs again,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg of the new package combining both left-leaning and pro-business elements. He estimated the reforms could almost double Germany’s trend growth rate from a dismal 0.4% to 0.7% per year, offering a much needed boost to an economy that has struggled to gain momentum. Deutsche Bank’s CEO Christian Sewing called the package “a very successful opening move”, adding: “This is exactly the momentum we need to make Germany fit for the future.” The individual measures agreed in the package are expected to be passed by parliament by the end of the year. “Admittedly... it is not a package that will morph a stagnating economy into a booming economy overnight,” said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING. Failure to deliver on economic pledges could deepen public frustration and feed perceptions of government ineffectiveness, creating fertile ground for the far-right AfD party, which tops national polls. “The reform package shows that both coalition partners were willing to compromise,” said Marion Muehlberger from Deutsche Bank Research. “The German government agreed on one of its biggest reform packages in decades.” Once the engine of European growth, the continent’s largest economy has stalled as competition from China and higher energy prices have challenged its export-driven foundations and the reform package aims at boosting competitiveness, economists said. The package includes €10 billion ($11 billion) in annual tax relief for lower-income earners, more flexible labour laws, changes to the pension system and cutting red tape. Merz said an average family will get tax relief of €600. That will be funded mainly by raising the top tax rate to 47% from 45% for the highest earners, defined as those with annual income of €280,000 or more. The package includes cuts to red tape, including faster approval procedures for infrastructure projects and the abolition of some reporting and documentation requirements. “The planned measures to reduce bureaucracy, in particular, show great promise because they could give German businesses more leeway,” said Commerzbank’s senior economist Ralph Solveen, who like others added the caveat that it all depended on effective implementation. The long list of measures also includes an action plan against benefit fraud, a target to cut staffing in federal ministries by 8% through digitisation and an end to workers’ ability to obtain permission for sick leave by phone. The proposals were criticised by the services union Verdi, which said they exemplified a “culture of mistrust” against workers. Germany’s Association of General Practitioners also said the requirement for workers to obtain written confirmation of illness would be “absolutely disastrous” for already overburdened medical practices.
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The June heatwave that broke a series of temperature records in Europe has focused minds on the urgency of adapting to global warming in a continent once complacent about its relatively gentle climate and its ambitious goals on reducing emissions. The European Union has sought to be a leader in addressing climate change, and was one of the first major economies to set a legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. However, a June heatwave that peaked at above 40° Celsius (104° Fahrenheit) in parts of Europe has revealed how its businesses, amenities and critical infrastructure are not prepared for the consequences of climate change in the here and now. “We’ve not been good enough on adaptation,” Poland’s Deputy Climate Minister Krzysztof Bolesta told Reuters after some power supplies across the region were disrupted, outdoor work was banned in places, trains cancelled in Germany and in Sweden a cargo train derailed as extreme temperatures buckled metal rails. Among the countries worst affected, Spain reported 1,000 excess deaths that it linked to the record heat. Adapting buildings and public spaces to cope with extreme heat is typically the responsibility of national or regional authorities, rather than the EU, which says individual countries are best placed to understand their particular needs. “There’s no point in trying to say from Brussels how the Greeks or the Spaniards need to battle wildfires,” EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, who later this year will set out an EU-wide “climate resilience plan”, told journalists. “They know that much better than we do as the Dutch know much better how to build dikes,” he said, adding the EU plan would focus on common scenarios and best practice. Still, the EU’s own spending on adapting remains small, even as global warming is heating Europe at a faster rate than any other continent. Between 2021 and 2025, 72% of the climate-related spending from the EU’s joint budget went to mitigation, or limiting the greenhouse gases that cause warming, while just 18% went to adaptation, and 9% touched both issues, official figures show. The EU and its member governments have a suite of financial incentives in place to reduce emissions, including subsidies to build renewable energy, and the EU’s Emissions Trading System, which caps the emissions companies produce and lets greener firms trade at a profit their spare permits to pollute. Poland’s Bolesta said that for businesses there was no equivalent encouragement to invest in adaptation measures. “It’s easier to see the business case for mitigation, because you have the cap-and-trade system, you have carbon credits, you have renewables companies,” he said. “Adaptation, it’s mostly regarded as a cost with very long-term benefits, so delayed gratification, but also sometimes just an insurance policy – it might or it might not kick in.” Climate change-fuelled extremes like heatwaves, drought and floods cost the near-stagnant European economy 0.3% points in output last year, Dutch bank ING said in a note this week. “The uncomfortable truth is that heatwaves have quietly graduated from ‘weather event’ to ‘macro variable’,” ING said. “The thermometer, it turns out, has become a leading indicator.” The cost to economies ranges from threats to tourism or farming revenues in southern countries, to the difficulty of working in offices that are not adapted to hot weather. Despite an official estimate that one day of heat above 30C (86F) costs the German economy €430mn ($465mn) due to productivity losses, only half of German offices are air-conditioned, according to the Federal Environment Agency versus 90-95% in southern Europe. “For decades, we (Germany) built against cold and not against heat and that’s an adaptation gap,” said Geraldine Dany-Knedlik from the German Institute for Economic Research DIW. Irene Seemann, who heads efforts to help businesses with climate adaptation in the large German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said there were signs of mindset change. “To use a football analogy, Germany has been one-nil down because heat has not been much of an issue,” Seemann said. “Now companies see that it has a direct impact on their operations.” Some adaptation fixes are simple and relatively cheap. Forbidden by heritage laws from structurally altering its historic, glass-domed headquarters in Cologne, German flooring firm Project Floors applied reflective film to its windows and managed to lower indoor temperatures by 10C. “It was simple, effective, and required no power,” said Project Floors managing director Bernd Greve. Others require more fundamental changes to workplaces and labour organisation, for example by rearranging work shifts to cooler times of the day, right through to reinventing public transport networks and urban spaces.There has been progress compared with a deadly heatwave in 2003, when peer-reviewed studies have found around 70,000 excess deaths occurred over the summer in Europe. The World Health Organisation (WHO) released a statement this week estimating that heat-related deaths in Europe, more than two decades later, would havebeen around 80% higher without the adaptation measures now in place. They include heat-health action plans, early warnings, cooling spaces and outreach to vulnerable people. “They are saving lives right now,” said the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Henri P Kluge. “We need more of them, across all of the European region.”
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North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) leaders gathering for a summit in Ankara on July 7-8 will discuss a host of challenges facing the alliance, from Europe taking on more responsibility for the continent’s security to boosting defence industrial production. Some officials worry the Iran war could overshadow the gathering, but hope leaders will remain focused on the alliance’s core business: defence and deterrence. Nato officials say one of their primary goals is to maintain unity and keep the US committed to the alliance’s Article 5 clause, which specifies that an attack on one of its members is an attack on all. The alliance faced two crises this year which have fueled tension in the transatlantic relationship: US President Donald Trump’s demands for ownership of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Nato member Denmark, and his anger at Nato allies over their response to the Iran war. The US president has branded the alliance a “paper tiger” and said he was considering quitting Nato. The alliance’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, has sought to smooth over tensions, using a mix of flattery and data to persuade Trump that European Nato members are fulfilling their promises. The Trump administration has pushed European governments to take on primary responsibility for the conventional defence of Europe as Washington seeks to dedicate more resources to the Indo-Pacific. Some changes are already under way: Washington has decided to shrink the pool of US military capabilities available to Nato in a crisis, and European Nato members have filled almost all the gaps. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has also announced a new review of America’s troop deployments in Europe and threatened to withhold some US dues to Nato if “free-riding” allies did not meet their defence spending commitments. European officials say they are working to step up on defence. European Nato members and Canada are under significant pressure to boost defence investment both to improve deterrence and defence against Russia and to demonstrate to Trump that they are taking his demands for burden-shifting seriously. At a summit in the Hague last year, Nato leaders backed the big increase in defence spending that Trump demanded, pledging to spend 5% of GDP on defence and defence-related measures within a decade. Countries pledged to spend 3.5% of GDP on core defence – such as troops and weapons – and 1.5% on broader defence-related measures. Nato’s European allies and Canada increased defence spending by 20% in 2025 compared with the previous year in real terms, according to alliance data. With European Nato countries boosting defence investment, a major challenge for the alliance is how to turn money into new military capabilities in a short timeframe. In Ankara, Nato members are expected to announce tens of billions of dollars in new contracts. However, some officials have expressed frustration that production has not increased at the pace they had hoped. Nato’s leadership has called on industry to work together, open new production lines and deliver more quickly. While alliance officials say Russia is grappling with significant economic problems and Ukraine has strengthened its position, Rutte has cautioned that nearly half of Russia’s state budget is now dedicated to defence and that the alliance cannot be naive about Moscow. European Nato members are continuing to send aid to Kyiv, more than four years since Russia’s invasion. While most European leaders say they are committed to continuing to support Kyiv, sustaining a high level of funding remains a challenge amid other demands on national budgets and concern in some capitals that some governments are contributing more than others. — Reuters
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There is cause to celebrate after Chief Justice John Roberts led the US Supreme Court to rule 6-3 against President Donald Trump’s idiotic executive order attempting to terminate birthright citizenship for people born in this
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Daniel DePetris, Tribune News ServiceMajor disasters have a way of bringing people together. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks ushered in months of unity and bonhomie among New Yorkers. The 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, which
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Climate change is gripping the world with its calamities, slowly and gradually. It's a completely different world from the one it was a decade ago (“Wildfires rage in southern France, nearly 3,000 people evacuated,” July
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Melody Xu, Tribune News ServiceStanding outside of her casual Venezuelan restaurant in downtown LA, Kelly Montana clutched print-out photos of her parents as she visibly held back tears. This is the longest Montana has gone
