German International Business

Both the German and French governments said that it was good news to hear that Donald Trump has changed his mind about imposing new metal tariffs in Europe. The article I found says "We don't want further unilateral measures; rather, we want sensible agreements. Our goal is that at the end of these talks, the international trade architecture must be more stable- there must be more co-operation, not less." I thought this article ties in great with what we were learning in class about international trade tariffs, and whether or not they are good for everyone involved. Clearly to Germany, and France, the trade tariffs are a bad thing, and would hinder the business of the steel industry. It is cool to see that what we are learning in class is directly related to what is happening in international news.  Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c77jz3md4rdt/germany

Germany Plans to try a free public transportation In Cities suffering from air pollution       Germany is currently the EU's largest air polluter and it has been struggling to come with ideas to help solve this problem. Some ideas that Germany came up with was to ban diesel engines from large cities because of the large amount of pollutant they produce in hopes of the use of a more environmentally friendly engine. This proved to be more than difficult because no environmentally friendly engine is readily available for the trucking industry. The solution Germany is currently voting on is to make public transportation free to hopefully remove more vehicles from the road.    

In breaking news this week, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of German energy company Innogy was the victim of an acid attack on the morning of Sunday March 10th near his home. Bernhard Gunther (pictured below) was attacked by two men who poured what is thought to be sulfuric acid on his face.  Gunther was severely injured by the incident and the suspects fled the scene and have yet to be identified. The company Gunther works for, Innogy is an energy and utility company formed by larger energy company RWE. RWE has come under recent scrutiny for its detrimental effects on Hambacher Forest near Cologne where the company is currently operating an open-pit mine. Groups protesting the company have made recent attempts to stop the mining, and some wonder if the acid attack may be related.  This attack would not be first on a high-ranking employee in a controversial German business. In the past, a head of a research institute that recommended decreasing support for welfare and unemp