What We're Watching: Germany's next government taking shape

Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz delivers a statement in Berlin, Germany, November 17, 2021.

Who's going to run Germany? With coalition negotiations now reportedly in the home stretch, we could know what the next German government looks like as soon as Monday or Tuesday. Following elections that were held back in September, the center-left SPD, headed by Chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz, has been hammering together a three-way coalition with the progressive Greens and the fiscal hawks of the Free Democrats Party. One big question mark is whether the spendthrift Greens or the tighter-pursestrings FDP will get the powerful finance ministry portfolio. Meanwhile, Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock is expected to become Germany's first female foreign minister, part of Scholz's larger pledge to ensure that the cabinet is split 50:50 between men and women.

More from GZERO Media

Delegates affiliated to Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) react during a meeting for the planned signing, later postponed, of a political charter that would provide for a "Government of Peace and Unity" to govern the territories the force controls in Nairobi, Kenya, February 18, 2025.
REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi
The U.S. and Russian delegations meet at Diriyah Palace, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 18, 2025.
REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool

It was the first high level meeting between the two countries since Moscow's full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Police officers stand guard as Congolese youngsters jostle to receive relief food, after fleeing from renewed clashes between M23 rebels and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. February 18, 2025.
REUTERS/Evrard Ngendakumana

100: M23 rebels – a Rwanda-backed militia – took control of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s second-largest city, Bukavu, on Monday.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, right, sits beside then-Senior Counselor to the President Steve Bannon, left, as President Donald Trump hosts a strategy and policy forum with chief executives of major US companies at the White House in February 2017.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The latest salvo at Musk from Steve Bannon reflects the sharpening of already rough-edged rivalries within Trump’s circle between hard-core populists and hyper-libertarians.

People sit in a restaurant as Argentina's President Javier Milei is seen on television during an interview, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Feb. 17, 2025.
REUTERS/Pedro Lazaro Fernandez

Argentina’s flamboyant libertarian President Javier Milei is at the center of a cryptocurrency scandal that’s already having legal consequences. Whether there will be political consequences remains to be seen.

Walmart is fueling American jobs and strengthening communities by investing in local businesses. Athletic Brewing landed a deal with Walmart in 2021. Since then, co-founders Bill Shufelt and John Walker have hired more than 200 employees and built a150,000-square-foot brewery in Milford, CT. Athletic Brewing is one of many US-based suppliers working with Walmart. By 2030, the retailer is estimated to support the creation of over 750,000 US jobs by investing an additional $350 billion in products made, grown, or assembled in America. Learn more about Walmart’s commitment to US manufacturing.

In this new episode of Tools and Weapons, Microsoft's Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with Jeffrey Ding, professor at George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers." Ding challenges conventional wisdom on how nations achieve global dominance, arguing that the key isn’t just developing breakthrough technologies like AI but effectively integrating and scaling them. They explore what history teaches us about the role of innovation in shaping great powers — and what it will take for the US to remain one. Subscribe and find new episodes monthly, wherever you listen to podcasts.