“Have we forgotten how to build?” It is the sort of despairing rhetorical question one might expect to see in the headlines of an Italian newspaper, or perhaps even in the British press during one of its periodic bouts of national self-flagellation. But not in Germany, a proud nation of engineers and technical experts that now sometimes feels as though it is coming apart at the seams. “Germany is standing on the brink of a transport collapse,” Oliver Luksic, an MP and infrastructure expert for the liberal Free Democrat party, said. The expansion of airports isn’t working anywhere and there is a shortage of pilots. The condition of tens of thousands…

Source: The Times January 24, 2019 17:03 UTC