becoming chancellor will cap a long career in politics for 0laf sholz.a party memberfor nine years. he became an mp taking on a party role alongside the then chancellor gerhard schroeder. this picture is from 2004. a few years later, 0laf sholz won the election to become mayor of hamburg. in 2017, the city played host to the g20 summit which saw an anti—capitalist protest turn into a riot. mr sholz said he was "ashamed" of what happened and asked hamburg's citizens for forgiveness, but he refused to resign. the next year, 0laf sholz moved to berlin, becoming finance minister in angela merkel�*s government. that was a "grand coalition" between left and right. the new coalition mr sholz has forged will be different. here's damian mcguinesss in berlin. it's a historic moment, isn't it? 16 years of a conservative—led government, now we've got a left—wing chancellor. he says he wants to make germany fairer, in his words, and greener. now, on the one hand, he's promising lots of traditional left—wing policies such as raising the minimum wage by quite a lot. 0n

all of schultz -- olaf sholz center replacer on wednesday and will form the new government. >> southeaders says covid cases in the country have exceeded 7000 for the first time. the prime minister is concerned about the increasing number of patients who are critically ill. he warned the threat of the new omicron variant is coming apparent. last week, the government announced stricter social distancing measures to contain the outbreak. and the new variant, omicron has been found in 50 countries. there are signs it is less dangerous than the delta variant. the world health organization says there are no reasons to expect vaccines will fail and the european director cautioning against making vaccines mandatory. it follows austria's announcement it would make inoculations compulsory from next year. >> mandates around vaccination are an absolute last resort and only applicable when all other feasible options to improve vaccination update have been exhausted. they have been effective in some environments to increase vaccine uptake, but the effectiveness submitted is context specific. they

where will sholz come down on russia, on putin on day one. >> good morning.nk we will see a lot of continuity with the new government, on russia and also china. probably a little bit tougher position because the green party has been emphasizing the issue of the pipeline that goes through the baltic sea which is a very contentious issue with the u.s. government and many other european governments. i expect a conflict between russia and germany. my hunch at the moment is that this will not take off, it will be blocked better than we have been, obviously. getting it to work -- here i see a big issue. it is because of the big economic factor. dani: the u.s. calling on not going through with it nord stream 2. as we witnessed this winter of europe in the middle of the energy crisis to not have that pipeline. >> currently of that did not make a big difference because there are other pipelines through which russia is delivering gas to germany and europe. but clearly russia has the ability to blackmail germany and europe. at the moment we have low levels of supply of