It’s a multiple crisis and Germany’s answer is to be nice. During Greek protests, rioters painted toothbrush moustaches on posters of Merkel. Now migrants, passed on from Greece to Germany, arrive with photos of her as their patron saint. That’s brilliant PR, a triumph of soft power, and not enitirely cynical. There really are many Germans — Gutmenschen — who wish to give a helping hand.

A Tokyo think tank says the nation should replace its discredited national foreigners’ trainee program with a system that invites overseas interns to settle in Japan, which would help solve an immediate labor shortage and an approaching demographic crisis.