|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 21, 2013 21:51:57 GMT
Angela Merkel wrapped up her re-election campaign on Saturday with an appeal to defend Europe and her center-right coalition against Euroskeptics who threaten to break into the German parliament for the first time in Sunday's election. With a third of the 62 million voters still undecided and the small Alternative for Germany (AfD) tapping into impatience with euro zone bailouts, Europe's most powerful leader risks spending her third term in an awkward right-left coalition. "Lots of people won't make up their mind until the last minute. Now is the time to reach every undecided voter and get their support," she told supporters in Berlin, before flying to her Baltic coast constituency for a final campaign stop.  German Chancellor and conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Angela Merkel (C) waves after giving a speech during a CDU election campaign rally in Berlin, Sept. 21, 2013. *According to an average of opinion polls tweeted by the London-based @electionista monitoring site, the CDU/CSU will get 38.6% of the vote to 25.8% for the SPD and 6.4% for the FDP.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 22, 2013 16:27:05 GMT
Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) have polled strongly in federal elections in Germany, but may not be able to form their preferred coalition, exit polls suggest. The CDU is estimated to have taken about 42% of the vote. But its current partner, the Free Democrat party, may not have secured the 5% needed to enter parliament. So Mrs Merkel may be forced to seek a grand coalition with the Social Democrats - estimated to have won 25%. Exit polls for ARD public television put the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) on 4.7%, which if confirmed would be a disaster for the junior coalition partner, leaving it with no national representation in parliament. It was beaten by the Green Party (8%) and the former communist Left Party (8.5%), and even, according to exit polls, the new Alternative fuer Deutschland, which advocates withdrawal from the euro currency and took 4.9%, just short of the parliamentary threshold. |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 22, 2013 20:41:42 GMT
Angela Merkel was on track to win a third term as chancellor in a German election on Sunday after her conservatives scored their best result in decades (42%). Despite the large lead, Ms Merkel's conservatives may be forced to govern in a "grand coalition" with the centre-left Social Democrats (26%), the exit polls showed.  Angela Merkel told supporters they had achieved "something fantastic"  CDU supporters celebrated a resounding victory |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 27, 2013 15:06:04 GMT
US spying agency may have bugged Angela Merkel's phone for more than 10 years, German news claims: Der Spiegel suggests the US has been spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone since 2002. Another report says Mr Obama was told in 2010 about the surveillance and failed to stop it. The spy row has led to the worst diplomatic crisis betweeen the two countries in living memory. Leaked documents say a US listening unit was based in its Berlin embassy - and similar operations were replicated in 80 locations around the world. The German interior minister has been quoted as saying such an operation, if confirmed, would be illegal. On Friday, Germany and France said they wanted the US to sign a no-spy deal by the end of the year. The nature of the monitoring of Mrs Merkel's mobile phone is not clear from the files, Der Spiegel says. For example, it is possible that the chancellor's conversations were recorded, or that her contacts were simply assessed. Mrs Merkel phoned the US president when she first heard of the spying allegations on Wednesday. President Barack Obama apologised to the German chancellor and promised Mrs Merkel he knew nothing of the alleged phone monitoring and would have stopped it if he had, Der Spiegel reports.  Alleged NSA eavesdropping on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone made the front pages of many German newspapers. |
|
