Berlin - Christian Democrat (CDU) Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged continued cooperation with the Social Democrats (SPD) in her grand coalition government Monday, after the SPD named Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to challenge her in German elections next year.
Merkel criticized the weekend manoeuvring in her junior coalition partner that saw the popular Steinmeier named as the SPD candidate for the chancellorship and Kurt Beck ousted as party chairman.
Berlin - Young Selena crouches under the bed when the Nazi officer comes even closer to her hiding place. She can see her own face reflected in his shiny boots.
"I was afraid he could hear my heart beating," Selena recalled decades later. The Nazi did not, in the end, discover the Jewish girl in the Bialystok ghetto in Poland. But the shooting in front of the house and the crying of hundreds of orphans haunted Selena B. all her life.
Berlin - Germany's ailing Social Democratic Party (SPD) rung the changes Sunday, repositioning itself ahead of a general election just 12 months away by nominating charismatic Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to take on the popular Christian Democrat (CDU) chancellor, Angela Merkel.
The SPD leadership also recalled a 68-year-old veteran to reorganize the demoralized party machine in the shape of Franz Muentefering, who is to replace Kurt Beck, the embattled premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, as SPD federal chairman.
While Steinmeier's nomination as chancellor-candidate ahead of Beck had long been anticipated, Muentefering's return to top-level SPD politics came as a bombshell.
Berlin - A street party in Hamburg turned violent overnight after leftist demonstrators went on the rampage, police in the northern German port said Sunday.
Eighteen people were injured, 11 of them police officers, following the event in the Scheunenviertel area of the city, renowned for the many residents adopting an alternative, anti-authority lifestyle.
Police deployed water cannon and used riot sticks to break up the gathering. Some 950 officers were on duty to contain the violence.
Berlin - Commerzbank Chief Executive Martin Blessing has defended the price Germany's second-largest bank paid to take over rival Dresdner in an interview published by Der Spiegel news magazine on Saturday.
Blessing described the 9.8 billion euros (14.4 billion dollars) paid to insurer Allianz as "not cheap but fair" highlighting the fact that much of the deal had been done with Commerzbank shares.
In addition, the new bank aimed to realize synergies worth 5 billion euros, he said.
Berlin - Germany promised Friday to erect prefabricated homes for 1,800 homeless refugees in Georgia.
The Foreign Ministry in Bonn said it was granting 8 million euros (11.5 million dollars) to the German development aid agency GTZ, which would put up the buildings. They will contain 350 apartments.
Georgia had asked for help to house the people who fled from South Ossetia during last month's conflict and could not return.
Berlin - Christian Democrat (CDU) Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged continued cooperation with the Social Democrats (SPD) in her grand coalition government Monday, after the SPD named Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to challenge her in German elections next year.
Berlin - Young Selena crouches under the bed when the Nazi officer comes even closer to her hiding place. She can see her own face reflected in his shiny boots.
Berlin - A street party in Hamburg turned violent overnight after leftist demonstrators went on the rampage, police in the northern German port said Sunday.
Berlin - Commerzbank Chief Executive Martin Blessing has defended the price Germany's second-largest bank paid to take over rival Dresdner in an interview published by Der Spiegel news magazine on Saturday.
Berlin - Germany promised Friday to erect prefabricated homes for 1,800 homeless refugees in Georgia.
