Munich - People in the southern German state of Bavaria began voting Sunday in a crucial election that could see the ruling Christian Social Union (CSU) losing its absolute majority.
The Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) is facing a voter backlash in the state where it has ruled alone since 1966.
If the CSU wins fewer than half the 180 seats in the parliament in Munich, it could signal a weakening of support for the conservative camp and hurt Merkel's chances of retaining power in federal elections scheduled for September next year.
Munich - More than 20 fairgoers had to be evacuated from a roller-coaster that got stuck 30 metres above ground at Munich's Oktoberfest beer festival on Saturday.
Munich, September 26 : Using a web of telescopes, astronomers have identified one of the nearest supernovae in the last 25 years, a decade after it exploded.
This result was made possible by combining data from the vast online archives from many of the world’s premier telescopes.
The supernova, called SN 1996cr, was first singled out in 2001 by Franz Bauer.
Bauer noticed a bright, variable source in the Circinus spiral galaxy, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Although the source displayed some exceptional properties Bauer and his Penn State colleagues could not identify its nature confidently at the time.
It was not until years later that Bauer and his team were able to confirm that this object was a supernova.
Munich - The maiden flight of the much-delayed European military transport plane A400M is being postponed because the engines are still not ready, manufacturer EADS said Thursday from its German offices in Munich.
The propellor plane is intended as Europe's answer to the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, but the project at planemaker Airbus has dragged. A prototype has ceremonially rolled out of the hangar but has never flown.
Munich, September 25 : Astronomers have discovered a most bizarre celestial object that emitted 40 visible-light flashes before becoming dormant again, which might be the first case of a magnetar with an amazingly powerful magnetic field that showed some brief, strong visible-light activity.
This weird object initially misled its discoverers as it showed up as a gamma-ray burst, suggesting the death of a star in the distant Universe.
But soon afterwards, it exhibited some unique behaviour that indicates its origin is much closer to us.
After the initial gamma-ray pulse, there was a three-day period of activity during which 40 visible-light flares were observed, followed by a brief near-infrared flaring episode
Munich - German business confidence slipped more sharply than expected this month, with the Ifo institute of Munich saying Wednesday its index falling to 92.9 points, from 94.8 in August.
It was the fourth straight month in which the index fell.
Economists who watch the index closely had on average predicted the September reading would only fall to 94.1.
Ifo's separate index of business expectations declined marginally from 87.0 in August to 86.5 in September, whereas the assessment of the current position slumped from
103.2 to 99.8.
The index sums up a monthly survey of 7,000 executives, economists and other business leaders.
Munich - People in the southern German state of Bavaria began voting Sunday in a crucial election that could see the ruling Christian Social Union (CSU) losing its absolute majority.
Munich - The maiden flight of the much-delayed European military transport plane A400M is being postponed because the engines are still not ready, manufacturer EADS said Thursday from its German offices in Munich.
