Vienna, Austria | AFP | For Europe’s nationalist parties, winning votes is the easy bit. The real challenge lies in keeping internal strife at bay. Just ask the Alternative for Germany (AfD) or the French National Front. On Monday, a day after becoming Germany’s third-largest force in parliament, AfD co-chief Frauke …
Read More »Infighting hits hard-right AfD after German vote success
Berlin, Germany | AFP | The nationalist Alternative for Germany was hit by party infighting Monday, just hours after winning its first seats in parliament, with its co-chief Frauke Petry declaring that she won’t join its Bundestag group. Citing “dissent” with more hardline colleagues, Petry dropped her bombshell at a morning …
Read More »Dismay in Germany as hard-right marches into parliament
Berlin, Germany | AFP | The Alternative for Germany (AfD) Sunday became the first hard-right, openly anti-immigration party to enter parliament with so many seats since World War II, breaking a taboo despite calls to halt “the Nazis” in their tracks. Exit polls credited the AfD with around 13 percent of …
Read More »German campaign takeaways and challenges
Berlin, Germany | AFP | Chancellor Angela Merkel sailed to victory in Germany’s general election on Sunday but her win was soured by the entry of an Islamophobic hard-right party to parliament and prospects of tough coalition talks. Here are the first takeaways from the election and the looming challenges ahead. …
Read More »ANALYSIS: Angela Merkel, Germany’s ‘eternal chancellor’
Berlin, Germany | AFP | Angela Merkel has been derided as Europe’s “austerity queen”, cheered as a saviour by refugees and hailed as the new “leader of the free world”. But as the pastor’s daughter raised behind the Iron Curtain just won a fourth term at the helm of Europe’s …
Read More »Merkel wins 4th term, hard right gains foothold in parliament
Berlin, Germany | AFP | Chancellor Angela Merkel clinched a fourth term in Germany’s general election on Sunday, but her victory was clouded by the hard-right AfD party winning its first seats in parliament. Merkel, who after 12 years in power held a double-digit lead for most of the campaign, …
Read More »‘Bring home the bacon,’ Merkel tells voters on eve of poll
Berlin, Germany | AFP | Chancellor Angela Merkel and her rival Martin Schulz rallied voters on the eve of Sunday’s election, urging Germans to shun the first hard-right party expected to enter parliament in force since the end of World War II. Merkel, the clear frontrunner after 12 years in power …
Read More »Booze, Porsches and secrets: Germany’s candidates get real
Berlin, Germany | AFP | Germany’s 2017 election campaign, in which Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to cruise to a fourth term, may have been widely panned as a snoozefest. But a closer look reveals that the candidates themselves are anything but dull. Here’s a rundown of some of the most …
Read More »Mercedes pumps 1 bln euros into US e-car plant
Frankfurt am Main, Germany | AFP | German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz said Thursday it would invest $1 billion in an Alabama factory as it prepares for electric vehicle production in the United States. “We are significantly growing our manufacturing footprint here in Alabama… We will be able to quickly ramp up …
Read More »Merkel says in ‘clear disagreement’ with Trump over N. Korea
Berlin, Germany | AFP | German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she was in “clear disagreement’ with US President Donald Trump over his threat to destroy North Korea. “I am against such threats,” Merkel said in an interview with the radio station Deutsche Welle. “We believe that any kind of military …
Read More »