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Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has criticized Georgia for the war over South Ossetia, calling Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili a gambler, and warning against allowing the country to join NATO. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine due out on Monday, Schröder said he thought Georgia’s chances of joining the transatlantic alliance had moved “even further into the distance,” following the fighting with Russian forces. Schröder’s comments are sure to be scrutinized due to his close personal and political friendship with former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, as well as his acceptance of a Gazprom job immediately after leaving...

<p>Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder has written a damning critique of Tony Blair's special relationship with the United States, saying it hampered Britain's links with Europe. In his memoirs, Decisions: My Life in Politics, which were launched yesterday, Mr Schröder examines Mr Blair's relationship with George Bush and attempts to divine the motivation behind it.</p>

Tomorrow's formal election of Angela Merkel as Germany's chancellor will not mark a new era in economic policy. But in one respect there is a cause for guarded optimism. German foreign policy towards both the European Union and the US may become more stable and predictable. Ms Merkel intends to return to the foreign policy doctrine that prevailed under Helmut Kohl, the last Christian Democrat chancellor. Mr Kohl managed to combine unwavering support for European integration - often in seeming contradiction to the national interest - with a firm commitment to transatlantic relations. It was this policy that made Germany,...

Schröder bows out with a dig at Blair and Bush By Kate Connollyin Berlin (Filed: 13/10/2005) Germany's outgoing chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, took swipes at Britain and America yesterday as he announced that he would not be part of the next government. In a speech to trade unionists in his home town of Hanover, he criticised Tony Blair over his vision for the future of the European Union. Gerhard Schröder yesterday "I say to my British friend that people in Germany, in Europe, do not want complete denationalisation," he said. "They want a state that is not in front of their...

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- Conservative leader Angela Merkel is set to become Germany's first woman chancellor under a deal with Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, sources from both parties have said. The deal, which ends Schroeder's seven years in office, breaks a three-week deadlock that started when voters gave Merkel's conservatives a narrow victory but not the majority needed to form a center-right government. Instead, the two leaders' parties will form a "grand coalition" that bridges the country's right-left split, officials told news agencies. In exchange for Schroeder surrendering the chancellery, his party gets eight seats in the Cabinet, compared to...

THE German conservative leader Angela Merkel appeared to be gaining the upper hand this weekend in the struggle to become the next chancellor, after an inconclusive election result produced one of the most extraordinary weeks in the country’s post-war politics. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), narrow winners of last Sunday’s poll, insisted yesterday that she must lead a “grand coalition” with Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democratic party (SPD) — the only combination that looks able to secure a majority in Germany’s fractured parliament. “We went into the election with Angela Merkel as our candidate for chancellor, the CDU is the strongest...

Germany was thrown into political chaos on Sunday evening as the early federal election delivered a hung parliament and both chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel, his conservative challenger, claimed victory and the right to form the next government. While Ms Merkel's opposition Christian Democratic Union obtained the largest number of votes by a small margin with 35.2 per cent, according to early estimates, it failed to muster a majority for a conservative-liberal coalition with the smaller Free Democratic Party. Recent investing newsPost-Enron Era Unlucky for Ex-Tyco Execs 'Heaven' Beats the Devil at Box Office ExxonMobil secures Java oilfield rights...

A centre-right coalition sought by German conservative leader Angela Merkel is running marginally ahead of the other main parties before Sunday's general election, according to two polls released on Friday. A poll by Forsa for RTL television indicated support for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), their sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) and their liberal Free Democrat allies (FDP) at 48 to 51 percent. Combined support for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, the Greens and the new Left Party stood at 45 to 49 percent, the poll indicated. Forsa said the SPD had slipped slightly since its poll last week,...

Germany needs painful economic reforms. That, at least, is what politicians were saying last year. But this year, the emergence of the new Left Party has seen all major parties veer to the left and dramatically soften their rhetoric. Which is grim news for Germany. Here's a string of un-fun facts about Germany -- not for the sake of feeding Germany's near pathological pessimism, but to foster an honest conversation about the future. Since German reunification in the early 1990s, all growth in the country has been financed by billions in public debt. The national debt has doubled to €1.4...

The sex, bribes and corruption scandal at Volkswagen is shaking the company to its core. But in a company whose largest shareholder is the German state of Lower Saxony, a number of politicians also have their fingers in this mess. Now, the affair is casting a shadow over federal elections.

Yesterday saw the first Tee Ball game of the season on the White House Lawn. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was the first base coach and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson acted as third base coach. President Bush yells "Play Ball!" as he places the ball on a tee to start the game and afterwards presents awards to the children taking part in the game. Today President Bush had a meeting in the Oval Office with the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the two leaders met privately to discuss regional security and diplomatic issues, afterwards they answered questions from the...

There's ample cause to criticize Sen. Ken Salazar for reneging on a key campaign promise. But the picketing of his wife's Dairy Queen restaurant by members of the Faith Bible Chapel who carried signs reading, "Salazar is anti-Christian" and "Salazar mocks God" is absurd. This dispute isn't about Salazar's religion; it's about his politics. === Correction Because of an editing error, this column misidentified those picketing a local restaurant as being associated with Faith Bible Chapel. The picketers were from Denver Bible Church. === On the other hand, Salazar's angry diatribe against Focus on the Family's advertising campaign targeting him...

TO THE rest of the world they seem the perfect couple. After years of bickering between their two countries, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Russian President Vladimir Putin have stood shoulder to shoulder on a host of issues, including opposing the US-led invasion of Iraq. But behind the outwardly chummy relations between the two countries, it has been business as usual for Russian agents, who have continued to spy on their former Cold War foes. The spying has reached such epidemic proportions that German intelligence officers say the best way to find out what German MPs are talking about on...

Is German chancellor Gerhard Schröder's coalition government in danger of falling apart? A lot depends on negotiations this week in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, where neither the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) nor the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) managed to win a majority in a February state election. After incumbent SPD state premier Heide Simonis failed to build a minority government, the SPD and CDU have opened talks on a possible "grand coalition." The CDU has the advantage: by walking away, it would trigger new state elections and almost certainly win. Failure to strike a deal could even force...

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, visiting Germany for the first time, praised Ukraine’s bilateral relationship with Germany and expressed his thanks and that of his country for German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s special personal role during Ukraine’s peaceful democratization this past November, the outcome of which was the election of Yushchenko as President in December. Economic relations were the main focus during Chancellor Schröder’s meeting with President Yushchenko in Berlin on March 9. “Germany is partner Number One for Ukraine in Europe,” President Yushchenko said during a joint appearance before the press with Chancellor Schröder. “The economic relations between our two...

A SENIOR adviser to Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, has been accused of passing confidential documents to East Germany in the 1980s which revealed how the British Army and RAF would react to an attack by Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces.The details were among more than 100 pages of material allegedly given to the East Germans by Karsten Voigt, 63, a former MP who now works for the German foreign ministry as co-ordinator of German-American relations. He spent yesterday at an international security conference attended by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary. The German magazine Focus claimed this weekend that in...

For a German chancellor, it was the ultimate put-down. Gerhard Schröder called last week for a relaxation of Europe's tough rules on spending and borrowing only to be slapped down by the Bundesbank. Germany's central bank said the state of public finances in some European countries was very problematic, and could threaten the fiscal credibility of the eurozone. Schröder's point is that the best way to establish the credibility of the single currency would be for Europe - and its largest economy, Germany - to grow more quickly. He sees the toughness of the stability and growth pact - designed,...

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Monday repeated his call to end the European Union's ban on arms sales to China. As Mr. Schroeder visited Beijing, Chinese officials signed agreements to buy $1.3 billion worth of Airbus jetliners and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of other German-made goods, including locomotives. Mr. Schroeder met Monday with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. The German chancellor opposes the European Union's ban on weapons sales to China, imposed after the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing. His stand has been criticized by opponents in Germany, and the European Parliament renewed the sanctions last month....

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's ruling Social Democrats were dealt a heavy blow yesterday by voters in two east German states where anger at high unemployment and economic reforms prompted a surge in support for the far Right and post-communists. Fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, television exit polls in the states of Saxony and Brandenburg reflected dissatisfaction at the lack of progress in raising living standards in the east to those of western Germany. In Brandenburg, a huge state which encircles Berlin, the Social Democrats remained the strongest party but lost seven per cent from the 1999 result....

Schröder rattled as protests swell By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 31/08/2004) Tens of thousands of Germans took to the streets last night in the biggest protests yet against the government's unpopular welfare reforms. Demonstrations were held in more than 200 towns and cities across the country. The protests, which have run for five weeks, have been dubbed "Monday demonstrations" after the 1989 gatherings in the old East Germany that helped to topple the Berlin Wall. They are being led by the reformed eastern communist party, the PDS, the anti-globalisation group Attac and far-Right groups, Oskar Lafontaine, a former leader...

LONDON — At this week's NATO summit conference in Istanbul, it will be in the political interest of America's European adversaries — France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schröder — to appear to cooperate with the coalition helping Iraq complete its liberation. At the same time, it is in the political interest of George W. Bush and Britain's Tony Blair to appear to be delighted with whatever safe and cheap aid that the Chirac-Schröder bloc allows NATO to offer instead of supplying alliance troops. In this way, the French and German leaders can tell their nations that no diplomatic cost...

BERLIN: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, struggling to save his political fate, has cut Germany free from European budget restraints in a move seen speeding up an overhaul of the EU's fiscal policy framework. His refusal to plug new budget holes with spending cuts or tax hikes shows his government, deeply unpopular for launching welfare cuts and failing to revive the economy, has abandoned all pretence that it will stick to EU deficit limits in 2005. The U-turn heralds a revamp that will transform the EU's Stability and Growth Pact, designed to protect the euro from inflation, from a strict rulebook into...

The future of Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, appeared to be in grave doubt last night following his unexpected resignation as the leader of the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD). Mr Schröder, who has faced growing unpopularity over his economic reform programme, said he was stepping down as party chairman and handing the job to an ally - the SPD's popular parliamentary leader, Franz Münterfering. Mr Schröder said he would carry on as the German chancellor. His resignation from party duties would allow him more time to concentrate on implementing his reform agenda. "I am committed to this process of reform,"...

The German Chancellor wants to bar Muslim teachers from wearing headscarves in public schools FRANKFURT - Less than a week after French President Jacques Chirac announced plans to ban religious symbols from public schools, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has said that headscarves have 'no place' among public school teachers. Unlike Mr Chirac, however, Mr Schroeder said he could not prevent Muslim school girls from covering their heads in the classroom. Debate over whether to ban Muslim teachers from wearing headscarves has occupied Germany since the nation's highest court ruled in September that teachers were allowed to wear them, unless states...

Jobless have benefits cut as Schröder wins reforms By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 20/12/2003) Chancellor Gerhard Schröder yesterday pushed through the German parliament a package of reforms which he hopes will pave the way for the revival of the "sick man of Europe". Tax cuts, labour-market reform and wide-ranging reductions in subsidies which formed the key elements of Mr Schröder's array of reforms, known as Agenda 2010, secured the support of the vast majority of the Bundestag's 603 representatives. The plans, on which Mr Schröder had staked his future, amounted to the biggest overhaul of the welfare state since...

BERLIN, Nov 23 Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder sent signals of a new German willingness to support the United States in Iraq on Sunday with calls for debt relief and close cooperation in what he reckons will be a long war on terror. Fresh from a trip to New York, Schroeder said Germany wanted reconstruction and democracy in Iraq to succeed and pledged to help more, pointedly recalling US aid to West Germany after World War Two paved the way for its "Economic Miracle". Even though Germany's loud opposition to the Iraq war and warnings it would cause turmoil in the region...

The jobless are lashing out at welfare state cuts and commentators say the frustration is growing so severe that it could result in Gerhard Schroeder's government collapsing in turmoil They are too hard-up to afford haircuts and have to do it themselves. Most days they stay at home eating cheap liver sausage and watching television. They don't go away on holiday but sit on their balconies instead. Welcome to Wittstock, a small, strangely empty town in what was once communist East Germany. With unemployment at nearly 25 percent, it is here, against a bleak winter landscape of pine forests, that...

In a speech marking the 65th anniversary of Kristallnacht, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has called on the people of Germany to resist the resurgence of racism and anti-Semitism. On the night of November 9th, 1938, Nazi gangs in various German towns and cities plundered and set light to Jewish shops and synagogues. With so much broken glass, this 'crystal night' marked the start of the official persecution of the Jews in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Chancellor Schröder described it as a day when civilisation and decency made way for lawlessness and hate.

Conservatives in Germany have reacted critically to Gerhard Schröder and Jacques Chirac’s rejection of a U.S. resolution seeking international help in Iraq. But it seems more a question of style, not substance. Christian Democratic politicians have said Germany’s relationship with the United States was not improved by its sharp rejection of the American proposals on Thursday. CDU leader Angela Merkel said Chancellor Schröder acted too quickly in taking less than 24 hours to reject the U.S. plan. Merkel had criticized Schröder's firm declaration last summer that Germany would not take any part in a war against Iraq, saying it had...

BERLIN - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder likely will seek a third four-year term in 2006 national elections, a senior aide said in an interview published Sunday. Schroeder took office in 1998 at the head of a center-left coalition of his Social Democrats and the Greens party, and narrowly won re-election last September. The chancellor, who once advocated limiting German leaders to two terms in office, has in recent months left open whether he will stand again. Asked by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper who would lead Germany's main parties into the next election, the Social Democrats' leader in parliament, Franz Muentefering,...

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has finally met his German counterpart Gerhard Schroeder, after pulling out of an evening with him at the opera. The opera date had been planned partly as a gesture of reconciliation, following an earlier row when Mr Berlusconi compared a German member of the European parliament to a Nazi. Mr Berlusconi said he had stayed away out of respect for the city because an anti-government left-wing demonstration had been organised, in spite of elaborate security around Verona's amphitheatre. The two leaders eventually shook hands as they met in the Verona prefect's office, their first...

<p>MY heart breaks: Sniffing in Teutonic superiority, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has cancelled his Italian vacation!</p> <p>Apart from the fact that Italy, the home of grace and beauty, doesn't need any more loud, fat krauts polluting its environment, there's an even more important matter involved: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi doesn't take any crap from Eurocrats and the self-righteous sons and daughters of the SS.</p>

BERLIN — Breaking his public silence on an Italian official's insult again German tourists, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said today he cancelled his Italian vacation to make clear he will not tolerate seeing Germans mistreated. Schroeder this week ditched his planned family vacation to Italy's Marche region after an official responsible for tourism called German tourists "hyper-nationalist" and arrogant and made other insulting comments about them. A Schroeder spokesman explained Thursday that the row would make it impossible for the chancellor and his family to enjoy a restful and undisturbed break. Schroeder himself added to that explanation today. "When leading politicians...

BERLIN - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Sunday announced a plan to bring forward tax cuts worth about $20.6 billion, a move that could inject new life into Europe's largest economy. "This government is improving the framework for more growth in Germany," Schroeder said. "It's the signal that we want to send to consumers and business." Germany's economy is in its third year of near-zero growth, and actually shrank 0.2 percent in the first quarter, helping to push unemployment to over 10 percent. The income tax reduction was supposed to be the last part of a 2001-2005 tax relief plan. With...

Party critics pledge to torpedo economic action plan despite German chancellor's threat to quit Gerhard Schröder's leftwing critics will meet tomorrow for last-minute talks on how to outwit the German chancellor at a special conference in Berlin the next day on which he has staked his own, his party's and his government's future. At stake is his masterplan for economic and social reform, launched in March under the title of Agenda 2010 - Mr Schröder's most determined effort so far to put dynamism into Europe's biggest, but most sluggish, economy Sunday's special conference was called by his Social Democratic party...

Hamburg - A fresh opinion poll released on Tuesday put German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's ruling Social Democrats at a record low, despite a morale-boosting victory in a regional election. It credited his SPD with only 25% of the vote if a general election were held this Sunday, compared to 49% for the opposition conservative Christian Union alliance. The SPD figure is down one point from last week's eight-year low to a level never before reached by the Forsa institute which carried out the poll. It also shows that despite Sunday's surprisingly wide margin of victory in the northern city-state of...

Schröder meeting with Powell fails to heal Iraq rift By Tony Paterson, in Berlin 17 May 2003 The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, failed to repair the "poisoned" relationship between Berlin and Washington when he met the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, yesterday during the first visit to Germany by a top US government official since the fallout between the two countries over the Iraq war. George Bush has not spoken to Mr Schröder since Germany's decision to oppose armed intervention in Iraq. The row was exacerbated by Germany's former justice minister, who compared the US President to Adolf Hitler....

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Monday his country supported a speedy end to sanctions against Iraq, but forecast a lengthy U.N. debate over a U.S.-backed plan for ruling the country. The U.N. Security Council is due Wednesday to begin considering a draft resolution that would lead to the lifting of sanctions, approve a U.S.-British occupation of Iraq for at least a year and hand the allies control of the country's oil wealth to use for rebuilding. France and Russia, Security Council members that with Germany blocked U.S. moves to get U.N. approval for the war, have...

May Day crowd barracks Schröder By Hannah Cleaver in Berlin (Filed: 02/05/2003) Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was barracked throughout a speech he made to a May Day trade union meeting yesterday, as he struggled to defend a harsh package of reforms which has infuriated Left-wingers. His speech to German Trade Union Federation (DGB) members in Neu Anspach in Hesse was a defence of the Agenda 2010 reforms that are being resolutely opposed by parts of his Social Democrat Party. But he was whistled at by sections of the crowd as he urged them to support measures on which he has made...

Saturday's Names & Faces column in the Washington Post, compiled by Matt Kane, included this item: Rick Schroder, the child star formerly known as Ricky, really digs nature. The onetime "NYPD Blue" star was in town yesterday, shovel in hand, taking part in Interior Secretary Gale Norton's national volunteer Take Pride in America program. It "inspires people to take pride in parks," Schroder told us while planting trees alongside Mayor Tony Williams and schoolchildren in Watts Branch Park. "I've been involved with these issues for the past 12 years because I have a cattle ranch."... Schroder, who is not shy...

German Spies in Iraqi Talks before War Saddam tried to cut a deal before the bombs started to fall Documents implicating German involvement in an attempt to co-operate with the Iraqi secret service in the months before the Iraq war have surfaced from the ruins of Baghdad. Secret documents recovered from the bombed headquarters of Saddam Hussein's secret service in Baghdad show that German spies attempted to forge links with their Iraqi counterparts over a year before the war began. The papers, recovered by British journalists working for the daily newspaper The Telegraph, describe a meeting between German secret service...

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder threatens to resign from his office, according to the German newspaper "Rheinische Post". Schröder, so the paper, wants his party, the Social Democratic party, to decide wether to accept Schröders proposals to reform German social welfare system or to dismiss them - and by refusing them he will resign! The SPD is going to have a meeting on June 1st, and on that day, the Party delegates will decide about Schröders fate.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Monday tied his political fate to a special party congress on the government’s controversial plans to reform the welfare state and spur the economy. Giving in to demands from the grassroots of his Social Democratic party (SPD), German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder agreed to hold a party congress on June 1 after meeting with the SPD leadership in Berlin. Effectively turning the event into a vote of confidence, SPD General Secretary Olaf Scholz said the reforms would be voted upon as a complete package at the congress. “We believe there is now a situation where it...

<p>April 9, 2003 -- French President Jacques Chirac, having failed to keep Saddam Hussein in power, is now reordering the Axis of Weasel to cash in on the American-led liberation of Iraq.</p> <p>How do you say "chutzpah" in French?</p> <p>Chirac yesterday demanded - yes, demanded! - that "the political, economic, humanitarian and administrative reconstruction of Iraq is a matter for the United Nations and for it alone."</p>

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has blamed the Iraq war for crushing global economic growth, as the European Commission prepares to cut its growth forecasts on Tuesday. "It can already be seen that the war in Iraq has increased the economic uncertainties worldwide, and some of the hopes for economic growth have been impaired, if not entirely destroyed," Mr Schroeder said in a speech on Sunday night. The Commission is expected to cut euro zone growth to 1% from the previous 1.8%, blaming the war on Iraq. The target for Germany, the largest economy in the euro zone, is expected to...

Baghdad is encircled, Baath party elites are fleeing and U.S. planes are flying supplies into the city's newly captured airport for the final battle. But perhaps the surest sign that a coalition victory is imminent is the sight of erstwhile war opponents jumping on the regime-change bandwagon. Gerhard Schroeder, the German Chancellor, who as recently as three weeks ago pronounced himself opposed to toppling Saddam Hussein -- with or without the United Nations' blessing -- now rejoices that "through the defeat of the dictatorship, the Iraqi people can realize its hopes of a life in ... freedom and self-determination." Then...

The Foreign Office of Turkey has an official web page. Under "Frequently Asked Questions", readers can click on "Why did the Turkish parliament reject the motion to allow US troops into Turkey?" Helpful answers are provided, such as "our public opinion is 94 per cent against a war" and "demeaning cartoons and articles in the US press got wide coverage in Turkey". Reason number three is that "the way negotiations regarding the military, political and economic packages were conducted was not helpful either". Which probably translates most accurately into: "The US didn't offer us enough baksheesh." France and Germany hide...

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder says he will fight for a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis until the "last minute and last second", but doubts whether war can be averted. Schroeder reiterated that Germany could not agree to any United Nations resolution legitimising a war against Iraq, echoing France which repeated on Monday its threat to use its veto. "The doubts now dominate, but I can't and don't want to give up hope," Schroeder told a news conference. "It's the task of German policy to fight until the last minute and last second for a peaceful solution."...

<p>BERLIN, Germany -- Germany is convinced that the Iraq crisis can still be resolved by peaceful means, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has said, insisting U.N. weapons inspections can produce "sustainable and verifiable disarmament."</p> <p>His comments, in a state of the nation speech to parliament Friday, came as high-stakes diplomacy continued at the United Nations. Tensions at the Security Council remain high after Britain said France's threat to use its U.N. veto made war with Iraq more likely.</p>