Word: leader
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...allies are likely to inspire more ambitious change. Top of the pile of unfinished business: nurturing and revitalizing a torpid economy, the world's fourth largest. Under the influence of her SPD partners, Merkel intervened to preserve jobs in big industries. Guido Westerwelle, the FDP's leader, and future deputy to Merkel in the new coalition, believes too little has been done to look after the interests of Germany's Mittelstand, its small- and medium-size businesses. He told TIME in a recent interview that some German stimulus measures had been ill-conceived. "You can sign 100 stimulus programs...
...shape of the new government won't emerge until after a period of horse-trading and a vote in the Bundestag, probably in a week or two, to confirm Merkel as Chancellor. Westerwelle, despite his focus on economics, is expected to become Foreign Minister, the traditional role for the leader of the junior coalition party. The biggest foreign policy issue confronting the incoming government is Afghanistan. Germans are increasingly unhappy with their troops' participation in the NATO mission there, but the U.S. and other countries are keen to see Germany shoulder more of the burden. (Read "Afghanistan: Looking...
Westerwelle, like Merkel, looked for a sober tone as he addressed supporters. "We are ready to accept the responsibility," he said. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the defeated SPD leader, sounded abject: "The voters have spoken. It's a bitter day for Germany's Social Democrats. It's a bitter result...
...incident is the latest of many ominous signs for a peace process that is already on the rocks. On the same holiday in 2000, a highly controversial visit paid to the mosque by then opposition leader Ariel Sharon proved to be the move that many here say launched the second intifadeh. Indeed, it was a bad weekend for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict all around. On Sept. 25, the Israeli Defense Forces killed three members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad in an air strike - the first one inside densely populated Gaza City since a loose cease-fire was implemented...
Friday's air strike came shortly after the region watched a tense handshake unfold 5,000 miles away in New York City with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. U.S.-led attempts at jump-starting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in recent months have failed, in large part because of Israel's refusal to freeze construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at reconciling rivals Fatah and Hamas have yet to see a breakthrough as well...