Word: parliament
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This may come as a surprise, but with just days to go before the German parliamentary election, the suspense is building. For the past four years, Germany has been governed by a so-called Grand Coalition of the two biggest parties in parliament: the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and leader of the CDU, hopes to drop her current partners and govern instead with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP). But a tight electoral race and the complexity of the German voting system mean that outcome is far from...
...overall vote. Oftentimes, one party wins more seats in the direct vote than it earns from its share of the overall vote; when that happens, the party is allowed to keep its extra seats, which are called überhangmandate, or overhanging mandates, and the number of seats in parliament changes...
...Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told the European Parliament last week there was no negotiation on the quota issue. But she promised other measures to help the farmers, including enacting special rules on state subsidies so governments can offer them a one-time aid payment...
...Berlin A Deadly Air Strike Hits Home German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing growing criticism at home and abroad after a bombing in northern Afghanistan ordered by German troops killed dozens of people, including civilians. In an address to parliament, Merkel expressed regret but insisted she would not "accept premature judgments" about the incident, the deadliest involving the nation's military since World War II. The Sept. 4 strike on two fuel trucks hijacked by the Taliban, which was carried out by U.S. fighter jets, has heightened the Afghan war's unpopularity in Germany and erodes confidence in Merkel...
...This time, the immediate message was much more ambiguous, coming as Berlusconi continues to reel from a months-long sex scandal that has shaken his bearings and loosened what should otherwise be a tight hold over Parliament and his center-right coalition. As the first reports of the Thursday-morning bombing - which also killed 10 Afghan civilians - at an outdoor market in Kabul came in, the Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs both forcefully declared Italy's resolve to maintain its military presence in Afghanistan in the face of what Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa called a "cowardly" and "devious...