ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Iran and six world powers began rare talks on Saturday to try to halt a downward diplomatic spiral over Tehran’s nuclear program and ease fears of a new Middle East war.

The talks, in Istanbul, the first between Iran and the six powers in 15 months, are unlikely to yield any major breakthrough but Western diplomats hope to see readiness from Tehran to start to discuss issues of substance.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish prosecutors ordered the arrest on Thursday of four ex-generals and dozens of officers on charges of plotting the 1997 overthrow of the government of Necmettin Erbakan, the Islamist leader who paved the way for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

The arrest warrants are the latest in a series of direct challenges to Turkey’s military, who for decades considered it their right to interfere in political affairs, and who toppled four governments they felt threatened Turkey’s secular order.

BERLIN, March 25 (Reuters) – Angela Merkel’s conservatives
won Sunday’s election in the tiny state of Saarland but her Free
Democrat (FDP) allies crashed out of the local assembly with
just 1.2 percent, continuing a dismal run which has weakened her
centre-right German government.

The chancellor’s Christian Democrats (CDU) won the state
election and will seek a so-called “Grand Coalition” with the
second-placed Social Democrats (SPD), a trend which may be
repeated in national elections next year.

BERLIN, March 25 (Reuters) – The German state of Saarland
votes on Sunday in the first of a trio of state elections that
could banish Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partners from
regional parliaments, weakening her centre-right government
ahead of next year’s federal election.

The Christian Democratic (CDU) chancellor plans to seek a
third term in 2013, but will almost certainly be forced to find
an alternative partner to the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), who
languish at just 3 percent in the polls after a record 14.6
percent showing at the last national election in 2009.

BERLIN, March 5 (Reuters) – Thousands gathered in
Berlin on Monday to protest looming cuts to solar power
incentives, which the solar industry says will reduce the market
for new installations in Germany, the world’s largest, to just a
quarter of its size and result in massive job losses.

Concerned by rapid growth in Germany’s solar sector, which
has seen the development of almost as much capacity as the rest
of the world combined, the government last month approved plans
to slash state-mandated incentives for photovoltaic electricity.

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) – French Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande said on Sunday he was unconcerned by a report that conservative European leaders had agreed to shun his campaign and he vowed to stick with his plan to renegotiate an EU budget treaty.

German weekly magazine Spiegel reported that Christian Democratic Chancellor Angela Merkel, Spanish conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Italy’s technocrat leader Mario Monti had agreed not to meet Hollande because of his opposition to the fiscal pact signed by 25 European leaders in Brussels last week.

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) – French Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande said on Sunday he was unconcerned by a report that conservative European leaders had agreed to shun his campaign and he vowed to stick with his plan to renegotiate an EU budget treaty.

German weekly magazine Spiegel reported that Christian Democratic Chancellor Angela Merkel, Spanish conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Italy’s technocrat leader Mario Monti had agreed not to meet Hollande because of his opposition to the fiscal pact signed by 25 European leaders in Brussels last week.

BERLIN, March 3 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela
Merkel faces an unexpected challenge in getting new euro zone
budget discipline rules approved at home, after the government
confirmed on Saturday the new treaty would require a two-thirds
majority in both houses of parliament.

That will leave Merkel depending on opposition parties, who,
despite having backed her in the past on a second Greek bailout
package and extended powers for the euro zone’s bailout fund,
are likely to demand concessions in exchange for their support
such as growth stimulus measures.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s parliament was set to endorse the latest Greek bailout on Monday after Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected both domestic pressure to stop throwing good money after bad and international pleas to boost Europe’s crisis defences.

The world’s leading economies in the G20 piled pressure on Berlin at the weekend to drop opposition to a bigger European bailout fund, telling Europe it must put up extra money if it wanted more help from other countries.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s parliament was almost certain to endorse a second Greek bailout on Monday but Chancellor Angela Merkel was torn between domestic pressure to stop throwing good money after bad and global calls to boost Europe’s crisis defenses.

The world’s leading economies in the G20 piled pressure on Berlin at the weekend to drop opposition to a bigger European bailout fund, telling Europe it must put up extra money if it wanted more help from other countries.