BERLIN (Reuters) – The humiliation of Angela Merkel’s allies in Berlin state elections offers her short-term relief in highlighting the risks of an explicitly ‘eurosceptic’ platform; but the vote dramatizes a shift in Germany’s political landscape unlikely to benefit the chancellor.

With the Social Democrats (SPD) scoring a convincing third-term win in the capital and likely to form a new coalition with the fast-growing Greens, the result reflects nationwide opinion polls and looks like a foretaste of federal elections in 2013.

BERLIN, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Germany’s Social Democrats beat
Angela Merkel’s conservatives in a regional vote in Berlin on
Sunday, handing the chancellor her sixth election defeat this
year ahead of a key euro zone vote in parliament in two weeks’
time.

Merkel’s centre-right coalition suffered a further setback
when their junior coalition partners at the national level, the
Free Democrats (FDP), failed to clear the five percent threshold
needed to win seats — for the fifth time this year.

BERLIN, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Germany’s centre-left Social
Democrats beat Angela Merkel’s conservatives in a regional
election in the city-state of Berlin on Sunday, handing the
chancellor her sixth defeat in seven elections this year.

The SPD won 29.5 percent of the vote in Berlin, down from
30.8 percent in 2006 in Germany’s largest city with 3.4 million
inhabitants, according to an exit poll on ARD television.

Berlin (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives face a heavy defeat in a regional election on Sunday that would extend their losing streak to six states this year and weaken her hand before a crucial euro zone vote in parliament.

Opinion polls show Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) will win about 22 percent of the vote in the city-state of Berlin on Sunday and come a distant second to the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), who are forecast to win about 31 percent and stay in power with either the Greens or the Left party.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Does the world really even need electric cars?

In the global battle against carbon emissions, carmakers have made considerable progress in recent years boosting fuel efficiency of their internal combustion engines thanks to gadgets like turbochargers, industry officials and analysts said.

Although it may be an odd-sounding name for a green technology, the turbocharger raises fuel efficiency levels by up to 40 percent and is now included in 75 percent of new cars in Europe. That could rise to nearly 90 percent by 2015.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Does the world really even need electric cars?

In the global battle against carbon emissions, carmakers have made considerable progress in recent years boosting fuel efficiency of their internal combustion engines thanks to gadgets like turbochargers, industry officials and analysts said.

Although it may be an odd-sounding name for a green technology, the turbocharger raises fuel efficiency levels by up to 40 percent and is now included in 75 percent of new cars in Europe. That could rise to nearly 90 percent by 2015.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Electric cars and hybrids may be capturing headlines and the imagination of green-leaning consumers around the world as one automaker after another announces plans to push into the brave new world of fossil fuel-free mobility.

But away from the spotlight, carmakers have been quietly delivering significant cuts in CO2 emissions with some re-engineering of internal combustion engines, technology advances, weight reduction and aerodynamic improvements.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Electric cars and hybrids may be capturing headlines and the imagination of green-leaning consumers around the world as one automaker after another announces plans to push into the brave new world of fossil fuel-free mobility.

But away from the spotlight, carmakers have been quietly delivering significant cuts in CO2 emissions with some re-engineering of internal combustion engines, technology advances, weight reduction and aerodynamic improvements.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that the euro zone’s crisis could not be solved with radical quick fixes like jointly issued bonds, and that instead the bloc faced a “long hard” path to slash back debt built up over decades.

In a closely watched speech to the Bundestag lower house of parliament shortly after Germany’s top court imposed new limits on Berlin’s participation in euro zone bailouts, Merkel said the shared currency “cannot be allowed to fail and will not fail.”

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel denied on Monday she made a tactical error by putting her government’s euro zone rescue efforts at the centre of a regional election campaign after her party suffered yet another sobering defeat.

Even though her Christian Democrats suffered their worst-ever result in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Sunday amid persistent worries about the euro, the German leader chose to blame local issues for the drop to 23.1 percent from 28.8 percent in 2006.