After spending the last four years trapped in a loveless grand coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats, Germany’s conservative chancellor Angela Merkel is looking forward to happier, more productive days in a cosy new centre-right coalition with her preferred partners, the pro-business Free Democrats.

However, rather than smooth sailing with her new, more like-minded coalition partners, it’s turned out to be one turf battle after another between Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, on the one side and the Free Democrats on the other.

Weeks of unseemly arguing over tax cuts, healthcare, conscription and other issues in coalition talks has earned the new coalition the nickname Fehlstart” (false start) in the German media.

That awkward beginning was confirmed in a most embarrassing fashion for Merkel on Wednesday when at least nine deputies in her own coalition withheld their support.

Merkel was easily re-elected chancellor with 323 votes in the 622-seat parliament, 11 more than she needed. The nine deputies who either abstained or voted against her in the secret ballot served as a tangible reminder that the CDU/CSU and FDP might not be the marriage made in heaven some had expected. It was a political kick in the shins that Merkel did not need.

Four years ago she got 397 of the 612 votes, 51 less than the CDU/CSU and SPD had together. That, however, was not surprising because the grand coalition had an enormous majority in parliament and because the two camps had long been such arch enemies. This time around it was nine deputies in her own preferred coalition who stabbed her in the back. Is that a harbinger of things to come?

“Let’s try forget about this,” said Volker Kauder, CDU parliamentary floor leader. Several conservatives are already picking holes in the coalition deal, which is only a few days old. Kauder said he was sure all the CDU/CSU deputies voted for Merkel. The FDP’s parliamentary floor leader, Birgit Homburger, said the same of her party.

At least one of them was wrong. 

PHOTO: Merkel reacts after her re-election on Wednesday by a narrower than expected margin in parliament. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

How can you tell when U.S. forces in Afghanistan are operating alone?

When they call it “the coalition”.

That’s not a joke. It’s just how things work in Afghanistan, where two separate forces with two separate command structures — one completely American, the other about half American — operate side by side under the command of the same U.S. general.

 ”When we say ‘coalition’, basically that means it’s just us,” a helpful U.S. military spokeswoman explained last month to a reporter who had just arrived in country after being away for a couple of  years. “Otherwise, it’s the ‘alliance’.”

And it’s not just words.

“The alliance” and “the coalition” maintain completely separate press offices, each of which is often allowed to give only bits and pieces of detail about the same incident. The result can be a bit confusing.

First, some history.

The “coalition” refers to Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. (or, as they like to say, “U.S.-led”) mission ordered by President George W. Bush back in 2001 to catch Osama bin Laden and overthrow the Taliban.

Occasionally over the past eight years it has actually operated as a coalition, with contributions from Britain and other countries.

But these days, it’s strictly an American mission, with thousands of U.S. troops engaged in hunting insurgents, training Afghans and providing air support. (Well, maybe not quite strictly American: there could be a handful of British or Australian special forces in there too. But that’s a secret.)

“The alliance”, meanwhile, refers to NATO, which now leads the International Security Assistance Force, set up by the United Nations to provide a small number of mostly European peacekeepers for the capital after the fall of the Taliban, also back in 2001.

ISAF’s role gradually expanded until 2006, when it spread throughout the country, got a lot bigger and began fighting the Taliban, especially in the south and east. ISAF now includes contributions from around 40 nations, but these days the force is about half American and getting more so by the week as thousands of U.S. reinforcements arrive.

Since last year, ISAF and “the coalition” have both been commanded by the same U.S. General, David McKiernan, who is about to be replaced by another, Stanley McChrystal.

Because ISAF — unlike “the coalition” — actually IS a coalition, it has stringent rules on what its members let it say. When its troops are involved in an incident, ISAF won’t say what country they come from, or precisely where in Afghanistan the incident took place.

The defence ministry of each country is supposed to reveal that information back home, but that can take hours or even days. And if troops from more than one Western country are involved — not to mention Afghan soldiers and police — piecing details together can require the skills of Sherlock Holmes.

Here’s an example: a few weeks ago, “the coalition” said one of its soldiers was killed in an incident. NATO said four of its soldiers had died. Neither said where: somewhere in eastern Afghanistan. It took several hours and phone calls throughout Afghanistan and Riga to determine that three of the soldiers were Americans, two were Latvians, and that the incident was the same as one Afghan troops had already reported in Kunar province.

The investigation ended with a conversation that went like something like this:

    Reuters: You’ve said one American was killed, right?
    U.S. military spokeswoman: That’s what we’ve said, yes.
    Reuters: And four NATO soldiers were also killed, right?
    U.S. military spokeswoman: Yes, that’s what ISAF has said.
    Reuters: And two of those NATO soldiers were also American?
    U.S. military spokeswoman: Yes, I can confirm that.
    Reuters: So actually three Americans were killed, yes?
    U.S. military spokeswoman: Yes, that’s correct.

 Confused? Join the coalition…

Kenya’s parliament and critics are calling loudly for Finance Minister Amos Kimunya to be fired for his role in the secretive government sale of a luxury hotel under murky circumstances. Pressure is mounting for Kimunya to resign or for his political patron, President Mwai Kibaki, to fire him over the sale of the Grand Regency hotel to a company that includes Libyan investors and at least one senior Kenya Central Bank employee.

The matter has tested the government set up in a power-sharing deal to end a bloody post election crisis

Kimunya denies wrongdoing and says the price offered was too good to resist. Political opponents and others have said that the value was drastically low, but straight answers about who bought it, how the deal came about and who is benefiting have not been forthcoming or given when asked for by the public or the press.

It hasn’t helped Kimunya’s situation that the Grand Regency first came to public scorn in the early 1990s when the man at the heart of the country’s longest running corruption scandal bought it with what the government says was stolen Central Bank money. That scandal, the Goldenberg affair, nearly brought the country’s economy to its knees and became the symbol for most in the east African nation of the impunity with which politicians and a small politically connected elite can steal public assets.

Adding to Kenyan frustration is the fact that many of the players from that era are still active in politics or remain in the small club of the connected. For example, the lawyer who handled the sale of the Grand Regency in 1994 to accused Goldenberg architect Kamlesh Pattni is now a government minister and is on the commission investigating the new case. Also on that commission is Justice Aaron Ringera, who earns 2.5 million Kenya shillings ($37,820) per month in his job as the head of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission – and Kimunya was on the panel that awarded Ringera that job.

So with so many close connections among the relatively small political elite, so much official obfuscation and a poisonous political atmosphere, will Kenya’s taxpayers ever get a straight answer on how the deal came about or how they will benefit? Will — or should — anyone be punished for what is shaping up to be the latest Kenyan corruption scandal?

And what could it mean for the coalition?