Germany

BERLIN, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Germany's liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) pressed Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives to say whether they really want to lead a new coalition government, ramping up pressure on its would-be ruling partners ahead of exploratory talks on Sunday.

The conservatives' chancellor candidate, Armin Laschet, has said he wants to form a government, even after his bloc of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) slumped to a record low result in last Sunday's vote.

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday that Germans must keep working for democracy, as the country celebrated the 31st anniversary of the reunification of East and West.

In what is expected to be one of her last major speeches, the outgoing chancellor said that “mentally and structurally, unification hasn’t been completed yet.”

BERLIN, Oct 2 (Reuters) - A three-way German government led by the Social Democrats (SPD) should be ready to take office by the end of the year, the co-leader of the centre-left party said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday.

Norbert Walter-Borjans said he was confident his party, which won Sunday's national election by a narrow margin that left it seeking partners, could move swiftly to agree a coalition with the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP).

BERLIN (AP) — A joint European-Japanese spacecraft got its first glimpse of Mercury as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025.

The BepiColombo mission made the first of six flybys of Mercury at 11:34 p.m. GMT (7:34 p.m. EST) Friday, using the planet’s gravity to slow the spacecraft down.

After swooping past Mercury at altitudes of under 200 kilometers (125 miles), the spacecraft took a low resolution black-and-white photo with one of its monitoring cameras before zipping off again.

BERLIN, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- China expects the new German government to continue a proactive and pragmatic policy towards China and jointly promote stable and in-depth ties, Chinese Ambassador to Germany Wu Ken has said.

Germany's federal election came to a close last Sunday and the parties have started exploratory talks to form a new government, marking an end to the era of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Sharply higher oil and gas prices pushed annual inflation in the 19 countries that use the euro to its highest in more than a decade in September. Economists and central bankers say the jump in energy prices is temporary — but it has governments nonetheless scrambling to ease the pain of higher utility bills for households.

The European Union statistics agency Eurostat said Friday that inflation came in at 3.4%, up from 3.0% in August and the highest since 2008.

BERLIN, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Germany's Greens said on Wednesday they had held a good first round of talks with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and planned to meet them again, though the two 'kingmakers' were at odds over which larger partner to join in a new coalition government.

The upbeat message from the Greens' Annalena Baerbock came after a smiling selfie of FDP and Green leaders together at an initial meeting late on Tuesday went viral, with the cosiness of the unlikely allies' meeting sparking a raft of jokes.

FRANKFURT/MUMBAI, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The Afghan central bank ran down most of its U.S. dollar cash reserves in the weeks before the Taliban took control of the country, according to an assessment prepared for Afghanistan's international donors, exacerbating the current economic crisis.

The confidential, two-page brief, written early this month by senior international economic officials for institutions including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, said the country's severe cash shortage began before the Taliban took control of Kabul.

Berlin, Sep 27 (AP-PTI) The party that narrowly beat outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel's bloc pushed Monday for a quick agreement on a coalition government amid concerns that Europe's biggest economy could be in for weeks of uncertainty after an election that failed to set a clear direction.

Olaf Scholz, the candidate of the center-left Social Democrats, called for Merkel's center-right Union bloc to go into opposition after it saw its worst-ever result in a national election.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s newly elected lawmakers are holding their first meetings on Tuesday as their parties digest the fallout of the election that reduced outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bloc to its worst-ever result and start the process of putting together a new government.