“Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities,” St Paul advised his friend Timothy, who may have been a hypochondriac.

Germany’s anti-nuclear Greens scored a remarkable victory over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party in a state election that turned into a referendum on nuclear power in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster.

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives looked set to lose power in a major regional stronghold yesterday after governing there for almost 60 years.

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party has suffered a defeat in a state election after almost six decades in power there, according to an exit poll.

ENDA KENNY could have a unique problem when he attends his second EU summit on Thursday and Friday — that of getting and keeping the attention of his fellow leaders sufficiently long to get his interestrate reduction.

HURRICANE-force winds across Europe at the weekend killed 13 people and left a trail of destruction, as cars were blown off the road, roofs were ripped offand trees fell like matchsticks.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s left-right government strengthened its grip on German politics with victories for the two ruling parties in three state elections and bad results for what remains of the opposition.

Members of Germany’s leading parties were expected today to approve the 143-page agreement that would see a left-right coalition take power, with Angela Merkel as the country’s first woman chancellor.

A senior conservative’s participation in Germany’s proposed new left-right government was in doubt today as politicians struggled to digest the implications of a sudden leadership crisis in the centre-left Social Democrats.

Two German air force bases were put on heightened alert today after federal police said they had information they could be targets for terror attacks.