Angela Merkel

Germany had deemed it too early for Ukraine to join NATO in 2008 because it found that the political conditions were not met at that point.

In keeping with tradition, his first official trip will take him to France where he will meet President Emmanuel Macron.

Although her name has come up on wish lists for key EU or United Nations posts, Merkel has said she will leave politics altogether.

Germany already announced plans earlier this month to require health workers and soldiers to get inoculated against Covid-19.

Her exit may well open the door for the other half of the European engine -- Macron -- to slide into the driver's seat.

The sluggish vaccine uptake and rapidly filling intensive care beds have ignited a fierce debate

Polish media say at least 11 migrants have died since the crisis began in August.

After a strong push in the spring, Germany's inoculation rate had stagnated over the summer

Belarusian foreign ministry spokesman Anataoly Glaz accused Poland of exacerbating the problem.

Germany and Israel forged strong diplomatic ties in the decades after World War II, with Berlin committed to the preservation of the Jewish state.

Europe's biggest economy could be headed for weeks, if not months, of political uncertainty

Going into the summer, the conservatives were enjoying a comfortable lead against the SPD.

Germany's "Querdenker" (Lateral Thinkers) movement has emerged as the loudest voice against the government's coronavirus curbs.

Merkel's CDU/CSU alliance, which has dominated Germany's post-war politics, now faces a "historic debacle" on September 26

Polls put both the centre-right CDU-CSU and the Social Democrats on around 23 percent, with the Greens at about 17 percent.

Critics say the US reputation as a global power has been badly tarnished by the Taliban's victory,

Germany joins a number of European nations that have seen cases climb in recent weeks fuelled by the Delta variant, first detected in India.

Waters have subsided since Friday but workers and volunteers face a mammoth task to clear away the detritus and help local residents rebuild their shattered lives.

In some areas, police deployed speedboats and divers to retrieve bodies.

More than 40 percent of adults have now had their first jab, and 15 percent are fully vaccinated.

Merkel and the premiers of Germany's 16 federal states will discuss the next steps in the pandemic fight on March 22.

In a New Year's Eve televised address, Merkel had already warned Germans of a hard winter with the virus.

At least 13,119 people have died from the virus in Germany so far.

The transition team said Biden planned to work with the Europeans on fighting the Covid-19 pandemic as well as climate change.

Biden and top Democrats have warned that Johnson can forget about a UK-US trade deal if Brexit scuppers the hard-won peace brokered by the US.

Merkel said she understood that the coronavirus measures were asking a lot of citizens, and stressed that they would only ever be temporary.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday night announced new limits on people gathering at events as well as mandatory mask wearing in crowded places.

In the biggest of several European protests, the protesters opposed coronavirus restrictions against face mask rules and other anti-virus curbs.

The shorter-hours programme - Kurzarbeit, sees the German government cover around two-thirds of workers' wages when employers slash their hours to save costs.

Britain followed through on the results of a deeply divisive 2016 referendum and left the EU after almost half a century of integration on January 31.