News stories by Wolfgang Kerler

MUNICH, Feb 23 (IPS) - Internationally, German chancellor Angela Merkel was praised for her humanitarian decision to open the countries' border to hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and Iraq. But the decision has considerably reduced her support among Germans. Chances are real that Merkel could lose the chancellorship in the upcoming national elections.

Twenty years after the Berlin Wall came down, rifts between east and west Germany remain: east Germans vote differently, are earning less money, and are more pessimistic than west Germans.

Most Germans support nuclear abolition, but the country may still not give up its policy of nuclear sharing.

Pacifists, the political opposition and churches are bashing the German government for rising arms exports that have made the country the world's third largest supplier of weapons. But an industry insider says the German arms exports policy is still among the most restrictive worldwide.

At their anti-racism conference in Geneva next April, United Nations member states may find themselves -- once again -- in a heated dispute over how to properly address the Israel-Palestinian conflict in the context of racism, xenophobia and racial discrimination.