Germany's Merkel Suffers Election Blow Over Nuclear Policy

Reuters @ Common Dreams - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives appeared set to lose power in a major regional stronghold on Sunday after early results suggested the anti-nuclear Greens were surging to their first ever state premiership.

In Baden-Wuerttemberg state, where anti-nuclear sentiment has been mobilised by Japan's nuclear crisis, the Greens and Social Democrats (SPD) were set to win 48.3 percent, eclipsing the Christian Democrats who have held power for six decades.

Merkel's CDU and their Free Democrat coalition partners, big backers of nuclear power, won a combined 43.2 percent, according to the first projections after polls closed at 1600 GMT in the state of nearly 11 million people. Read more.