German State Ballot

• Angela Merkel's party braces for defeat in major German state

  Chancellor Angela Merkel's party faced a drubbing in Germany's most populous state on Sunday as voters cast ballots in a snap election that could provide impetus to her main rivals in the countdown to 2013 national polls.

• Germany: Merkel's party suffers loss in key polls first time in 60 years

  German chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives have suffered a historic defeat in a state ballot after almost six decades in power there; preliminary results have showed, in an election that amounted to a referendum on the party's stance on nuclear power.     The opposition anti-nuclear Greens doubled their voter share in Baden...