Merkel bumped from top spot in Germany favorite politician pollFebruary 7, 2014 - 13:56 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been bumped from the top spot in a regular poll of the country's favorite politician for the first time in two years, according to the Associated Press. Public broadcaster ARD says Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had an approval rating of 70 percent, one point ahead of Merkel. The gap is within the 3.1-percentage-point margin of error in the telephone poll of 1,008 voters conducted Feb 3-4. The results released late Thursday, Feb 6, also had the anti-euro party Alternative fuer Deutschland at 6 percent in advance of the May 25 elections for the European Parliament. That's well ahead of the 3 percent threshold for parliamentary seats. Related links: Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. Ucom launches network modernization efforts in few regions of Armenia In particular, on March 28, the legacy Mobile Switching Subsystem will be replaced with a new one. |