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CANADA
Prime Minister Calls 3rd Election in 4 Years
Canada's prime minister dissolved Parliament on Sunday, triggering an early election next month that will be the country's third national ballot in four years.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he expects the Oct. 14 vote to produce another minority government, but recent polls show the Conservatives could win the majority they need to rule without help from opposition parties.
Analysts said Harper's party has a better shot of winning now than if it had waited until being forced into a vote later, when the Canadian economy might be worse off, or after Canadians could be influenced by the U.S. presidential election results.
The Conservatives unseated the Liberal Party in 2006 after nearly 13 years in power but have been forced, as a minority government, to rely on opposition lawmakers to pass legislation and adopt budgets.
Electoral legislation that Harper helped enact after he came to power in 2006 fixed the date for the next election in October 2009. But a loophole allows the prime minister to ask the governor general to dissolve Parliament, which Harper did.
GERMANY
Social Democrats Tap Foreign Minister to Run
Germany's struggling Social Democratic Party shook up its leadership Sunday and chose Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to run against his boss, Chancellor Angela Merkel, in federal elections next year.
Kurt Beck quit as party leader, and Franz Muentefering was named to take his place.
Both Steinmeier and Muentefering are staunch defenders of economic reforms pushed through by former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, while Beck's popularity plunged to record lows during his 2 1/2 -year tenure.
The Social Democrats and Merkel's Christian Democrats formed a governing coalition in 2005, but recent opinion polls show Merkel's party holding a double-digit lead over the Social Democrats.
Steinmeier, 52, was Schroeder's chief of staff before Merkel took office and made him Germany's top diplomat.
