this is news coming to you live from berlin reports the german coalition deal is imminent germany's two biggest political parties have pushed through the night so settle their differences does the country have a government also coming up an earthquake in taiwan kills at least four people and scores are missing we'll get the latest on the rescue operation that's underway. and space x. launches the world's most powerful rocket hits another milestone in the tech companies bid to put humans on mars to tell you about it some usual cargo.

hello i'm terry martin good to have you with us we begin here in germany we're going back as conservatives and the social democrats are reported to have cheap achieved a breakthrough in coalition talks negotiations between the two parties went on through the night michael c.d.u. headquarters here in berlin the sides disagreed over labor laws and health care reform it's been more than four months since german national elections country faced the prospect of fresh elections without a coalition deal. well for the very latest let's cross over to our political correspondent hans bond who's standing by outside the c.d.u. party headquarters here in berlin where those marathon talks of been taking place

hans we're getting signals that breakthrough has been achieved in the talks what can you tell us is obviously the signals have arrived here as well that come from the online edition of a very german magazine who report from inside the coalition talks saying that an agreement has been reached and especially an agreement has been reached on the distribution of the various ministries in the new government between the two parties the social democrats and the conservatives there has however been no further confirmation of this has to nobody has arrived from inside the talks to talk to journalists and there have been no further other reports like this the members of the social democratic party that recently left the talks and talked to the press simply said that it was continuing that the party chiefs are continuing their discussions and that one would expect a larger group of negotiators to reconvene. in

a couple of all of us and to continue with negotiations so these reports do exist it's not certainly not clear yet whether they can be confirmed if they are to be confirmed it's likely to take another couple of hours at least before we have some certainty. tell us what his held up the talks here at the end because the the talks towards forming a coalition between the conservatives and the social democrats they were supposed to wrap up over the weekend now here we are on wednesday obviously there were some real sticking points what what have those sticking points been at the end. well in fact these last round of negotiations from yesterday tuesday to today took almost twenty four hours that started yesterday morning at ten o'clock local time and now it is ten o'clock local time here again almost twenty four hours of negotiations that really is a marathon talk i doubt ugly american has ever been involved in talks that have

lost it so long it's been those especially those two issues that were mentioned health care reform and especially your reform questions about temporary work in germany fixed contracts in germany this is something that the social democrats have demanded should be forbidden ojt least restricted in germany so that especially young people who very often get given such a fixed term contracts have a better chance to plan their future on that point i think there was a lot of resistance from the conservatives who are very close to business and business has been saying that this is bad for business in the last discussions also concerned my name a lot of promises have been made in various areas in these negotiations and nobody really has done the sums yet has added up all the promises what they're going to cost and whether you know if in fact enough money is available to fulfill those promises so at the moment it looks as though progress is being made and in fact all

of it mentioned a couple of the sticking points there in terms of policy what about the areas where the conservatives in the social democrats agree because getting into this last phase of negotiations they had already signed off pretty much on on a large number of issues that were considered contentious going into these talks initially but have somehow been resolved where do they agree and what can we expect to see if they do indeed come out with a coalition agreement today. well there's been a large large number of agreement so radio last night a leaked document was leaked of the. phase of the unit cohesion is that had been reached it comprised one hundred sixty five pages of detailed agreements i can't mention them all but i think the most crucial ones are on migration there was pretty much pretty early in agreement on the number of people that can join asylum

seekers or refugees in germany that can join as family members they agreed pretty early on this that there would be a thousand a month that would be allowed into germany plus certain cases where the situation was particularly dire in addition to that there were also agreements on areas such as foreign policy on old age care on the housing. a large large number of areas where both parties obviously are saying that they push through the interests of their voters conservative on the one hand social democrats on the other in all these areas both parties will say that they have negotiated well and done well for their voters. if an agreement comes today and many are saying that one is imminent and we have course have to wait and see if an agreement comes what will the next steps be in terms of forming a government. well first of all we actually have to wait for another three weeks or

so for the social democratic party to make a final decision the social democrats have promised their rank and file members that they can take a vote on whether or not they agree with this coalition agreement and that is going to be a process that will take about three weeks says over four hundred sixty thousand members of that party that will have to participate in this virt by letter most of most likely by mail so that's a long process after that there is as you as it was a constitutional process that has to be performed to the constitution prescribes that parliament has to meet that parliament has to elect a new government the government has to be appointed by the president all of that also takes at least a couple of weeks so we're talking about a period of about five to six weeks before a government is actually taking up its work actually getting down to work so we're talking about i guess march sometime in march that we will finally have a government so what's the likely is it then that the s.p.d.

will actually vote in favor of this agreement because it seems that it's ultimately going to be decided by the s.p.d. rank and file. here's the strange as it may seem that is in fact the case it's i ultimately going to be decided by those by those four hundred sixty thousand members of the social democratic party there's been a lot of criticism within the party of these grand coalition is that the social democrats have been engaged with this past government that has ruled for the past four years was such a grand coalition and the feeling was that the social democratic party in cooperating with the conservatives of i'm going to somehow lost its way somehow wasn't able to push through its issues wasn't able to convince its voters that it was doing good work and that was reflected in the very bad results for the social democrats in the recent general election at the end of september so many people in the party feel that participating in another grand coalition would lead to further

erosion further weakening of the social democratic party it's not clear how this vote is going to go the social democrats had a special party congress in order to decide whether or not to enter this election into these coalition talks and that's voted at that congress was very very narrow sixty percent to forty percent something like that so it's by no means clear that the decision by the rank and file will be in favor of a grand coalition and stake is so much for no political correspondent her standing outside the c.d.u. party headquarters were an announcement could be coming any time on the formation of a new government thank you so much for now hans. well as hans was saying even if the parties do agree to a deal that's not quite the end of the line first the social democrats have promised their members a boat on the coalition agreement and after some spirited infighting between the

parties different factions not all members are likely to support it. there was a female cricket from the city of austin just signed up last week to become an s.p.d. member she wants to see changes in policies affecting families and pensioners she's completely against continuing in a grand coalition so i put test so i can sign it's a form of protest but i want to stay in the s.p.d. for a long time so that i can be involved in policy making as a member of the opposition not within a grand coalition no more business as usual we need to make the social democrats strong again ever since the s.p.d. just barely passed a vote to enter formal coalition talks the number of new members has risen thanks to them the s.p.d. now has a total of around four hundred sixty thousand members some new members want to change the party others just want to prevent a grand coalition political experts say a new wave of members leaving is not likely this didn't happen in two thousand and

thirteen the last time there was an s.p.d. member vote. the increasing number of new members is a sign the s.p.d. has become interesting for people who want to have a say in politics and think new tools to affect change which have been available up till now like voting in elections on snuff in two seats in the state of lower saxony for example has registered more than a thousand new s.p.d. members and north rhine-westphalia more than four thousand since the end of january a record high. well with us here in the studio is the w.'s nina she's going to try to break down what's happening in those coalition talks here in berlin. nina we've already heard that a announcement could be imminent there's talk of a breakthrough nothing official though as we've just heard from our correspondent there who's following the goshi ations what can you read into these tea leaves. that is so difficult at the moment it is

a situation that we in gemini are not used to we have to make that clear that it is something that for the past decades devaney has not experienced and this instability usually it doesn't take that long to form a government and you can really see that the posses are reluctant to get into the next grand coalition very well aware that they did lose significantly in the last elections in september and so they do have to play it hard they do have to find agreements and on little details as well just to make so it's a convince that posse bases extremely difficult to to get these parties to reach an agreement under these conditions it must be said because going into these talks the s.p.d. suffered so badly in the last election and it must be said that the that the christian democrats merkel's party suffered too so that they both i think i'm moving a little bit reluctantly in this direction i just want to bring our viewers up to

date with a bit of information is coming through right now on the german wires being reported that the german mass circulation newspaper billed has has said is reporting that the social democrats are to get the foreign finance and labor ministries that merkel city used to get the economy defense ministries and and apparently the americans but very an ally the c s u is to get the interior ministry now this is all attributed of course to the circulation. bild newspaper here in germany and can i say that is specially the finance ministry if that does indeed go. from the social democrats this is a significant ministry where he can get back into the position that he's very comfortable with because the finance ministry in germany is the one that deals with european affairs as we mustn't forget terry that is most comfortable on the european stage he came from brussels as the e.u.

head of parliament and he went from hero to zero within the space of one year so this if the s.p.d. does indeed get the finance ministry then this is really big news for the s.p.d. you mention martin scholtz the head of the s.p.d. the social democrats here in germany former president of the european parliament elected with one hundred percent support within the party to the post as party leader but he's severely weakened coming out of september's election there's been a lot of speculation about whether he himself would even be able to maintain a position and stay in be a get a get a post in merkel's cabinet in this in a new any new government any ideas on yourself whether we'll see. with a cabinet post that is the big conflict for the s.p.d. isn't it i mean they have promised their votes as a complete renewal in september they went out of the elections almost happy to be

in the opposition at last and eagerly awaiting that opportunity to get out of this forced marriage with america as some people call it saying he would never ever enter into a holiday season with anglo american so of course his credibility has been weakened in recent months and this is the big big dilemma which is even if which is the reason why even if we do get a deal today it is far from clear whether this coalition will actually come into force because it's. bases is so divided and there are a lot of people who really want to renewal outside of a grand coalition i was seeing just reading some of the german press the last couple days there's speculation that the s.p.d. will probably not even say to the actual name.