Dresden, Germany - Germany's ailing education system, which has come under fire because of the high number of dropouts, is to win a cash infusion, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday after meeting state premiers.

Merkel has picked education as a strategic focus for Germany after a series of damning reports from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 
(OECD).

The education summit in Dresden agreed to aim at lifting the proportion of each age cohort which attends university from 35 per cent now to 40 per cent.

The proportion of German economic output to be spent on education and scientific research must grow, they agreed.

Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel is to raise human-rights issues when she speaks to Chinese leaders, one of her spokesman said Wednesday before she departed for Beijing.

Deputy spokesman Thomas Steg said meetings with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao as well as with civic groups would offer an occasion to do so.

"She'll bring it up," he said.

The trip to attend the ASEM summit between European and Asian nations will be Merkel's third to China as chancellor.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes an expansion of the Group of Eight (G8) to embrace nations such as India and China, her spokesman said Wednesday in Berlin.

"She doesn't see an institutional expansion into a G9, a G12, a G15 and so on as the philosopher's stone," said deputy government spokesman Thomas Steg.

Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative political bloc has been given a boost by the government's 480 billion bank (650 billion dollars) rescue plan, a key opinion poll released Wednesday showed.

The weekly Forsa opinion poll, published in Stern magazine and on the RTL television station, showed Merkel's Christian Democrats and their Bavarian-based associate party, the Christian Social Union, gained 2 per cent to hit 37 per cent.

Berlin - Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) gathered Saturday to anoint Frank-Walter Steinmeier, 52, the German foreign minister, as its candidate to challenge Chancellor Angela Merkel in the general election next year.

The party was also to appoint a new national chairman, Franz Muentefering, 68.

Both men were the national committee's sole nominees and face a simple yes-no vote at the one-day national conference in Berlin.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to visit Beijing next week for the scheduled Asia-Europe summit ASEM, her deputy spokesman Thomas Steg said Friday in Berlin.

The October 24-25 meeting would give 43 nations an opportunity to discuss the financial crisis, the world economy and environmental issues, according to Steg.

Merkel, who has been pushing for stricter global regulation of financial markets, would meet beforehand with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.