really manages to try and forge those alliances and come to a decision so it is still too early to say what this all means for merkel but we can definitely stress that this is a very big challenge for her and one that will require all her political capacities to try and find common ground among the parties all in case of new elections that could take place in april or something that's being discussed here that would also require all her political capacities to try and become again the strongest party if that comes to that situation that again is something that she wants to avoid. political correspondent thomas sparrow reporting from the in a stag thank you all right want to tell you now about some of the other stories making news around the world. russian president vladimir putin and his syrian counterpart bashar al assad have revealed they met yesterday in sochi the two leaders agreed to switch their efforts in syria for military operations to the search for a political solution to the country's civil war. a chinese court