Hello, today is Angela Merkel's grip on par hanging by a thread.

We find the view of the British press isn't echoed in Germany.

In Kosovo, one woman's sporting prowess is giving the country high hopes of Olympic glory.

In India, traditions and old prejudices die hard, the experience of a Dalit or untouchable man in the home state of the country's

Prime Minister.

And far out in the Pacific Ocean, the traditional way of life in Samoa is forever under pressure though tattooing is still going

strong. First to South Africa where the results of this week's municipal election

show the worst setback for the governing ANC party since the end of the apartheid era over 20 years ago.

The Opposition Democratic Alliance has been gaining ground particularly in urban areas so

Karen Allen has been finding out about voter loyalty in Soweto.

Ellequent, educated and shivering in the winter cold.

Johannes Hetswa is an elderly black resident of Suueto's clip town neighborhood.

He didn't stay up to watch the results of the local elections on TV, he doesn't have electricity in his home,

just like thousands of others in this area.

And it's this lack of essential public services which in this week's elections has caught up with the ruling

African National Congress.

The party that's dominated politics here since the dawn of democracy in 1994 has discovered that the loyalty of black South Africans has limits.

The Opposition Democratic Alliance, or DA, snatched control of a key city, Port Elizabeth, and at the time of writing was running

neck and neck for control of the administrative capital Pretoria and was only just behind

in the commercial hub Johannesburg.

I don't know which way Mr. Hetswa voted, but he's an ANC loyalist who feels torn.

He worked for an engineering firm for a large chunk of his adult life, paid his taxes and obeyed the law.

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