Kohl refuses to step down

Berlin - Germany's former chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, will not step down as honorary chairman of the opposition Christian Democrats…

Berlin - Germany's former chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, will not step down as honorary chairman of the opposition Christian Democrats and will not resign his parliamentary seat, despite his admission that he may have broken rules governing party funding by running a network of secret party accounts, Denis Staunton reports.

After a two-hour grilling of Dr Kohl at the party's headquarters in Bonn yesterday, the Christian Democrat leader, Dr Wolfgang Schaeuble, said that no new light had been cast on the controversial accounts and that the former chancellor remained secure in his position.