Excerpt:
Two weeks after winning German elections with a reduced majority, Chancellor Angela Merkel takes a first step Sunday on a rocky road towards forming a government by trying to get her own conservative house in order.
Her meeting from 1000 GMT with Bavarian sister party CSU kicks off weeks of exploratory coalition talks involving four parties, which will fight for ministerial posts and issues from EU relations to climate policy.
The trickiest questions centre on refugees after Merkel allowed in more than one million asylum seekers in the past two years -- the decision that drove the shock rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).