david mcalister is ticking at the edge of having a scottish father. the bagpipe music in his campaign ads drives the point home. in germany, in scottish means being good with money, a point that mcalister is trying to make about himself. >> in our campaign, we are talking about balancing the budget, strengthening our economy, good education, but of course in the campaign a little part of it is about my scottish and this. we have the slogan, i am a mac. that is a campaign on the internet where people say we want david mcalister tuesday prime minister of lower saxony because we're doing a successful job. >> mcalister and his union are expected to get the biggest proportion of the vote, but they need the government as coalition partners, and their current partners, the free democrats, not that the 5% of the votes needed to have a seat in parliament, meeting the coalition government of the future may be headed by the opposition. that is a predicament faced by the german chancellor angela merkel. why she cares so much about this race. she made seven campai

ahead of crucial elections, chancellor merkel puts her full weight behind david mcalister and head-to-head in a nine-goal thriller. reports are coming in that algerian special forces have found 15 burned bodies in the gas plant at the southeast of the country that came under attack by muslim militants. a launch raid was held to free them and they said it prevented a massacre but 30 are still unaccounted for and 12 are unaccounted for and those who escaped have been traumatized. >> hostages celebrating their release. one described the moment the drama began. >> their goal was foreign hostages. they met a bus at the entrance of the base's living quarters. they released a few of us and killed foreigners and algerian forces on the spot then returned to the base and took hostages. >> many died or were hurt when algerian military stormed the area. it's kept officials on edge. >> i spoke with the algerian prime minister again to get an update on this very difficult situation and to underscore, again, that the utmost care must be taken to preserve innocent life. >> the situation remains tense. an