Category Archives: Germany

Germany’s CDU party chair resigns after using surrogacy to become parent

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Jens Spahn had criticised ‘rented wombs’ and his party is strongly opposed to surrogacy, which is banned in Germany

A senior German politician and ally of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has resigned as chair of the Christian Democrat (CDU) party after he and his husband used a surrogate mother to become parents, a practice he has criticised in the past and his party is vehemently opposed to.

Surrogacy is banned in Germany, a policy Jens Spahn refused to relax when he was health minister in 2020, so he and his husband, Daniel Funke, used a surrogate mother in the US.

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Young Germans opting out of military service as Berlin strives to boost army

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Almost 6,000 young men apply to be excluded on moral or religious grounds despite ‘conscription lite’ policy

The number of young men applying to be conscientious objectors and refuse armed military service in Germany has risen sharply this year, undermining a drive by Berlin to create Europe’s strongest conventional army and deter the Russian threat.

More people had applied to exclude themselves from service on religious or moral grounds in the first half of 2026 than in the whole of last year, according to figures provided by the government on Tuesday.

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Berlin’s mayor abandons reelection campaign after ‘tennis-gate’ outcry

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Kai Wegner admits poor communication in handling of power blackout overshadowed his other political work

Berlin’s embattled mayor has abandoned his campaign to stand for reelection after failing to recover from a row over his decision to play tennis while large parts of the German capital were hit by a power blackout in January.

Kai Wegner announced on Friday afternoon that he would not run in Berlin’s 20 September election after coming under huge pressure to step down from his party, the Christian Democrats (CDU). Some members wrote an open letter to Wegner this week in which they appealed to him to withdraw his candidacy.

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Ryanair passenger almost sucked out of shattered window during flight

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Serbian man reportedly saved by wife hanging on to his legs after window shattered on journey from Greece

A passenger on a Ryanair flight was reportedly almost sucked out of a window after it shattered in mid-air during a journey from Greece.

The man was said to have been lifted out of his seat into the plane’s slipstream and hung headfirst out of the window after an engine failure resulted in parts smashing the acrylic window, according to local reports.

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Canada to buy 12 hi-tech German submarines after bidding war

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TKMS beats South Korean rival to multibillion-dollar contract that will deepen Canada’s Nato ties

Canada has selected a German consortium to build a dozen cutting-edge submarines in one of the country’s largest-ever defence contracts that will further deepen its Nato ties before a crucial summit this week.

On Monday the prime minister, Mark Carney, announced the winner of a tightly contested battle for the lucrative government contract to replace its fleet of ageing, secondhand subs, most of which are undergoing maintenance.

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German riot police clash with protesters hoping to block far-right AfD conference

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Thousands of police deployed to Erfurt in central Germany as party holds conference on key Nazi date

Riot police have clashed with opponents of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party on the streets of Erfurt in Germany, where thousands met to block roads and prevent AfD delegates from attending the party’s biennial national conference to elect its leadership.

Police reported 20,000 protesters were demonstrating in the eastern city, where Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla are expected to be re-elected as the party’s co-leaders in the run-up to crucial regional elections in which AfD could win power at state-level for the first time.

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German prosecutors accuse Kyiv of ordering 2022 Nord Stream sabotage

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Indictment against alleged leader of gas pipeline attack claims former Ukrainian army officer was directed by state

German prosecutors have accused Ukrainian “state authorities” of ordering the 2022 explosives attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe, a charge likely to ignite tensions between Kyiv and Berlin, its biggest military backer.

The sabotage in the Baltic Sea by a team of assailants almost entirely destroyed the seafloor infrastructure of the key source of Russian gas to Germany.

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‘But we’re just 1% of emissions’: do smaller countries’ climate efforts matter?

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Past and present leaders of wealthy nations such as UK and Germany have argued their actions are insignificant

On first hearing, it is a position that sounds reasonable. “When our share of global emissions is less than 1%,” Rishi Sunak argued when he was the UK prime minister in 2023, “how can it be right that British citizens are now being told to sacrifice even more than others?”

Sunak is not the only world leader to have cited such figures while delaying cuts to pollution. In 2019, Scott Morrison, Australia’s then prime minister, used his country’s 1.3% of global emissions to reject any suggestion Australia was not “doing our bit” on climate breakdown. In July, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, pointed to his country’s 2% share of global emissions while supporting loopholes in European climate targets. A few months later the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, followed suit, flagging the EU’s 6% share.

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Six adults killed in shooting at youth welfare facility in Stade, Germany

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Four women among the dead and two people arrested after incident in city west of Hamburg

Four women and two men have been killed in a shooting at a youth welfare facility ⁠in northern Germany, police said. Two people including the suspected ⁠shooter were arrested.

The incident took place in Stade, a city close to the port city of Hamburg, on Monday afternoon. Police said the victims, employees of the shelter, were all shot inside the building. Five died at the scene and the sixth died in hospital. Police said the death toll could rise.

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Extreme heat continues in central and eastern Europe with temperatures of 38C expected – Europe live

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Germany, Czechia, Poland and Hungary reached record temperatures of more than 40C on Sunday

Good morning, or dzień dobry, from Warsaw, Poland as the heatwave that affected much of the continent last week continues to impact central and eastern Europe.

It’s 9am local time and already 32C. I have seen two people cycling home with large fans, trying to get back before the heat hits the fan again. None of this is normal.

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‘We were broke, but fascinated by freedom’: exhibition showcases East German artist Gabriele Stötzer

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Show at Martin Gropius Bau gallery in Berlin is biggest ever celebration of an East German female artist in a state museum

Gabriele Stötzer remembers the days when she had to decide: “Am I buying a sausage, or film for my Super 8 camera?”

Stötzer was one of the most radical artists in communist East Germany, and her desire to create was born in defiance of and in spite of the material conditions and oppressive restrictions of the GDR regime.

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Germany and Italy swelter in heatwave as records tumble across Europe

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Denmark experiences highest temperature on record on Saturday as weather system spreads eastward

Germany ⁠and Italy endured sweltering conditions on Saturday as a heatwave linked to dozens of deaths in western Europe spread eastwards, after temperatures broke records above 40C (104F).

Denmark registered its highest temperature on record on Saturday, according to the Danish meteorological institute. “With 36.6C north of Odense, we have the warmest day ever since measurements began in 1874,” it said in a post on X.

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Germany’s railways grind to halt as IT maintenance snag takes down network

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Deutsche Bahn widely criticised after hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded in operator’s latest setback

Germany’s rail network ground to a halt late on Tuesday as a result of maintenance work that went wrong, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers unable to get home as the national operator faced widespread criticism over the chaos.

The Deutsche Bahn (DB) meltdown was initially thought to have been caused by a cyber-attack, but it later emerged that it was likely to have been triggered by a scheduled attempt to replace an ageing component in the railway’s internal communication network, without which the trains are unable to run.

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German swimming lake criticised for ban on non-German speakers

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Policy at Heidesee lake in Halle introduced after cases in which visitors ignored rules and lifeguards’ instructions

An open air swimming lake in the eastern German city of Halle which has refused entry to bathers who don’t speak German has been told it must lift the ban or face possible legal action.

The Heidesee lake, a lake in a flooded former open-cast mine, recently introduced a check at the entrance to filter out visitors whose German was deemed not good enough to follow safety instructions.

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Two children found dead in car in France as heatwave hits Europe

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Number of countries issue alerts with sustained and rising temperatures expected to present danger to health

Two children aged four and two have been found dead in their family’s car in south-eastern France, the local prosecutor said, as a large swathe of western Europe suffers a ferocious heatwave forecast to shatter absolute temperature records.

“The causes of death are yet to be determined, but the heat is the leading line of inquiry,” said Hélène Mourges, the prosecutor in the town of Carpentras, where the temperature was expected to exceed 39C (102.2F) on Monday afternoon.

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Push for electrification finally takes centre stage in pre-Cop31 climate talks

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Apart from effort to electrify, there were geopolitical tensions around climate science and the 1.5C goal

Electrifying the world – with electric vehicles, electric heating and cooling, and modernised heavy industry – could be the next biggest step towards phasing out fossil fuels, replacing the 80% of global energy that still comes from hydrocarbons. As using electrical energy is much more efficient than combustion, the move would save billions of dollars for consumers and businesses – global energy demand could be halved, according to one estimate.

For decades, electrification has been a nerdish backwater of global climate action. But in the last two weeks, at preparatory talks in Bonn before the forthcoming UN Cop31 climate summit, the subject finally took centre stage.

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Western Europeans believe crime is rising despite fall in overall rates, poll finds

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YouGov survey of six countries shows respondents think crime is increasing – though most trust their national police

Western Europeans believe crime is rising in their country, according to a survey, despite long-term overall crime rates falling across the region since the mid-1990s.

The YouGov poll of Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain found most countries trusted their national police, led by Denmark where 74% of respondents said they had a lot or a fair amount of confidence in police nationally.

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‘Embarrassing’: pressure on Merz after Germany’s failure to win UN security council seat

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Criticism comes from across political spectrum after blow to Friedrich Merz’s government

Germany’s unprecedented failure to win one of the rotating seats on the UN security council has prompted an intense round of soul searching in Berlin, and raised questions about its claims to international leadership under Friedrich Merz.

The council vote on Wednesday, which elected Austria and Portugal to a two-year term along with Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe, was a blow to Merz’s struggling government, which has sought to position itself as a leading European voice on the world stage.

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Wim Wenders withdraws 1975 film featuring 13-year-old Nastassja Kinski topless

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German director says he recognises actor should have been better protected during filming of Wrong Move

German director Wim Wenders has withdrawn from circulation his 1975 film Wrong Move, because of a scene featuring a child actor topless who was 13 at the time of filming.

The director said in a statement released on Wednesday: “Streaming, TV and distribution partners have been instructed to no longer make the film publicly accessible.”

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Cyclist praised for rescuing four people who nearly drowned in Ruhr, Germany

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Family were enjoying a waterside barbecue in Bochum before members ended up in jeopardy in river

A cyclist has been praised for having “stepped in decisively” and rescuing four members of a family who nearly drowned in the Ruhr River in Germany during a waterside barbecue that almost ended in tragedy.

The family of eight had set themselves up on the riverbank in the western city of Bochum, the local fire brigade reported, but the gathering took a panicked turn when one woman got too close to the water’s edge and toppled down into the current, police told local media.

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