Category Archives: Germany

UK economy makes stronger recovery from pandemic than first thought

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Revisions to figures show stronger performance than Germany and France but momentum starts to stall

The UK economy made a faster recovery from the Covid pandemic than previously estimated, according to revisions to official figures revealing a stronger performance than Germany and France.

In a boost for Rishi Sunak before the Conservative party conference in Manchester beginning this weekend, revised figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed gross domestic product was 1.8% above pre-pandemic levels at the end of the second quarter this year.

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Germany and Italy clash over proposed changes to shakeup of migration laws

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Hopes fade of deal being struck, with one sticking point being right to occasionally breach detention centre standards

European Union member states have failed to reach an agreement on changes to the bloc’s migration laws after Germany and Italy clashed over key proposals relating to human rights guarantees in detention centres and the role of NGOs in facilitating migrant arrivals.

But, as hopes faded on Thursday of a deal being struck, ministers said they expected “fine tuning” in coming days to lead to a pact that would apply in the event of a sudden refugee crisis such as that of 2015 when more than 1 million people arrived from Syria and beyond.

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Key details behind Nord Stream pipeline blasts revealed by scientists

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Researchers in Norway reveal further analysis of 2022 explosions as well as a detailed timeline of events

Scientists investigating the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines have revealed key new details of explosions linked to the event, which remains unsolved on its first anniversary.

Researchers in Norway shared with the Guardian seismic evidence of the four explosions, becoming the first national body to publicly confirm the second two detonations, as well as revealing a detailed timeline of events.

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UK could become an ‘EU lite’ member of bloc, suggests Franco-German report

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Blue-sky exercise envisages four levels of membership to allow for countries having looser ties to the union

A vision of a future EU with four types of membership – including an “EU lite” for countries such as the UK – has been tabled by a group of academics commissioned by France and Germany to consider future reforms.

The proposal comes as the UK’s opposition leader, Keir Starmer, told France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, that he wanted to build an “even stronger” relationship between the two countries if he wins power at a national election pencilled in for next year.

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Tributes paid to Germany’s ‘favourite Englishman’ Roger Whittaker

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Baritone, who has died aged 87, cultivated loyal German fanbase by learning to sing translated lyrics phonetically

Tributes are being paid across Germany to the singer Roger Whittaker, described as the country’s favourite Briton who served his biggest and most loyal fanbase by singing in their tongue.

Whittaker, whose death at 87 was announced on Monday, admitted to never learning to speak the language, but became one of the most prolific recording artists in German by having his translated lyrics transcribed phonetically and taking lessons to sound as if he meant what he sang.

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Prospective AfD mayor ‘will be barred from Holocaust events’

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Jörg Prophet, who wants Germany to abandon its ‘guilt cult’, could become party’s first city mayor

Directors of a memorial at a former Nazi concentration camp have raised alarm about the revisionist views of a far-right politician expected to become its local mayor, saying he will be barred from attending events to commemorate the Holocaust if he is elected.

The Alternative für Deutschland politician Jörg Prophet last Sunday finished almost 20 points clear of the runner-up in municipal elections in Nordhausen, a city of about 42,000 in the eastern state of Thuringia.

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UK, France and Germany refuse to lift sanctions on Iran under nuclear deal

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Tehran in ‘too serious a breach’ of 2015 deal to lift sanctions under clause that would allow ballistic missile trade

The UK, France and Germany will not lift sanctions on Iran in line with the timetable set out in the 2015 nuclear deal, the governments have announced in a move that will infuriate Tehran and put the continued viability of the deal at even greater risk.

Under the terms of the original deal, some UN sanctions were due to be lifted on 18 October 2023 as part of a sunset clause that would allow Iran to import and export ballistic missiles, including missiles and drones with a range of 300km (186 miles) or more.

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Sluggish eurozone economies will not welcome ECB’s interest rate rise

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Weak consumer spending as, people – especially in Germany, the EU’s largest economy – put more into savings

Interest rates went up again across the eurozone on Thursday – probably for the last time during this cycle of hikes that has become a familiar story in the single currency bloc, as it has in the UK and US.

The European Central Bank (ECB) raised its main deposit rate by a quarter of one per cent to 4% – the highest level in the euro’s history.

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Deadly humid heatwaves to spread rapidly as climate warms – study

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Small rise in global temperatures would affect hundreds of millions of people and could cause a sharp rise in deaths

Life-threatening periods of high heat and humidity will spread rapidly across the world with only a small increase in global temperatures, a study has found, which could cause a sharp acceleration in the number of deaths resulting from the climate crisis.

The extremes, which can be fatal to healthy people within six hours, could affect hundreds of millions of people unused to such conditions. As a result, heat deaths could rise quickly unless serious efforts to prepare populations were undertaken urgently, the researcher said.

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Germany backs tariff delay on electric vehicle sales between UK and EU

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Manufacturers face 10% levies under post-Brexit trade deal but German government supports postponement

Carmakers could be in line for a reprieve after it emerged that Germany is backing calls to postpone tariffs on electric vehicle sales between the UK and the EU.

Manufacturers in the UK and on the continent face the prospect of 10% levies on new electric vehicles that cross the Channel from January under the post-Brexit trade deal agreed between Britain and the bloc in 2020.

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Remains found in search for crew of British bomber shot down by Nazis

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Salvage operation in Dutch waters finds remains presumed to be those of Arthur Smart, Charles Sprack and Raymond Moore

The remains of British airmen shot down by the Nazis over Dutch waters may have been discovered in a massive rescue operation.

With the help of a €15m national plane-wreck rescue fund, the Dutch have started to sift the wreckage of the British Lancaster ED603, which never returned from a mass bombing mission targeting Bochum in Germany on 13 June 1943. Instead this “Pathfinder”, that gave the lead to 503 bombers, was tracked as it headed home. It was shot down and crashed in the blue Dutch waters of the IJsselmeer with seven men aboard.

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Night train between Berlin and Paris to return after nine years

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Austrian rail operator ÖBB says service will resume partly in December and daily from October 2024

A night train linking Berlin and Paris will return in December, nine years after the service was cancelled, the Austrian rail operator ÖBB has announced.

ÖBB has been a pioneer in bringing back night trains as Europeans look for low-carbon travel options.

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Berlin clubbers and green protesters unite to fight motorway plans

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Proposed extension would threaten city’s cultural life, say protesters, as 20 nightclubs would be demolished

Berlin clubbers have united with environmental campaigners to fight plans to extend a city autobahn that threatens the future of about 20 nightclubs in the east of the city.

Thousands of techno fans and a broader clutch of protesters standing up for the city’s cultural life took to Berlin’s streets at the weekend in the latest in a string of demonstrations which have caused parts of the German capital to grind to a halt.

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Germany matches DNA from skulls stolen from African colony to living relatives

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Remains pillaged in colonial era for ‘scientific’ experiments are DNA matched to Tanzanian descendants

Researchers in Berlin have identified living relatives of people whose remains were stolen from Tanzania and taken to Germany for “scientific” experiments during the colonial era.

Berlin’s Museum of Prehistory and Early History has been carrying out research since 2017 on about 1,100 skulls taken from what was then known as German East Africa.

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Germany refuses to extradite man to UK over concerns about British jail conditions

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Court in Karlsruhe decides against extradition of Albanian man ‘in view of the state of the British prison system’

A German court has refused to extradite to the UK a man accused of drug trafficking because of concerns about prison conditions in Britain, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind.

The decision has been described as a “severe rebuke” and “an embarrassment for the UK” by a member of the Law Society.

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Bavaria leader declines to dismiss deputy over antisemitic leaflet

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Markus Söder stands by Hubert Aiwanger after he apologies for flyer found in his school satchel in the 1980s

The leader of Germany’s powerful state of Bavaria has said he will not dismiss his deputy despite a row over an antisemitic leaflet which he admitted having carried in his school satchel as a teenager.

Markus Söder said it would not be proportionate to sack Hubert Aiwanger, a move that would have upended the ruling coalition in the southern state six weeks before a regional election.

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German-Iraqi woman charged with killing lookalike to fake her own death

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Woman accused of contacting beauty blogger on Instagram and offering free salon treatment before killing her with accomplice

A 23-year-old German-Iraqi woman has been indicted for murder after allegedly seeking out a lookalike on Instagram and killing her with an accomplice, in an effort to fake her own death.

The woman, identified as Shahraban Kh-B, was initially thought to have been the murder victim when the blood-soaked body of a young woman was found last August in a parked Mercedes in Ingolstadt, southern Germany.

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Germany says it ended training of Saudi border forces after abuses reported

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Statement comes amid concern about allegations Saudi forces have killed hundreds of migrants

Germany ended a training programme for Saudi border forces, who have been implicated in the mass killing of migrants at the country’s border with Yemen, after it was alerted to reports of “possible massive human rights violations”, the German interior ministry has said.

In a statement to the Guardian, the ministry said training undertaken by the federal police service for the Saudi border force had been “discontinued after reports of possible massive human rights violations became known and, as a precaution, are no longer included in the current training programme [for Saudi security forces]”.

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Former guard at Nazi death camp charged with being accessory to murder

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Gregor F, 98, who worked as guard at Sachsenhausen between 1943 and 1945, to be tried in juvenile court due to age at time

A former Nazi concentration camp guard has been indicted on charges of acting as an accessory to murder in the latest of a string of eleventh-hour attempts to gain justice for Holocaust victims and survivors.

The 98-year-old, identified as Gregor F, worked as a guard at the Sachsenhausen camp north of Berlin between 1943 and 1945.

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Documents show Putin’s order to move superyacht before Ukraine invasion

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Russian president ordered urgent removal of Graceful from Hamburg shipyard, investigation claims

Vladimir Putin moved his $100m (£75m) superyacht from a German shipyard to Russia just weeks before he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, according to secret documents released in a new investigation.

A Russian anti-corruption organisation set up by the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny claims emails show that the Russian president ordered the urgent moving of the 82-metre superyacht, called Graceful, from a shipyard in Hamburg, where it was undergoing a $32m refit, by 1 February 2022.

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