Category Archives: Germany

Portuguese police to search reservoir for Madeleine McCann, say reports

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Search reportedly to take place at behest of German authorities about 25 miles from where Madeleine went missing

An active search for Madeleine McCann is to be carried out for the first time in nearly a decade in a reservoir in Portugal, according to reports.

Police officers are to search Barragem do Arade reservoir near the town of Silves in the Algarve, according to German media, about 25 miles (40km) from Praia da Luz where Madeleine disappeared aged three from her family’s holiday apartment on 3 May 2007.

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German police investigate possible poisoning of two Russian exiles

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The pair attended a conference organised by the Russian Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky in April

Berlin police have opened an investigation into the suspected poisoning of two Russian journalists visiting the city for a conference last month organised by the Russian Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The city’s office of criminal investigation confirmed to German media that it had opened the case after reports in the Russian investigative media group Agentsvo were picked up by the Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

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Ukraine can defeat Russia by end of year with western help, Zelenskiy says

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President travels to Berlin to meet German chancellor, who announces new military aid package including Leopard tanks

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine can defeat Russia by the end of this year with western help, and thanked Germany during a visit to Berlin for its “big” military and economic support.

Speaking after a meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the Ukrainian president said Germany was the second biggest contributor to Kyiv after the US. Scholz’s coalition government announced a new aid package to coincide with Zelenskiy’s visit, his first to Berlin since last year’s full-scale Russian invasion.

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Auction of £120m of jewels to go ahead despite Jewish groups’ concerns

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Critics say collection derives from fortune made by buying businesses from Jews who were forced to sell in Nazi Germany

Christie’s, the famed British auction house, has said it will go ahead with an auction of £120m of jewels on Wednesday despite calls from Jewish groups to stop the sale over concerns the collection belonged to a German billionaire who made a fortune buying businesses from Jews who were forced to sell in Nazi Germany.

The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Crif), the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group, have demanded that Christie’s halt the auction of the jewellery collection of the Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten.

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Germany’s regional leaders demand more financial support for refugees

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Leaders of country’s 16 states will call on Chancellor Scholz to increase daily rate for feeding, housing and schooling asylum seekers

German lawmakers are at loggerheads over how to manage the number of refugees coming into the country, with regional leaders calling on the government to provide more financial support.

On Wednesday, the leaders of Germany’s 16 states will meet Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, in Berlin, and call on him to ensure that the federal government takes on more responsibility for immigration, including increasing the daily rate allocated to cover the costs of individuals.

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Many Europeans want climate action – but less so if it changes their lifestyle, shows poll

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Exclusive: YouGov survey in seven countries tested backing for government and individual action on crisis

Many Europeans are alarmed by the climate crisis and would willingly take personal steps and back government policies to help combat it, a survey suggests – but the more a measure would change their lifestyle, the less they support it.

The seven-country YouGov survey tested backing for state-level climate action, such as banning single-use plastics and scrapping fossil-fuel cars, and individual initiatives including buying only secondhand clothes and giving up meat and dairy products.

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UN representatives criticise Germany over reparations for colonial crimes in Namibia

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Rapporteurs also chastise the German and Namibian governments for excluding Herero and Nama minorities from talks dealing with the mass murder of their ancestors

UN special rapporteurs have criticised the German and Namibian governments for violating the rights of Herero and Nama ethnic minorities by excluding them from talks over reparations for colonial crimes against their ancestors.

Publishing their communication with both governments, the seven UN representatives urged Germany to take responsibility for all its colonial crimes in Namibia – including mass murder – and said it was wrong for the Herero and Nama to have been involved indirectly in talks via an advisory committee. They called on Germany to pay reparations directly to the Herero and Nama and not to the Namibian government.

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German police call for crackdown on growing climate protests

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Union leader wants more preventive detention of activists across country to stop disruption

Police representatives, members of the judiciary and politicians in Germany are calling for harsher penalties for climate activists, including preventive detention and longer prison terms, in an effort to halt their disruptive protests.

This week has seen the most intense protests yet by the campaign group Letzte Generation (Last Generation), with hundreds of its members blocking scores of roads during rush hour in Berlin.

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Nude landlord no excuse for holding back rent, rules German court

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Frankfurt judges said people would have to lean far out of window to see naked sunbathing in courtyard

A German court has said that a landlord sunbathing naked in the courtyard of his building was not a reason for his tenants to reduce their rental payments.

The case involved a building in an upmarket residential district of Frankfurt, which included an office floor rented by a human resources company. The company withheld rent because it objected, among other things, to the landlord’s naked sunbathing. In response, the landlord sued.

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Indian ministers rebuke Der Spiegel for ‘racist’ cartoon mocking population size

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German magazine accused of putting down India with caricature depicting population overtaking China

A cartoon in the German magazine Der Spiegel poking fun at India as it becomes more populous than China has been castigated as “racist” by Indian ministers.

The cartoon shows a rickety old Indian train packed with people and swarms of passengers atop it. On a parallel track, a sleek Chinese bullet train is seen with just two drivers, looking surprised at the sight of the Indian train.

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‘There’s a lot of posturing’: Europe’s nuclear divide grows as one plant opens and three close

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Europe’s first new plant in 16 years comes on stream in Finland day after Germany pulls plug on last reactors

When Europe’s first new nuclear reactor in 16 years came online in Finland, it was hailed by its operator as a “significant addition to clean domestic production” that would “play an important role in the green transition”.

The opening last Sunday of the long-delayed Olkiluoto 3 plant, Europe’s largest, means about 40% of Finland’s electricity demand will soon be met by nuclear power, which the government says will boost energy security and help it achieve its carbon neutrality targets.

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Germany plans to ban installation of most oil and gas heating from 2024

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Bill due before Bundestag in June would encourage homeowners to switch to renewables

Germany plans to ban the installation of most oil and gas heating systems from next year, with proposals approved on Wednesday triggering angry divisions in the cabinet.

The radical plans are designed to transform Germany’s heating systems in an attempt to meet net zero emission targets that critics have called unworkable and discriminatory. About half of Germany’s 41m households currently use natural gas heating, and almost a quarter use heating oil.

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German president asks for forgiveness on Warsaw Ghetto Uprising anniversary

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Frank-Walter Steinmeier becomes his country’s first head of state to speak at Warsaw commemorations

Germany’s president has asked for forgiveness for the crimes his country committed in the second world war, on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the first German president to speak at the commemorations in Poland’s capital, joined his Polish and Israeli counterparts to mark 80 years since Jewish insurgents’ doomed uprising against Nazi occupiers.

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Angela Merkel to receive Germany’s top order of merit despite criticism of legacy

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Former leader to be only third chancellor to be given Großkreuz, as her energy policy in particular comes under sharp scrutiny

Germany’s former leader Angela Merkel is to be awarded the country’s highest order of merit despite criticism over her legacy.

Merkel will be presented with the honour by the president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in Berlin on Monday evening in recognition of her contribution to German political life at an event to be attended by her political allies, including the current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the former national football coach Jürgen Klinsmann and family and friends.

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Why Berlin’s U-Bahn musical shows no sign of hitting the buffers

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The longest-running production in Germany, restaged for a new generation of theatregoers, is a curious mixture of 80s nostalgia and politics … with great tunes

The four men dressed in widow’s weeds of black bombazine had hardly stepped on to the stage when the first yelps of delight rippled through the audience at Berlin’s Grips theatre, an intimate 360-seat venue in the west of the city. By the time the quartet in drag have locked arms to kick up their heels, the mixed-age crowd is clapping in time to the oompah beat.

The Wilmersdorf Widows song is to Volker Ludwig’s musical Linie 1 (Line One) what All That Jazz is to Chicago, or Time Warp to The Rocky Horror Picture Show: the catchy showstopper that brings the house down.

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Germany’s last three nuclear power stations to shut this weekend

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Closures, delayed after Russia reduced Europe’s gas supplies, leave conundrum for energy policymakers

Germany’s three remaining nuclear power stations will shut down on Saturday, 12 years after the Fukushima disaster in Japan accelerated the country’s exit from atomic energy.

The closures mark the conclusion of a stop-start approach to atomic energy and a victory for the country’s vociferous anti-nuclear movement.

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‘I’m all for climate change’: Axel Springer CEO faces heat over leaked messages

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Mathias Döpfner’s reported comments on climate, Muslims and east Germany – and his apparent political manoeuvring – create shock waves

The German CEO of Europe’s largest media publisher tried to use his flagship tabloid, Bild, to influence the outcome of Germany’s last election and fed the newspaper his personal views attacking climate change activism, Covid measures and the former chancellor Angela Merkel, leaked messages suggest.

The internal chats, emails and text messages published by the German weekly Die Zeit on Wednesday clash with the public presentation of Axel Springer SE’s chief executive, Mathias Döpfner, who recently said he wanted to bring “non-partisan” journalism to a too-polarised US media landscape through his acquisition of the English-language title Politico.

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Benin bronzes made from brass mined in west Germany, study finds

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Metal used for west African artworks was acquired from manilla bracelets, the grim currency of the slave trade

Scientists have discovered that some of the Benin bronzes were made with brass mined thousands of miles away in the German Rhineland.

The Edo people in the Kingdom of Benin, modern Nigeria, created their extraordinary sculptures with melted down brass manilla bracelets, the grim currency of the transatlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries.

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Klaus Teuber, creator of popular board game Catan, dies aged 70

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Introduced in 1995 and based on a set of hexagonal tiles, game has sold millions of copies and is available in more than 40 languages

Klaus Teuber, the creator of the hugely popular Catan board game, has died after a brief illness, according to a family statement. He was 70.

The board game, originally called The Settlers of Catan when introduced in 1995 and based on a set of hexagonal tiles, has sold tens of millions of copies and is available in more than 40 languages. It has spawned dozens of spinoffs and new editions, including electronic versions, not to mention products related to the game.

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Syrian refugee celebrates ‘sensational’ win in German mayoral race

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Ryyan Alshebl, 29, won an absolute majority in Sunday’s mayoral election in Ostelsheim

A Syrian who arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2015 has been elected as the mayor of a village in the south-west of the country.

Ryyan Alshebl, 29, who is a member of the German Greens but stood as a non-party candidate, won an absolute majority in Sunday’s mayoral election in Ostelsheim, a small municipality of about 2,500 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

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