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/ 14 January 2009
Snared by the global economic slump, the German economy contracted sharply last year, suggesting a disastrous 2009 for Europe’s industrial powerhouse.
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/ 20 November 2008
A top official has been transferred to France in connection with the death of Rwanda’s former president
The Dalai Lama accused China of ”suppression” and demanded autonomy for Tibet as he arrived Thursday in Germany to start a Western tour ahead of the Beijing Olympics. ”The Chinese political authorities’ reaction, as before, was suppression. So it is very sad,” he said of China’s military crackdown.
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/ 30 January 2008
German nudists will be able to start their holidays early by stripping off on the plane if they take up a new offer from an eastern German travel firm. Travel agency OssiUrlaub.de said it would start taking bookings for a trial nudist day trip from the eastern German town of Erfurt to the popular Baltic Sea resort of Usedom.
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/ 28 December 2007
The European Central Bank (ECB) said on Friday it would seek to drain a further €150-billion from Eurozone money markets through a new offer aimed at absorbing excess liquidity. The offer had a fixed rate of 4%, the same level as the ECB’s benchmark lending rate, and would come to maturity on December 31.
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/ 7 November 2007
The euro soared to another record high against the sagging dollar on Wednesday, climbing above ,47 for the first time, while the British pound reached ,10. The 13-nation euro hit ,4730 in afternoon European trading before slipping back to ,4682 — still well above the ,4554 it bought in New York late on Tuesday.
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/ 22 October 2007
The euro rose to a new all-time high against the dollar on Monday after a weekend meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers ended without a clear statement of concern about the 13-nation currency’s strength. The euro rose as high as ,4348 in Asian trading, breaking a previous record of ,4319, set on Friday.
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/ 17 October 2007
The Frankfurt Book Fair has an indicator to help publishers gauge public interest in the new offerings presented at the annual exhibition — the unofficial ”most stolen book” index. ”The most-stolen books are usually the most-sold later on,” said Claudia Hanssen of the Goldmann Verlag publishing house.
Fearing that it will lose out financially, much of the book industry is resisting internet pioneers’ vision of putting the world’s entire store of published information online. Some European libraries have portrayed the bid to digitise 500 years of books and newspapers as an imperialist plot.
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/ 25 September 2007
The euro resumed its record-setting run against the dollar on Tuesday, climbing to ,4153 after a pair of economic reports painted a dismal picture for United States consumers and the ailing home sales market. The strength of the euro drew concern, with Spain’s finance minister warning of problems.
When Germany’s women played their first international soccer game 25 years ago, school kids were bussed in to fill the stands and the public was at best bemused by the sight. Nobody is laughing now. Germany are the reigning world champions, the games are broadcast live on national television, the stadiums are full and the women command as much respect as their male colleagues.
Sony says it will start selling a combined television tuner and personal video recorder that lets users of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console capture live television that can be stored or transferred to the PlayStation Portable (PSP) for later viewing. Sony announced the new product at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany.
For almost two days, millions of customers around the world who depend on the popular online phone service Skype were stymied as they tried to make or receive calls or send instant messages. Although many were angry, analysts say the outage is unlikely to turn customers off or substantially revive demand for traditional land lines.
Central banks in Europe and Japan pumped out tens of billions more dollars on Monday to help commercial banks hit by the United States home-loan sector crisis, as shares bounced back from a turbulent week. The European Central Bank injected another €47,66-billion after putting a record €155,85-billion into the market last Thursday and Friday.
This might well be the beginning of the end for the hard drive: in mid-May, Dell became the first manufacturer to market a laptop using flash memory instead of a hard drive. Other manufacturers will be joining the company before year’s end with solid-state disk (SSD) technology of their own. For users, this is all good news.
Private equity firm Cerberus will buy the majority of DaimlerChrysler’s struggling Chrysler Group for ,4-billion, a fraction of the -billion deal that created the transatlantic car union nine years ago. Cerberus Capital Management gets an 80,1% stake in Chrysler and its related financial services business, DaimlerChrysler said on Monday.
Porsche, the German maker of luxury sports cars, has launched an official bid to acquire Volkswagen, Europe’s largest auto manufacturer. Stuttgart-based Porsche announced in late March that it would exercise an option to buy an additional 3,6% stake in Volkswagen.
German-United States auto giant DaimlerChrysler said on Tuesday it had reached an out-of-court settlement with insurers over a legal squabble surrounding some comments by the group’s former chairperson regarding the merger of Daimler and Chrysler in 1998.
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/ 27 November 2006
The anti-corruption department at German engineering giant Siemens tried to cover up evidence of bribery accounts several years ago, the <i>Sueddeutsche Zeitung</i> newspaper alleged on Monday in a report on a deepening investigation of the company.
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/ 6 November 2006
New rules forced air travellers to pack perfume, toothpaste and other liquids into small plastic bags in their hand luggage before going through security checkpoints at Europe’s airports on Monday. Queues were longer than usual at terminals in Frankfurt and Paris as passengers got to grips with the new regulations.
It is known as Denglisch, a hybrid of Deutsch and English, and cultural purists say it is an insult to the language of Goethe and should be purged from the vocabulary. Denglisch has spread steadily as Germans adopted United States phrases in business, advertising, technology, and everyday speech.
Police in the German city of Aachen received an unusual call for help late on Wednesday when a woman telephoned to complain her husband was not fulfilling his sexual obligations. After the couple had been sleeping in separate beds for several months without intimate contact, the 44-year-old woman woke the husband (45) in the middle of the night and demanded he satisfy her needs.
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France have put their slow start to the World Cup on the backburner and have fixed their sights firmly on a second final after outclassing defending champions Brazil. Powered by tireless captain Zinedine Zidane, France recorded a 1-0 win over a lacklustre Brazilian team thanks to a sumptuous 57th-minute Thierry Henry volley.
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Traditional soccer powers from Europe and South America are back on top and the rest of the world has fallen short. Four years ago, half of the quarterfinalists at the World Cup were from nations with no history of major soccer success. Turkey, South Korea, Senegal and the United States gave the tournament a truly global look and two of them made it to the semifinals.
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He has a goal-scoring record that not even Pele could match, but age may finally be catching up with Iran’s evergreen striker Ali Daei. Coach Branko Ivankovic said what some Iranians have been saying for years: Daei, now 37, is simply too slow.
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Portugal qualified for the World Cup knock-out stages for the first time in 40 years on Saturday with a 2-0 win over Iran. Iran offered robust resistance for more than an hour before Brazilian-born Deco’s unstoppable opener. Cristiano Ronaldo settled the matter with a penalty 10 minutes from the end.
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Ahn Jung-Hwan scored the winning goal in the 72nd minute on Tuesday to give South Korea a 2-1 win over Togo and their first World Cup victory away from home. Ahn, who also scored the winner against Italy four years ago to send the Koreans into the World Cup semifinals, sent a 25m shot past Togo goalkeeper Kossi Agassa.
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England launched their bid to win the World Cup for the first time in 40 years with a 1-0 victory over Paraguay in a scrappy Group B encounter on Saturday. A headed own goal after only four minutes from Paraguay captain Carlos Gamarra settled the encounter, but it was far from the convincing display that England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson had been hoping for.
Deutsche Boerse, operator of the German stock exchange, refused on Monday to budge on the terms of its offer to merge with Euronext, indicating it would not increase its bid or be drawn into a bidding battle with the New York Stock Exchange for the pan-European rival.
World Cup organisers on Tuesday revealed a plan to use so-called ”human barriers” to prevent pitch invasions at next month’s finals. Last year’s Confederations Cup, also held in Germany, saw several matches interrupted by pitch invasions, and the organising committee wants to ensure there is no repeat at the World Cup.
They sacrifice their holiday time but they don’t get a single cent. They come from all social classes and corners of the world, but the 15 000 volunteers have one thing in common — their enthusiasm for the World Cup spectacle. ”The volunteers will be the smiling faces of the World Cup,” says Theo Zwanziger, president of the World Cup organising committee.
No other subject has generated such fever among football fans and officials over the past few months as the sale of 3,7-million tickets for the World Cup’s 64 matches. And the problematic issue looks set to occupy the public right up to the tournament final on July 9.