German organisers confirmed on Wednesday that football fans would be allowed to consume alcohol at next month’s World Cup finals. The organising committee said it was always the plan to sell beer at the 12 World Cup stadiums, although police have the right to order alcohol bans for matches they consider to be at risk from hooligans.
Self-confessed German cannibal Armin Meiwes, who killed and ate a man he met through the internet, was on Tuesday given a life sentence after he was found guilty of murder. The court found that the man, known as the cannibal of Rotenburg, had killed his victim to satisfy his sexual urges. Meiwes (44) immediately signalled that he was going to appeal the sentence.
Germany captain Michael Ballack is leaving Bayern Munich because he will make more money elsewhere, most likely at Chelsea, according to Bayern general manager Uli Hoeness. ”It was always clear that Michael was not interested in learning a new language or a new culture, but a new currency,” Hoeness was quoted as saying.
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/ 2 February 2006
An 18-year-old youth appeared in the Frankfort Magistrate’s Court on Thursday in connection with the rape of two French exchange students in December last year. The teenager from Namahali township in Frankfort faces two rape charges and remains in custody. Two other suspects are still at large.
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/ 17 January 2006
A self-confessed German cannibal on Tuesday said at his retrial for murder that five years after butchering and eating an apparently willing victim he felt no guilt. Armin Meiwes (44) told the court that cannibalism was against the codes of social conduct but not a crime because his victim had wanted to die in this way.
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/ 16 January 2006
A self-confessed German cannibal said at his retrial on Monday that a man found cut into pieces and partially eaten at his house had asked him to kill him. Armin Meiwes told the court in Frankfurt that once he had cut off his victim’s penis, with the man’s consent, Meiwes had hoped he would die of blood loss or throw himself to his death from a window.
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/ 26 September 2005
The surprise announcement by German luxury sports car maker Porsche that it plans to buy a stake in Europe’s biggest car maker Volkswagen sparked scepticism among investors and analysts, triggering a sharp sell-off in both companies’ shares on the stock exchange on Monday.
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/ 14 September 2005
Many German car buyers shrug their shoulders at the mention of ”hybrid” vehicles. Cars with a petrol engine augmented by an electric motor are virtually unknown in Germany. In stark contrast to the United States, there are exactly 2 096 hybrid vehicles on German roads out of a total of 45,4-million cars, according to the Federal Office of Transport.
A bribery scandal looked set to snowball at German car giant Volkswagen (VW) on Friday in what threatens to deal a fresh blow to the image of Europe’s biggest car maker just as it is beginning to steer itself out a long crisis. The burgeoning scandal was triggered by the shock resignation two weeks ago of the personnel chief at VW’s Czech arm.
Fifa is to consider using an electronic microchip in balls at the 2006 World Cup finals if experiments prove successful, Fifa president Sepp Blatter said on Monday.
The microchip, which is supposed to confirm whether or not a ball has crossed the goal line, is being tested at the under-17 world championship in Peru later this year.
Bad news continued to pile up for Germany and its beleaguered Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Tuesday, as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development slashed its growth forecasts and investor confidence slid on concerns that a global slowdown could bring the stuttering German economy to a standstill.
A husband told police he slept in the same bed with the body of his wife for a year after she died — because he ”did not want to part with her” even after death. Frankfurt police on Friday said the man said his wife had sent him out on a shopping errand last May and that he returned to find her dead.
A computer virus spreading through fake e-mails crashed the computers of the Soccer World Cup organising committee on Tuesday, overloading the system with millions of e-mails. The virus is contained in attachments coming from senders with addresses such as ”[email protected]” or ”[email protected]”, telling fans they have won tickets to next year’s tournament.
If you have something that you don’t need and that is too good to throw into the dustbin, why not give it to someone else on the internet? An increasing number of websites are offering things people don’t need to others who can still find a good use for them.
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/ 3 February 2005
Four referees and 14 players are among 25 people suspected of manipulating at least 10 games, including first-division matches, Berlin prosecutors said in Germany’s growing match-fixing scandal on Wednesday. Police raided the homes of 19 people across the country early on Wednesday and seized documents.
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/ 18 January 2005
German linguists, always on guard to protect the language, announced on Tuesday that ”Humankapital” — ”human capital” — was the ”ugly word” of 2004, in their view. The jury of linguists said the term is degrading to employees and reduces people ”merely to an economically quantifiable size”.
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/ 11 November 2004
Recently sighted at a lifestyle trade show in Germany: a gizmo by the name of ”Nemo” that flashes and beeps at you from inside the fridge when the milk has gone off or the meat is bad. Older people don’t smell or see as well as they used to, but they will notice the fishy warning after learning to love the little fish from Finding Nemo.
A rising generation of African comic book artists are tackling the bloodshed, corruption and absurdities of daily life, winning adoring audiences at home and a growing fan base abroad. Comics from Sudan to South Africa are on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest show of its kind, giving some an unprecedented opportunity to reach a global audience with their biting observations.
The first United States soldier charged with murder in Iraq is maintaining his innocence as he faces hearings that could lead to his court-martial for the shooting of a man during the hunt for Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Captain Rogelio M Maynulet (29) is due to appear on Wednesday before a US military court in Hanau, outside Frankfurt.
A scene on a German autobahn in the year 2010: a limousine is travelling in the fast lane at 150 kilometres an hour. Suddenly a truck pulls out in front of it. The limousine sharply reduces its speed to 115 kilometres an hour – but the driver has taken no action.
KirchMedia, the insolvent arm of the collapsed Kirch media empire, could be carved up and sold off in bits rather than in one piece as originally planned.
Deutsche Bank, the biggest bank in Germany, is in preliminary talks with Swiss counterpart Credit Suisse Group over a possible merger.
A world that vanished in the horror of the Holocaust, the Jewish community of Vilnius, resurfaced at the Frankfurt Book Fair with the publication of the diary of the ”Lithuanian Anne Frank”.
Writers in China, Iran and Peru are being increasingly threatened and put in prison for their work, the International PEN writers’ association has warned at the Frankfurt Book Fair.