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/ 5 December 2007
Johannes Heesters, the world’s oldest stage performer, turned 104 in Berlin on Wednesday, with the Dutch-born operetta singer set to do a birthday special in the evening in a city theatre. Heesters kept to his habit of rising late and breakfasting on cappuccino while phone calls of congratulation had to wait, his wife said.
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/ 2 December 2007
South African cleric Desmond Tutu was on Sunday awarded one of Germany’s most prestigious honours, the Marion Doenhoff Prize for International Reconciliation and Understanding. The retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town has become ”a symbol for peace and justice in the world”, German Economic Assistance Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said.
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/ 1 December 2007
European football’s governing body Uefa has called in police organisation Europol to investigate possible match-fixing by Asian betting syndicates in top-flight European football, Der Spiegel magazine is reporting in it’s Monday edition.
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/ 30 November 2007
A record lottery jackpot of €38-million (about R379-million) has led to a huge jump in ticket sales ahead of Saturday’s draw in Germany, lottery officials said on Friday. Business was reported brisk at the 24 500 outlets where tickets are available for the Lotto.
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/ 29 November 2007
Didier Drogba scored twice in the opening 20 minutes as Chelsea stormed into the knockout stages of the European Champions League with a 4-0 triumph at Norway’s Rosenborg Trondheim. Drogba gave Chelsea an early cushion, with Alex and Joe Cole grabbing the other goals as Chelsea clinched first place in group B.
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/ 22 November 2007
German Chancellor Angela Merkel hit back at her Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Wednesday in a row over China policy that has highlighted rising tensions in the left-right coalition. On the day Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, took over as Vice-Chancellor, Merkel defended her decision to meet the Dalai Lama two months ago.
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/ 21 November 2007
It may have brought the world aspirin, rocket science, quantum physics and the diesel engine, but Germany’s days of scientific glory are long gone and it is now hunting for a new generation of Einsteins. Decades of underfunding and a distaste for the elitism nurtured by Nazis has means the world’s third-largest economy is trailing its global competitors, causing concern among business leaders and provoking warnings from economists.
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/ 12 November 2007
The leaders of Germany and France meet on Monday to compare notes on dealing with Iran’s nuclear programme, fresh from discussing tougher sanctions during separate visits to United States President George Bush last week. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Berlin for the talks a week before an expected meeting of world powers.
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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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/ 5 November 2007
A German pensioner secretly cut down or shortened 122 trees in a publicly owned forest to give his holiday cottage a clear view of the Baltic Sea, police said on Thursday. The 70-year-old Hamburg resident told police he had felled 56 trees with a chainsaw and left only the bottom four metres of 66 others.
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/ 2 November 2007
Images of Madeleine McCann, the British four-year old who went missing six months ago in Portugal, have been printed in a spoof supermarket advertisement by a German satirical magazine, outraging her parents. The ”Find Maddie” photo-spread in Titanic has prompted a chorus of complaints in the British media.
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/ 29 October 2007
Passengers on a German train mistook a Halloween reveller dressed up as a gore-covered zombie for a murder victim and called the police. The 24-year-old man fell into a drunken slumber on his way home from a Halloween party in Hamburg, police in the northern town of Bad Segeberg said on Monday.
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/ 29 October 2007
Seven police cars chased a go-cart at high speed for 5km through the winding streets of the western German town of Moenchengladbach but were not able to keep up with the teenager. Police later discovered the go-cart driver hiding in a garage.
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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
One of Germany’s greatest treasuries of books, the Bavarian State Library in Munich, said on Tuesday it had set a robot to work ”reading” the books and storing more than 7,5-million images of the pages in its digital memory. The device uses gentle suction and a breath of air to turn the pages.
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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.
Chancellor Angela Merkel travels to Africa on Wednesday with the message that Germany is keen to step up cooperation with the continent to help combat poverty and disease. The chancellor’s trip to Ethiopia, South Africa and Liberia from October 3 to 7 will focus on economic development, social issues and business ties.
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.
Nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German capital is becoming ever more popular with young tourists who have made it Europe’s third most visited city, as much for the <i>über</i>-cool nightclubs as for the history. Defying all expectations, the city drew more foreign visitors in the first half of the year than in 2006 when Germany hosted the Soccer World Cup.
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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.
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/ 22 September 2007
Formula One team McLaren-Mercedes will not appeal against the -million fine and exclusion from the 2007 constructors’ championship over the Ferrari spying charges, Mercedes said on Friday. McLaren had until 3pm GMT on Friday to lodge an appeal over the decision by the FIA, world motorsport’s governing body.
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/ 20 September 2007
Staff at a German butcher’s shop were shocked to discover a customer had hidden two sex toys in their sausages for transport to Dubai, police said Wednesday. ”It was two latex dildos with a natural look,” said a spokesperson for police in the south-western city of Mannheim.
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/ 13 September 2007
Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy were expected to form the perfect couple — a pair of like-minded conservative leaders who would work hand in hand to heal Europe after its Iraq divisions and failed constitution. From his first day in office the Frenchman’s bullish diplomacy has grated on his German partners.
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/ 5 September 2007
Germany said on Wednesday it had foiled a ”massive” attack with the arrest of three Islamic extremists who were targeting airports, as well as bars and discotheques used by Americans. ”They were planning massive attacks,” Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms said.
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/ 3 September 2007
A series of more than 9 000 mini-memorials in Germany to people killed by the Nazis is for the first time to include an African, Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed, organisers said on Monday. The 10cm-square brass plaques have been cemented into pavements all over the country since 1997 by an artist, Gunter Demnig.
A 16-year-old girl is being questioned by German police after the corpse of her newborn baby was found in a washing machine. She told police in eastern Germany the baby was still-born and she hid the body in a laundry basket, Schering said. The body had been put through the laundry cycle along with bed sheets.
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.
Chipmaker Intel unveiled its new high-performance central processing unit at the recent Leipzig Games Convention in Germany. The Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 was shown to members of the press and industry ahead of the official opening of Europe’s biggest show for interactive entertainment.
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.
Skippi, a wily kangaroo on the run since early August, was returned to his home at a petting zoo Monday in southern Germany, but not after a chase through the German Alps that left the animal with a strained leg. The injured marsupial was captured in a cornfield near Leutkirch im Allgaeu.
Rock stars from the 1960s and 1970s have been hitting Germany’s lucrative concert circuit but many of the grandpa-generation acts have disappointed fans and provoked withering reviews in Europe’s biggest music market. The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Genesis, the Police and Black Sabbath are among the acts appearing this summer in arenas between the Black Forest and the Baltic.
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.