Germany

2 Dec 2018; DW: German police shut down a far-right concert Saturday after members of the crowd started chanting "Sieg Heil" (Hail Victory), a Nazi-era victory slogan.

German law forbids the use of any kind of Nazi slogan or symbol, such as displaying swastikas.

The concert, which took place in Ostritz, a small town in the eastern state of Saxony, had drawn several hundred people, police said.

29 Nov 2018; DW: Thousands had to be evacuated from their homes after the discovery of a World War II bomb in the western German city of Cologne. Army experts were drafted in to defuse the device.

Public order officials helped move some 10,000 people to temporary shelters on Wednesday, after a decision to evacuate all homes within a one-kilometer (0.62-mile) radius of the bomb.

29 Nov 2018; AFP: German chemical and pharmaceutical giant Bayer said Thursday it would slash 12,000 jobs in a major restructuring following the mammoth takeover of Monsanto, enabling it to save 2.6 billion euros ($3 billion) a year from 2022.

The planned job cuts will affect about one in every ten of the group's 118,200 posts, "a significant number of them in Germany", said the group in a statement.

Bayer swallowed Monsanto in one of Germany's biggest ever corporate takeovers at a cost of $63 billion in June.

BERLIN (AP) — The European Union’s executive branch proposed Wednesday that the bloc should cut its emissions of greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050, a measure scientists say needs to be adopted worldwide in order to avoid catastrophic global warming.

The European Commission is the first major economy to set its sight on achieving climate neutrality in the next three decades. But the plan, which was announced days before a global climate summit , is far more ambitious than the national targets set so far by many of the EU’s 28 member states.

BERLIN, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- German auto parts manufacturer Webasto is entering into a long-term cooperation with Chinese Lithium-Ion producer Wanxiang A123 to pool their automotive industry expertise, the German firm announced on Tuesday.

The Munich-based company said that a first joint project would involve the development and production of a battery module for the Chinese market which will be integrated into its own battery system for commercial vehicles.

People in Germany and the United States appear to have very different ideas about the state of relations between their countries. Germans see Berlin and Washington increasingly at odds, but Americans are more positive.

A study published on Monday by the Pew Research Center found that Americans and Germans were "worlds apart" in how they viewed their countries' relations with one another. 

While most Germans said current ties were at something of a low point, a comfortable majority of Americans viewed relations positively.

27 Nov 2018; DW: German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said Germany could mediate between Ukraine and Russia in the ongoing crisis in the Sea of Azov. But some critics in Germany are calling on Berlin to help Kyiv militarily.

Angela Merkel and various members of her Cabinet have appealed to both sides of the Ukraine-Russia conflict to de-escalate amid Ukraine's calls for more military support from Germany and NATO.

27 Nov 2018; AFP: A German man who launched a shrapnel bomb attack on the team bus of football club Borussia Dortmund in April 2017 to make money on the club's shares diving was on Tuesday sentenced to 14 years in jail.

A court in Dortmund found Sergej Wenergold, 29, guilty of 28 counts of attempted murder after he detonated three explosive devices while the team bus was en route to the stadium for a Champions League game last year.

26 Nov 2018; DW: Several Young Alternative chapters have become increasingly close to anti-Semitic, far-right groups like the NPD and Identitarians. Now, top AfD leaders are wondering whether the party's youth wing should be dissolved.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is so worried about its youth organization becoming radicalized that there are calls to disband it entirely, according to German media reports on Monday.

BERLIN (AP) — German automaker Volkswagen says it will appeal a court ruling that orders it to buy back a six-year-old diesel vehicle at the original sales price.

In a statement Friday, Volkswagen said it expects an appeals court to overturn the verdict issued last week by judges in the southern German city of Augsburg.

The company has paid billions of dollars in fines and compensation to diesel car owners since 2015 for cheating on emissions tests.