Germany

BERLIN (AP) — A union representing many train drivers at Germany’s national railway operator is calling members out on a new two-day strike starting Monday, the second round of walkouts in a bitter dispute with the company.

Claus Weselsky, the head of the GDL union, said drivers of passenger trains will strike from 2 a.m. Monday to 2 a.m. Wednesday. Freight train drivers will start their strike on Saturday afternoon.

BERLIN, August 18. /TASS/: Afghanistan, Belarus and Ukraine will be the focus of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Moscow on Friday, August 20, Germany’s Government Spokesperson Steffen Seibert said on Wednesday.

"It will definitely be about major international issues: the conflict in eastern Ukraine, for which Russia can do more than it is doing, and Belarus," he said.

When asked if Afghanistan will be touched upon, he said, "I would expect so."

BERLIN, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) have overtaken the Greens and are closing the gap with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives less than six weeks before a federal election, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday.

Support for the conservative bloc led by Armin Laschet, who has been widely seen as frontrunner to succeed Merkel as chancellor after the Sept. 26 election, has ebbed since the end of June, when it was polling at 28%-30%.

BERLIN, Aug 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A first German military plane to land in Kabul since the Taliban takeover evacuated only seven people, the government said on Tuesday, due to chaos at the Afghan capital’s airport.

Germany, which had the second-largest military contingent in Afghanistan after the United States, wants to airlift thousands of German-Afghan dual nationals as well as rights activists, lawyers and people who worked with foreign forces.

BERLIN, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Images of throngs trying to flee Kabul are shameful for Western nations, Germany's president said on Tuesday, as desperate people clamoured at the airport after the Taliban takeover.

"We are experiencing a human tragedy for which we share responsibility," said President Frank-Walter Steinmeier after the Western-backed government in Kabul collapsed and its foreign-trained security forces melted away. 

BERLIN, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Germany's army is sending A400M transport aircraft to Kabul with 30 paratroopers each on board to evacuate embassy staff and their Afghan helpers as Taliban fighters surround the Afghan capital, Bild am Sonntag reported.

The Sunday paper cited unspecified sources as saying the planes would shuttle to a nearby hub, likely the Uzbek capital Tashkent, for onward charter flights.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany is forecast to record its biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 this year as the economy rebounds from the pandemic-related downturn, according to a report by an environmental think tank Sunday.

Berlin-based Agora Energiewende said the country’s emissions will probably rise by the equivalent of 47 million tons of carbon dioxide.

BERLIN, August 13. /TASS/: German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Moscow on August 20, the details of the visit have not yet been announced, German Government Spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a briefing in Berlin on Friday.

"On Friday, August 20, the federal chancellor will travel to Moscow, at the beginning of next week we will tell about the content of the program," he said. "It is quite obvious that she will meet with the [Russian] President [Vladimir Putin]," he added.

BERLIN, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Support for Germany's governing Christian Democrats fell further in an opinion poll published on Friday, as a weak performance on the campaign trail by party leader Armin Laschet increasingly weighs on his chances of becoming chancellor.

The poll, by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, showed support for the CDU slipping to 26% - down two points on the previous poll and four from a month ago - while the Social Democrats (SPD), led by popular Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, gained three points to draw level on 19% with the opposition Greens.

BERLIN, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Germany urged its citizens on Thursday to leave Afghanistan on scheduled flights as soon as they can due to the deteriorating security situation.

Taliban fighters captured the strategic city of Ghazni on Thursday, taking them to within 150 km (90 miles) of Kabul following days of fierce clashes as the Islamist group ruled out sharing power with the government based there.