Germany

02 Mar 2019; DW: Germany's car industry association says billions will be spent on electromobility over the next three years to cement the future of the auto sector. Domestic car production is, however, expected to fall this year.

Germany's automotive industry is planning an aggressive investment in electric and autonomous cars, along with digitization, the president of the Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA) car industry association said on Saturday.

03 Mar 2019; DW: Some 3,500 people rallied in the German capital over plans that could see social media firms block user-generated content. The EU's Article 13 will put the onus on Facebook and YouTube to remove copyright material.

Thousands of protesters marched through Berlin on Saturday against the EU's planned copyright reforms that will likely see the introduction of automatic upload filters by the likes of Facebook and YouTube.

03 Mar 2019; DW: From police officers to teachers to castle administrators — state employees across Germany are due to get a pay raise. With extra money for health care workers, the deal could help alleviate Germany's care worker crisis.

After days of warning strikes that saw slowdowns in hospitals and closed daycares across Germany, unions and state employers agreed to pay raises for public sector employees on Saturday night.

27 Feb 2019; DW: The apparent violation of Germany's arms export control regulations by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, revealed by DW and other news outlets on Tuesday, has drawn angry reactions from opposition politicians and anti-arms trade activists.

26 Feb 2019; DW: German prosecutors were considering filing criminal charges after a video emerged that showed members of the extreme-right NPD party and Wodans Erben Germanien group marching through the northern Bavarian city of Nuremberg.

The prosecutors were deciding if there was "evidence of incitement of the masses" at the event, which was held without permission, Nuremberg's left-leaning mayor Ulrich Maly said on Tuesday.

26 Feb 2019; DW: The trial of German arms producer Sig Sauer began at the Kiel District Court in northern Germany on Monday. Three executives are accused of being involved with the delivery of guns worth €270 million ($306 million) to Colombia without the necessary authorizations.

The accused face up to five years in prison if convicted and the prosecution is also demanding the company pay a €12-million fine.

24 Feb 2019; DW: Asylum-seekers in eastern Germany are 10 times more likely to be hate crime victims as those who live in the west, a study published on Sunday found.

Researchers from the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) looked at 1,155 incidents that took place between 2013 and 2015.

23 Feb 2019; AFP: A top Catholic cardinal admitted Saturday that Church files on priests who sexually abused children were destroyed or never even drawn up, a move which allowed paedophiles to prey on others.

"Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created," German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said in a speech to a landmark Vatican summit on tackling paedophilia in the clergy.

22 Feb 2019; DW: German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier urged fellow ministers Friday to "act in unison" over President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on EU cars sold in the USA.

Instead, Altmaier said, "car tariffs between the US and Europe should be reduced and completely abolished."

Start negotiating, urges Malmstrom

22 Feb 2019; DW: Germany closed 2018 with its highest budget surplus of €58 billion ($65.8 billion) since reunification in 1989, the federal statistics bureau Destatis announced Friday.

Revenues collected by government — at federal, regional state and communal level — amounted to €1,543.6 billion. Offset against expenditures of €1,485.6 that left coffers €58 billion in surplus, an overhang of 1.7 percent in terms of gross domestic product (GDP).