Germany

BERLIN, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- A hostage-taker at a shopping center in the eastern German city of Dresden was arrested on Saturday, local media DPA reported.

The report quoted police as saying that the hostage-taker was caught and injured, and the hostages, an employee and a child, were also rescued unharmed.

According to the report, a man allegedly killed his mother in Dresden and then took hostages in the shopping center. The body of the woman was found in an apartment building by police in Dresden on Saturday morning.

COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — An unprecedented crisis of confidence is shaking a historic center of Catholicism in Germany — the Archdiocese of Cologne. Catholic believers have protested their deeply divisive archbishop and are leaving in droves over allegations that he may have covered up clergy sexual abuse reports.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Ukraine’s finance minister says crucial Western financial support is “not charity” but “self-preservation” in the fight to defend democracy as his country deals with growing costs to repair electrical and heating infrastructure wrecked by Russian attacks.

Serhiy Marchenko also told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday from Kyiv that he believes European Union officials will sort out a dispute with Hungary that has blocked a key 18 billion-euro ($18.97 billion) aid package and would cover much of Ukraine’s looming budget gap.

08 Dec 2022; MEMO: A presenter of a children's television show in Germany has been fired for attending a peaceful demonstration against the Israeli Occupation in the West Bank, in the latest case of German authorities' and media's suppression of pro-Palestinian views.

BERLIN, Dec 8 (Reuters) - German police plan further arrests as they investigate a far-right group that prosecutors say was preparing to overthrow the state and install a former member of a German royal family as national leader.

Investigators have said the group, many of whom were members of the Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich) movement, planned to install aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuss as leader of a new state and found evidence that some members planned to storm the Bundestag and arrest lawmakers.

BERLIN (AP) — German officials say they expect more people to be detained in connection with an alleged far-right plan to topple the government that saw 25 people rounded up Wednesday, including a self-styled prince, a retired paratrooper and a judge.

The plot was allegedly hatched by people linked to the so-called Reich Citizens movement, which rejects Germany’s postwar constitution and the legitimacy of the government.

07 Dec 2022; MEMO: Germany has arrested 25 suspected far-right members of a group planning to overthrow the government, using arms to storm the lower house of Parliament.

Some 3,000 officers raided 130 sites across the country and arrested 22 members of the Reich Citizens on suspicion of membership in a terror organisation.

The group is said to want a new state modelled on Germany as it was in 1871, using military means and violence against state representatives.

BERLIN, December 7. /TASS/: The Minsk accords were signed in order to "give Ukraine time" to make the country stronger, ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel (in office from 2005 to 2021) said in an interview with the Zeit newspaper published on Wednesday.

"The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine," the politician said.

BERLIN, December 7. /TASS/: The Minsk accords were signed in order to "give Ukraine time" to make the country stronger, ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel (in office from 2005 to 2021) said in an interview with the Zeit newspaper published on Wednesday.

"The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine," the politician said.

BERLIN, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Germany on Wednesday detained 25 members and supporters of a far-right group that the prosecutor's office said was preparing a violent overthrow of the state to install as national leader a prince who had sought support from Russia.

Prosecutors said the group was inspired by the deep state conspiracy theories of Germany's Reichsbuerger and QAnon, whose advocates were among those arrested after the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.