Germany

BERLIN, Aug 21 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday conceded that the Afghan army's resistance against Taliban militants had been misjudged.

"The army collapsed at a breathtaking pace," Merkel said at an election event. "We had expected the resistance to be stronger."

Merkel said the focus now was on rescuing people from Afghanistan, but later there would need to be a discussion on what had or had not been achieved.

BONN (Germany), Aug 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Criminals in Italy and Germany are increasingly making use of cryptocurrencies, according to the customs directorate in Bonn.

“The use of cryptocurrencies for online payment in the context of criminal offences is clearly on the rise,” the directorate said in a statement.

According to investigators’ findings, in most cases, the perpetrators use Bitcoin and the currency Monero.

BERLIN, Aug 20 (Reuters) - A member of Angela Merkel's conservatives dismissed suggestions on Friday that they should drop their candidate to succeed her as German leader, despite his souring popularity ratings that could cost them an election they had looked certain to win.

Less than six weeks before the Sept. 26 vote, support for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), has fallen to 23%, some 10 points lower from the last election and only 2 points ahead of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

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.