Germany

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed a suggestion by a junior coalition partner that the country should keep open the option of using its closed nuclear power plants, declaring that atomic energy is a “dead horse” in Germany.

Germany switched off its last three nuclear reactors in April, completing a process that received wide political support after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in 2011. But some argued for a rethink after energy prices spiked because of the war in Ukraine.

BERLIN (AP) — A 98-year-old man has been charged in Germany with being an accessory to murder as a guard at the Nazis’ Sachsenhausen concentration camp between 1943 and 1945, prosecutors said Friday.

The German citizen, a resident of Main-Kinzig county near Frankfurt, is accused of having “supported the cruel and malicious killing of thousands of prisoners as a member of the SS guard detail,” prosecutors in Giessen said in a statement. They did not release the suspect’s name.

BERLIN, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Germany's labor market continues to weaken as the economy is stagnating. The country's unemployment rate climbed slightly to 5.8 percent in August, the Federal Employment Agency (BA) said on Thursday.

The number of jobless people in Europe's largest economy rose by 79,000 month-on-month to just under 2.7 million in August. The figure was 148,000 higher than a year ago, according to BA.

BERLIN, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Germany's coalition government on Wednesday listed Georgia and Moldova as safe countries of origin in a bid to cut asylum applications from those nations, which are almost always rejected.

The cabinet passed a draft law by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser as part of a series of measures agreed at a two-day cabinet retreat at Schloss Meseberg, a castle outside Berlin.

The move means asylum applications from those countries could be processed more quickly and lead to faster deportations for failed applicants.

BERLIN (AP) — Authorities on Sunday found 53 people apparently headed for Germany crammed into a small truck that was stopped in the Austrian city of Linz.

Four men were in the cabin of the vehicle when it was stopped on Sunday morning, one of whom fled on foot after getting out of the vehicle, police said. He was arrested, as were three others, on suspicion of smuggling.

In the truck’s cargo compartment, officers found the 53 people, including small children. Most of them were from Turkey, police said.

BERLIN, Aug 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Two American soldiers have been arrested in Germany over the death of a man at a funfair in the west of the country, according to German police.

“Following the murder of a 28-year-old man, two suspects were arrested … They are American servicemen,” police in the western city of Treves said in a statement.

The death occurred when an altercation broke out between several people at a Saubrenner funfair in the small town of Wittlich, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate between Treves and Koblenz, on Saturday night.

BERLIN, Aug 16 (Reuters) - The German government has retreated from a plan to legally commit itself to meeting NATO's 2% military spending target on an annual basis, a government source told Reuters on Wednesday.

A corresponding clause in a draft of the budget financing law passed by the cabinet of Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday was deleted at short notice, the source said.

The change means that Germany will be able to stick to its current pledge of meeting the 2% target on average over a five-year period.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a plan to liberalize rules on cannabis, setting the scene for the European Union’s most populous member to decriminalize possession of limited amounts and allow members of “cannabis clubs” to buy the substance for recreational purposes.

The legislation is billed as the first step in a two-part plan and still needs approval by parliament. But the government’s approval is a stride forward for a prominent reform project of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s socially liberal coalition, though significantly short of its original ambitions.

BERLIN (AP) — A record-setting Norwegian mountaineer pushed back Sunday against claims that she could have done more to save the life of a Pakistani porter who slipped off a narrow trail near the peak of the world’s most treacherous mountain and died there after several hours.

The circumstances of Mohammad Hassan’s July 27 death on K2, the world’s second-highest peak, sparked ongoing controversy, with two climbers arguing that he could have been saved if all those on the mountain that day had aborted their climb and focused on getting him down safely.

BERLIN, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Germany will own NATO's second largest helicopter fleet with the 60 Chinooks it announced it was buying last month, German Air Force Chief Ingo Gerhartz was quoted as saying on Friday.

Last month, Reuters reported Germany would buy 60 Chinook helicopters from Boeing (BA.N) in a package that will cost up to 8 billion euros ($8.7 billion), including necessary infrastructure for the aircraft.

"We will be the second largest helicopter nation in NATO after the U.S.," Gerhartz was quoted as saying by RND media network.