Berlin - Germany is to rush through legislation in the new week to recapitalize its banks with a vast cash injection of up to 100 billion euros (140 billion dollars), according to news reports Saturday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will sign off with euro zone leaders Sunday on the extraordinary bail-out before announcing details.

The website of the German business newspaper Handelsblatt said her cabinet would vote through the plan on Monday.

Paris  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Saturday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, with the main order of business to be the joint opening of a memorial for the late French President Charles de Gaulle.

The two politicians were meeting in de Gaulle's home town of Colombey-les-deux Eglises, 120 kilometres south-east of Paris, on the 50 anniversary of the meeting of de Gaulle with then-West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Tuesday for better arrangements to ensure that future crises in the financial sector can be averted.

A new system needed to be developed involving all major players in the sector, she said in an address to parliament on the banking crisis which has engulfed Europe.

Describing the global financial crisis as unprecedented, Merkel said it had confirmed many people's suspicions of greed and irresponsible speculation.

Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet approved Tuesday a 14-month extension of German troop deployment in Afghanistan.

Germany currently has 3,500 soldiers serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), but the number is expected to increase to 4,500 under a bill due to go before parliament later in the day.

A vote is not due until mid-October, but the measure is expected easily to pass in the legislature, where Merkel's broad-based coalition enjoys a secure majority.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel renewed her opposition Monday to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's proposal for a European fund to help banks in trouble.

Closer cooperation between members of the European Union was needed to bring security to financial markets, the chancellor told a joint press conference ahead of talks in Berlin.

"Every country has to live up to its own responsibilities," she said, calling for a more coherent approach to the financial crisis which has spilled over to Europe from the United States.