Berlin - Germany is ready to make a contribution towards renovation work at the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The spokeswoman said the government was in contact with Polish authorities about what was required. "We consider it a core duty of Germany to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive," she said.

An estimated 1.1 million European Jews died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz during World War II. The concentration camp, built in 1940, is badly in need of repair.

Berlin  - The crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, voiced Arab anger over the Gaza crisis on Monday in Berlin to Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German officials.

Merkel's spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said she and the crown prince had "an extensive discussion." Both had been "very concerned" at the continuing fighting between Hamas and Israel and the humanitarian crisis.

Berlin  - The crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, discussed the Gaza crisis on Monday in Berlin with Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German officials.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who spent Saturday and Sunday meeting Egyptian, Palestinian Authority and Israeli officials on a Mideast trip, briefed the crown prince on negotiations for a ceasefire, government sources said.

Berlin  - Frankfurt's Hahn airport has cancelled plans to introduce a three-euro departure tax, the finance minister of the German state of Rhineland Palatinate, Hendrik Hering, announced Monday.

As a result, Irish budget airline Ryanair, which had threatened to withdraw from Frankfurt Hahn if the proposal went ahead, has confirmed that its 11 aircraft will remain stationed at the airport.

Ryanair lists 50 destinations departing from Frankfurt on its website, including flights to Italy, Morocco and Slovakia.

Berlin  - Germany and the United Arab Emirates agreed Monday jointly to fund a project to upgrade a key airport in northern Afghanistan at Mazar-i-Sharif into a regional air transport hub.

The German Foreign Ministry said the total cost would be 35 million euros (47 million dollars).

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan agreed on the project at a meeting with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Berlin  - As Germany begins a year thick with comemorations, tens of thousands of German leftists gathered Sunday to recall two revolutionaries who were murdered in 1919.

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, founders of the German Communist Party, were killed by rightist soldiers in the early days of the Weimar Republic and are seen by the left as martyrs.

Two separate marches were organized at the Socialist Monument in Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

The main body was from the Left Party, which claims descent from the Communist Party, and the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany, which has seats in the German parliament. The other group comprised far-leftists and anarchists.