Germany

Bamboo and low emissions help sell "green" toys

Green ToysNuremberg, Germany - Toys made of a renewable material, bamboo, or tiny cars that demonstrate low-emission engines are eye-catching examples of a green trend at the Nuremberg Toy Fair which opened Thursday.

While no one could claim that the vast variety of plastic dolls and semiconductor-filled remote-control cars at Nuremberg are biodegradable, a few manufacturers have put environmental standards at the centre.

"We see it as the children's future. Toys ought not to damage our environment," said Felicitas Hoegger of Slowtoys, a tiny Swiss company, that uses recycled cardboard to make dolls' houses.

Factory orders in Germany plunge as economy stumbles

Germany disappointed at WTO breakdownBerlin - Germany factory orders plummeted by a hefty 6.9 per cent in December, the Economics and Technology Ministry said Thursday, as the global economic crisis tightened its grip on Europe's biggest economy. The seasonally adjusted fall in the nation's key industrial orders in December was far more than the 2.5 per cent that analysts had forecast and represented the 12th consecutive monthly fall in German order books.

The decline in December followed a revised 5.3 per cent drop in November.

Long-sought Nazi war criminal presumed dead

Stuttgart - A long-sought Nazi war criminal known as "Dr Death" is "presumedly dead," German police said Thursday, a day after two media outlets reported he died in Cairo 16 years ago.

A spokesman in the southern city of Stuttgart said police had "meaningful information" that Aribert Heim lived undetected in the Egyptian capital from 1963 and is buried there.

Germany's ZDF television channel and the New York Times reported Wednesday that the Austrian-born former concentration camp doctor died of cancer on August 10,
1992.

Heim was thought to have been living in South America, but there were also reports that he had sought sanctuary in Spain and Denmark after fleeing Germany in the early

Merkel faces party backlash over Vatican criticism

Chancellor Angela Merkel of GermanyBerlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced criticism from within her Christian Democratic (CDU) party Thursday over her call for the pope to take a clearer stand on Bishop Richard Williamson's anti-Holocaust views.

The speaker of parliament, Norbert Lammert, told the daily Hamburger Abendblatt that "much of what is being imputed to the pope is almost malicious, and certainly not fair."

Economic crisis shapes Berlin Film Festival as stars line up

Berlin - An action thriller about the often dark and crooked world of global banking opens the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday.

German director Tom Twyker's The International stars Clive Owen as an Interpol agent, Louis Salinger, and Naomi Watts as a New York attorney, Eleanor Whitman, who go after world's biggest bank to try to expose its business in financing wars and terror.

"Anyone who has moved against this bank has ended up dead", warns Louis as he and Eleanor attempt to track down the flow of funds in a high-risk-filled chase around the world.

Will Joe Biden cook up a storm in Munich?

Will Joe Biden cook up a storm in Munich?Munich - US Vice President Joe Biden is set to give Europeans a preview of his country's new foreign policy agenda as he addresses the prestigious Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

Biden's speech is likely to outline US President Barack Obama's fresh approach to international affairs but won't delve into details on how Obama intends to address a long list of issues and challenges, analysts say.

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