Germany

BERLIN, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Most of the jewels stolen from a historic Dresden art collection in 2019 in a $120 million heist have been recovered, German police and prosecutors said on Saturday.

The 31 pieces, including a breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle and an ornate diamond head-dress, had been secured by investigators in Berlin, authorities said.

Their return followed negotiations between prosecutors and defence lawyers for the Germans who are on trial for the November 2019 break-in at the Gruenes Gewoelbe (Green Vault) Museum.

BERLIN, Dec 16 (Reuters) - The German Foreign Office tweeted screenshots on Friday of the accounts of journalists suspended by Twitter, warning the platform that the ministry had a problem with moves that jeapordised press freedom.

Twitter suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists who had posted about its new owner Elon Musk, prompting protests from their media organisations.

BERLIN (AP) — A huge aquarium in Berlin burst, spilling debris, water and hundreds of tropical fish out of the AquaDom tourist attraction in the heart of the German capital early Friday.

Police said parts of the building, which also contains a hotel, cafes and a chocolate store, were damaged as 1 million liters (264,000 gallons) of water poured from the aquarium shortly before 6 a.m. (0500 GMT). Berlin’s fire service said two people were slightly injured.

BERLIN (AP) — A convicted far-right murderer temporarily took two prison guards hostage in eastern Germany during an attempted jailbreak before he was overwhelmed by other guards.

The hostage taker, who was convicted to life in prison for fatally shooting two people after he tried to storm a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle in 2019, took two guards hostage at the Berg high-security prison near the city of Magdeburg in eastern Germany on Monday night.

BERLIN (AP) — German lawmakers said Monday they are digging deeper into an alleged coup plot uncovered last week, when police detained dozens of people linked to the far-right Reich Citizens movement.

Prosecutors said the 24 Germans and one Russian detained last Wednesday are suspected of being members of, or of supporting, a “terrorist organization” that planned to topple the government.

BERLIN, Dec 10 (Reuters) - German authorities said they had ended a suspected hostage-taking in the eastern city of Dresden on Saturday by what appeared to be a psychologically confused man acting alone, after evacuating a shopping mall in the historic city centre.

The suspected hostage taker, a 40-year-old man, died of the injuries he sustained during the police operation to free the two hostages, who were unharmed, the police said.

POTSDAM, Germany, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday Germany could increase its population strongly in the years ahead as the government seeks to boost immigration to help avert labour shortages and a crisis in its pension system.

The government is working on attracting foreign workers to "keep the show on the road" despite an ageing population, making an estimated 7% rise in population to 90 million by 2070 plausible, Scholz told a citizen forum in Potsdam, near Berlin.

BERLIN, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- A hostage-taker at a shopping center in the eastern German city of Dresden was arrested on Saturday, local media DPA reported.

The report quoted police as saying that the hostage-taker was caught and injured, and the hostages, an employee and a child, were also rescued unharmed.

According to the report, a man allegedly killed his mother in Dresden and then took hostages in the shopping center. The body of the woman was found in an apartment building by police in Dresden on Saturday morning.

COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — An unprecedented crisis of confidence is shaking a historic center of Catholicism in Germany — the Archdiocese of Cologne. Catholic believers have protested their deeply divisive archbishop and are leaving in droves over allegations that he may have covered up clergy sexual abuse reports.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Ukraine’s finance minister says crucial Western financial support is “not charity” but “self-preservation” in the fight to defend democracy as his country deals with growing costs to repair electrical and heating infrastructure wrecked by Russian attacks.

Serhiy Marchenko also told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday from Kyiv that he believes European Union officials will sort out a dispute with Hungary that has blocked a key 18 billion-euro ($18.97 billion) aid package and would cover much of Ukraine’s looming budget gap.