A group of Syrian dissidents vandalised the Syrian embassy in Berlin on Friday, destroying furniture and defacing pictures of President Bashar al-Assad. Germany's Foreign Office condemned the intrusion "in the strongest terms." Police said about 30 men and women broke through the main entrance during the afternoon. The group hung a flag symbolizing the Syrian resistance movement from one of the windows and spray-painted political slogans in Arabic and English on the front of the building, including one that read "Revolution and Freedom."

The American military will close two military bases in the German state of Bavaria by 2015 as part of a planned drawdown of forces stationed in Europe.

A French appeals court on Thursday upheld the Church of Scientology's 2009 fraud conviction on charges it pressured members into paying large sums for questionable remedies. The case began with a legal complaint by a young woman who said she took out loans and spent the equivalent of euro 21,000 ($28,000) on books, courses and "purification packages" after being recruited in 1998. When she sought reimbursement and to leave the group, its leadership refused to allow either. She was among three eventual plaintiffs.

Hungarian national airline Malev halted operations on Friday, after the European Union ordered it to pay back government aid.

China, the holder of one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, has indicated it may get "more deeply involved" in resolving the European Union debt crisis.

Most Germans want President Christian Wulff to resign, as allegations over his behavior and investigations into his relationships with businesses continues to damage his credibility.

The UN's highest court has upheld Germany's immunity from being sued in Italian national courts for war crimes during the 1943-1945 occupation of Italy.

Former James Bond Star Sir Roger Moore and Danish model Birgit Nielsen will accompany an Austrian entrepreneur at this year’s Vienna Opera Ball. Photo: Luger with pictures of Nielsen and Moore. 

Germany's biggest bank reported Thursday a strong rise in overall profits for 2011. Net profit jumped by 87 percent last year to a total of 4.3 billion euros ($5.5 billion), and revenues rose by 16 percent to 33.2 billion euros ($43.7 billion). However, the bank's good overall results were marred by an unexpectedly weak fourth quarter, in which earnings dwindled to 186 million euros - down 76 percent from the preceding three months and a drop of 69 percent compared with the same period in 2010. Excluding tax benefits in the fourth quarter, the bank actually lost 351 million euros.

The Voice of America (VOA) went on air February 1, 1942, nearly two months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II.

Visiting German Foreign Minister Guido
Westerwelle signed an agreement Wednesday granting 13 million dollars to Israel‘s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Centre
over the next 10 years. Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa‘ar said that the agreement
constituted an important source of funding, and will be used to
expand Yad Vashem‘s activities and to locate and purchase significant
Holocaust documents from archives in Europe, making them accessible
to the public via the internet, the Jerusalem Post daily reported.

A 64-year-old tub of American lard has been deemed fit for human consumption by food safety authorities in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Eurozone unemployment has reached its highest level since the introduction of the European single currency 14 years ago. Bucking the trend is Germany.

The EU has rejected plans for a merger between the Frankfurt and New York stock markets, the operator of the German bourse said. Photo: Frankfurt Stock Exchange.