Shares in the three biggest German car makers have fallen after a report claimed they colluded for years over diesel emissions technology.

Calls have been made for an investigation into Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho's financial affairs after claims millions of pounds were moved offshore to avoid tax.

Volkswagen investors have formally filed lawsuits seeking a total of €8.2bn for losses stemming from the company’s emissions-cheating scandal.

Germany is considering scrapping tax benefits for companies that do business with tax havens abroad as a reaction to the Panama papers, Der Spiegel magazine reported yesterday.

British and US intelligence cracked the codes of Israeli drones operating in the Middle East and monitored their surveillance feeds for almost 20 years, according to documents leaked by an American whistleblower and published in international media.

Germany pulled down the shutters on its borders, temporarily exiting the Schengen system and triggering a crisis as diplomats from all the EU countries struggled to reach agreement on the refugee problem in Brussels last night.

Europe will be able to handle future economic crises without the help of the International Monetary Fund, the head of the eurozone’s bailout fund told German magazine Der Spiegel yesterday.

The European Commission warned of “catastrophe” if Greece has to abandon the euro and its chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, urged EU governments to show solidarity as Athens struggles to secure more credit.

The split between Uefa and Fifa president Sepp Blatter has widened after reports the world governing body watered down a report into reform proposals.

The German government believes that the eurozone would now be able to cope with a Greek exit if that proved necessary, the Der Spiegel news magazine reported.

Angela Merkel has warned David Cameron that his drive to curb immigration within the European Union is pushing Britain towards exiting the EU, according to German news reports.

The International Monetary Fund will cut its estimates for German economic growth in 2014 and 2015 to around 1.5% for each year, due to the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East, weekly German magazine Der Spiegel said yesterday.

A German news magazine yesterday reported that Chancellor Angela Merkel is unhappy with ECB chief Mario Draghi for apparently proposing a greater emphasis on fiscal stimulus over austerity in order to boost growth in Europe.

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has been spying on Turkey for nearly four decades, Focus magazine said in a report which could raise tensions further between the NATO allies.

Fifa has said there has been no evidence of match-fixing at any World Cup match and called on a German magazine which made allegations concerning Cameroon to back up their claim with proof.

FIFA has said there has been no evidence of match-fixing at any World Cup match and called on a German magazine which made allegations concerning Cameroon to offer proof.

The NSA has stepped up its surveillance of senior German government officials since being ordered by Barack Obama to halt its spying on chancellor Angela Merkel, Bild am Sonntag reported yesterday.

Police arrested at least two men after a Danish tourist said she was robbed and gang-raped in the heart of the Indian capital’s tourist district, putting sexual violence in India further into the spotlight.

Eurozone inflation slowed in December, retreating farther from the European Central Bank’s ceiling as the 18-nation currency bloc struggled to strengthen its recovery from a record-long recession.

The German collector who kept a priceless trove of art, possibly including works stolen by the Nazis, hidden for half a century says he did so because he “loved” them and he wants them back.

The United Nations has received assurances from the US government that its communications networks “are not and will not be monitored” by American intelligence agencies, it said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says trust between the US and its partners has to be restored following allegations that American intelligence targeted her mobile phone, and insisted that there must be no “spying among friends”.

Syria’s President Bashar Assad has admitted that he has made mistakes and no side in his country’s civil war is entirely free of blame, according to a German magazine.

Britain’s spy services were behind a sophisticated cyber-espionage scheme targeting Belgium’s main phone operator, reports say.

The United Nations is to contact the United States about reports that America’s National Security Agency hacked the world body’s internal communications.

The US National Security Agency has bugged the United Nations’ New York headquarters, Germany’s Der Spiegel weekly said yesterday in the latest in a series of reports on US spying that has strained relations between Washington and its allies.

The German magazine Der Spiegel says the US National Security Agency secretly monitored the UN’s internal video conferencing system by decrypting it last year.

German police are investigating how a half-naked, drug-fuelled bodybuilder was able to party for hours on board an empty government jet used by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The whistleblower Edward Snowden has accused President Obama of "wheeling and dealing" in attempts to block his efforts to seek asylum.

French President Francois Hollande has demanded the US stop any eavesdropping on EU diplomats and suggested that the surveillance scandal could derail free-trade negotiations worth billions.

The Obama administration faced a breakdown in confidence yesterday from key foreign allies over secret surveillance programmes that reportedly installed covert listening devices in EU offices.

Senior European officials expressed concern at reports that US intelligence agents bugged EU offices on both sides of the Atlantic, with some leftist politicians calling for concrete sanctions against Washington.

German politicians recognise that a collapse in Cyprus’s banking industry would pose a threat to eurozone stability, an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel said, suggesting that Germany won’t block a bailout package.

Jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova regrets nothing about the band’s anti-government performance in a cathedral that got them convicted of hooliganism and sentenced to two years behind bars.

The ECB must employ “exceptional measures” at times to fulfil its mandate of delivering stable prices, its president Mario Draghi wrote in an opinion piece aimed at calming German angst about the bank’s policy course.

The head of Germany’s Bundesbank stepped up his opposition to the European Central Bank’s latest moves to battle the eurozone’s debt crisis yesterday, saying that plans to buy bonds risked becoming a drug on which governments would get hooked.

Italy’s prime minister Mario Monti warned of a potential breakup of Europe without greater urgency in efforts to lower government borrowing costs, as a standoff over ECB help for Italy and Spain hardened.

The chief of the Bundesbank is an austerity advocate, but his calls for further action, as well as the move to closer fiscal union, have seen him compared to the German leader who preceded Hitler, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

The document eurozone members are hoping will save the euro promises to be long on big plans and short on immediate measures that would halt the continuing crisis now threatening the global economy.

There are increasing signs that Germany is preparing to change its attitude towards eurozone countries becoming liable for one another’s debts as intense efforts are being made to provide Spain with funding that will not trigger a sovereign crisis.

The Finance Minister has rejected claims made about him in a German publication.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is described in a new book as an “emperor” who has become just the kind of public figure he is trying to expose.

A suspicious package was today seized at the Chancellery in Berlin, the administrative complex housing the offices of German Chancellor Angel Merkel.