Germany’s finance ministry is considering a debt buyback as a possible way of reducing Greece’s huge debt pile, which threatens to rise well above a target level of 120% of GDP by 2020, according to German news magazine Spiegel.

Troika officials arrive in Greece today to try and pull that country's economic programme back on track.

Greece is in a “Great Depression” similar to the American one in the 1930s, the country’s prime minister Antonis Samaras has told former US president Bill Clinton.

The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service has resigned after admitting that his agency had shredded files on a neo-Nazi cell whose killing spree targeting immigrants rocked the country late last year.

Greek political leaders ignored a final plea from the president to form a coalition government to avert a repeat election, pushing the debt-stricken nation closer to bankruptcy and a possible exit from the eurozone.

The Vatican today denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of paedophile priests in his German homeland, and contended he had long confronted abuse cases with courage.

SOCIETE GENERALE detailed yesterday how a young trader evaded all its controls to bet some €50 billion — more than the French bank’s market worth — saying he hacked computers and used other “fraudulent methods” to cover his tracks, causing billions of dollars in losses.

UEFA have extinguished any hope of a back-door route to Euro 2008 for England by reiterating that none of the games in the qualifying tournament are included in their dossier of matches which may have been fixed.

UEFA have denied claims that Euro 2008 qualifiers are part of a match-fixing investigation but have revealed doubts about one Intertoto Cup match were so serious it was referred to their disciplinary committee.

US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he wants to tighten travel rules for Europeans entering the US without visas, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported today.

GOOGLE Earth seems to be stuck in the pre-internet past.

GERMAN prosecutors are questioning the head of a company suspected of trying to export aluminum tubes to North Korea that could be used for making nuclear arms, the Stuttgart prosecutors’ office said.