Germany has rejected any suggestion that Greece should be forgiven part or all of the debt it owes to international lenders.

Russian investigators continue to probe the brazen daylight killing of star investigative journalist and fierce government critic Anna Politkovskaya, singling out her work as the most likely motive for the killing, news reports said.

Tribesmen today kidnapped a family of five German tourists – reportedly including a former deputy foreign minister – to press the government for the release of jailed members of their tribe, Yemeni officials and the German government said.

A Lebanese man who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and the killing of a US Navy diver has returned to Lebanon after German authorities paroled him, a Lebanese security official and the Hezbollah guerrilla group said today.

German authorities have paroled Mohammed Ali Hamadi after he served 19 years of a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and the killing of a US Navy diver.

An extremist group posted a video on a website today showing a man it said was an American hostage being shot in the back of the head, and the German government said one of its citizens released by kidnappers was expected to leave Iraq.

A German woman has been missing in Iraq since Friday and a special crisis team has been set up to secure her safe return, Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said today.