GERMAN leader Gerhard Schroeder has cancelled his Italian summer holiday after a Rome minister labelled German tourists “hyper-nationalistic blondes”.

Italy was tonight braced for a German summer boycott after Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder cancelled his holiday in pique over an attack on his countrymen abroad.

Tunisia acknowledged that a deadly gas truck explosion near a historic synagogue was caused by a criminal act.

Germany has for the first time raised the possibility that a truck bombing at a Tunisian synagogue that killed 16 people was an al-Qaida terrorist attack.

EU ministers will discuss next month a German proposal to create a European riot police corps to protect high-level meetings from anti-globalisation protesters.

The interior ministers of Germany and France want an urgent meeting with their colleagues across the EU to discuss how to prevent a repeat of the rioting that marred this weekend’s European summit in Sweden.