ITALY’S centre-right government promised yesterday to hike VAT, as it bowed to market pressure for more action on its swollen debt and ignored mass street protests against its austerity measures.

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party has suffered a defeat in a state election after almost six decades in power there, according to an exit poll.

ENDA KENNY could have a unique problem when he attends his second EU summit on Thursday and Friday — that of getting and keeping the attention of his fellow leaders sufficiently long to get his interestrate reduction.

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats suffered a crushing defeat in a regional election in the northern German city-state of Hamburg yesterday that will make it harder for her coalition to pass laws.

FREEZING temperatures and snowstorms killed 12 more people and caused travel chaos across northern Europe yesterday as some of the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Stuttgart today to protest against a disputed railway project that has become a headache for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

A woman opened fire in a hospital in Germany’s Black Forest today, killing at least one person and wounding several others, before fatally shooting herself, German officials said.

A plane slid off an icy runway and powerful winds and heavy snow forced hundreds of flight cancellations across Europe today as blasts of freezing cold buffeted Western Europe.

FORMULA One chief Bernie Ecclestone has apologised for praising Adolf Hitler’s ability to “get things done,” comments which prompted a German Jewish group to call for a boycott of the motor sport.

GERMAN investigators who have hunted Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim for decades said yesterday that new information indicating the former concentration camp doctor died in Egypt in 1992 appears credible and that they will attempt to find his body.

Three people drowned after flash floods hit south-western Germany, police said today.

An SS concentration camp doctor accused of murdering hundreds of prisoners will be named today as the world’s most-wanted Nazi war criminal.

A German court today upheld a ban on Muslim teachers wearing head scarves in the schools of a German state under a law that says teachers' attire must be in line with 'Western Christian' values.

German police arrested a third suspect today in connection with a failed attempt to blow up two trains, and Lebanese authorities picked up a fourth man as the investigation gathered steam, officials said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s left-right government strengthened its grip on German politics with victories for the two ruling parties in three state elections and bad results for what remains of the opposition.

A German state official who once said US President George Bush should be “shot down” resigned today over the political fallout from a row with a Roman Catholic bishop.

German prosecutors today said they had opened their own criminal investigation into a cable car accident in the Austrian Alps that killed nine German skiers.

More than 700 police raided apartments and mosques across Germany today in a crackdown on a Islamic extremist organisation suspected of aiding terrorists.

Three Iraqis, arrested in Germany today, were plotting to assassinate Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi during his Berlin visit, prosecutors said.

Deutsche Telekom AG said it has sold its remaining 40% stake in the cable television business in the south western German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Six people, including three children on a bike tour with their mother, were killed today when two trains collided head-on in south-west Germany.

Parts of Germany hit hard by last month’s Europe-wide flooding were back under water today after torrential rainstorms deluged the east of the country.

GIANT cranes lifted ruined cars and other debris out of the Black Sea yesterday after 58 people, mostly Russian holiday-makers, died in torrential floods.

Giant cranes lifted ruined cars and other debris out of the Black Sea today after 58 people, mostly Russian holidaymakers, died in torrential floods.

Fresh rainfall today fed already swollen rivers in southern Germany increasing flooding that has already caused significant damage to the area.

Scores of people were feared dead today after a Tupolev 154 and a Boeing 757 airliner collided over the southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Germany's main industrial union is poised to begin a wage strike after workers expected to boycott the night shift at DaimlerChrysler's flagship car plant.