A masked man was shot dead yesterday after entering a movie theatre in southwestern Germany with what appeared to be a rifle and taking several hostages, authorities said. No one else was hurt in the incident.

Latest: Hesse's interior minister, Peter Beuth, said it was not clear whether the weapon was real.

A pipe bomb, an assault rifle, ammunition and chemicals that could be used to make explosives have been found in an anti-terror raid near Frankfurt.

Five people were killed and dozens injured in separate fireworks accidents across Europe as people celebrated the New Year, authorities have said.

Hundreds of mourners have paid their last respects to a young woman hailed as a hero, who suffered fatal injuries after intervening to help two teenage girls being harassed by a group of men.

Gas from a herd of 90 dairy cows caused an explosion in Germany, injuring one of the animals.

A new eurosceptical party is on the brink of entering the German parliament for the first time, an opinion poll showed, casting doubt on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bid to maintain her centre- right coalition and complicating her eurozone policy.

LAST month saw the Cheltenham Festival, the election of the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years and the continuing saga of horseflesh sold as beef.

German politicians yesterday unanimously criticised the Deutsche Bank co-CEO Juergen Fitschen, following reports he had called a senior politician to complain about a raid on the bank’s Frankfurt headquarters last week.

Fake census forms asking rude questions have been arriving in people's post boxes in Germany.

IRELAND is considering taking a handful of Libyan political refugees following a request from Malta for help with looking after about 2,000 who landed on the island following the uprising against the country’s leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Two British-based US airmen were killed and two others wounded when a man armed with a handgun opened fire on them at close range.

Heavy overnight snowfall has grounded about 450 flights and caused major delays at German airports.

General Motors will sell its Opel unit and other European assets to Canada’s Magna International Inc in a deal German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today would protect the assets from GM’s likely bankruptcy.

THOUGHT for a minute there that I’d come up with a wizard idea for this week’s column. Letter From Tbilisi, I was going to call title it, beneath which I’d pen the single word, ‘oops’.

A court today upheld a German state’s ban on civil servants and school teachers wearing headscarves at work, the country’s widest-reaching legislation on the issue.

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.

Germany’s Social Democrats pressed for a new tax on high-income earners today as negotiators opened a decisive week in their efforts to form a new government - talks that will focus on plugging a huge budget shortfall.

Germany’s conservatives are moving toward completing the lineup of Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel’s cabinet, with a key ally preparing to nominate his final choice for the new government.

Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis said it is to start merger talks with Franco-German Aventis, to help it stave off a hostile bid from Sanofi-Sythelabo.

A friend of German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer was pardoned today after serving only two years of a nine year sentence for three terrorist murders.

GERMAN Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was looking increasingly lonely yesterday after a regional election rout compounded growing international isolation over his strict anti-war stance on Iraq.

GERMAN Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was looking increasingly lonely yesterday after a regional election rout compounded growing international isolation over his strict anti-war stance on Iraq.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was rebuffed by German voters in a crushing defeat for his party in two state elections, which conservatives read as a clear signal to allies, especially Washington, that voters reject his isolationist course on the question of war with Iraq.

CHANCELLOR Gerhard Schroeder’s party suffered a crushing defeat in two German state elections yesterday, reflecting a loss of confidence in his government’s economic course despite broad support for his anti-war stand on Iraq.

German security services are concerned that terrorists could try to shoot down a civilian aircraft, a newspaper reported today, citing a confidential security report and an intelligence official.

First tests on sheep at a Bavarian farm where animals showed symptoms of foot-and-mouth diseased have proved negative.

German officials were today testing two sheep found dead with symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease.

Sheep at a small west German farm have been slaughtered over fears they came into contact with animals showing possible symptoms of foot-and-mouth.