Princesses now have the same chance of inheiriting the throne as their brothers after Denmark voted on Sunday in favour of a constitutional change.  

Danish voters have overwhelmingly approved a plan to put women on an even footing with men in succession rules for the Danish throne. In a referendum held on Sunday, 85.4 percent of voters said `yes' to a proposal to change a provision in the country's constitution that made the monarch's first-born son heir to the throne even if he had an older sister. Only 14.6 percent voted against it.

Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen reacted positively to the change, saying "it was important for gender equality." Under the constitutional amendment, which had already been approved by lawmakers last year, the first-born child of any future monarch is to inherit the throne, regardless of gender.

The NATO military alliance plans to scale down its force in Kosovo. According to a senior US official the troops are to be reduced to 10,000 by January 2010. Currently, Nato's KFOR troops number 15,000 soldiers.  

"KFOR is looking to shift to the next phase of operations - to a deterrent presence," the official told at a news briefing on Monday.

He added that a review of the current mission had led to a reassessment of the security situation, which found that the time was right for a reduction of troops.

"This move is the next legal step in devolving responsibility to the local forces, but (we want) to do so in a way that maintains stability."

Germany's Social Democrats in recent years have fought hard to re-establish themselves as a party for working-class Germans. Sunday's European election results show that they haven't been successful.

The German press loves to complain about Chancellor Angela Merkel. She is boring, they say; she shies away from making tough decisions; she prefers the path of least resistance. She lacks panache.

 Frank-Walter Steinmeier, chancellor candidate for Germany's Social Democrats, has some thinking to do following his party's poor results in European elections on Sunday. But in these times of economic crisis, it appears that German voters could do with a steady hand. That, at least, seems to be the lesson of the European election result in Germany. Merkel's conservatives came out on top of the heap, with 37.9 percent of the vote.

More surprising, though, is that the center-left Social Democrats slid to an historic low, a 20.8 percent result that was even worse that the center-left party's tally in European Parliament elections five years ago. Even more surprising, the vote total came despite the party's clear support for helping struggling German companies with public money as a way to save thousands of jobs.

US President Barack Obama had been hoping that Germany would take nine Guantanamo detainees deemed ready for release. But Berlin has presented a list of conditions -- which likely can't be met.

During his brief visit to Germany last week, US President Barack Obama told the gathered press in Dresden that, when it came to the possibility of Germany accepting some of the Guantanamo prisoners due to be released, concrete demands were not yet on the table.

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is opposed to accepting Uighur detainees from Guantanamo. "We have not asked (Chancellor Angela Merkel) for hard commitments, and she has not given us any hard commitments beyond having a serious discussion about (whether there are) ways that we can solve this problem" Obama declared.

Strictly speaking, that may be true. But according to information obtained by SPIEGEL, Germany has long since blocked the idea of accepting Guantanamo detainees -- and has done so without having to issue an outright rejection.