Two parliamentary inquiries will investigate why 34 separate German police and intelligence agencies were unable to get solid leads on a murderous trio of neo-Nazis who killed 10 people before their group collapsed last year.

 

The Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, on Thursday unanimously voted to establish one inquiry. The other was established in the state of Thuringia, the home state of the members of the group.

 

Peter Altmaier, parliamentary leader of the ruling Christian Democrats in the Bundestag, said the debate was largely marked by consensus. ""We were shocked that these people were able to create terror undetected and for so long," he said.  

The government has said it will not allow any more time to debate a bill on moving UK time forward by an hour, despite calls from MPs on all sides of the House for it to do so.

Speaking during the business statement on 26 January 2012, Commons Leader Sir George Young said the Daylight Saving Bill, a private members' bill , introduced by Tory Rebecca Harris, should not be given any more time because it stood no chance of becoming law.

A small group of MPs talked out the bill during its report stage on a recent Friday sitting.

AFP - The European parliament website came under cyber attack Thursday but hackers failed to penetrate the assembly's internal network, a spokesman said.

"This morning the parliament's site came under attack with massive consultation bids," spokesman Jaume Duch told AFP.

"But the hackers were unable to penetrate the parliament's inner network which continued to operate normally internally," he said, adding that an inquiry was under way.

REUTERS - Police arrested Jean-Claude Mas, the founder of the French company at the heart of an international health scandal, at his home in southern France on Thursday, a police source told Reuters.

A second executive from Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) was also detained, the source said.

REUTERS - French presidential frontrunner Francois Hollande says he will raise taxes on the rich, cut tax on profits for smallest firms and cancel billions of euros of tax breaks introduced by conservative Nicolas Sarkozy if he replaces him in May.

The Socialist Hollande, leading opinion polls, also says he will erase a large public deficit by 2017, marginally later than the current government, but argues in a manifesto unveiled on Thursday that he could do so and still create 60,000 teaching jobs and 150,000 state-funded jobs for first-time workers.

His election campaign director Pierre Moscovici said the left was serious about balancing the country's books and accused Hollande's main adversary of attempting to mislead voters.

As the European crisis ratchets up antagonism between countries, there has been a rise in name-calling and finger-pointing: from lazy southerners to domineering northerners, with plenty in between. And that's before the football starts this summer. The six newspapers in the Europa project were asked to stereotype each other, and then asked cultural commentators in each country to assess how accurate they are

Russian police don't take kindly to opposition protesters - even if they're 5cm high and made of plastic.

Police in the Siberian city of Barnaul have asked prosecutors to investigate the legality of a recent protest that saw dozens of small dolls - teddy bears, Lego men, South Park figurines - arranged to mimic a protest, complete with signs reading: "I'm for clean elections" and "A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin".

"Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events - using toys with placards at mini-protests," Andrei Mulintsev, the city's deputy police chief, said at a press conference this week, according to local media. "In our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event."

Documents have been found after they were thought to have been destroyed, which had led to the collapse of the UK's biggest police corruption trial.

The announcement came as emerged that a review has been ordered into the end of the trial of eight officers, who were all cleared in December.

They were involved in the original investigation of the 1988 murder of Cardiff prostitute Lynette White.

The review has been ordered by Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer.

This one will sting: the troika has presented its demands; Greek ministers expressed concern about the reaction of lawmakers; there has been some progress in the PSI+ talks, as Olli Rehn holds out the possibility of an increased participation of the public sector; Reuters says the ECB remains split on its position; Jean-Claude Juncker says there is a need for a greater public sector contribution; he also says that the second loan package will not come unless all parties sign up to the programme; Michel Barnier said he will wait before implementing proposal to force write-downs for banks; Francois Hollande came out with his economic plan: €20bn more expenditures, €29bn in higher taxes on the rich and large companies; sticks to deficit targets, and a trajectory towards a balanced budget by 2017; Le Monde welcomes Hollande's programme; Frankfurter Allgemeine does not; Brussels estate agents have been swamped by calls from potential French tax exiles; the Spanish government seems determined to hit the 4.4% deficit target, despite the economic slump this year; economy minister Luis de Guindos says this would create confidence in the financial markets; the European Commission dismisses Angela Merkel's plans to divert unused structural funds to stimulate jobs and growth; market participants say the ECB's LTRO will have a very significant effect, but the danger is that policymakers might see this as a signal that they have done enough; Philip Stephens says that Italy is once again a political power, thanks to Mario Monti; Hugo Dixon, meanwhile, explains why a merger of the EFSF and ESM will not suffice.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who took power late last year, defended his policies of strict austerity in Spain and said they came in tandem with structural reforms to promote growth.

Speaking Thursday in Berlin at a news conference following talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Rajoy said Spain has to work to create solid foundations for the economy. He said the next four years will be all about economic reforms - a "long and difficult phase." 

The Lower House of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, has approved a law which will reactivate a state rescue fund for struggling banks. The SoFFin fund is to provide up to 400 billion euros ($527 billion) in guarantees for cash-strapped banks and up to 80 million euros specifically for recapitalization needs.

Following a string of stress tests in the sector, the European Banking Authority (EBA) had estimated that six major German banks needed to drum up an additional 13.1 billion euros to meet higher stock capital requirement.

The daily newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung" released an evaluation of federal employment statistics on Thursday, claiming that fewer German children are living below the poverty line, but not all parts of the country are enjoying the same levels of success.

According to the report, the number of children younger than 15 years old receiving funds from the state welfare program Hartz IV decreased from 1.9 million to 1.64 million between September 2006 and September 2011.

The decline between 2010 and 2011 stood out, as the number of children in Hartz IV households shrank by nearly 84,000.

German consumer confidence is continuing to rise, according to the latest index of household sentiment by the Nuremberg-based market research company GfK. Based on a poll of 2,000 average consumers, the survey forecast a rise in confidence to 5.9 percent for February, up from a positively revised 5.7 percent in January of this year.

"[German] consumers are continuing to resist the growing recessionary tendencies in Europe which look likely to spare Germany," the study said. "For the second month in a row, economic expectations have risen and consumers' willingness to spend is increasing as a result."

BRUSSELS - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said transferring more powers to EU institutions rather than increasing the size of the eurozone's future bail-out fund is the way to overcome the euro crisis.

"We have said right from the start that we want to stand up for the euro, but what we don't want is a situation where we are forced to promise something that we will not be able to fulfil," Merkel said Wednesday (25 January) in the opening speech of the World Economic Forum, an informal gathering of leaders and business magnates held every year in Davos, a Swiss mountain resort.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday in Davos it would be "quite simply madness" if Europe introduced a tax on financial transactions, which would reduce growth and cut jobs.

The German parliament has started to lower the number of soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. But two years ahead of the planned complete withdrawal of troops, many questions remain unresolved.

"Davos can not afford to be a complacent club for the rich and powerful of this world," says Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International. He couples this statement with a call for a demonstration in Davos. The motto: "Companies must be kept on a tight leash." Nongovernmental organizations (NGO) have adopted a stern approach at this year's forum in the Swiss Alps, effectively forcing their topics onto the agenda. "The governments must take responsibility. We need stricter regulation of large corporations," says Shetty. 

BRUSSELS - EU countries on the UN Security Council and a handful of Arab states have put forward a new resolution on Syria. But Russia - a veto-wielding country - is unlikely to let it fly.

France, Germany, Portugal and the UK together with Jordan, Morocco, Qatar and Saudi Arabia unveiled the three-page text - published by Washington Post blogger Colum Lynch - in New York on Wednesday (25 January).

The draft resolution calls on Syrian President Bashar Assad to "facilitate a political transition, leading to a plural political system ... and fair elections" in a process to be overseen by the Arab League.

Defense agreements top the agenda during Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara's first state visit to France since French troops helped ouster his predecessor last year after a bloody standoff.

Ouattara and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will sign a new security agreement Thursday ahead of a state dinner at the Elysee presidential palace.

The visit marks the end of a decade of stormy relations between France and Ouattara's predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, who currently faces war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

A former leader of the House of Representatives, with a career that has vacillated wildly between impressive highs and embarrassing lows, Newt Gingrich is enjoying a sudden surge in the race for the Republican presidential nod. His decisive win in the South Carolina primary coupled with his dramatically rising poll numbers have both voters and pundits wondering if he could steal the nomination from presumptive frontrunner Mitt Romney.

AFP - Several loyalists of slain Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi have been tortured and some have even died in detention centres run by armed militias, human rights groups said on Thursday.

Amnesty International said that despite promises, Libya's new rulers have made "no progress to stop the use of torture", as Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in the third-largest city of Misrata over similar claims.

Their accusations come after a top UN official raised concerns that armed militias comprising former rebels who helped topple Kadhafi were posing increasing security risk as they regularly clashed with each other.

REUTERS - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan challenged violent Islamist sect Boko Haram on Thursday to identify themselves and state clearly their demands as a basis for talks, while acknowledging that military confrontation alone will not end their insurgency.

In an interview with Reuters at the presidential villa in the capital Abuja, Jonathan also said there was no doubt that Boko Haram had links with other jihadist groups outside Nigeria.

"If they clearly identify themselves now and say this is the reason why we are resisting, this is the reason why we are confronting government or this is the reason why we destroy some innocent people and their properties ... then there will be a basis for dialogue," Jonathan said.

AFP - Five bodies were found Thursday as rescue teams frantically searched through rubble for 16 people missing after three office buildings collapsed in the historic heart of Rio, officials said.

The collapse, apparently caused by structural problems, occurred late Wednesday near the municipal theater on the city's Cinelandia square, in a historic district bustling by day but nearly deserted at night.

Civil defense official Marcio Mota told AFP that two new bodies were located in the debris, bringing to five the number found so far.

The world's largest natural gas corporation, Gazprom of Russia, says it is eager to challenge major German power utilities in their home market.

"We don't just want to deliver gas to Germany, but invest in the country's power generation, too," Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Thursday.

AFP - From legalising trade in rhino horns to an outright ban on hunting the animals, South Africa's parliament Thursday wrestled with sometimes conflicting ideas on how to curb a devastating surge in poaching.

Last year a record 450 rhinos were poached in South Africa, a crushing blow for a country home to more than 70 percent of the animal's global population.

The biggest trees in the world are dying off rapidly as roads, farms and settlements fragment forests and trees come under prolonged attack from severe droughts and new pests and diseases. Here is a selection of the world's biggest trees under threat

The German government is looking to open up the country's airspace for unmanned drones that were only used for military purposes previously.

Researchers studied childhood asthma in two communities in southern California that have high levels of regional air pollution and where there are large roads close to residential neighborhoods for the study published Thursday online in the European Respiratory Journal.

"It is increasingly clear that exposure to traffic-related pollution both causes children to develop asthma and triggers asthma symptoms in children with asthma," Sylvia Brandt, the study's lead author and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Deutsche Welle.

Brandt and her team analyzed earlier estimates of asthma cases attributable to pollution exposure and multiple surveys on healthcare visits by children with asthma to estimate the yearly costs of childhood asthma.

The controversial website The Pirate Bay announced this week that it would begin hosting digital files for visitors to download and print out on their 3D printers. The site has coined a new word - "Physibles" - for data objects capable and feasible of becoming physical.

"We believe that things like three-dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first," the group wrote on its website. "We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare parts for your vehicles."

The site has faced extensive legal battles in its home country of Sweden over potential intellectual property infringement of digital content. The concern for many intellectual property owners is that just as there is piracy in the digital world, so too will there be in the physical world.

In his film debut entitled "Michael," Austrian filmmaker Markus Schleinzer tells the tale of the abduction of a child from the perspective of the pedophile perpetrator.

The Tonight Show is not exactly known overly harsh or insulting humour. So the criticism the team received for a skit aired on the show earlier this week came of great surprise. Jay Leno's piece backfired and the comedian is facing criticism for playing a video clip which is apparently insulting to the Sikh community.

BRUSSELS - A senior US official has tried to dispel the notion that post-9/11 America abuses internet privacy, as EU lawmakers and civil liberties activists look to the future of web policing.

The state department's top official on international communications, Philip Verveer, who in his past work as a lawyer in the private sector also helped put together some of the US' biggest pieces of media legislation, led the mission to the EU capital on Thursday (26 January).

Researchers have "cloaked" a three-dimensional object, making it invisible from all angles, for the first time.

However, the demonstration works only for waves in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

It uses a shell of what are known as plasmonic materials; they present a "photo negative" of the object being cloaked, effectively cancelling it out.

The idea, outlined in New Journal of Physics, could find first application in high-resolution microscopes.

AFP - Wrapped up against Russia's midwinter in vivid balaclavas, brightly coloured minidresses and not much else, eight members of an all-girl punk group stood on a platform in Red Square and started an impromptu show.

"Riot in Russia!" they screamed, before taunting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and urging Russians to hit the streets in protest.

The band, Pussy Riot, has been gaining Internet notoriety after their January 20 gig of sorts, the latest in a string of impromptu performances to protest Putin's candidacy for the presidency.

Why are creative people so deeply sceptical of Britain's honours system? Previously top secret details revealed today show that artists including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and LS Lowry rejected honours from the Queen as well as such writers as Roald Dahl and Graham Greene. What made them so reluctant to be rewarded by the British establishment?

None of these artists were known radicals. They were not on record as being republicans - although Francis Bacon is said to have once booed Princess Margaret when she insisted on singing at a party.