The German Interior Ministry confirmed on Monday that new identification cards containing radio-frequency (RFID) chips will be introduced starting November 1, 2010 - but some data protection experts are critical of the decision.
Ritual prayer for Muslims with knee problems can be painful, but an entrepreneur in Germany has patented a revolutionary solution to facilitate the centuries-old tradition ā orthopaedic prayer rugs.
After months of painstaking restoration work, a rare celestial globe dating back to 1715 is returning to the Museum of Cultural History in Stralsund, director Andreas GrĆ¼ger told The Local on Wednesday.
Anarchists attacks on police stations and political offices in Berlin and Hamburg overnight were a ādeclaration of warā on the state, head of the German Police Union (DPoIG) told The Local on Friday.
Organisers of a petition for a referendum to strengthen Bavariaās porous smoking ban are celebrating on Thursday, as preliminary results show they exceeded the amount of necessary signatures by several hundred thousand.
With just three days left for people to sign a petition for a referendum to strengthen Bavariaās porous smoking ban, organisers told The Local on Monday that they have collected more than 80 percent of the required signatures.
A 22-year-old American man went missing in Frankfurt seven days ago ā vanishing without a trace after attending a concert with a friend, his father told The Local on Friday.
Google is once again facing the possibility that it could run afoul of Germany's strict privacy laws. The culprit this time? The web analysis tools of the US internet giant and other firms.
Germany's Olympic champion speedskater Claudia Pechstein remains barred from the sport after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Wednesday rejected her appeal against a ban due to irregularities in her blood.
A truck thief unintentionally stole a circus lion in Wuppertal before crashing the vehicle and fleeing the scene, police in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia told The Local on Wednesday.
Three friends - a Mexican, a Texan, and an Australian - have finally brought authentic Mexican food to Berlin. The Local sat down with them to find out how they did it.
As a public affairs officer for the US Embassy in East Berlin just before the Berlin Wall fell, <b>Peter Claussen</b> had a unique view of life in the German Democratic Republic. The Local spoke with him about how he remembers the historic time.
Archaeologists have finished recovering a 600-year-old ship from Lake Constance discovered near a mediaeval Benedictine abbey, the state of Baden-WĆ¼rttemberg announced on Thursday.
Golf, art, punk and Francophile-themed gravesites were introduced on Tuesday in Essen as part of a new image campaign called āLong Live the Graveyard!ā by the German association of cemetery gardeners (BdF).
A new documentary film by a white journalist posing as a Somali immigrant is meant to highlight rampant racism in Germany, but his undercover method is garnering heavy criticism from black advocacy groups.
A massive dig along 22 kilometres of a new high-speed train route in Saxony-Anhalt has revealed a spectacular discovery of 55,000 artefacts ā among them skeletons that date back to the Bronze Age.
A 57-year-old Irish filmmaker was stabbed in an attempted robbery by three masked teenagers during an evening stroll in Berlinās Schƶneberg district, police confirmed to The Local on Friday.
Iranian filmmaker Narges Kalhor made a last-minute decision to seek asylum in Germany on Monday after she was warned she might be arrested back home for showing a film critical of the regimeās human rights abuses. The daughter of a top advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to The Local about what comes next.
New statistics show that 70 percent of convicted criminals in Germany never see the inside of a jail. While appearing excessively lenient, a top criminologist told The Local on Tuesday that decreasing crime rates prove the country's penal system is effective.
<i>Brigitte</i>, one of Germanyās most popular glossy womenās magazines, announced on Monday that it will no longer use models in photo spreads in response to changing ideas about beauty.
Four Frankfurt children found ā¬15,000 in an old brown envelope on their way to school and then passed it out to all of their friends this week, a police spokesman told The Local on Thursday.
While it didnāt get enough votes to enter parliament, one of Germany's newest parties, the swashbuckling Pirate Party, took a surprising sixth place in the national election on Sunday.
The number of German soldiers suffering from psychological issues has risen dramatically in recent months, but the Bundeswehr has too few therapists to care for them.
In the final week before Germany's election, The Localās series on politicians with non-German roots features The Left partyās MP <b>Sevim Dağdelen</b>, a Turkish-German socialist who says sheās fighting for equality and economic security for all.
