Development Minister Dirk Niebel has waded into the controversy surrounding a deal to sell tanks to Saudi Arabia, saying German weapons exports can be compatible with human rights by stabilizing an entire region.
The German Interior Ministry has denied that federal police officers on duty in Saudi Arabia have been training secret service officers there, after a television magazine claimed this was the case.
Arms deals with Saudi Arabia and Angola have sparked widespread outrage in Germany and highlighted the country's emergence as the world's third-largest weapons exporter. But is Berlin guilty of hypocrisy or just poor political judgement?
The German government has yet to confirm a controversial tank deal with Saudi Arabia, but Berlin is on the defensive, with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defence Minister Thomas de Maizière emphasising the Arab kingdom's "stabilising" role.
A Lufthansa cargo plane that crashed at Riyadh's airport this week did so due to a bad landing by its pilots, the first results of a Saudi probe showed on Saturday.
A cargo plane owned by Lufthansa crashed in Riyadh on Tuesday injuring the two-man crew, the German airline said, confirming earlier statements by a Saudi official.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel held talks with Saudi King Abdullah late on Tuesday after calling for Gulf nations to help press Iran over its nuclear drive, the official SPA news agency said.
Saudi security forces have freed two German girls kidnapped with their brother and parents in Yemen last year in an apparent cross-border military operation, the interior ministry said Tuesday.
Guido Westerwelle, Germany's first openly gay foreign minister, said he fully aired Berlin's differences with Saudia Arabia over human rights issues during a visit to the country on Saturday.
A Saudi Arabian inventor has filed for a patent on a potentially lethal science fiction-style human tracking microchip, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) told The Local on Friday.
