Time magazine named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its Person of the Year 2015, hailing her leadership during Europe's debt, refugee and migrant crises and Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
Clashes broke out between hundreds of asylum seekers at a shelter in Berlin, in the second mass brawl to erupt over the weekend in Germany's crowded migrant accommodations.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel came under fire for her welcoming refugee policy from her powerful Bavarian coalition ally, who demanded she cap arrivals "in the national interest".
The international community must secure a binding deal against climate change at key UN talks in Paris next week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an interview published he thought the first explosion he heard a week ago at a Paris stadium was fireworks, but soon realised it was a terror attack.
Seventy years after the trials of top Nazis began in Nuremberg, Germany is racing against time to prosecute the last Third Reich criminals to make up for decades of neglect.
German President Joachim Gauck said the world is confronted with a "new type of war" perpetrated by terrorists bent on killing those who refuse to follow their "barbaric ideology".
Germany's interior minister called for family reunification rights of Syrian asylum seekers to be limited, saying the country cannot cope with a doubling of its already record refugee numbers.
EU regulators have given Volkswagen 10 days to clarify its own admission that nearly a million of the company's cars emit more CO2 pollution than originally claimed.