Germany

A funny look at German Chancellor Angela Merkel's relationship with Greece as it has captured the attention of cartoonists from around the world.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that Greece's new government was still working out plans on tackling its debt and declined to comment on an apparent softening of Athens' stance on a debt writedown and proposals for a new debt swap.

Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged Jan. 15 to heighten security measures against Islamist militants following the Paris attacks, while vowing that Germany would not be divided by extremism of any kind.
      

German President Joachim Gauck told the country's Muslim community Tuesday that "we are all Germany" at a rally to condemn the Paris jihadist attacks and take a stand against rising Islamophobia.
      

Following last week's terrorist attacks in Paris, 25 000 people joined an anti-Islamisation march in Dresden, while thousands of other Germans participated in counter-rallies on Monday.

The anti-Islamisation marches in Dresden have become the trademark of the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, shortened to PEGIDA, the BBC reports.

VIENNA - Serbia's Foreign Minister and Chairperson of the OSCE Ivica Dacic and Swiss and German foreign ministers Didier Burkhalter and Frank Walter Steinmeier said on Monday the composition of the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project had been decided.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and most of her cabinet will join a rally for an "open and tolerant Germany" called by Muslim leaders Tuesday in Berlin after the jihadist attacks in France, a spokesman said.
      

A rally against racism and xenophobia on Jan. 10 drew tens of thousands of people in the eastern German city of Dresden, which  has become the centre of anti-immigration protests organised by a new grassroots movement called PEGIDA.
   
"We won't permit that hate will divide us", Dresden's mayor Helma Orosz said in front of the 18th-century Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady).

Given that Turks represent the majority of Muslims in Germany, it is not surprising that the activities of the group known as PEGIDA, the German acronym for ?Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident,? should be attracting attention in Turkey.

Business leaders, the political class and average Germans are pushing back against a growing anti-immigrant movement, saying it threatens the values and image the country fought hard to establish since the war.

At counter-demonstrations and on social media, opponents have mobilised against the far-right group which claims Germany is being overrun by Islamic extremists.