Study: same package, same price, less food
Tricks which make it difficult to compare food prices have been revealed by a German consumer watchdog, showing people can pay up to 50 percent more for the same product depending on which shop they use.
Day: March 29, 2012
Germany
Norway
Video shows Obama stuck on repeat
Norway's not the only country "punching above its weight": the US president has used the same metaphor to describe a string of Washington's "closest allies", an eagle-eyed Danish TV team has found.
Sweden
Swede, 76, jailed for child sex crimes in Philippines
A 76-year-old man has been convicted in Sweden for molesting three young girls in the Philippines when he was teaching English to poor children there.
Germany
Mass DNA test in hunt for woman’s killer
German police are appealing to 9,000 men to take part in a mass DNA test, in the hunt for the killer of a woman whose dismembered body was found in a lake.
Germany
German kids no longer want to go ‘choo choo!’
No other statistic shows more clearly that kids these days aren't like they used to be: Munich's metro is short of train-drivers. Apparently, young Germans no longer want to be train drivers when they grow up.
Sweden
Swedish research leads to ‘autism blood test’
Soon parents may be able to perform a simple blood test to determine whether or not their children have autism, thanks to new findings from Swedish researchers.
Switzerland
Swiss woman’s captors: Free bin Laden’s wives
A bid to release a Swiss woman kidnapped in Yemen has suffered a blow after her abductors made excessive demands, including for Osama bin Laden's widows to be freed, a tribal chief said on Thursday.
France
Guerlain guilty of racism
A Paris court on Thursday found Jean-Paul Guerlain, the former "nose" behind the world-famous perfume brand, guilty of racial insults after televised remarks he made about "negroes" and fined him.
Germany
Germans Look to Score as EPT Arrives at Europe’s Largest Casino
Campione, a small Italian town on the banks of Lake Lugano, has two particularly outstanding characteristics. First, it’s completely surrounded by Switzerland. Second, it’s the home of the largest casino in Europe.
Norway
More Norwegians buying Swedish holiday homes
Lured by lower prices across the border, more and more Norwegians are snapping up summer homes in Sweden, new statistics show.
Sweden
87-year-old woman discovers she is ‘dead’
An "active" 87-year-old woman was gobsmacked to read a letter from the Swedish tax agency informing her of her own death, forcing her to call the authorities and explain that she was, in fact, alive.
Sweden
Swedes, Norwegians Forced Abroad to Play National Poker Championships
The 2012 Norwegian Poker Championship is currently being played In Dublin, Ireland with over 1,000 players from Norway invading the Irish capital.
Norway
Gay rights groups fume over Sizzla’s Oslo gig
Norwegian gay rights groups are planning to gather outside an Oslo concert venue on Thursday night to take a stand against Sizzla, a reggae star notorious for his anti-gay lyrics.
Germany
Teacher sues pupil for burst paper bag trauma
A case nearly dubbed "packed-lunch-gate" by German media pundits reached court this week, as a teacher sued a 16-year-old pupil for giving her tinnitus by bursting a paper bag on the playground.
Germany
Drama on ice as Germans fight for medal
While celebrity ice dancing shows have become a television staple, Germany has a real drama on ice this week, with Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy fighting for a medal in the world figure skating championships.
Sweden
Foreign buyers flock to Swedish summer homes
More and more foreigners are snapping up summer homes in Sweden, new statistics show, with Norwegians, Germans, and Danes among those most eager to own a slice of Swedish summer paradise.
Germany
What’s on in Germany: March 29 – April 4
This Week's Highlights: Dinner on a Baltic beach, a spring festival in Berlin, and French singer SoKo steps up to the mic in Cologne.
Switzerland
Gory YouTube clips prompt call for action
As video footage of horrific Swiss deaths filters onto the web, an ethics expert has called on companies like Facebook and YouTube to advise users on what's acceptable.
Switzerland
Mafia members moving to Switzerland
At least four suspected members of Italy’s major mafia organisations are thought to be resident in Switzerland.
France
Algeria refuses to take gunman Merah’s body
The Islamist gunman branded a "monster" by President Nicolas Sarkozy will be buried in France because Algeria refused to let him be buried there, a Muslim official said Thursday.
Sweden
H&M profit hopes tied down by pricey cotton
Swedish retailers H&M recorded higher net profits in the most recent quarter according to figures published on Thursday, yet failed to live up to analysts' expectations.
Sweden
Swedes launch ‘sexless’ web search tool
Swedish computer programmers have created a a new browser plug-in dubbed the "Henerator" which automatically changes the Swedish equivalents of "he" and "she" into the recently coined and gender-neutral pronoun "hen".
Germany
British mother faces bouncers ‘who killed son’
The family of a British man who was beaten to death in a Frankfurt nightclub last Easter were in court on Wednesday to see the four bouncers accused of the attack go on trial.
Germany
Parents patrol school after sex attack in toilet
Mums and dads are patrolling a primary school in Berlin after a man entered the school unnoticed and sexually abused an eight-year-old girl in the toilets, police confirmed on Wednesday.
France
French luxury shops face curfew
Luxury shops in Paris will soon have to switch off their lights at night to save electricity. The French government is introducing new measures to cut energy consumption.
France
Fury as executioner’s torture collection is sold
A French auction house is auctioning several hundred torture and execution devices, including hanging ropes and hand crushers, collected by one of France’s last executioners. Rights groups have condemned the show as "shocking".
Norway
Norway wage earners see wallets bulge
Already the envy of Europe for their handsome pay packets, Norway’s workers saw their wallets swell still further in 2011 as average monthly earnings jumped 3.8 percent to 38,100 kroner ($6,660).
France
Girl sent home from school – skirt too long
A secondary school student near Paris was accused of wearing provocative clothing and sent back home. The school thought her skirt was too long, and conveyed religious values.
Sweden
Swedish defence minister Tolgfors resigns
Sweden's minister of defence, Sten Tolgfors, announced on Thursday he was resigning his post, citing the ongoing revelations about Sweden's secret deal to build a weapons plant in Saudia Arabia as "the final straw".
Switzerland
Swiss racism on the rise: human rights chief
Switzerland's government needs to do much more to tackle rising racism and xenophobia, a Commissioner from the European Council on Human Rights said in a letter to the Swiss foreign ministry.
Germany
German job market stays buoyant
The outlook for jobs in Germany is buoyant, despite a struggling economy, new statistics revealed Thursday show. The number of Germans in work rose once again in February.
Switzerland
Roche raises hostile bid for US Illumina
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche on Thursday raised its hostile bid for US gene mapper Illumina to $51 a share, up 15 percent from its previous offer price of $44.50 per share.
Germany
Schlecker workers face immediate sack
Around 11,000 employees of bankrupt German drug store chain Schlecker faced being sacked without compensation Thursday morning as a deadline passed for creating a rescue company to help them.
Germany
Pirate Party hacks Merkel’s website
Supporters of Germany's new Pirate Party briefly hijacked a conservative party website in a mock battle over internet savviness ahead of a regional election, the parties said Wednesday.
Sweden
Tax agency targeted in ‘serious’ hacker attack
Personal details of thousands of Swedes, including those with protected identities, may have been accessed in a hacker attack targeting an IT-firm supplying services to the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket).
Sweden
Teen girls report man for ‘semen sauce’ comments
A 56–year-old man, working at a local school in Borås, in western Sweden, has been reported by several teenage students for repeatedly harassing them with lewd comments on school grounds.
Sweden
Doc freed in baby death case reports colleagues
The doctor who was cleared in the infant euthanasia case in October last year has reported her colleagues to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) for giving what turned out to be a fatal dose of the anesthetic thiopental to the prematurely born and brain damaged baby.