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Meteorologists on Tuesday morning recorded the lowest ever October temperature in Germany, as the mercury dipped to a chilly -24.3 degrees Celsius in Bavaria’s Berchtesgaden national park.

A clerical worker was named yesterday as Germany's first suicide bomber and blamed for the deaths of two American soldiers in Afghanistan. Cueneyt Ciftci, 28, who was born in Bavaria to a family of Turkish immigrants, is believed to have driven a pick-up truck laden with explosives into a US guard post on March 3. An Uzbek terror group, the Islamic Jihadist Union (IJU), claimed responsibility. In the chaotic aftermath of the explosion, insurgents raked the Americans with gunfire and killed 60 men, the group claimed, adding that: “He was a brave Turk who came from Germany and exchanged his...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

Germany has come up with the funds to launch its first magnetic levitation - or maglev - rail service. The state of Bavaria is to build the high-speed railway line from Munich city centre to its airport, making it Europe's first commercial track.

Three men have been arrested for planning attacks on Frankfurt's international airport and the U.S. military base in Ramstein, the German Defense Minister said Wednesday. "There was an imminent threat," Franz Josef Jung told Germany's ARD broadcaster. He declined to elaborate. Two of the suspects had German citizenship while the third was Pakistani, Germany's Sudwestrundfunk public broadcaster said. German federal prosecutors said they had arrested three suspected members of "an Islamic motivated terrorist organization." It was not immediately clear whether the three were suspected of having links to al Qaeda. Sudwestrundfunk said the men were arrested Tuesday evening and were...

the fssp during holy week.

Evaluation of Trip to Bavaria "My Deep Respect for the Great Religions, in Particular for Muslims" VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 20, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address at today's general audience, which he dedicated to evaluate his Sept. 9-14 trip to Bavaria. * * * Dear Brothers and Sisters: Today I wish to recall again different moments of the pastoral trip that the Lord allowed me to undertake last week to Bavaria. On sharing with you the emotions and sentiments felt when returning to those dearly beloved places, I feel the need first of all to thank...

He may seem stiff and shy at times, but Pope Benedict XVI has delighted fellow Bavarians by wading into crowds and kissing babies, shedding the image of a dour theologian from his quarter-century at the Vatican.He is not only growing into his job after 17 months in the papacy, but appears to enjoy it.In the most personal day of his homecoming visit, he knelt in prayer Wednesday at the graves of his parents and sister while his older brother — his only close living relative — leaned on a cane beside him.During the stop at the Ziegetsdorf cemetery just outside...

dpaAPPope Benedict spent time with his brother today, and, as it behooves music lovers, they went to bless a new organ - in an old chapel. How old? Oh, about 1000 years. The organ was named after Pope Benedict. Here the Pope's words: This venerable house of God, the Basilica of “Our Lady of the Old Chapel”, has been splendidly refurbished and today receives a new organ, which will now be blessed and solemnly dedicated to its proper aim: the glorification of God and the strengthening of faith. An important contribution to the renewal of sacred music in the...

Pope Benedict XVI has stepped into the controversy over Islam and violence during a visit to Germany, citing historic Christian commentary on holy war and forced conversion. In a speech at the university where he once taught theology, Benedict made an unusual reference to jihad, or holy war - a concept used by today's Islamic extremists in an effort to justify suicide bombings and other attacks on the West.

In his adopted city of Regensburg, Benedict XVI is in the midst of delivering one of the definitive homilies of his pontificate to date -- one which began, however, with abundant and detailed thank-yous to everyone who did everything from clearing access roads to the Papal Mass sites to the vocational school students who tidied up the grounds and garden of the Pope's "true home" in Pentling in advance of his visit there tomorrow. While the theme of his Bavarian homecoming was announced as "He Who Believes is Not Alone," one of the traveling retinue has come up with...

ALTOETTING, Germany, SEPT. 11, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI stressed that if Catholics pray with profound faith the Church will receive the vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life that it needs. The Pope expressed this conviction when celebrating Vespers this evening with religious and seminarians of Bavaria and members of the Society for Spiritual Vocations in the Basilica of St. Anne in the Marian shrine of Altoetting. "God's harvest is indeed great, and it needs laborers," said the Holy Father. "In the so-called Third World -- in Latin America, in Africa and in Asia -- people are waiting for heralds...

VATICAN CITY, SEP 11, 2006 (VIS) - This morning Benedict XVI, having left the archbishop's palace in Munich, travelled by helicopter to the Marian shrine of Altotting, the religious heart of Bavaria which welcomes more than one million pilgrims every year. According to legend, it was here in the 8th century that Bishop Rupert von Salzburg baptized the first Catholic duke of Bavaria. In 1330, an image of the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus was placed inside the old church and, in 1489, the shrine became the scene of two apparitions of Our Lady, giving it a fame it...

VATICAN - GERMANY Pope: social issues and gospel are inseparable, but God must “be in centre” Benedict XVI issued a warning to the first world that is “deaf” to God. At times, churches of the West prefer social projects over evangelization. On the second day of his Germany trip, the pope talked about proclaiming Christianity, which does not impose itself and rejects proselytism: the peoples of Asia and Africa do not fear the gospel but “scorn” of God, cynicism that considers contempt for what is sacred to be a right and freedom, that elevates usefulness to the supreme moral criterion...

MUNICH, Germany - Greeted by a thunderous chorus of church bells, Pope Benedict XVI began a pilgrimage to his native Bavaria on Saturday, a six-day visit laden with meaning for him and the future of his increasingly liberal Roman Catholic flock in Germany. ADVERTISEMENT Tens of thousands poured into the narrow streets in this city where he served as priest and archbishop more than a quarter-century ago, before moving to the Vatican as the church's doctrinal watchdog. "My heart beats Bavarian," he assured reporters on his plane from Rome. Benedict, 79, was welcomed by German President Horst Koehler and Chancellor...

Munich - Pope Benedict XVI, 79, arrived in his Bavarian homeland Saturday, entering the city of Munich to begin a six-day programme of preaching and prayer, combined with an emotionally- charged tour of well-remembered places from his earlier life. Police kept a watchful eye on the crowd that packed the city's central Marienplatz square for a welcome home and prayers at the foot of the Pillar of Mary, a 368-year-old monument to the Virgin Mary. Until he left in 1982 to become the Vatican's top doctrine official, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich, and he was to stay the...

MARKTL, Germany (Reuters) - Papal pastries and marzipan mitres fill the bakery window, crates of Pope beer arrive at the inn and the historic baptismal font is back in the church after years in the priest's back garden. As Bavaria, Germany's Catholic heartland, works itself into a frenzy over next week's visit by Pope Benedict XVI, nowhere is the sense of expectation greater than in his birthplace in the far south-east of the country, near the Austrian border. "This is a huge honour, we are proud he is making a point of coming here," said Marktl mayor Hubert Gschwendtner in...

A print of the only photograph of Mozart's widow, Constanze Weber, has been found in Germany. The photograph was taken in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She died two years later. The local authorities say detailed examination has proved the authenticity of the image, which is a copy of the original daguerreotype. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 36 in 1791, when Constanze was 29. She later married a Danish diplomat. The print is one of the earliest examples of photography in Bavaria. It was found in the town archives. The daguerreotype...

German public sector workers fighting plans to extend their working hours have widened their strike action to cover most of the country. An estimated 20,000 local and regional authority staff including nurses, cooks and cleaners have joined the largest public sector strike in 14 years. They are protesting against plans to extend weekly working hours by 90 minutes, from 38.5 to 40 hours a week. The industrial action...has now spread to 10 of Germany's 16 states... Leaders at Verdi - Germany's biggest union with 2.4 million members - have warned that the strikes could last for up to six weeks.

The roof of a supermarket in the southern German town of Toeging am Inn, east of Munich, has collapsed, officials say. There is no immediate word on whether anyone was injured in the incident. The cause of the collapse is unknown, although the region of Bavaria did experience heavy snowfall overnight. Last month 15 people died when snow caused the roof of a Bavarian ice rink to fall in, and 63 people died in a similar roof collapse in Poland.

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German state of Bavaria banned a radical Islamist group on Wednesday, saying materials seized from its offices urged Muslims to murder Jews and Christians. "With today's ban of the Multi-Kultur-Haus (MKH) association, Bavaria is making the limits clear to supporters of foreign extremist organisations," the state's interior minister, Guenther Beckstein, said in a statement. He said authorities raided the association's offices on Wednesday morning and seized a number of items. As the group is based in Bavaria, the ban effectively shuts it down. Bavarian authorities had been watching the MHK in the town of Neu-Ulm for...

Police divers are hunting a snapping turtle that bit a 15-year-old boy on the penis in an alpine lake. They believe the turtle had probably been dumped in the lake at Grossweil in Bavaria by its owner after it got too big for its tank. They say the animals, that are natives to North America and are illegal to own in Germany, usually avoid human contact unless cornered. They are puzzled as to why the turtle should have attacked the teenage swimmer. The boy was bitten through the swimming trunks on his private parts and then bitten again on the...

New Pope Benedict XVI has questionable past From: Nelson Marans, Silver Spring With the present pope's hometown in the heartland of Bavaria, the birthplace of the Nazi movement, there was little doubt that the overwhelming majority of the citizens were either Nazis or ready to follow the party line. There apparently was little opposition to the tactics of the Nazi Party from the residents of the town until they felt that their religion was being threatened by some of the pagan customs of the Third Reich. Certainly, despite his youth, the current pope was neutral when it came to the...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Grinning and cracking jokes, Pope Benedict on Monday shed the stress of his election and inauguration for a jubilant audience with several thousand fellow Germans at the Vatican. The 78-year-old Bavarian seemed almost overcome by joy and stagefright as he strode down the aisle of the Paul VI audience hall waving to the crowds amid flashing cameras and pilgrims straining to shake his hand or kiss his ring. A shy man thrust into the limelight by his election last Tuesday, he drew laughter and applause when he apologised for arriving late from an inter-religious meeting. "Germans...

BERLIN - The German state government of Bavaria announced on Tuesday it will expel 10 suspected Islamist radicals next week. A further 40 suspected Muslim extremists are under 24-hour a day police surveillance, said the state interior ministry in Munich. Bavaria expelled a Jordanian radical in August who was allegedly collecting money for terrorist groups and had links with planned attacks on Jewish and Israeli facilities in Berlin and Duesseldorf. Germany's new immigration law - which came into force 1 January - makes fast-track expulsion of terrorist suspects easier. DPA

The southern German state of Bavaria has become the latest of the country's federal states to ban Muslim school teachers from wearing headscarves. The Bavarian parliament approved the measure after Culture Minister Monika Hohlmeier argued that the headscarf was a symbol of the repression of women. Three other German states - Lower Saxony, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Saarland - have already imposed similar bans. Displaying Christian and Jewish symbols will still be allowed in Bavaria. More than three million Muslims live in Germany and many have complained that the laws restrict their freedom to express their religion. In the state of Hesse,...

MUNICH, Germany - With the traditional cry of "O'zapft is!" — "It's tapped!" — Munich's mayor cracked a barrel of Bavarian beer at noon Saturday, opening the southern city's 171st Oktoberfest festival for a crowd of some 500,000. Dressed in Bavarian knee-length leather pants, or lederhosen, Christian Ude wished the crowd a "peaceful Oktoberfest" before a thundering 12-gun salute signaled the 16-day festival's opening. Bavarian Gov. Edmund Stoiber was given the first mug and took an obligatory swig before switching to an alcohol-free version. The world's biggest beer-drinking festival is always a huge tourist draw, and some 6 million visitors...

A Friend of mine from Munich complains that her hometown has been taken over by "schicki-mickis," as Germans call too-smooth city slickers who prefer Armani suits to lederhosen or dirndls. To see how Munichers relax and get back to their roots, she recommended that I head for the Chiemsee, at around 30 square miles the largest lake in Bavaria and a popular escape since "mad" King Ludwig II built one of his three fantasy castles on an island there in the 1870's. With a July weekend to spend in Bavaria and no desire to spend it among the schicki-mickis, I...

STRAUBING, Germany (Reuters) - Dogs in the German state of Bavaria can now blend in with the local Alpine scenery wearing the same traditional attire worn by their owners -- lederhosen. Dogwear designer Hildegard Bergbauer, who also makes Tyrolean mountain hats and rainwear for canines, said the leather outfits were best suited for dachshunds and other small dogs but also looked good on poodles, spaniels and boxers. "There are lederhosen for the dogs and Dirndls for the bitches," she said on Wednesday. "The idea has gone down really well; people think it's a lot of fun." Bergbauer said some items...

BERLIN - Germany can no longer afford state aid to help its yodelers buy lederhosen, the Bavarian government said Tuesday in a sign of how drastically public finances have deteriorated in Europe’s largest economy. “We no longer want to sponsor the lederhosen with subsidies,” Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber said, ignoring outcries from traditional folk groups, some of whom have threatened to boycott the opening parade of the Munich Oktoberfest, the world’s biggest beer festival. The Alpine state had previously provided the 300,000 members of its folklore groups with half a million euros in state funds to help buy traditional Bavarian...

Lederhosen boycott threatens Oktoberfest party Tue Mar 16,11:43 AM ET MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - The loyal custodians of Bavaria's proud lederhosen tradition threatened to boycott the famed Oktoberfest beer party's opening parade in a row with their state government. Angered by the axing of subsidies, the German state's traditional clothing associations have launched a wave of protests targeting the ruling Christian Social Union (CSU). CSU lawmakers have been told by a number of associations that they are no longer welcome to speak at their functions. State premier Edmund Stoiber, a dyed-in-the-wool Bavarian who has pointed proudly to the region's cultural...

<p>MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) -- Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's party suffered its worst election defeat in Bavaria since World War Two on Sunday, beaten in Germany's second most populous state by the conservatives for the 13th time in a row.</p> <p>Schroeder's Social Democrats fell more than 10 points to 18.5 percent in Bavaria, according to a television exit poll released after polling stations closed at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT).</p>