Corruption costs Italy billions.

An audit by the state court of accounts estimates that bureaucratic corruption in 2008 cost Italian taxpayers between €50 and €60 billion. Auditors based their estimate on data collected from over 10,846 criminal investigations conducted last year. According to...

Rosa Luxemburg's corpse discovered?

The director of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences at Berlin’s Charité hospital, Michael Tsokos, believes that he may have found the decapitated corpse of famous communist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg stored in the hospital’s basement. Luxemburg was one...

Audrey Hepburn stamp auctioned

An anonymous bidder has bought a rare German stamp of Audrey Hepburn for £47,000 in Berlin. The Hepburn stamp was part of a series including Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo commissioned by the German post office, Deutsche Post....

Simon Rattle stays on in Berlin

The world-renowned Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra announced on 13 May that 54-year old Britain, Sir Simon Rattle, would be extending his contract as chief conductor until 2018. The decision to approve the extension of his contract, which runs out in 2012,...

Fighting over the Mauerweg

The Mauerweg, a memorial path opened in 2007 that follows what was the Berlin Wall along the former borders of east and west Berlin, has become a hot potato between residents of the upmarket Berlin suburb of Potsdam and the...