Germany's unemployment rate was steady in January, as the labor market continues to hold up thanks to the improving economic outlook, official data showed on Thursday.

The number of people registered as unemployed in Europe's top economy fell by 28,0000 in seasonally adjusted terms this month, the Federal Labor Office said in a statement.

A German Catholic leader was forced to apologize Wednesday over comments that sparked indignation among the country's Muslim community and proponents of a multicultural society.

Cologne Archbishop Joachim Meisner, 80, had praised the high birth rate of many Catholics, telling followers: "I always say, one of your families to me makes up for three Muslim families".

Germany's foreign minister on Sunday urged Ukrainians to refrain from violence and to reach a political solution to escalating unrest.

"The daily television images from Kiev and many Ukrainian regions show that the situation is not only tense but truly serious," said the minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Germany's new defense minister said Sunday her country should engage more strongly in Africa by sending additional military trainers to Mali and supporting the French intervention in Central African Republic.

Ursula von der Leyen said she foresaw boosting the training mission in Mali from its current mandate of 180 personnel, with 99 now on the ground, to up to 250, and deploying a medical services airbus to back up the French mission in CAR.

Two journalists and a driver working for German public television were attacked by a crowd in Cairo Friday as they covered a car bomb that struck the police headquarters in the Egyptian capital, the broadcaster said.

The angry mob set upon the three -- a cameraman, producer and driver -- branding them "traitors" and "lackeys of the Muslim Brotherhood," broadcaster ARD said on its website.

Croatia on Friday extradited its former top spy to Germany, wanted over his role in a 1983 murder, in a bid to end a row with EU over the case.

Josip Perkovic, sought under a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) which regulates extradition between the bloc's 28 member states, was escorted by police from his Zagreb home to the airport, where he was handed over to German authorities in the early afternoon, state television reported.

A German court Thursday jailed for seven years a man who joined Islamist militants in Pakistan and Somalia and once phoned in a terror threat against the parliament in Berlin.

The Turkish-born German, Emrah Erdogan, 25, had claimed in the phone call to federal police that al-Qaida militants would stage a bloodbath and hostage siege in the German Bundestag.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that Ukraine must safeguard the lives of pro-EU demonstrators following deadly clashes with security forces but rejected calls for fresh sanctions against Kiev.

Merkel sharply condemned the violence, which activists say has left five dead, as well as new Ukrainian legislation barring protests, as the EU debates possible reprisals.

Three Germans were among 40 people killed when Pakistani jets and helicopters bombarded suspected Taliban hideouts in a northwestern tribal district, a senior security source said Wednesday.

The air strikes in the North Waziristan tribal region on Tuesday followed two major Taliban attacks on military targets in as many days.

Croatia's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the country's former top spy to stop his extradition to Germany, paving a way towards ending a row with the European Union, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Josip Perkovic, wanted under a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) which regulates extradition between the bloc's 28 member states, should be extradited since the court "rejected his appeal as unfounded," spokesman Drazen Tripalo said in a statement.