Germany is relying more on foreign doctors to fix a crunch in its healthcare system but a notoriously daunting language barrier is complicating patient care, with potentially disastrous results.

State authorities and industry groups are pushing for stricter language tests for new arrivals to ensure that along with their medical credentials, doctors can adequately communicate with Germans in their care.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday that he would not let intrusive surveillance undermine his relationship of "friendship and trust" with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"I don't need and I don't want to harm that relationship by a surveillance mechanism that somehow would impede the kind of communication and trust that we have," Obama told German television ZDF, according to excerpts of an interview to be aired Saturday evening.

Europe cannot leave France alone in its bid to restore order in the strife-torn Central African Republic, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an interview to be published Sunday.

"Europe cannot leave France on its own there," he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

The German government on Wednesday said it had no reason to believe an attack by gunmen on two German diplomats in Saudi Arabia this week was politically motivated.

The two envoys escaped unharmed when their car came under fire Monday in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, where most of the country's Shiite Muslim minority lives.

French President Francois Hollande Tuesday said he wanted a closer partnership with Germany to work on defense issues and ensure peace and security in the world.

Hollande, speaking at a high-profile press conference, said he wanted the top two EU economies to jointly react to these challenges.

Germany and the United States said Tuesday that their negotiations on forging a "no-spying" agreement in the wake of the NSA espionage scandal were still ongoing.

The comments came hard on the heels of German media reports that the discussions on a pact with Washington to formally block U.S. snooping within its borders were set to fail.

Israel's ongoing settlement construction is damaging efforts to reach a negotiated peace agreement, visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Monday.

Berlin's top diplomat was in Israel for a 24-hour visit to discuss the peace process which was largely overshadowed by the death at the weekend of Israel's controversial former prime minister Ariel Sharon who was laid to rest on Monday.

Two German diplomats escaped unharmed when gunmen attacked their car in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province on Monday, the official SPA news agency said.

The agency quoted a police spokesman as saying shots were fired at a German diplomatic car near Awamiya in the region of Qatif, where most of the country's Shiite Muslim minority lives.

Police said four people were thought to have died on Sunday after a small plane on its way from England crashed in western Germany.

The twin-engine business aircraft came down at the site of a rubbish tip close to Sehlem in Rhineland-Palatinate state, a local police statement said.

Israel unveiled Friday a memorial in Tel Aviv to remember the gay and lesbian victims of Nazi persecution, in a ceremony attended by Germany's ambassador.

Members of Tel Aviv's gay community turned out to see the stone monument, modeled on the pink triangle Nazis made homosexuals wear in concentration camps during World War II, which features inscriptions in German, Hebrew and English.