German vegetable sprouts caused the E. coli outbreak that has killed 29 people and sickened nearly 3,000, investigators announced Friday after tracking the bacteria from patients in hospital beds to restaurants and then farm fields.

Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's national disease control center, said the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw that conclusion even though no tests of sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive for the E. coli strain behind the outbreak.

The German cabinet signed off Monday on a bill phasing out nuclear power in Europe's biggest economy by 2022, prompted by the disaster in March at Japan's Fukushima plant.

"I am convinced that the government's decision today represents a milestone in the economic and social development of our country," Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen told reporters in Berlin.

Seed sprouts are suspected of being at the root of a deadly E. coli outbreak which has killed 22 people, mainly in Germany, a regional agriculture minister said on Sunday.

Gert Lindermann, who represents Lower-Saxony, said there was not yet definite proof but a connection had been made "involving all the main outbreaks" of the disease, which has also left more than 2,000 people ill.

The head of Germany's football federation, Theo Zwanziger, called Wednesday for FIFA to re-examine the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar over bribery allegations.

"I think there is a significant degree of suspicion that one cannot just dismiss," Zwanziger told ZDF public television when asked about calls for the sport's world governing body to take away the event from Qatar.

Iran briefly closed its airspace to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's plane as she flew for a visit to India on Tuesday, delaying her arrival and sparking a diplomatic row.

Merkel was held up as she flew overnight on Monday-Tuesday for a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pratibha Patil in New Delhi.

The 'lucky' sweater worn by Germany coach Joachim Loew at the 2010 World Cup is heading to the country's football museum.

The German football federation says the blue V-neck garment will be one of the exhibits when the museum opens in Dortmund in 2014.

Germany on Monday became the first major industrialized power to agree an end to nuclear power in the wake of the disaster in Japan, with a phase-out due to be completed by 2022.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said the decision, hammered out by her center-right coalition overnight, and marked the start of a "fundamental" rethink of energy policy in the world's number four economy.

A group of German brewers, politicians and public figures have called for the country's 14th century beer purity law to be included on the U.N.'s list of "intangible" world cultural treasures.

"This almost 500-year-old law is one of the oldest food and drink regulations in the world," the German institute for pure beer (DIRB) said after its annual meeting on Wednesday.

Germany has warned consumers to be especially careful when eating tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers which are believed to be responsible for an outbreak of food poisoning that has left three dead.

Initial findings by the Robert Koch Institute, the national disease center, "indicate that the most recent contamination by EHEC (enterohaemorrhagic E. coli) is most probably due to consumption of raw tomatoes, cucumbers and leaf salad," the ministry for consumer protection said late Wednesday.

German authorities reported Tuesday three suspected deaths from a strain of the E. coli bacterium and warned more were likely because of a "scarily high" number of new infections.

"The number of serious cases in such a short time period is very unusual, and the age groups affected is also atypical," said the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany's national disease control and prevention agency.