Germany's chief prosecutor has dropped a probe into the alleged tapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone by U.S. intelligence agencies, his office said Friday.

The suspected surveillance and rampant online spying by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) revealed by fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden badly strained U.S.-German relations.

A small German town that became a byword for xenophobia when neo-Nazis rallied against a planned asylum center and the building was torched two months ago accepted its first refugees this week.

With shy smiles, two families from Afghanistan and one from India attended a media conference Thursday in the nearby town of Naumburg in the former communist East, where local officials sought to stress that the region welcomes foreigners, despite the bad press.

The Philippines has freed nine Chinese fishermen convicted of poaching endangered sea turtles after they completed one-year jail terms, officials said Wednesday.

The nine, arrested in disputed waters in May last year, were jailed after they failed to pay fines of $100,000 each for poaching and an additional $2,662 each for catching an endangered species.

The first bodies from the Germanwings plane that was deliberately crashed in the French Alps were repatriated to Germany on Tuesday.

A special flight operated by Lufthansa carried the remains of 44 Germans, among the 150 onboard when the jet crashed on March 24, from the southern French city of Marseille to Duesseldorf in western Germany.

Germany's trade surplus widened in April from the previous month as exports grew by 1.9 percent,  official data showed on Monday.

At the same time imports fell by 1.3 percent, pushing the trade surplus, the balance between imports and exports, up to 22.3 billion euros ($25 billion) in April, according to seasonally adjusted figures published by the federal statistics office, Destatis.

Germany's anti-Islam PEGIDA movement took nearly 10 percent of the vote in mayoral elections in its eastern stronghold of Dresden Sunday, a better-than-expected result for a group whose weekly demonstrations have steadily dwindled.

In what was PEGIDA's first appearance at the ballot box, candidate Tatjana Festerling came fourth in the city's polls, sparked after the conservative mayor resigned for health reasons, with 9.6 percent of the vote.

Belgian prosecutors have launched an investigation into allegations of widespread surveillance by Germany, which is alleged to have helped the U.S. spy on Berlin's allies in Europe.

"The inquiry's objective is to learn about the exact nature of the acts that may have been committed and could be prosecuted," Jean-Pascal Thoreau, a spokesman for federal prosecutors, said Sunday.

With a "Bavarian breakfast" of soft pretzels, oompah music and frothy beer, German Chancellor Angela Merkel treated U.S. President Barack Obama to a folksy welcome Sunday to drive home the enduring strength of transatlantic ties.

As fighting in Ukraine flares and Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to exploit any cracks in the united Western front on sanctions, Merkel gave Obama a homely reception heavy on symbolism.

The leaders of Germany and the United States hammered home a tough line on Russia Sunday at the start of a G7 summit dominated by crises in Ukraine and Greece.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel kicked off the day by treating U.S. President Barack Obama to some traditional Bavarian beer garden hospitality, with frothy ale, pretzels and oompah brass music played by locals in lederhosen.

Around 4,000 people staged colorful and largely peaceful protests under a very heavy police presence on Saturday on the eve of the G7 summit in southern Germany.

Police reported isolated incidents and in one case deployed pepper spray to disperse some protesters but the demonstration in the city of Garmisch-Partenkirchen was noisy but mainly good-natured with music pumping out in sweltering temperatures.