U.S. President Barack Obama told German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday that the United States and its allies should prepare new sanctions against Russia if it escalates the crisis over Ukraine.

"The president underscored the need for the United States, European Union and other global partners to be prepared to meet further Russian escalation with additional sanctions," the White House said in a statement about the phone call.

Myanmar pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi said on a trip to Germany Thursday that she hoped her country could also overcome its internal divisions amid deadly Buddhist-Muslim strife.

Suu Kyi, 68, said ahead of her first face-to-face talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Myanmar sought the support of "all countries that believe in democracy" as it makes it transition from iron-fisted military rule.

The chairman of a new German parliamentary panel probing mass surveillance by the NSA abruptly quit on Wednesday, rejecting opposition demands that the body question fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

Lawmakers from the opposition Greens and far-left Linke parties had demanded that the committee seek testimony from Snowden, the former contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) now living in Moscow.

German authorities banned a group Tuesday accused of raising millions for Hizbullah and staged raids across the country against its members.

The interior ministry said it had outlawed the "Waisenkinderprojekt Libanon" (Orphan Children Project Lebanon) with immediate effect.

The Canadian journalist who was badly injured when her Associated Press colleague was shot dead by a policeman in Afghanistan has been flown to Germany for further medical treatment, the news agency said Tuesday.

Kathy Gannon was shot three times in the attack that killed Pulitzer Prize-winning German photographer Anja Niedringhaus on the eve of Saturday's presidential elections.

Germany said Monday it was worried by the actions of pro-Russian demonstrators in eastern Ukraine and called for stability in the region.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Berlin was watching events in the eastern Ukrainian cities Donetsk and Kharkiv closely after irate activists occupied government buildings there Sunday.

Russian lawmakers on Friday gave initial approval to a bill forbidding "rehabilitation of Nazism" that will punish historians denying Nazi crimes during World War II but could also be used against the opposition.

The bill introduces a new criminal charge for "denying facts" established by the Nuremberg tribunal regarding the crimes of the Axis powers, as well as "disseminating false information about Soviet actions" during the war.

Iraqi media released new pictures Thursday of President Jalal Talabani, who has been in Germany since December 2012 after suffering a stroke, with the Kurdish leader appearing in good health.

The images, published by media loyal to Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, come with campaigning having officially begun ahead of April 30 parliamentary elections and the PUK struggling to fend off a challenge from a breakaway faction.

Russian troops deployed close to the Ukrainian border will return to base after completing their exercises, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.

"After finishing training in the Rostov region (bordering Ukraine), one of the battalions that took part has already returned to base in the Samara region."

France and Germany announced a new plan at an EU-Africa summit Wednesday to work as allies in Africa on three fronts -- security, development and climate change.

"France and Germany can act on these three subjects," said French President Francois Hollande speaking alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "We want to deploy our friendship on the ground" in Africa.