BERLIN/ZURICH (Reuters) – A Swiss lawmaker likened German attempts to buy data on cross-border tax evaders to bank robbery on Tuesday and the Swiss banking lobby said Berlin was acting as a receiver of stolen goods.

Switzerland’s interior minister clearly sought a diplomatic solution with Berlin in a sharply escalating row with the Alpine country’s most important trading partner.

“It is very important to have a good relationship between Switzerland and Germany,” said Didier Burkhalter. “We now need to find a way — and we will discuss this at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting — to ensure a stable relationship with Germany.”

Germany has said it is prepared to pay for data on clients of Swiss banks who may have been evading German taxes that is being offered to authorities by a whistleblower, even if the information has been obtained illegally.

BERLIN, Feb 2 (Reuters) – A Swiss lawmaker likened Germany’s attempts to get hold of data on cross-border tax evaders to bank robbery on Tuesday, turning up the volume in a growing row between the two nations over Swiss bank secrecy. Germany said on Monday it was prepared to pay for data on clients of a Swiss bank offered to authorities by a whistleblower, even if the information had been obtained illegally. [ID:nLDE6101VZ]

“Here we have a new form of bank robbery,” Swiss lawmaker Pirmin Bischof told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio. “Before, you had to go to the bank and get hold of the money with a weapon. Today you can do it electronically by stealing data.

“This should not be allowed in a country based on the rule of law,” Bischof added.

Switzerland has faced increasing challenges to its banking secrecy practices. Last year it agreed to relax its strict rules on client privacy to fend off potential sanctions by the G20 group of leading nations.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel refused on Wednesday to set a date for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan, saying that would only encourage the Taliban.

She also tried to justify to a highly skeptical public a new strategy to boost troop levels in Afghanistan and nearly double civilian aid to help create the conditions to start a withdrawal from next year.

At a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Merkel said she backed his goal of having Afghan forces fully responsible for security by 2014. But she added there was nothing to be gained from setting out a pullout time in stone.

“I think it would be wrong to name a concrete date for a withdrawal because .. we don’t want to give the Taliban an excuse to go quiet and then launch a big attack,” said Merkel.

BERLIN, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel refused on Wednesday to set a date for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan, saying that would only encourage the Taliban. She also tried to justify to a highly sceptical public a new strategy to boost troop levels in Afghanistanat and nearly double civilian aid to help create the conditions to start a withdrawal from next year. [ID:nLDE60P0YJ] At a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Merkel said she backed his goal of having Afghan forces fully responsible for security by 2014. But she added there was nothing to be gained from setting out a pullout time in stone. "I think it would be wrong to name a concrete date for a withdrawal because .. we don’t want to give the Taliban an excuse to go quiet and then launch a big attack," said Merkel. Germany, whose contingent in Afghanistan is NATO’s third biggest after the United States and Britain, has come under pressure from some NATO allies to provide more forces. But opinion polls show the mission is deeply unpopular at home and Merkel faces a hard sell to convince German voters. She has been careful to stress Germany’s role in training Afghan forces and resisted pressure to send German soldiers to the most dangerous southern part of the country. "After eight years the balance sheet is mixed. We’ve seen some progress and too many setbacks. There is much that the international community has failed to achieve, so we must act," Merkel told the Bundestag lower house of parliament later. On Thursday, ministers from 60 countries meet in London to try to agree an international strategy for Afghanistan and boost efforts for a long-term political settlement with the Taliban. "The London conference is about nothing less than setting out the way ahead," Merkel said, adding that the mission continued to be in Germany’s direct interests. Germany’s parliament must still approve Merkel’s plans, which also include contributing 50 million euros ($70 million) to an international fund to reintegrate Afghan rebels. Merkel made clear she had demands of the Kabul government although she did not expect German-style democracy to take hold. "Corruption has to be fought effectively, elections must be held democratically, drug cultivation must be fought and hostile forces must find no support from outside Afghan borders." Karzai, stopping in Berlin on his way to the London conference, expressed confidence that Afghan forces would gradually take on more responsibility for security. "We want to be in a position to defend our land as soon as possible with Afghan forces," said Karzai. (Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh and Dave Graham)

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged industrialized and emerging countries to invest more in protecting wildlife and said the U.N. should create a body to refine scientific arguments for saving animal and plant species.

Researchers say preserving nature is crucial to the fight against climate change and warn that human activity is speeding up extinctions. They also argue that peoples’ livelihoods depend on natural assets worth trillions of dollars.

Extinction rates run at 1,000 times their natural pace due to human activity, research shows. Three species vanish per hour, according to U.N. figures.

“The question of preserving biological diversity is on the same scale as climate protection,” Merkel said Monday at an event to launch the United Nations’ Year of Biodiversity.

German soul searching about the September air strike in Afghanistan that killed civilians contrasts starkly with the greater acceptance of what is sometimes called “collateral damage” in other countries, such as the United States.

Politicians here in Berlin have been backing away from their original robust defence of the strike in the last few weeks as more information has come to light about the circumstances of the German order to call in a U.S. F-15 fighter jet to hit two hijacked fuel trucks near Kunduz on Sept. 4.

Afghan officials say the bombardment killed 30 civilians and 69 Taliban.

In the furore about the handling of the strike, cabinet minister Franz Josef Jung, who was defence minister at the time, and the head of Germany’s armed forces, have had to resign. The pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel is mounting and new Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg may yet have to go.

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – Prosecutors accused John Demjanjuk on Tuesday of knowingly herding thousands of Jews to their deaths in the Nazi-run Sobibor extermination camp and standing by as victims screamed in fear.

Propped up under a white sheet on a mobile bed in a Munich court, the 89-year-old former U.S. carworker closed his eyes or stared into space as prosecutors charged him with helping to kill 27,900 Jews in what may be Germany’s last major Nazi-era war crimes trial.

Demjanjuk, who denies a role in the Holocaust, has not said anything in the first two days of the trial and his family says he is too frail to be in court.

Tuesday’s afternoon session was cut short after he gestured with his hands. A medic attended him and asked that the session be ended.

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – For many Holocaust victims former Nazi guard John Demjanjuk’s trial provides perhaps one of the last big opportunities to expose to public scrutiny the crimes committed in World War Two death camps.

The trial of Demjanjuk, 89, on charges he helped to force 27,900 Jews into gas chambers at Sobibor camp in 1943 started on Monday under the international media spotlight. He has denied involvement in the Holocaust.

“I didn’t come to take revenge on Demjanjuk. I came to explain what it was like in Sobibor,” said plaintiff Thomas Blatt, whose family was killed at the camp in 1943 and who at 15 was ordered to sort out belongings of Jews sent to be gassed.

“Today is important because it is the last big international case that everyone is interested in.”

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – John Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old former Nazi camp guard, is due to stand trial on Monday on charges of helping to force 27,900 Jews into gas chambers in 1943.

Demjanjuk is expected to appear in a wheelchair before a packed court in the southern city of Munich at what is likely to be Germany’s last major trial from the Nazi era.

German state prosecutors believe Demjanjuk, who was top of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most-wanted war criminals, assisted in murders at the Sobibor death camp, in what is now Poland, where at least 250,000 Jews were murdered.

Jewish groups and victims’ families say it is never too late for justice to be done and that the case is symbolic.

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – John Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old former Nazi camp guard, is due to stand trial on Monday on charges of helping to force 27,900 Jews into gas chambers in 1943.

Demjanjuk is expected to appear in a wheelchair before a packed court in the southern city of Munich at what is likely to be Germany’s last major trial from the Nazi era.

German state prosecutors believe Demjanjuk, who was top of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most-wanted war criminals, assisted in murders at the Sobibor death camp, in what is now Poland, where at least 250,000 Jews were murdered.

Jewish groups and victims’ families say it is never too late for justice to be done and that the case is symbolic.