Prosecutors have not ruled out the possibility the German couple worked with Mr Putin

Allegations that the late German film actor, Klaus Kinski, sexually abused his eldest daughter when she was a child have been backed by his second daughter, the actress Nastassja Kinski.

He is best known for helping to create reunified Berlin's somewhat overblown reputation as Europe's "cool" city. Not long into his career, Klaus Wowereit, the German capital's party-mad and proudly gay Social Democrat mayor, described his city as "poor but sexy".

The daughter of Klaus Kinski, the late German actor who starred in epic films including Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, has accused her father of raping her repeatedly as a child.

Sweden claims two Britons tried to import massive quantity of bootleg bulbs from China

If the man who now runs former East Germany's once-hated Stasi archive realises his ambitions for the New Year then sometime in 2013, The Rolling Stones will hold a rock concert on top of the East Berlin building still containing millions of communist secret police files.

A private detective who worked for the German discount supermarket chain Aldi has accused it of using Stasi-style surveillance tactics – including hidden cameras – to spy on staff and gather information that could be used against them.

Status as Germany’s capital of cool under threat after influx from provincial backwater

Anyone who has been on the streets of Berlin on New Year's Eve will know that the experience is exciting, if not easy. For most of the year Germany enforces strict controls on the sale and use of fireworks. But these are waived for New Year celebrations and every corner shop suddenly has a host of firecrackers, rockets and other pyrotechnics on sale to the general public.