The world's oldest major film studio celebrates its 100th birthday this month with Hollywood stars and European players ready to toast the mythic Studio Babelsberg outside Berlin.

It survived the Nazis and the communists and is now capitalizing on its legendary status among cinema history buffs like Quentin Tarantino to beat back tough competition from the likes of London, Prague and Budapest.

The Great Altar of Pergamon, a sculpted frieze dating from the 2nd century BC and one of Berlin's top tourist attractions, will be closed for repair work from 2014, the museum said Tuesday.

The Pergamon Museum -- which opened to house the Ancient Greek masterpiece in 1930 on Berlin's renowned Museum Island -- will undergo a complete renovation in several phases, between October of this year and 2019.

Five men were arrested Saturday after gaining entry to the Syrian embassy in London, police said, as protesters demonstrated outside the building.

Around 150 protesters gathered outside the plush property in Belgrave Square, one of central London's finest squares, which houses a string of embassies.

Former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is brushing aside a cake-in-the-face attack, saying in a Facebook posting that at least he didn't go hungry at an event in Berlin.

Guttenberg, who was a one-time star in Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc, resigned last March after it emerged he copied large parts of his doctoral thesis without attribution.

Historians have cheered news that Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" will be reprinted in Germany for the first time since the Nazi dictator's fall in 1945, just as Holocaust survivors hit out at the move.

British publisher Peter McGee said he would put out excerpts from the anti-Semitic manifesto, which laid out the Fuehrer's vision long before he took power in 1933, alongside commentary putting the work in historical context.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday assured Italy its tough austerity measures would be "rewarded", amid signs her own economy was grinding to a halt as tensions in Eurozone markets simmered.

Capping a flurry of diplomatic activity as leaders strive to stem the crisis that threatens to tip the 17-member Eurozone into recession, Merkel expressed "great respect" for Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti's reform efforts.

German's foreign ministry said Thursday it had summoned Syria's ambassador to Berlin to demand an immediate halt to the "brutal" repression of anti-regime demonstrators by government forces.

"The brutal acts by the security forces against the Syrian population are absolutely unacceptable and a flagrant violation of Syria's agreement with the Arab League," said Boris Ruge, in charge of Middle East affairs at the foreign ministry.

A German octogenarian puts his lifelong fascination with armor under the hammer Tuesday when the largest private collection of medieval weapons goes on sale for millions of euros.

The collection valued at between three and four million euros ($4-5.4 million), goes up for auction in Brussels and includes not only classical armor and weaponry such as shields, helmets and swords, but also crustaceans.

British director Mike Leigh will chair the jury of next year's 62nd Berlin film festival, one of Europe's top cinema showcases, organizers said Friday.

The 68-year-old veteran film-maker, a master of bittersweet realism in hits such as "Secrets and Lies" and "Happy-Go-Lucky", will lead a panel vetting contenders from around the world for the Golden and Silver Bear top prizes.

Asian markets mostly fell on Friday as a meeting between the eurozone's three biggest economies highlighted their differences on finding a solution to the region's debt crisis.

Traders remained nervous at the end of a week that saw fears over Europe deepen as the yields on Italian and Spanish bonds sat dangerously high and even Germany -- the bloc's pillar -- failed to sell all its bonds at auction.