Prime Minister Najib Miqati held talks on Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several officials.

Miqati met with the chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, Ruprecht Polenz, the undersecretary of the ministry of defense, Christian Schmidt, and Birgit Homburger, who is a member of the parliamentary committee on economics and technology.

The European Union on Wednesday announced new talks between senior EU and Iranian diplomats on Tehran's disputed nuclear drive following expert-level closed door talks in Istanbul this week.

Five people were left dead after a hostage-taking during a home eviction in southwestern Germany Wednesday, including the presumed gunman, police said.

Police said they found the bodies inside after storming the apartment in the city of Karlsruhe when they smelled something burning, several hours after a man barricaded himself and the hostages inside.

A pooling of Eurozone countries' debt, in the form of Eurobonds, must be accompanied by increased budget control at a European level, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said in an interview Wednesday.

"We need a partial mutualisation of debt, but also more central control of national budgets," Monti told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Germany on Sunday said a photograph showing some of its policemen in Afghanistan posing in front of a skull-and-crossbones flag denigrated the country's image.

The 2009 photograph showed five policemen charged with protecting the German ambassador posing before a Jolly Roger flag in front of the embassy in Kabul.

Cabinet is expected to meet on Tuesday in order to address the amended state budget draft law, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

It added that Prime Minister Najib Miqati held a series of contacts with a number of concerned officials to place the finishing touches of the draft law.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that Germany and the United States would benefit from having a closer relationship -- if they can first manage to overcome their differences.

"We could better develop our economies, stimulate growth, more jobs, if we didn't have so many obstacles in our talks," Merkel said in her weekly video podcast.

The German parliament overwhelmingly approved two euro-crisis fighting tools Friday rallying to a call by Chancellor Angela Merkel to show the world Germany's commitment to the single currency.

Hard on the heels of a "breakthrough" EU summit, Merkel dashed back from Brussels to address lawmakers before the Bundestag lower house and Bundesrat upper chamber voted by a two-thirds majority to back new budget rules and a permanent bailout fund.

President Michel Suleiman is scheduled to head to Paris in July to meet with French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee.

According to al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Friday, preparations are ongoing to set the official appointments during his visit to France.

A Mario Balotelli header and a thumping drive gave Italy a richly deserved 2-1 win over Germany in Thursday's Euro 2012 semi-final in Warsaw.

The 21-year-old struck a first half brace to stun the Germans before a Mesut Ozil penalty reduced the deficit at the death.