Skip next section Ruling expected over cola-mix bottle design dispute
08/05/2025August 5, 2025
Ruling expected over cola-mix bottle design dispute
Has Berntzen copied Paulaner?Image: Peter Kneffel/dpa/picture alliance
A German court is expected to give its verdict on Tuesday afternoon on whether spirits maker Berentzen copied rival drink producer Paulaner in its design of a cola-orange soft-drink bottle.
Paulaner, one of Germany’s top beer producers, claims Berentzen copied the colorful wave design used on bottles holding its “Spezi” cola-mix for Berentzen’s Mio Mio Cola+Orange soft drink.
The case is potentially worth €250,000 ($289,000).
Berentzen has argued that soft drinks commonly employ colorful packaging and that its design does not feature waves but circular shapes.
Paulaner, which claims the design infringes trademark law, won a similar case against beverage maker Karlsberg in March.
https://p.dw.com/p/4yWXx
Skip next section Sick days on the up as Germany sniffled and sneezed in 2025
08/05/2025August 5, 2025
Sick days on the up as Germany sniffled and sneezed in 2025
Germany has had a particularly hard cold and flu seasonImage: Philip Dulian/dpa/picture alliance
The first half of 2025 saw a big rise in the number of people calling in sick to work amid a surge in colds and flus, according to an analysis by German health insurance company DAK.
The number of working days missed because of respiratory illness rose by 13% in comparison with the same period last year, with January and February the months with the most sick days registered.
The figures from DAK showed that on average, 54 of 1,000 employees it insures were written off sick every day from January to June, slightly down on the same period in 2024.
Respiratory illnesses were the cause of 22.4% of the sick days, while mental illnesses such as depression, along with muscular and skeletal disorders such as back pain, accounted for 17%.
Most of the people absent for reason of illness worked in the fields of aged or child care, while those in IT-related professions called in sick the least.
The analysis used data on sick days from 2.25 million people insured with DAK.
https://p.dw.com/p/4yWVK
Skip next section Harsh migration policies showing benefits — Berlin’s governing mayor
08/05/2025August 5, 2025
Harsh migration policies showing benefits — Berlin’s governing mayor
The stricter policies on migration recently introduced by Germany are starting to show their effects, according to Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner, the head of government in the city-state.
“We are seeing a significant relief in the influx of refugees,” saod Wegner, a member of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), to which Chancellor Friedrich Merz also belongs.
He told the DPA news agency that twice the number of people were currently leaving Berlin than that of people arriving, with the city now having some 6,000 vacant beds for refugees.
“The pressure in Berlin has eased a little,” he said.
Wegner said he hoped the recently introduced policies would help free up capacities to implement integration measures targeting refugees who have received permission to stay in the country.
The German capital took in almost 32,000 refugees in 2023, including more than 15,000 from Ukraine.
In 2024, new arrivals dropped to just above 21,000 and 6,089 were registered in the first half of 2025.
Between 2022 and 2025, the costs of housing and supporting refugees in Berlin nearly doubled to €2.24 billion ($2.58 billion).
https://p.dw.com/p/4yWJX
Skip next section China espionage trial to open in Dresden
08/05/2025August 5, 2025
China espionage trial to open in Dresden
A court in the eastern city of Dresden is to begin its trial of two people suspected of spying for China, with one of the defendants a former assistant to a lawmaker from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The former AfD aide, identified only as Jian G. under German privacy laws, is charged with providing information to Chinese intelligence from 2002, including during a period when he worked for Maximilian Krah, at the time a member of the European Parliament for the far-right populist party.
Prosecutors in Dresden accuse Jian G. of passing on information on debates and decisions at the European Parliament, along with sensitive documents.
It is also possible that information collected by Jian G. includes sensitive details about the workings of the AfD itself whose revelation could prove an embarrassment to the party, although Krah has told news magazine Der Spiegel that he never discussed certain internal problems with the defendant.
The second defendant, named only as Yaqi X., worked at a company tha tprovided Leipzig airport with logistics services. She is accused of helping Jian G. access information on flights and passengers, especially to do with the transport of defense equipment.
Krah himself is under separate investigation on suspicion of money laundering and corruption partly connected with firms linked to Jian G.
He was also at the center of a scandal over remarks that seemed to downplay the seriousness of the crimes committed by the Nazis’ notorious SS but nonetheless currently sits as an AfD member of the German lower house, or Bundestag.
https://p.dw.com/p/4yWIZ
Skip next section Welcome to our coverage08/05/2025August 5, 2025
Welcome to our coverage
DW’s newsroom on the Rhine River in Bonn wishes guten Tag to all our users!
Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, the largest opposition group in parliament, has has its share of scandals. One of them comes to a head on Tuesday as the espionage trial of a former aide to AfD lawmaker Maximilian Krah gets underway.
The trial could become an embarrassment for the party if information collected on it by the defendant, identified only as Jian G. under German privacy laws, is made public.
And Germany itself has been undergoing a trial of a different nature with a persistent wave of respiratory illnesses such as colds and flus since the start of the year, causing many people to call in sick to work, according to an analysis by health insurance company DAK.
Please explore our blog if you want to find out more about the major talking points in Germany on Tuesday, August 5!
https://p.dw.com/p/4yWGl
