Bavarian giants Bayern Munich have averted a title-free season by again being voted the best vegetarian-friendly club in the Bundesliga by animal rights group PETA.

For the fourth season running, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has voted Bayern the best team in the German league at serving up tasty meat-free dishes to hungry football fans at their Allianz Arena stadium.

Berlin's Philharmonic Orchestra is ending a 45-year association with the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2013 after a dispute over the number of opera performances it can put on.

Festival director Peter Alward said in a statement Saturday that it had not been possible to meet a demand from the orchestra headed by Sir Simon Rattle to stage four performances instead of two.

Germany Friday agreed to return a 3,500-year-old statue of a sphinx to Turkey where it was dug up, ending a war of words between Berlin and Ankara.

"Following talks between German and Turkish experts on the question of the Hittite sphinx it was agreed today in Berlin that the statue, which is currently housed in at the Pergamon museum, would be returned as a voluntary gesture of German-Turkish goodwill to Turkey," the culture ministry said in a statement.

One of three alleged members of al-Qaida detained in Germany was ordered by a high-ranking member of the group last year to carry out an attack in the country, prosecutors said Saturday.

The 29-year-old suspect, identified as Abdelakim El-K, "was ordered by a high-ranking member of al-Qaida in 2010 to carry out an attack in Germany," the deputy federal prosecutor general, Rainer Griesbaum, said at a press conference.

Airbus has made even bigger savings than expected when it launched cuts in the midst of crisis in 2007 and remains competitive despite the rise of the euro, the company which makes airliners said on Friday.

Senior director Fabrice Bregier told the Les Echos newspaper that "the targets have been well exceeded", and that the so-called Power 8 program had enabled the company to save "2.5 billion euros ($3.65 billion), which means as much extra profit, and 10 billion euros in cash."

Axel Pauly's family has been making wine in Germany's stunning Mosel Valley for 13 generations but he warns his livelihood is riding on decisions likely to be taken in the coming weeks.

Pauly and many producers of the region's famed Rieslings have joined forces to battle a massive motorway and bridge project that would straddle the river Mosel and gouge a sizable chunk out of the breathtaking local landscape.

Syrian students rallied in front of Damascus University on Monday in solidarity with protesters killed in the flashpoint towns of Daraa and Banias.

“Youngman Fadi al-Assmi was martyred at the hands of Syrian security forces during protests at Damascus University’s Faculty of Science,” Prominent Syrian human rights activist Suheir al-Atasi wrote on her facebook page.

Germany's stars shouldered the blame in the wake of their shock 2-1 defeat here to Australia as the Socceroos claimed their maiden win over the hosts.

After forward Mario Gomez had put the hosts ahead with a first-half strike, two goals in two stunning second-half minutes by Blackpool midfielder David Carney and a penalty from Dynamo Moscow's Luke Wilkshire floored the Germans.

Western powers ramped up pressure on Moammar Gadhafi Friday, with France calling for targeted strikes if he bombs his people, as a crisis summit exposed an EU rift over how to force the Libyan leader out.

The pivotal summit, capping 48 hours of talks also involving NATO defense ministers and European Union foreign ministers, opened with the 27-nation bloc divided over military action as well as a British-French push for formal recognition of Gadhafi's opponents.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe on Thursday said Paris and Berlin were calling on their European Union partners to engage in dialogue with Libyan opposition leaders.

Speaking after talks with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, Juppe said, "We are on the same track to say Colonel Gadhafi is discredited, he must go, we must engage dialogue with the new Libyan representatives."