BBC News with Marian Marshall.
Germany is making the biggest cuts in government spending for more than half a century to reduce the country's debts. The Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany needed to
set a good example
to other European countries as
sound
finances were the best way to avert another crisis. Steve Rosenberg reports.
The government wants to save more than $95 billion over the next four years. To do that, there will be cuts to social welfare payments. The cost of health insurance will rise, and the armed forces will be reorganised to save money. There will be new taxes, including a bank levy, a tax on the nuclear power industry and a travel tax on air passengers. Meanwhile, plans to rebuild
from scratch
a famous Prussian palace in Berlin have been
postpone
d. That's a luxury the German budget can't afford right now.
The British Prime Minister David Cameron has also been talking about spending cuts. He warned that the reductions needed would affect everyone in Britain for years.
NATO forces in Afghanistan say ten soldiers from the allies have been killed in different areas of the country. The deaths came in several separate attacks, as Martin Patience reports from Kabul.
In the deadliest attack, five soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in the east of the country. Another soldier also died in eastern Afghanistan, this time killed by small arms fire. The rest of the casualties were in the south of the country, all in separate incidents.