This is the World News from the BBC in London.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Germany must do everything it can to gather information on tax evaders after a whistle blower offered to sell details of secret bank accounts held by German citizens in Switzerland.
Her government has
indicated
that it's willing to pay for a computer disk containing information on about 1,500 Germans suspected of hiding money in Swiss Bank or other to avoid tax. Mrs.Merkel said it was important to obtain such information.
"We have to
pave the way
in discussions on a federal and on a state level, but our aim should be to obtain this information if it is
relevant
. "
The Palestinian authority has signaled the softening in its demand that Israel freeze all settlement construction in the occupied West Bank before a peace talks can resume. While repeating his call for a freeze, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has for the first time suggested that such a move would not need to last from within three months. Mr.Abbas made his comments in Berlin from where it's Steve Rosenberg reports.
After meeting the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, President Abbas indicated that peace talks could get on the way if the Israeli halt settlement building for, as he put it, a certain period.
He didn't
specify
how long that should be.But in an interview with Guardian newspaper published on Monday,the Palestanian leader spoke of a period of three months. Up to now though, Israel has been opposed the idea of any construction freeze in east Jerusalem.