Syrian President Bashar Assad will forfeit legitimacy if his regime continues to carry out acts of violence against demonstrators in his country, the German government warned on Monday.

"If President Assad maintains his refusal to engage in dialogue with the Syrian people and continues to resort to violence, the German government will consider he has forfeited his legitimacy in further overseeing the fate of his country," deputy government spokesman Christoph Steegmans told a regular press conference.

Syria's President Bashar Assad has no future in politics, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in an interview to be published Sunday.

"I don't believe that Assad has a political future ahead of him which is supported by the Syrian people", Westerwelle told the German Sunday newspaper Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

A heartbroken 15-year-old German boy stole his parents' car to drive 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from Austria to northern Germany in a bid to make up with his girlfriend, German police said Thursday.

The boy, who was on holiday in Austria with his family, had an argument with his girlfriend in Flensburg near the Danish border while chatting on a social network.

Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger says the Bavarian giants have nothing to fear on Friday when they learn who they will face in the Champions League play-off.

"Whichever opponent we draw out of the pot will take a deeper swallow than us," joked Germany star Schweinsteiger, Bayern's vice-captain, after his side reached the 2010 Champions League final.

An organic food boom in Germany is creating demand for flour ground the old way, but the country only has one person left with the skills needed to carve and maintain millstones.

According to the German organic food industry body, the BOeLW, sales of organic food in Europe's biggest economy have tripled since 2000 and are on course to exceed six billion euros ($8.4 billion) this year.

Fare dodgers in Germany are using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to warn fellow travellers of the presence of public transport inspectors on buses and trains.

Some even describe the inspectors, who wear ordinary clothes, so that those riding the transit system illegally can avoid them before being challenged to show their tickets.

A 10-year-old German girl who gave herself a radical haircut and then feared her parents' reaction claimed she was kidnapped by a man armed with a pair of scissors, authorities said Wednesday.

Police spokesman Thorsten Schiewe in the northern city of Hanover said the girl ran to a neighbor Tuesday with the story that someone had broken into her house, threatened her with scissors and held her captive for a short time.

The Israeli secret service Mossad was responsible for the assassination last month of an Iranian scientist in Tehran, Germany's Spiegel Online news website reported.

The killing of Dariush Rezaei-Nejad was "the first serious action taken by the new Mossad chief Tamir Pardo," according to an unidentified Israeli intelligence source quoted by Spiegel Online.

Germany's opposition Green party is taking the government to court over a reported secret deal to sell hundreds of tanks to Saudi Arabia, a party spokeswoman said Monday.

"A suit brought by the members of parliament Christian Stroebele, Claudia Roth and Katja Keul was filed on Friday" with the Constitutional Court, the spokeswoman added.

Germany Monday condemned what it called a war by the Syrian government against its own people, after calling for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the latest deadly crackdown.

Foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer renewed Berlin's call for a robust response from the council and new European Union sanctions against Damascus after activists said security forces killed nearly 140 people Sunday.