On Thursday, February 14, German public broadcaster ARD telecast a 30-minute documentary in which it highlighted the deplorable labour conditions at inline retail giant Amazon's subsidiaries in Germany.

In response to the Wednesday-aired documentary, on German TV Channel ARD, which highlighted the plight of temporary employees hired by agencies on Amazon's behalf, the online retail giant said in a Thursday statement that it would initiate investigations into German worker abuse claims.

Sony has revealed in a recent announcement that its much-raved-about Xperia XL handset will hit the German markets in April this year. According to a listing of the handset by German retailer Phone House, the handset will likely be priced at €600 (nearly $806).

In a move which marks the latest development in the long-running ebook price-fixing lawsuit, which was filed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) against Apple and five US publishers in April last year, Macmillan has apparently reached a settlement with the DoJ.

In a Wednesday statement which underscores the suggestion that business in Germany has started picking up of late, the Federal Ministry of Economics and technology recently revealed that that the country's industrial orders witnessed an increase in December 2012; thanks largely to the fact that the demand from the Euro area had increased notably.

According to German blog telekon-presse. ak, a hands-on comparison between what supposedly is Research In Motion (RIM)'s still-announced BlackBerry Z10 handset and the Apple iPhone 5 has revealed that both the handsets come head to head when compared against each other.

Strongly rebuffing the Süddeutsche Zeitung report which suggested that Germany was mulling the proposition of sending its nuclear waste to other countries, the country's Environment Minister Peter Altmaier recently asserted that the government will never take such a move.

After playing some bad matches, Brazil has dropped down to number 18 in the latest FIFA rankings while Spain is ahead of all in the list.

The rankings are based on the last four years' performances. Brazil's low ranking is due to the matches, one of which it lost to Argentina while other was drew with Colombia. It also lost some points in a match with Portugal in 2008 which it won by 6-2.