Watchdog warns over Germany's rightwing

The European Union's anti-racism watchdog has called on the German government to act following a recent wave of far-right violence against foreigners in Germany.

The Vienna-based European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia said the government in Berlin had to take firm measures to stop such attacks.

The German environment minister, Juergen Trittin, said it was time to consider banning extreme right-wing parties. He told the BBC that far-right militants had killed more people in recent years than the extreme-left did during its campaign of violence in the 1970s.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service