Berlin  - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggested in a parliamentary debate Friday that the United States should remove its arsenal of nuclear weapons from German soil.

"If we wish Europe to be made into a nuclear-free zone, that would also apply to the nuclear weapons still left in Germany," he told the Bundestag lower chamber in Berlin during a debate on disarmament.

Berlin - German business confidence edged up in April, a key survey to be released Friday is predicted to show, adding to hopes of a turnaround in Europe's biggest economy. In a major test of the economic mood in Europe, analysts expect the Munich-based Ifo economic research institute to say its forward looking business confidence index rose to 82.4 points this month from 82.1 in March.

Berlin  - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier condemned Thursday two suicide bombings in Iraq which killed at least 87 people in separate attacks.

"I fiercely condemn these underhand attacks," Steinmeier said. "Our deepest sympathy goes to the families of the numerous victims, and we wish the many injured a speedy and complete recovery," the foreign minister added.

Berlin - A group of artists has refused to participate in an ambitious project to restore the original artwork on the longest remaining strip of the Berlin Wall in a dispute over payment and the way the work is being carried out.

At least 15 of the 86 artists who have been invited to re-paint the images they drew two decades ago are boycotting the project, their spokesman, Bodo Sperling, said Thursday.

Dusseldorf - One of the four men accused of a major Islamist terrorist plot in Germany was sentenced Thursday to two weeks' imprisonment for contempt of court after he refused to stand up when the judges entered the courtroom.

Adem Yilmaz, 30, a Turkish citizen raised in Germany, called out sarcastically, "Thank you very much," when prosecutors applied for the penalty, and he said the same thing when presiding judge Ottmar Breidling threatened to remove him from the court room.

Berlin - An elaborate study of genes from Ice Age and modern horses has shown that the horse was domesticated at least 5,000 years ago in a region known as the Ponto-Caspian steppe, scientists said Thursday.

That region spreads from modern-day Romania through Russia to Kazakhstan.