Police have been accused of failing to keep tabs on a racist killer during one of Germany's worst-ever far-right shootings. Police say they had to proceed cautiously.

Trafficking of timber is rampant in the country because of the high demand for rosewood in China.

Early morning searches have taken place in Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen and Baden-Württemberg. Police in Britain, Belgium, France and the Netherlands were also involved.

In one incident, two girls and a boy were confronted by a group of nine people in the Berlin neighborhood of Mitte. Elsewhere in the capital, a man was physically assaulted in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Customs officials in mainland France are grappling with cocaine being smuggled in from the overseas department of French Guiana. At Paris's Orly airport, as many as one in four passengers on flights from French Guiana's capital Cayenne try to smuggle in drugs in exchange for cash.

Prosecutors said the 75-year-old woman was involved in a far-right plot to kidnap Karl Lauterbach. He is associated with the country's stringent COVID-19 policies.

The vast Casamance forest region in Senegal is known for its rare woods: rosewood, and the Cayor pear tree, among others. Officially they are protected, but armed independence fighters smuggle the wood on the black market. These groups often raze entire plots of land and then export the wood, mainly to China via neighbouring Gambia. Clashes with the fighters have killed several people this year.

Prosecutors in the German city of Dresden have said they are investigating climate activists accused of damaging property at an art gallery.

In 2021, the Federal Criminal Police Office reported that the number of acts of violence against police officers had increased by 689 cases to 39,649 when compared with the previous year. Since 2012, cases of violence against police officers had increased by a total of 22.5%.

A weekly news show produced with photos, videos and personal accounts from The FRANCE 24 Observers around the world - all checked by our staff here in Paris.

President Lopez Obrador has written to Xi Jinping amid a spat with the US about the trafficking of fentanyl. The Mexican president has asked China for information on drug shipments.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the federal police are calling for more weapon-free zones on trains and in inner city areas in a bid to tackle knife crime.