Food and shelter may be a priority for the record numbers of often desperate refugees arriving in Germany but they also need "intellectual nutrition", say experts at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
The Bundestag (German parliament) passed a new set of laws tightening asylum controls on Thursday, despite sharp criticism from the opposition and NGOs - and demands from conservatives to go even further.
Germany, facing a record migrant influx, will extend temporary border controls until the end of October, with a special focus on the Austrian border, the interior ministry said Tuesday.
Twenty asylum seekers on Monday filed a suit against Berlin's main refugee registration centre for failing to register them promptly so they could get essential benefits including a roof over their heads, a court official said.
A Syrian refugee who went through a harrowing journey to Germany tells The Local of her disenchantment with German authorities since she arrived and the sense of despair in refugee camps.
Five people were injured in a punch-up between scores of Afghans and Albanians at an asylum seekers' centre in Hamburg on Tuesday, local police told AFP.
The federal government denied on Monday a report in Bild that it estimates 1.5 million refugees - almost double previous projections - would arrive in Germany in 2015.
A mass brawl involving around 200 refugees from Afghanistan and Syria broke out on Wednesday night at an asylum centre in Hamburg which has been beset by problems.
Doctors are becoming increasingly concerned that refugees are mistaking highly poisonous mushrooms for edible ones they are used to back home – with sometimes fatal consequences.
At a summit called in Berlin on Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to provide an extra €2 billion of federal funds for refugee aid to Germany's states over the coming year.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière promised on Sunday to give "considerably more money" to the Germany's federal states to cover the costs of taking in refugees.
European Council President Donald Tusk has called an emergency summit of European leaders to try and tackle the refugee crisis, it was announced on Thursday.
The migrant influx into Germany has risen sharply again, days after the introduction of border controls, with police counting 9,100 irregular entries Wednesday, up from about 6,000 the previous day.
At least half of the refugees who have come
to Germany have mental health problems because of trauma suffered in war or during their dangerous escapes, said the chamber of psychotherapists Wednesday.
Germany and Austria on Tuesday called for a special European summit on the migrant crisis, in a phone call with EU president Donald Tusk, said Chancellor Angela Merkel.
EU interior ministers failed to reach
unanimous agreement on Monday on a plan for binding quotas to relocate 120,000
refugees and take the strain off Greece, Italy, and Hungary, officials said.
A photo taken in August of a weeping Iraqi man grasping his children to his chest on the island of Kos changed how Europe saw the refugee crisis. On Thursday The Local met the family behind the picture at a refugee camp in Berlin.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that getting large numbers of successful asylum seekers working would be the best way of integrating them into German society.
This year's record refugee influx will bring sweeping social, demographic and economic change to Germany, which was long uncomfortable about being known as a country of migrants, analysts say.
Germany's top official dealing with refugees said on Monday that there was 'no upper limit' to Germany's capacity for taking in people in need of asylum.
