Germany in Brief

'Body Worlds' Exhibit Banned

The Munich City Council decided late Wednesday to ban the controversial "Body Worlds" exhibit that includes plasticized corpses and body parts. In response, organizers said they would go to court to overturn the decision. The council also prohibited the main organizer of the exhibit, anatomy professor Gunther von Hagens, from conducting a public autopsy as part of the exhibit. The council said the exhibit violated a section of the German constitution covering human dignity and a Bavarian burial law. Other cities in Germany have allowed the exhibition to be held. During the show's stop in London last November, Hagens conducted an autopsy before a live audience and television cameras -- the first public autopsy in 170 years.

Schiffer To Have Her First Child

German super model Claudia Schiffer entered a private London clinic on Thursday where she was to give birth to her first child by Caesarean section. The 32-year-old Schiffer has been married to the British film producer Matthew Vaughn since May 2001.

Political Parties Losing Members

Four of the five parties represented in the German parliament lost about 500,000 members between 1991 and 2000, according to figures released by the parliament on Thursday in Berlin. The party that lost the most members was Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats. It saw its total membership fall from 919,871 to 734,693. Only one party recorded a gain: Schröder's coalition partner, the Greens. Their total rose by 8,577 to 46,631.

Governments Slicing Job Rolls

The number of people working in federal, state and local government jobs dipped by nearly 1 percent last year, the German Statistical Office reported in Wiesbaden on Thursday. The various governments employed about 4.1 million people in June, a decrease of 25,000, or 0.6 percent.