Landmark backdrop for climate protest

BERLIN (AP) - Environmental activists have hung a giant banner from a prominent Berlin landmark, the Victory Column, urging Germany's leader to take the lead in combatting climate change.

A group of Greenpeace activists descended on ropes from the landmark's viewing platform to put in place the nearly 50-foot (15-meter) banner Friday. It urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to "make history — save the climate" at talks on a new global climate accord in Copenhagen in December.

The 226-foot (69-meter) column was built to commemorate Prussian victories and inaugurated in 1873. It has been the backdrop to events such as the Love Parade techno party and a speech last year by Barack Obama, a U.S. presidential candidate at the time.