BERLIN (JTA) — Some 4,000 neo-Nazis and skinheads from Germany's extremist National Democratic Party marched last weekend through the Bavarian town of Passau shouting right-wing slogans that angered residents.

A police spokesman said 50 people were arrested, most of them left-wing activists staging a counter-demonstration.

Swiss grant to help Holocaust rescuers

BERN (JTA) — A Swiss fund for needy Holocaust survivors plans to make a $2 million grant to support Christians and Muslims who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

The grant is being made to the New York-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which currently provides financial support to more than 1,700 rescuers in 30 countries.

Computer company renames offensive chip

TAIWAN (JTA) — A company based here has decided to rename its computer chips.

VIA Technologies said it is renaming its Apollo KZ133 chipset because "KZ" were the German initials used to identify Nazi concentration camps. The chips were renamed Apollo KT133.

Group condemns China trade vote

BEIJING (JTA) — Chinese observers took notice this week of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom having voiced regret over the House of Representative's vote to grant China permanent normal trade relations status.

"There is a risk" that the vote "will be misinterpreted in China as a sign of American indifference to violations of religious freedom there," said the commission's chairman, Rabbi David Saperstein.

Canadian Jews fuming about insulting story

TORONTO (JTA) — A newspaper article that suggested Jews care only about Jews and are indifferent to the suffering of others recently rankled the local community.

"It was a shameful, shoddy piece of journalism," Bernie Farber, director of community relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress, said of the article published in the Hamilton Spectator.

Farber and others were upset because the article asserted that Jews are overly sympathetic to their own suffering during the Holocaust.