Hamburg  - Madonna practices yoga and so does Courtney Love. Even the German national football team swears by it.

The word yoga translates from Sanskrit into English roughly as "union with superiors" and originated in India. Through its growing popularity in the United States, it has been making a triumphant advance around the world.

The holistic exercise promises relaxation, flexibility and stability. However, anyone who would like yoga to bring their body, spirit and soul into alignment should pay attention to a few things. This begins with the selection of the right type of yoga the practitioners of which are called yogis.

Singapore  - Environment experts are expected to release a climate change report on Singapore this year, highlighting the impact on coastal erosion, water scarcity and higher energy demand, according to a news report Thursday.

Even though there are no melting icebergs or severe droughts threatening the city state, in Singapore, the tropical island could still be vulnerable to climate changes such as coastal erosion, water scarcity, and higher energy demand, the Channel News Asia cited experts as saying.

Bonn, Germany  - It's been a tradition in Germany for people to remember the municipal employees who haul away their garbage at Christmas with a bottle of schnapps or other type of alcohol.

But many municipalities no longer approve of their employees receiving gifts of alcohol, Germany's etiquette council in Bonn said. On their daily rounds in the holiday season, it's not unusual for the cab of the truck to become piled up with bottles.

Kuala Lumpur  - A Malaysian court sentenced an Indian man to 12 years in jail for causing the death of his employer who he claimed had sexually abused him and two of his fellow countrymen, reports said Thursday.

Nagarajan Vaithilingam, 27, from Tamil Nadu, India, pleaded guilty to the charge of causing the death of his 33-year-old employer by hitting him on his head with a stick at a barber shop in the southern Johor state in May 2007.

Havana  - Collapsed political systems, presidents who came and went, wars and attacks, broken alliances, rebuilt countries - 50 years of history unrolled across Latin America.

Yet Cuba and its revolutionary tradition have survived all of this, standing by its socialist continuity in the face of historical change.

Prague  - The Czech Republic assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union on Thursday, nearly two decades after communism collapsed in the central European country of 10 million.

The second formerly communist nation after Slovenia to hold the presidency took over the EU's helm at a time when the continent faces an economic crisis, Israel is attacking the Gaza Strip and Russia and Ukraine are embroiled in a gas row.