Berlin - An elderly German woman who was taken hostage by self-described Islamists three months ago in Mali was being cared for at the German embassy in Bamako, the German Foreign Ministry said in Berlin Thursday, one day after her release.

The 77-year-old retired teacher was one of four western tourists abducted on January 22 in the Sahara desert during a cross-country adventure tour in four-wheel-drive vehicles in Niger and Mali.

Berlin - The German government opened an office in Berlin Thursday to educate the country's ethnic Turkish minority on issues such as saving energy , sorting refuse for recycling, and nature conservation. The Turkish German Environmental Centre is to offer brochures and also provide a venue for environmentalists and the minority to meet.

Berlin  - An elderly German woman who was taken hostage by Islamists three months ago in Mali was released Wednesday evening, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin.

The 77-year-old retired teacher was one of four western tourists abducted on January 22 during a cross-country adventure tour in four- wheel-drive vehicles in Niger and Mali.

Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called business and labour leaders to Berlin Wednesday for an economic crisis summit amid a warning that the country could face social unrest if further steps are not taken to tackle the slump in Europe's biggest economy.

The meeting is the latest sign that the global recession is moving to centre stage in the campaign for German elections in September, with Merkel attempting to sharpen her crisis management credentials by also taking a leading role in shaping international moves to address the crisis.

Berlin  - Germany's leading mobile phone operator ruled out Wednesday paying compensation after an embarrassing outage in its network left millions of customers without a service.

T-Mobile has launched an investigation into the computer failure that brought mobile telephone services, including SMS messaging, to a halt for about 3 hours on Tuesday.

The Bonn-based offshoot of the giant German telecoms group Deutsche Telekom AG is also attempting to assess how many of its 40 million German mobile phone customers were hit by the outage.

Berlin - Europe's biggest carmaker Volkswagen AG unveiled plans Wednesday to build a new compact family vehicle in Slovakia.

German-based Volkswagen will invest about 308 million euros (400 million dollars) in building the new model, currently known by its project name, "up".

VW currently builds its Touareg, Skoda Octavia as well as its Audi Q7 in the Slovakian capital Bratislava and employs about 7,800 people in the nation, which has emerged a major hub in the global car industry. Porsche also builds its Cayenne model in Bratislava.