Munich - German carmaking company BMW and a partner said Thursday they will invest 90 million euros (133 million dollars) to make parts for ultra-lightweight cars out of carbon fibre, a material that is currently mainly used to make aircraft parts.

Lighter cars would save fuel. BMW is planning a new-style light car range, the Megacity Vehicle, from 2015.

Its joint venture with SGL Group, based in the German city of Wiesbaden, will build two factories, one in Germany and one in North America, to process carbon fibre and composite materials to make auto parts.

Frankfurt - Deutsche Bank announced Wednesday it is completely buying out Sal. Oppenheim, Europe's largest private bank, for one billion euros (1.5 billion dollars).

Germany's largest bank made the announcement after concluding the framework agreement for the takeover of Sal. Oppenheim, which was founded in Bonn in 1789. The transaction is to be completed in the first quarter of 2010.

Frankfurt - German airline Lufthansa Wednesday reported a net loss of 32 million euros (47 million dollars) for the first nine months of this year.

This was down from a profit of 529 million euros in the same period of 2009, the company said in Frankfurt.

Sales fell 13.2 per cent to 16.2 billion euros, in line with analysts' forecasts.

Operating profit between January and the end of September fell to 226 million euros, more than 75 per cent below the year-earlier figure of 954 million euros.

Berlin - Germany's incoming government plans to phase out German naval deployment off the coast of Lebanon, according to the new coalition agreement unveiled Saturday.

No date for the implementation was set out in the document drafted by Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the business-oriented Free Democrats (FDP).

"Within the scope of the United Nations we will work towards a phased reduction of our German contribution to the Maritime Task Force of UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) with the aim of terminating it," the two parties said.

Frankfurt - The following index quotations were noted on the world's major stock markets: <# October 23 October 22 Difference New York Dow Jones
10,004,15 10,081,31 (- 77,16) New York NASDAQ Comp. 2,164,98 2,165,29 (- 0,31) Tokyo Nikkei 10,282,99 10,267,17 (+ 15,82) Sydney All Ordinaries 4,859,70 4,818,80 (+
40,90) Hong Kong Hang Seng 22,589,73 22,210,52 (+ 379,21) London Fin.-Times 5,242,57 5,207,36 (+ 35,21) Paris CAC-40 3,808,24 3,820,85 (- 12,61) Zurich SMI 6,378,06
6,405,91 (- 27,85) Frankfurt DAX-Index 5,740,25 5,762,93 (- 22,68) Frankfurt EuroStoxx 50 2,886,08 2,902,19 (- 16,11) <# (dpa)

Frankfurt - Frankfurt Stock Exchange closing prices in euros. In brackets the point movement of index/price movement of stocks against previous quotation:

<# DAX 5,740.25 (- 22.68) MDAX 7,348.13 (+ 42.65) Adidas 34.70 (- 0.27) Allianz 83.70 (- 0.34) BASF 39.16 (- 0.34) Bayer 47.68 (- 0.33) Beiersdorf 42.37 (- 0.01) BMW 35.94 (+
0.38) Commerzbank 8.14 (+ 0.04) Daimler 36.88 (+ 0.15) Deutsche Bank 52.91 (+ 0.14) Deutsche Boerse 59.84 (- 0.38) Deutsche Post 12.39 (- 0.04) Deutsche Telekom 9.57 (-

Berlin - US carmaker General Motors' sale of its troubled Opel unit has been thrown into uncertainty after GM said Friday it was putting the deal on hold until next month amid speculation it may seek to retain control of its European offshoot.

The Detroit-based auto giant announced plans more than a month ago to hive off a 55-per-cent stake to a consortium led by the Canadian auto parts group Magna International and which included the Russian bank Sberbank.

But GM's top negotiator on Opel, John Smith, wrote in a blog Friday that the US carmaker will consider changes to the Magna deal at a meeting set for November 3.

Berlin - Lance Armstrong won't race in the 2010 Giro d'Italia, instead preferring to compete in the Tour of California.

The 38-year-old American finished 12th in this year's Giro for Astana after coming out of retirement and the seven-time Tour de France winner has since set up a new RadioShack team for next season.

The California race begins May 16 while the Giro starts on May 8. (dpa)

Freiburg, Germany - Bundesliga club SC Freiburg Friday extended coach Robin Dutt's contract until the end of the 20011/2012 season.

Dutt, 44, last season won promotion with Freiburg in his second season in charge of the team after succeeding Volker Finke, who had been 16 years at the helm.

Dutt's present contract expired at the end of the season.

Club president Achim Stocker said: "We have together decided on a longer-term contract because the coach and his team enjoy our complete confidence and are doing very good work here."

Berlin/Dresden - The German and Egyptian governments are to keep in touch during the trial of Alex W, a German national charged with the July 1 murder of Egyptian Marwa al-Shirbini, 31, a senior aide to Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday.

Maria Boehmer, Germany's commissioner for minority affairs, made the announcement after a telephone conversation with the Egyptian ambassador to Germany, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, ahead of the court case due to start Monday.

Berlin - Germany voiced satisfaction Tuesday at Afghanistan's decision to hold a presidential runoff vote.

"We welcome the announcement by President Hamid Karzai that he is ready to face a second round of voting," a foreign ministry spokesman said in Berlin.

"It is important for all those involved to show responsibility, calm and moderation during the current situation and ensure there is a credible continuation of the electoral process," he said.

Berlin  - German Football League (DFL) president Reinhard Rauball has called on European football body UEFA to act on huge club debts and spiralling transfer fees.

"It is high time we say to UEFA it cannot carry on like this," he told a discussion in Berlin.

Rauball called for a European-wide club licensing system based on the German model. A UEFA working group is studying the German system which looks at a clubs' ability to pay debts, transfer payments and wage levels.

Aachen, German - Germany is to put an 88-year-old man on trial, charging he was one of a band of Dutch assassins working for the Nazi SS in 1944.

Cologne judges have ruled that the Dutch-speaking accused, who has cardiac disease and lives in an old-people's home near Aachen on the Dutch border, is fit to appear, a court spokesman said Tuesday.

He was allegedly in the Feldmeijer special force, a death squad set up by the SS, and is accused of murdering three Dutchmen suspected of working for the Dutch resistance.

Wanna know how many hairs do you lose per day?

In a first of its kind effort, a German cosmetic firm has come up with a 'baldness calculator’, which will let you know how many hairs you lost in a single day.
 
Add to this, it asks and also tells you how to keep a tally of hairs lost.

The baldness calculator, developed by the German scientists, guarantee to foretell the precise age at which a person will go bald or have lost most of their hair.

Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan - Possible negotiations with moderate elements of the Taliban are a decision for the Afghan government, German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said Tuesday during a visit to the Central Asian country.

But President Hamid Karzai's government must also make certain that any Taliban partners in such talks would distance themselves from violence, Jung said while visiting German troops in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to host a special meeting of key European nations later this month to prepare for the London summit of the G20 in April, a government spokesman said Monday.

Spokesman Thomas Steg said the leaders of all European members of the G20 group had been invited to attend the talks in Berlin on February 22.

A forum for cooperation and consultation on matters related to to the international financial system, the G20 held its first summit in November 2008 in Washington.

The London summit is due to take place on April 2.

Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will visit the United States this week for talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a foreign ministry spokesman said Monday.

The spokesman said the minister was due to fly to Washington on Monday evening and meet with Clinton on Tuesday for talks "on a broad range of trans-Atlantic issues."

Steinmeier and Clinton arranged the meeting during a telephone conversation two weeks ago, shortly after Clinton took up her post in the new administration of President Barack Obama. (dpa)

Berlin  - The German Open women's tournament in Berlin has been sold back to the governing body WTA by its Qatari owners and won't be played anymore in the German capital, it emerged on Wednesday.

According to local daily Der Tagesspiegel, the German Tennis Federation (DTB) and other officials were not informed about the move.

The daily said that WTA boss Larry Scott confirmed the sale in an email to Josef Minderjahn, head of the hosting LTTC Rot-Weiss club.

Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is to embark on a new mediation mission to the Middle East on Wednesday, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Steinmeier planned to visit Jerusalem, the West Bank town of Ramallah and the Egyptian capital Cairo in an effort to accelerate efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, spokesman Jens Ploetner said.

Steinmeier visited the region over the weekend and offered German assistance in improving security along Gaza's borders in order to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the coastal strip.

Berlin - German industrial production slumped 3.1 per cent in November, the Ministry for Economics and Technology said, as a prolonged recession loomed over Europe's biggest economy.

The seasonally adjusted monthly fall in output in November followed a revised 1.8-per-cent drop in October.

Analysts had predicted that production would fall by 2 per cent in November.

The latest output data came amid signs that an economic downturn was taking hold in the nation, with figures released this week showing a sharp drop in both German exports and factory orders.