Berlin - Germany and Kuwait pledged Friday to step up efforts to strengthen their economic ties in the face of the world financial crisis that threatens to push the global economy into a sharp and protracted downturn.

German Minister for the Economy Michael Glos and Kuwait Economics Minister Al-Abdullah met in Berlin to consider moves for bolstering the economic ties between the two nations.

"During times of extreme international market turbulence it is important that we discuss with our partners from Kuwait and the Gulf states, how we can strengthen our common economic relations," said Glos.

Berlin - The German Government said Friday it had been forced to substantially boost borrowings to meet plans for spurring economic growth amid signs that a sharp contraction has taken hold in Europe's biggest economy.

A late-night marathon meeting of the parliamentary budget committee signed off on the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel's 2009 budget proposals, which includes raising new borrowing to 18.5 billion euros (23 billion dollars).

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck had forecast in the middle of the year that new borrowings would total 10.5 billion euros.

Rottweil, Germany - A German court jailed a woman for three and a half years on Friday for killing her live baby by putting the newborn in a chest-style home freezer.

The woman, 21, sobbed as she claimed to the court in Rottweil, south-western Germany this week that she had not been aware she was pregnant and had wanted to make it seem as if the sudden birth in May had never happened.

After the solitary birth at home, she had put on her overalls and gone to her regular job in a factory in the town of Horb am Neckar in Germany's Black Forest region.

Anklam, Germany - Trichina worms, which infect pigs and cause a nasty rheumatic illness in humans, have returned to Germany, animal-health officials north of Berlin said Friday.

Trichinosis infects people who have undercooked pork containing the nematodes.

The worms were found at a slaughterhouse in a pig from a private home, veterinarian Holger Vogel said in Anklam.

Many area householders still keep pig-sties and raise pigs at home.

Berlin, Nov. 21 : Former Wimbledon champion Boris Becker has been dumped by his fiancée Sandy Meyer-Woelden.

According to Becker, Sandy sent him an SMS telling him it was game, set and match in a blow that "trampled on my soul".

"On Friday evening, October 31, I suddenly got an SMS from Sandy ... saying that this was it, that this was over. To make sure how serious she was she sent me five others saying the same thing," 40-year-old Becker told the Bild daily.

Bangalore, India - Sometimes, children just ask the more probing questions - even if it is on the world travels of a foreign minister as he faces such issues as the global financial crisis, Iran's nuclear programme and pirates off the coast of Somalia.

Instead, the public might like to hear whether globe-trotting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier gets homesick or whether he has a favourite foreign land.

Twelve-year-old Berliner Antonia Dolla knows the answers. This week, she became the first child to travel with the official delegation of the German minister during his three-day trip to India.