Heidenheim, Germany - Five men were found dead Thursday in a soot-filled apartment in the southern German town of Heidenheim and police were investigating the likelihood that they were killed by smoke from a gas heater.

"They probably died several days ago from inhaling the toxic fumes," said police spokesman Horst Baur.

The building's landlord called police about a week after another tenant had noticed soot on the windows and said the apartment had been quiet for days.

Hamburg - Germany cancelled the licences of two Turkish-language Islamic television stations Thursday, eight weeks after senior executives were sent to jail for embezzlement.

The stations, Kanal 7 INT and TVT, were linked to the Deniz Feneri charity, which collected alms for the poor from devout Muslims living in western Europe.

Berlin - Germany's parliament Thursday extended the mandate of German troops serving in global anti-terror operations, but reduced the number from 1,400 to 800.

Legislators voted 428-130 in favour of allowing troops to continue serving in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), which was set up in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Berlin - Germany slumped into a recession for the first time in five years, official data released Thursday showed, amid signs that a global economic downturn was taking hold.

Europe's biggest economy shrank by 0.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2008, after it contracted 0.4 per cent in the three months to the end of June, the Federal Statistics Office said.

Langenfeld - German police said Thursday they had arrested an unassuming Italian suspected of working as a hired killer for an organized-crime syndicate in the Italian province of Apulia.

The unarmed man had no time to resist when he was suddenly handcuffed Wednesday evening as he returned home from his regular job as a tradesman in an eastern suburb of Dusseldorf.

The suspect, 46, is accused by a magistrate in Bari, Italy of attempting to murder two persons with a pump-action shotgun in 2000 on a street in Manfredonia, Italy at the orders of the syndicate. Both were wounded, but survived the attack