Berlin  - Germany slumped into a recession during the third quarter, data to be released Thursday is forecast to show, amid signs that a global economic downturn was taking hold.

Europe's biggest economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, analysts predict Thursday's figures from Germany's statistics office will show after it contracted by 0.5 per cent in the quarter to end June.

As a result, Germany will fulfil the technical definition of recession after clocking up two consecutive quarters of negative rates.

Berlin - Germany's lower house of parliament on Wednesday passed a controversial law granting sweeping powers to federal police in the fight against terrorism.

The legislation, which has to be approved by the upper house, allows investigators to conduct video surveillance of terrorist suspects and monitor their private computers.

"We are responding to new technical developments while at the same time adhering to our basic tenets of freedom," Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told deputies.

German civil liberties groups have criticized the new law, saying it will lead to a Big Brother state where the privacy of Germans' homes is no longer sacrosanct.

Berlin  - German school pupils demonstrating in Berlin Wednesday damaged a Holocaust-related exhibition, officials at Humboldt University in the capital said.

About 1,000 young people - school attenders in Germany are sometimes 20 or even older - swarmed inside the main building of the university to "occupy" it, climbing onto ledges above its grand portico.

The university said, "parts of the main building were damaged in the rioting." It said the parts included panels of a display about Jewish businesses and how they struggled on under the Nazis.

Berlin - German premium-car rivals BMW and Daimler are mulling plans to combine more of their parts purchasing operations, including industrial buying in China and the United States, a news report said Wednesday.

Together, the two companies can exert heavy pressure on supplier companies to obtain lower prices for components.

In its Thursday issue, the newspaper Handelsblatt was to quote BMW chief purchasing officer Herbert Diess saying, "we are talking about bundling our purchasing activities in certain markets such as China and the United States."

Munic

Berlin - Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, 48, will head the jury at next year's edition of the Berlin Film Festival from February 5-15, organizers announced Wednesday.

"I'm pleased that the wonderful Tilda Swinton will be our jury president in 2009," said Dieter Kosslick, director of the Berlinale.

"Her commanding screen presence has made an indelible impression in contemporary, innovative filmmaking," he added.

Swinton has received numerous international awards for her work - most recently the 2008 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in the film Michael Clayton.