Frankfurt - The German chain of Woolworth's low-cost stores filed for insolvency in Frankfurt on Tuesday, marking the possible end of yet another branch of what was once an iconic global brand. DWW Woolworth Deutschland GmbH & Co, which employs 11,000 people in Germany, belongs to a private equity investor, Argyll Partners, and is no longer connected to the US company founded in 1878 by F W Woolworth.

Dusseldorf, Germany - Holders Sweden have been handed a wild card entry into next month's the ARAG World Team Championships, with Robin Soderling again set to lead the squad, organizers said on Tuesday. "This is great news for our team," said the world number 24, joined on the squad by Robert Lindstedt and Andreas Vinciguerra. "I hope we will be able to follow up on our success last year."

Selection of the Scandinavians completes the field for the eight-nation clay tune-up the week before Roland Garros, May 17-23.

Darmstadt, Germany - A member of Germany's leading female pop band has been arrested for allegedly having unprotected sex despite being HIV positive, lawyers said Tuesday. Nadja Benaissa, a 26-year-old singer with the group No Angels, is to have had unprotected sex with three men in 2004 and 2006, the state prosecution in the town of Darmstadt said.

One of the three men is now HIV positive, possibly as a consequence of his sexual relations with Benaissa.

Berlin - Germany has decided to ban genetically modified maize, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday. The decision affects MON 810 seeds produced by US agriculture giant Monsanto, which is the only genetically modified seed currently allowed on German soil.

Monsanto's seed was due to be planted on 3600 hectares of German farm land this year, predominantly in the east of the country.

MON 810 includes a gene which protects it against a pest, the European corn borer butterfly. The seed has been approved for commercial use in the European Union since 1998.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on the nation's business and political leaders to meet next week, a government spokesman said Tuesday, as Europe's largest economy faces its biggest downturn since the World War II, Amid signs that the global recession had tightened its grip on Germany during the first months of the year, Merkel's planned economic summit comes as the country starts to gear up for a national election scheduled for September this year.

Wiesbaden - Key German manufacturing industry sales fell by a record 23.3 per cent year on year in February, figures released Tuesday showed. The nation's statistics office said the plunge came in the wake of a dramatic 27.5 per cent drop in foreign manufacturing turnover for Europe's biggest economy. Domestic sales slumped by 19.5 per cent over the previous year.

Leading the fall was the country's car industry with auto makers' turnover plummeting 39.6 per cent in February compared to the same month in 2008.