Hamburg  - Bundesliga teams Wolfsburg and SV Hamburg chalked up wins to progress from the group stage of the UEFA Cup with a game to spare on Thursday.

England's Aston Villa also progressed despite a home defeat, while Portugal's Sporting Braga and Spain's Valencia also booked their places in the Round of 32.

Wolfsburg joined already qualified Group E rivals AC Milan into the last 32 with a 3-2 victory over visiting Portsmouth, leaving the Premier League side crashing out without a win from three matches.

Hamburg - Natural cosmetics can cause skin irritations and allergic reactions similar to ordinary cosmetic products, dermatologists say.

Consumers should thus be careful when selecting a new product, said dermatologist Antje-Ulrike Wagner in an article published in the November edition of a German pharmacy magazine. Generally, contact allergies to herbal ingredients seldom occur, but people with sensitive skin should test a cream on the inside of the arm for three days before using the new product on the face.

Hamburg - Olympic television broadcasts from 2014 onwards could be aired by private networks in Europe instead of the state-run stations which covered the Games for the last 50 years, a German television executive said on Wednesday.

Dieter Gruschwitz, the head of sports at the ZDF state network, said that such a scenario was not out of the question after the International Olympic Committee rejected an offer from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for the 2014 and 2016 Games.

Frankfurt/Hamburg - TSG Hoffenheim are playing almost perfect football going into Friday's Bundesliga topper at Bayern Munich, according to their sponsor Dietmar Hopp.

But Hopp, 68, a German billionaire co-founder of software giants SAP and former striker at the club, won't be on hand for the hyped game as he is on holiday in Florida.

Tensions between the leaders Hoffenheim and the champions Munich rose when Munich general manager Uli Hoeness suggested that Hoffenheim's players were earning more than the club said.