Kiel, Germany  - Some holidaymakers want a maximum of fun; they down sangria from 10-litre buckets and party till dawn. But a growing number want the opposite: leisure instead of loud music, relaxation instead of rambunctiousness, and self-discovery instead of swilling.

Kiel, Germany  - Faced with the task of erasing everything on their hard drive, most users simply opt to reformat the drive. If the drive or PC is to be sold or given to someone, that's not enough as data subjected to a formatting is not really permanently gone. In the wrong hands, a bit of time and skill are all that's needed to recreate data the user thought had been erased forever.

Kiel, Germany - German scientists issued details Friday of a research project to extract an untapped source of energy on the ocean floors and at the same time replace it with unwanted carbon dioxide.

The project, sponsored by the German government, could solve two of the world's problems at the same time: gas hydrates in seabed rock could meet the shortfall when oilfields and gasfields run dry, and climate change could be reduced by sequestering the CO2.

Kiel, Germany - Two men suffered serious stab wounds Friday in a brawl in Germany involving the motorcycle gang Hell's Angels.

Riot police separated the rival gangs after the battle outside a court building in the northern port city of Kiel.

Police said the court had been just about to start the trial of an accused for nearly stabbing a Hell's Angels member to death last year.

The accused, who had recovered, and the victim, both with a crowd of supporters, met on a street outside the court Friday.

Last year's Hell's Angel victim was stabbed again and rushed into intensive care, along with a second man. There were 20 arrests.

Kiel, Germany - Windows Vista is the safest Microsoft operating system available, according to an online test conducted by the Association of German Network Security.

The test covered 225,000 PCs in Germany. Around 5.5 per cent of f computers using the Vista system had security problems. People using computers with the Windows XP operating system reported problem rates of 12 per cent. Even more problems were reported with computers using Windows 98, ME, and Windows 2000 - around 20 per cent.