Munich - The German state of Bavaria was set Monday to elect a new premier, Horst Seehofer, 59, after the party he leads, the Christian Social Union (CSU), lost its absolute majority at the polls.

Seehofer resigned as German minister of agriculture and consumer affairs early Monday so he could take on the new post. Chancellor Angela Merkel has not announced yet who will replace him in her federal cabinet.

Merkel was present as German President Horst Koehler handed Seehofer a certificate of release from office.

Munich - Plans for a costly mass in Rome to celebrate the birthday of Pope Benedict's elder brother have been criticized by a Catholic lay group in Germany, the weekly news magazine Focus reported Sunday.

Georg Ratzinger, a retired priest and former director of music at Regensburg Cathedral in Germany, is to celebrate his 85th birthday on January 15.

The Catholic Diocese of Regensburg plans to spend 100,000 dollars flying 90 boy choristers and 37 musicians to Rome to perform a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart mass in the Sixtine Chapel in the Vatican especially for him.

Monsignor Ratzinger lives in the city of Regensburg and used to conduct the boys' choir.

Munich  - Horst Seehofer, who is expected to be appointed premier of Bavaria on Monday, has promised his party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), he will exert heavy pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He was speaking Saturday to a party congress in Munich of the Bavaria-only CSU, which elected him party leader. He was the sole candidate. Of the 939 delegates, 786 voted in his favour and 84 against, with the rest not voting or spoiling their ballots.

Munich - The chief of the Munich-based BayernLB is to step down in the wake of the financial crisis that has engulfed the state lender, sources told the Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa.

The expected announcement that Michael Kemmer had decided to leave his post comes just one day after Bavarian Finance Minister Erwin Huber said he was resigning in the face of the financial problems confronting BayernLB.

A BayernLB spokesman declined to comment on the reports of Kemmer's possible departure from the Bavarian state-owned bank.

Munich - Enlisted men in a German Army unit were appalled at having to massacre Italian villagers in 1944, an 84-year-old former serviceman told the war crimes trial of their former lieutenant in Munich Thursday.

The lieutenant, 90, is accused of 14 murders in the Tuscan village of Falzano in 1944. He allegedly ordered the reprisal killings.

None of the company of Battalion 818 of the German Army mountain combat engineers approved of the reprisal, said the witness.

Munich  - Troubled German state bank BayernLB announced Wednesday a review of all its costs just one day after it said was tapping the government's financial rescue plan for 5.4 billion euros (7.1 billion dollars).

"We will be looking at all positions," said a spokesman of the Munich-based bank, which has been badly hit by the global financial crisis and which became the first German financial house to apply for financial support from Berlin's 480 billion-euro bank rescue package.

The cost review includes the 19,000 BayernLB's world-wide labour force with the bank having already warned that it might not be able to avoid job cuts.

The Bavarian state bank is planning a 400-million saving project in the next three years.