Berlin - Dementia has many facets. Memory loss and personality changes are among the most typical.

People affected by dementia behave differently than their loved ones are used to, and it's not uncommon for the loss of intimacy to be the the worst thing about the condition. In the advanced stages of the disease, the victim cannot recognize their spouse or their children. Sometimes the caregiver is mistaken for the partner.

Berlin - Laptop sales may have caught up with PC sales in Germany, but that's by no means an argument to make the jump. The old PC still has a lot of life in it, often offering similar service at a cheaper price and more options for expansion.

If a PC and a notebook cost about the same, the odds are that the desktop will offer more computing power and accessories. "And some high-end software is only available in a PC," says Christof Windeck of the Hanover-based c't magazine.

Don't buy a PC at random. Instead, go over it thoroughly, look at its inner workings to see how much noise its ventilation system makes when running and then make a decision.

Berlin - Job prospects for IT specialists continue to be bright. A survey conducted by the industry association BITKOM in Berlin found that almost one-third of the companies polled had vacant positions.

By far the most jobs were available at software publishers and IT service companies. The results are not surprising: most IT projects now include consulting, individual programming services, and training phases, BITKOM president August-Wilhelm Scheer notes. Projects of that complexity require a high number of employees.

Software publishers and IT service companies have created roughly 100,000 new jobs in Germany alone since 2000. With 518,000 workers, the majority of the 829,000 jobs are in the information technology and communication (ITC) branch.

Berlin - German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck has warned that financial markets face a long crisis, and some German politicians stepped up calls Saturday for pump priming to avert an economic slump.

In remarks to appear Sunday in the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Steinbrueck said, "The danger of a collapse is still not gone. Any all-clear signal would be wrong."

Berlin - German railways company Deutsche Bahn said Friday it would idle the most modern type of its bullet trains, amid fears that the axles of the ICE T trains are cracking.

It blamed the major disruption in German passenger services beginning Saturday on the manufacturers of the swift electric trains.

The consortium of Siemens, Alstom and Bombardier refused to provide "reliable data" on the safety of the axles, said Bahn chief executive Hartmut Mehdorn.

A cracked axle was blamed earlier this year for a low-speed ICE derailment at Cologne station in which nobody was hurt.

Berlin, Luxembourg - Germany said Friday it would oppose European Union plans for full-body scanners to be used in airports.

The devices are accused of carrying out virtual strip searches because they construct an image of each traveller's body without clothing.

"We do not want our federal policemen to be considered voyeurs," said German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble at a meeting in Luxembourg with his European Union colleagues.