Berlin - The Segen (Benediction) cloister lies amid the bustle of Berlin like an oasis in the desert. Schoenhauser Allee, a four-lane street, is right outside, but traffic noise stops at the cloister's doors. Behind its thick walls, quiet reigns.

"This is a place for people to recharge their batteries," remarked Georg Schubert, director of the Swiss religious fraternity Don Camillo. The group purchased the run-down Segenskirche (Benediction Church), situated in the eastern Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, in 2007 and established the city's first and only Protestant cloister there last August.

Downshifters will now be able to train themselves to achieve inner peace in Germany's capital and largest city.

Berlin  - Germany's core industrial employers agreed Wednesday to a limited programme of labour buyouts for elderly workers, ending a point of friction before pay talks begin next month with the powerful IG Metall trade union.

The union had idled major car and electrical factories this year in pursuit of the "right" to early retirement, which runs counter to the German government policy of gradually raising the nation's retirement age from 65 to 67.

Berlin 

Berlin - Plans for a controversial museum dealing with the ordeal of post-Second-World-War German refugees were approved Wednesday by Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet in Berlin.

Work may begin within weeks to set up the permanent exhibition in a government office block in the capital's Anhalter Bahnhof area.

Poland and the Czech Republic worried the museum would portray them as villains. Millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from eastern Europe as borders were revised after Nazi Germany's defeat. Warsaw has now granted a cautious blessing to the museum.

Berlin - Merchants placed record orders worth more than 3 billion euros at the IFA electrical-goods fair which was ending Wednesday in Berlin, organizers said.

IFA, previously an annual consumer-electronics fair, expanded this year to embrace home appliances such as washing machines. The fair organizers said the total order volume was up 10 per cent from a year ago.

The Berlin fairgrounds leased a record 122,000 square metres of booth space to exhibitors, erecting temporary pavilions to cope with the rush. Visitor numbers since Friday had totalled 220,000 by mid- morning on Wednesday, on a par with one year ago.