Berlin - Berlin is locked in art fever, with four powerful exhibitions going ahead including work by Jeff Koons and Paul Klee.

At the Mies van der Rohe-designed New National Gallery, US contemporary artist Koons is parading a glittering array of huge sculptures and paintings.

On a lower floor is a superb selection of work by the late German expressionist painter Klee, garnered from both private and international collections.

Bremen - The Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) is worried about God's creation. At its synod in the northern city of Bremen from Sunday to Wednesday, its most important meeting of the year, the main theme will be global warming and dwindling water resources.

The EKD, a federation of 23 regional churches - Lutheran, Reformed and United - is expected to urge political and business leaders to get serious about environmental protection before it is too late.

Also on the agenda will be structural reforms that the Church feels it must make as its funds and membership shrink.

Washington - Studs Terkel, the writer, radio-TV personality and social activist who, like Democratic presidential candidate, made Chicago his hometown, was dead at age 96, the Chicago Tribune reported late Friday.

He died after his health declined after a fall several weeks ago at home, the newspaper said.

"Studs Terkel was part of a great Chicago literary tradition that stretched from Theodore Dreiser to Richard Wright to Nelson Algren to Mike Royko," Mayor Richard M Daley was quoted as saying in a statement.

Washington ­ When Kimberly Haven votes in her first-ever presidential election on November 4, she says it will be a gut- wrenching experience. She doesn't take her right to vote for granted, because it was snatched from her when she was convicted for a felony.

Wellington - The New Zealand government will guarantee wholesale deposits by foreign finance institutions to local banks, Finance Minister Michael Cullen announced Saturday.

Cullen said the move would help facilitate improved access to international funding markets for New Zealand banks.

"While the New Zealand banking system is very sound, we are in an environment where international investors remain risk-averse and where many other governments have guaranteed their banks," he said.

Sydney - An Australian circus performer will climb aboard 17-metre poles in an attempt to break the world record for stilt walking, news reports said Saturday.

National record-holder Roy Maloy will take off on stilts the height of a four-storey building.

"To build the tallest stilts ever, it's not just one piece of wood, which I made the Australian record stilts out of, you need to make them out of three pieces of very lightweight aluminium that are all welded together like a scaffold," Maloy told national broadcaster ABC in Adelaide.