Frankfurt  - German airline Lufthansa said Wednesday it is launching a new subsidiary in Italy called Lufthansa Italia.

With an initial fleet of six Airbus A319 aircraft, Lufthansa Italia will offer flights from Milan's Malpensa airport to major European destinations from February 2009.

"Lufthansa Italia will position us in an important market characterised by strong demand, which also holds out opportunities for buoyant growth in the future," said Lufthansa chief executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber.

Islamabad  - Pakistan has formally decided to buy three Type 214 German submarines under a more than 1 billion dollar deal that the two countries are expected to sign in coming months, a media report said on Wednesday.

German shipbuilding company Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft GmbH (HDW) will construct the diesel-electric submarines in a shipyard in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi, Pakistan's English-language daily The News reported.

Stuttgart  - BMW-Sauber and Toyota announced Wednesday that they will be the first teams to unveil their cars for the 2009 Formula One season in January.

BMW-Sauber is considering rolling out its F1.09 car at the Circuit de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo near Valencia on January 20 with team principal Mario Theissen as well as drivers Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica also making themselves available to the media.

Toyota will unveil its TF109 on January 15, making it the first team to introduce a new car for 2009, but has decided to do without a public presentation as a cost-cutting measure.

Moscow  - A controversial judge in the trial of three men charged with murdering investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya will stay on Wednesday after the Moscow Military Court rejected prosecutors demands to dismiss him for bias.

Court spokesman Alexander Minchanovsky called the accusations against Judge Evgeny Zubov "baseless" and said the trial would resume Wednesday.

Proceedings have had a confused start in trial of slain reporter Politkovskaya, gunned down in a contract killing in front of her Moscow flat in 2006.

Paris  - Giro d'Italia and Vuelta champion Alberto Contador of Spain won the prestigious Golden Bike award for the second straight year on Wednesday.

Contador received 72 votes as he beat Olympic time trial champion Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland (47) and Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre of Spain (36) in the poll among the cycling media conducted by France's Velo Magazine.

Contador, 25, won the Tour in 2007 and completed his collection of major race wins this year at the Giro and Tour of Spain. He was unable to go for a second Tour de France title because his Astana team was not invited in 2008 over its doping-tainted past.

New York, Nov. 26 : A Somalian terror outfit going by the name of Shabaab al Mujahideen, is reported to have close ties to Al Qaeda.
The Shabaab''s ultimate goal is to throw the West "into hell.”

The terror organization''s main focus, according to the non-profit research group Nine Eleven Finding Answers (NEFA) Foundation, which granted FOX News exclusive access to its detailed reports on the activities of terrorists, is its elaborate network of terror camps that is attracting fundamentalists from around the world.