Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered Tuesday to help Kazakhstan diversify its economy and ensure it does not suffer too much from the fallout of the global economic crisis.

"Close economic relations need to be expanded," the chancellor told a news conference after talks in Berlin with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Nazarbayev said his energy-rich country was interested in deepening its relations with Germany and was in need of new technology and know-how from Europe.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to host a special meeting of key European nations later this month to prepare for the London summit of the G20 in April, a government spokesman said Monday.

Spokesman Thomas Steg said the leaders of all European members of the G20 group had been invited to attend the talks in Berlin on February 22.

A forum for cooperation and consultation on matters related to to the international financial system, the G20 held its first summit in November 2008 in Washington.

The London summit is due to take place on April 2.

Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted a breakfast for Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday in a sign of the improved relations between the world's two biggest exporters.

The two leaders were due to hold a series of meetings during Wen's day-long visit expected to be dominated by trade issues and ways to cooperate in fighting the global financial crisis.

Berlin - Economic issues are expected to dominate Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Thursday, government sources said.

The two countries plan to sound ways to cooperate in fighting the global financial crisis, the sources said Wednesday.

Germany is the second stage of a European tour that takes the Chinese leader to Switzerland and the World Economic Forum in Davos, as well as European Union headquarters in Brussels, Spain and Britain.

Berlin- Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet on Tuesday approved Germany's biggest postwar fiscal stimulus package, earmarking 50 billion euros (65 billion euros) over the next two years to help drag the country out of recession.

Key elements include public investment in infrastructure projects such as roads and schools as well as cuts in income tax and contributions to health and unemployment insurance.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is hoping for improved US-German relations under the Obama presidency, she said in a television interview on Tuesday.

"I hope that our cooperation is shaped by listening to one another, and making decisions on the basis that one country alone cannot solve the world's problems," Merkel said Tuesday on German state broadcaster ARD.

"This is the spirit in which I will encounter him," the chancellor added.