Hanover, Germany  - A German airport went on alert Friday as a Brazilian-built jet airliner landed with smoke in its cockpit.

A spokeswoman for Hanover Airport said the landing occurred without incident. The crew and seven passengers of the Embraer 135 operated by British Midlands were not harmed in any way.

She said fire crews were sent out to wait by the runway after the pilot of the London-to-Hanover flight reported smoke on the flight deck.

Hanover, Germany - Attendance at the Hanover Fair, a key expo of factory and industrial equipment, rose this year to about 210,000 visitors, despite the gloomy outlook for the world economy, German fair officials said on event's fifth and last day.

South Korea was honoured among the 61 nations attending as "partner nation" this year, and that status is to be held in 2010 by Italy. This year, the 500 Italian manufacturers exhibiting formed the second-biggest national contingent after the 3,000 German firms.

Hanover - Around three thousand employees of German car parts group Continental AG protested outside its annual shareholders' meeting Thursday against the company's plans to close factories as it faces up to the global auto crisis. The demonstrators included about 1,200 French Continental workers, who had travelled to the meeting to protest about the group's moves to shut down operations in Clairoix in northern France.

Hanover, Germany - A senior Abu Dhabi official said Wednesday he was scouting for investment opportunities in Germany - but denied that General Motors' European operations with its flagship Opel brand was on his list.

In an interview at the Hanover Fair, a major annual industry show, Mohammed Omar Abdullah of the Abu Dhabi Economic Development Ministry said he was not aware that Abu Dhabi intended to invest in Opel, a volume carmaker based near Frankfurt.

Hanover, Germany  - A plug and socket which companies hope will become standard throughout Europe to recharge battery-powered cars was unveiled Monday at the Hanover Fair in Germany.

The plug shown to reporters by German electricity company RWE is blue, about as big as a fist and has seven pins. The 400-volt connector is intended to replace the current wide variety of household plugs used to recharge electric cars.

The Hanover Fair does not normally include any automotive products.

Hanover, Germany - Subcontractors and parts suppliers in Germany warned Monday that they might have to shed as many as 100,000 of their collective workforce if the recession persists.

The sector, which supplies parts to bigger industry, currently employs about 1 million people.

Theodor L. Tutmann, spokesman for the Supplier Working Party, representing 8,000 companies, said at the Hanover Fair, a major industry expo which began in Germany Monday, that the scale of layoffs depended on how long the recession continued.