Berlin - German marriages are lasting longer and the number of divorces is falling, but the proportion of marriages ending in a split is still around a third, according to official figures released Thursday.

The average marriage now lasts 13.9 years, on the basis of 2007 data, up from 13.7 years in 2006 and considerably longer than the 11.5 years recorded in 1990.

The number of divorces has been falling slowly but steadily for the past three years, reaching 187,072 in 2007. In 2003, there were 214,000 divorces.

The statistics are skewed, however, by the fact that fewer marriages are being contracted - 368,922 in 2007. Over the past 15 years, the number of marriages has fallen a full
20 per cent.

Berlin  - The former chief of the German building giant Hochtief AG, Hans Peter Keitel, is to become the new president of the nation's influential federation of industry (BDI), the association anno

Berlin - German u

Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel repeated her criticism of Russia's decision to recognize the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in a phone conversation with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev Wednesday.

"I made clear that I would have expected that one would discuss the issue in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) or in the UN security council, before unilateral recognition," the chancellor told journalists.

She noted that Georgia's territorial integrity had been stressed in several security council resolutions on which Russia had cooperated.

Berlin  - Germany Wednesday welcomed a power-shift in the Zimbabwean parliament with the election this week of a speaker from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and appealed to President Robert Mugabe to resume talks on establishing a transitional government.

"The German government welcomes this courageous election in the lower house as showing the spirit of change revealed in parliamentary and presidential elections this year is continuing," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Berlin.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel stepped up her calls Monday for Russia to fulfil the Georgian peace plan and to undertake an immediate and complete withdrawal of its troops from the nation after a conflict lasting more than two weeks.

"We expect that the points that have been agreed to, but not yet met, will be fulfilled in the next few days," said a German government spokesman Thomas Steg.

In particular, this includes dismantling control points stationed along key transport routes and the Russian troop presence in the port city of Poti, Steg said.