Beijing  - China's monthly exports fell by 25.7 per cent year-on-year in February with the global financial crisis also causing a 24-per-cent drop in imports, the government said on Wednesday.

Total export value slumped to 64.9 billion dollars in February while imports fell to 60.5 billion dollars, the General Administration of Customs said.

Exports fell for the fourth consecutive month while China's monthly trade surplus dropped to 4.84 billion dollars, less than 15 per cent of the surplus in January, the administration said.

Berlin  - Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa has nominated Wolfgang Buechner, current editorial head of Spiegel Online, as the agency's new chief editor, the board of dpa announced Tuesday.

Buechner, 42, is to take over from outgoing Chief Editor Wilm Herlyn, who is retiring at the end of the year after 19 years at the helm of Germany's largest news agency.

The Chairman of the supervisory board, Karlheinz Roethemeier, welcomed the new chief editor, whom he described as "an extremely accomplished and experienced journalist" and an "expert on the new, digital media world."

Berlin  - A woven sandal - last worn 4,900 years ago - has been discovered in Lake Constance in southern Germany, archaeologists revealed Tuesday.

The well-preserved shoe, dating back to the Stone Age, is of great historical significance, Stuttgart's District President Johannes Schmalzl said.

He described the find as a "small sensation," comparing it to Oetzi, an Alpine ice man, whose 5,000-year-old mummified body was discovered in a melting glacier.

Berlin  - The number of people granted refugee status in Germany is falling just as the number of refugees living in the nation is increasing, figures released Tuesday showed.

While refugee numbers in the country rose by 3,000 to 65,500 last year, those given refugee status at the end of last year fell by 6,000 to 57,500 compared with 2007, the German Government said in answering a parliamentary question.

Of the numbers gaining refugee status, about 24,000 came from Turkey with another 8000 from Iran and 4000 from Afghanistan.

Berlin - The world's biggest travel fair (ITB) opens its door this week against the backdrop of a deepening global recession with officials reporting Tuesday a fall in the number of exhibitors attending the five-day event.

The world travel industry is gathering in Berlin amid signs of falling demand as both consumers and business cut back their travel plans in the face of the biggest downturn in the global economy since the Great Depression.

Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed concern Tuesday following the previous night's murder of a police officer in Northern Ireland.

Of the shooting, which claimed the third victim within 48 hours in a new wave of terrorist violence in Northern Ireland, Steinmeier told journalists it gave him cause for "great concern."