Berlin - An off-duty policeman at a Bavarian carnival spotted an on

Berlin - A German court confirmed on Tuesday that a supermarket which sacked a cashier for stealing coupons worth just 1.3 euros (1.7 dollars) was within its rights, in a case which has aroused debate in Germany.

The 50-year-old woman, who has not been named by the German media, burst into tears at the employment tribunal, where she had taken the case after being dismissed a year ago.

Berlin - A German woman whose baby was found dead in a washing machine last year admitted Tuesday to killing another of her children.

In October her partner had found the newborn girl dead in the washing machine of their apartment, north west of Leipzig in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

At the time, the 27-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, reportedly told her partner she had suffered a miscarriage and the dead baby had fallen into the toilet. In actual fact the child had been alive.

Berlin - Germany's publicly owned HSH Nordbank AG is to become the latest financial house in the country to receive state aid to help it through the current global financial crisis, sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa Tuesday.

The sources said that two German state governments - Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg - are to throw HSH a 13 billion-euro (16.6 billion dollar) financial lifeline.

This includes a capital injection of more than 3 billion euros and state-backed guarantees worth more than 10 billion euros.

Berlin  - Flights were not able to take off or land at either of Berlin's two airports Tuesday morning, as members of a German union seeking pay rises walked off the job for three and a half hours.

The firefighters at Tegel and Schoenefeld airports stopped work at 6am (0500 GMT). As a result, 78 scheduled arrivals and departures could not operate, the airport stated.

A similar brief strike by the same union, Verdi, caused many cancellations earlier this month, because safety and fire staff were not available.

The workers' union is demanding an 8-per-cent pay-rise for 1,500 employees. Verdi spokesman Holger Roessler told German N24 news channel "we are not doing this for fun, it is very serious."

Berlin - Business confidence in Germany remained unchanged in February, economists expect a key survey to be released Tuesday to say, as boardrooms in Europe's biggest economy face up to a dramatic economic slump.

In a major test of the economic mood in Europe, the closely- watched Ifo business confidence index is forecast to have come in at 82.9 points this month after posting a surprise increase to 83 points in January.