Berlin  - IT specialists have been hot property in recent years partly because too few young people entered the field over the last decade, meaning that not enough graduates with degrees in hand have been reaching the other side.

"That situation hasn't changed significantly," says Maurice Shahd from the BITKOM, the German association for the IT industry. It's just one of the reasons why IT specialists have less to fear from the hard current economic times than other workers.

Berlin  - In a surprise move, German Economics Minister Michael Glos offered to resign Saturday, less that eight months before the country votes in a general election, sources close to the minister said.

The sources confirmed a report in the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, which said the 64-year-old minister had informed Chancellor Angela Merkel of his intention.

Berlin  - German Economics Minister Michael Glos offered to resign Saturday, less that eight months before the country votes in a general election, sources close to the minister said.

The sources confirmed a report in the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, which said the 64-year-old minister had informed Chancellor Angela Merkel of his intention.

Glos is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).

Berlin - German Economics Minister Michael Glos has offered to resign, the newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported on Saturday.

The newspaper said the minister had informed Chancellor Angela Merkel of his intention.

Glos is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).

The 64-year-old Glos expressed his desire to step down in a letter to CSU leader Host Seehofer, who is also president of the southern German state of Bavaria.

Berlin - Four European tourists kidnapped last month in Mali are in the hands of the North African branch of al-Qaeda, the mass-circulation German newspaper Bild said Friday, quoting German foreign intelligence.

The tourists - a couple from Switzerland, a 77-year-old German woman and a British man - were kidnapped at gunpoint when an armed group stopped their car in a remote part of Mali on January 23.

Berlin  - The president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Charlotte Knobloch, accepted Friday an invitation to meet with the head of the German Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch.

The general secretary of the Jewish umbrella organization, Stephan Kramer, confirmed that a meeting would take place "in the not too distant future."

He added that the disagreements over the re-admission to the church of four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) were a matter between them and the Vatican, and did not affect their relationship to the German Bishops' Conference.