Berlin - The hard-driving chief executive of Germany's national railways company, Deutsche Bahn, issued a rare apology Friday, telling employees he was sorry that
corporate security investigators had been allowed to access payroll data.

Hartmut Mehdorn, 66, has run the railways system since 1999, paring costs and shrugging off crises including strikes and financial setbacks that would have crushed
someone less determined.

Critics sensed victory this week after a disclosure that the company's own anti-crime department may have flouted privacy rules.

Berlin - A 40-year-old German who was convinced he had cancer persuaded a close friend to stab him to death, but doctors say the victim was cancer-free, according to prosecutors Friday.

The friend, 32, phoned an ambulance Thursday in the German city of Recklinghausen to pick up the body with multiple stab wounds.

Prosecutors in nearby Bochum said the suspect, who was detained at the scene, was likely to be charged with killing by request, a crime with a penalty of six months to five years in prison.

Berlin - Germany has pledged to drastically cut new public borrowing by the year 2020, the joint heads of a two-year federal commission announced Friday.

In the deal struck between Germany's 16 states and the federal government, net public borrowing on the federal level is to be capped at 0.35 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) from the year 2016, while the states will aim to eliminate any debt increases by the year 2020.

Berlin - World sales by Volkswagen's premium Audi division slumped 28 per cent in annual terms to 56,000 cars in January in a fresh sign of the serious troubles of the world automotive industry, the division disclosed Friday.

Audi had previously been less affected by the general fall in car sales. A spokesman at the company in Ingolstadt argued that strong sales a year ago, when Audi launched a makeover of its A4 model, made the relative difference look worse than it really was.

Berlin - German organizers have sold almost 200,000 of the 500,000 tickets on offer for the world athletics championships in Berlin, it was announced on Thursday.

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit spoke of "strong demand at this early stage" at a news conference in which the organizing committee also said it was "on track" in its preparations for the August 15-23 event.

Ticket sales are to generate 15 million euros (19.4 million dollars) for the overall event budget of 44 million euros.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced criticism from within her Christian Democratic (CDU) party Thursday over her call for the pope to take a clearer stand on Bishop Richard Williamson's anti-Holocaust views.

The speaker of parliament, Norbert Lammert, told the daily Hamburger Abendblatt that "much of what is being imputed to the pope is almost malicious, and certainly not fair."