Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) won a regional election Sunday in the German state of Hesse, enabling the party to form a coalition after 12 months of political stalemate.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who govern at the national level with the CDU, saw their share of the vote plunge to an historic low after narrowly failing to unseat CDU Prime Minister Roland Koch a year ago in a closely contested state election.

Berlin  - Sony is sending a new 640 gram netbook into stores. The Vaio VGN-P11Z features power-saving LEDs, a high-resolution display, and measures only eight inches (1600 by 768 pixels).

The 24.5 x 12 centimetre casing contains a 60 GB hard drive as well as modules for UMTS and GPS. Sony has elected an Intel Atom CPU as its processor. Two gigabytes of RAM are included.

Berlin/London  - Thousands of Europeans gathered in cities across the continent Saturday to protest the ongoing Israeli offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Aside from scuffles in the German cities of Kassel and Duisburg, where anti-Israeli protesters had to be separated from pro-Israeli demonstrators, very little violence was reported across the continent.

Most protests were focused either at national leaders - calling on them to lend diplomatic support to Mideast peace negotiations - or at the Israeli and US embassies in various cities.

Berlin - Germany Foreign Minister Frank-Walter S

Berlin - Syria is ready to cooperate with Barack Obama after he takes over as president of the United States, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad said in an interview released Saturday.

"The new US administration has to commit itself to the Middle East peace process. We are willing to help them, along with the Europeans," Assad told the German news magazine Der Spiegel.

Berlin  - The room in Berlin's Ritz hotel was pleasantly warm as Russia's prime minister met Friday with European gas company executives intent on resolving the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute.

Vladimir Putin emphasized his desire for a solution, although his messages were mixed. "Together, we need to work out how we can support our Ukrainian friends," the Russian premier said during the spontaneously agreed meeting in central Berlin's luxury hotel.