Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier plans to visit a World War II-era concentration camp on an upcoming visit to Italy, his office announced Saturday.

The move could be seen as an effort to mend fences with Italy. Some acrimony exists 60 years after the end of the war about demands for retribution for Nazi-era atrocities.

Steinmeier is set to visit Trieste for a summit meeting on Tuesday. He will take time during his Italian visit to go to the former Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp on Trieste's outskirts. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini will join him.

Leading railways equipment manufacturer, Bombardier Transportation, has decided to increase its presence in India. It would develop India as a metro car production hub for the Southeast Asian region, in the next 4-5 years. 

The company launched a new railway vehicle-making facility at Savli, Vadodara in Gujarat. It would produce stainless steel car bodies and bogies and carry out final assembly at Savli plant. It would start operation very soon, after orders of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

Berlin - Automobile manufacturer Opel said Friday it was seeking credit guarantees from the German government, following a sharp downturn in orders.

Sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa the company was looking for some 200 million euros (252 million dollars) in support from Berlin and the four German states where it has factories.

An Opel spokesman said the company would only make use of the guarantees if the situation of its parent General Motors (GM) deteriorated to the effect that production and project development at the German subsidiary was affected.

Berlin - Kinga Goncz, foreign minister of Hungary which was rescued last month by international lenders from financial collapse, called in Berlin Friday for better European Union coordination in crises.

He spoke after meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Both said they favoured joint EU strategies to deal with financial and economic crises.

"I'm firmly convinced this will work," said Steinmeier.

"Europe can only be strong if we work together and coordinate our actions with one another," said Goncz.

Berlin - The authoritarian ruler of Turkmenistan met Friday in Berlin with Chancellor Angela Merkel amid keen Western interest in the former Soviet republic's rich oil and gas deposits.

"Cooperation between our two countries is far from complete," Merkel said after her meeting with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, 51, who took over two years ago after the death of dictator Saparmurad Niyasov.

The one-party state has been criticized by exiled dissidents and human-rights watchdogs.

Berlin - German experts compiling a brief for the G20 summit in Washington proposed in Berlin Friday that a worldwide register of loans be set up so that governments can see at a glance where debtors might default.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she anticipated that the Group of 20 leaders would on Saturday issue "work instructions for the next 100 days" to experts. Those experts would then report back on world economic reforms at a later summit.

Merkel is to argue in Washington for a set of reforms drafted over the past two weeks by a panel of leading German economists.