Hamburg - Orchids, cyclamen and cacti - put them next to one another on a windowsill, add a little fantasy and together they become more than just a few plants positioned where the sun shines in.

They become a lovingly-arranged, potted garden assembled with the help of a huge selection of house plants now available in shops.

"Thirty years ago you had more or less the same 10 plants, but today there are about 250 green candidates to choose from," said John Langley, a master florist from Hamburg.

Berlin  - Whether it makes coffee or drills holes in walls, whether it's a luxury item or a basic model, just about every modern household product is expected to have some style to it.

But pretty packaging is not the same as good design and the challenge facing most designers is to bring form and function together.

"Bad design means that ergonomics and functions were not given high enough priority," says Peter Knopp, an industrial designer from Scheyern in southern Germany.

Samples of bad design include mobile phones with tiny buttons or those beautiful kettles whose owners run the risk of burning themselves, if they pick them up clumsily.

Berlin  - Germany slumped into a recession during the third quarter, data to be released Thursday is forecast to show, amid signs that a global economic downturn was taking hold.

Europe's biggest economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, analysts predict Thursday's figures from Germany's statistics office will show after it contracted by 0.5 per cent in the quarter to end June.

As a result, Germany will fulfil the technical definition of recession after clocking up two consecutive quarters of negative rates.

Bangkok - A bomb hurled Thursday morning at protestors at Klong Toey Market in Bangkok injured 13 people, two of whom were in critical condition, police said.

"Eyewitnesses said the bomb was thrown by a man on a motorcycle from the bridge that overlooks the market," said Police Colonel Suthip Palitkusontat, of the Klong Toey Port Police Station.

Vendors at the famed open air market - the largest in the capital - have been protesting efforts to evict them by a private company that won a new lease on the area on October 29.

Taipei - The