Hamburg- Leaders Hoffenheim will be looking to continue their remarkable series when they travel to Hertha Berlin on Sunday, but the top game of the weekend takes place the same day in Gelsenkirchen where Schalke 04 take on champions Bayern Munich.

Hoffenheim extended their winning run to five game by thrashing Karlsruhe 4-1 last Saturday, with the Bosnia striker Vedad Ibisevic taking his goal tally to a spectacular 13 from 11 games.

The promoted side, who have scored 25 goals in their last seven league games, now face a tough proposition in seventh-place Hertha whose strong recent form was somewhat tarnished with a 5-1 defeat at Werder Bremen last weekend.

Amsterdam  - The value of Dutch insurer giant Aegon's shares fell slightly Thursday on the Amsterdam stock exchange following the publication of its third-quarter company results.

Aegon said it lost 329 million euros (428.92 million dollars) in the third quarter of 2008, below the 350 million euros which the company had announced to shareholders in late October.

By 11 am local time (1000 GMT), Aegon share value stood at 3.92 euros, a drop of 2 per cent.

Aegon said the loss came mainly from the ongoing drop in share value on the stock exchange and write-offs on investments.

Write-offs on the US banks Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, both of which collapsed earlier this fall, amounted to 336 million euros.

Sofia - Bulgaria would consider a pullout of its troops from the international military contingent in Iraq, Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin was quoted as saying Thursday.

Mumbai, Nov 6 : State Bank of India loans will now be cheaper with the bank deciding to cut its Prime Lending Rate (PLR) by 0.75 per cent from Monday.

SBI Chairman O P Bhatt told reporters in Mumbai on Thursday that the bank''s PLR will now stand reduced to 13 per cent from 13.75 per cent.

Several public sector banks such as Punjab National Bank, Union Bank, UCO Bank and Syndicate Bank have already effected a cut in their PLRs.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram met heads of public sector banks following which bankers had promised to cut their lending rates by up to 0.75 per cent.

Rampur (H. P.), Nov 6 : The traders thronged a horse exhibition in Rampur city of Himachal Pradesh, showcasing a rare breed of the horses of Himalayan region.

The three-day horse fair at Rampur in Himachal Pradesh that started on Tuesday and will conclude on Thursday has been attracting buyers from neighbouring states like Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The main attraction at this year''s exhibition is Chaumurti, the rare sturdy breed of Himachal region.

Washington, November 6 (ANI): A new study has revealed that extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is increasingly common and deadlier than previously thought.

The study compared patients with XDR-TB to individuals with other types of multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), and showed that those with the former condition were four times as likely to fail treatment and three times more likely to die.

Published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the study also found that MDR-TB was "a major threat to public health," representing 2.7 percent of new TB cases in South Korea in 2004, up from 1.6 percent in 1994.