Berlin - Bayern Munich coach Juergen Klinsmann is seeking damages from the Berlin daily taz newspaper following a photo mock-up of him showing in a crucifixion scene, his lawyers said Tuesday. The former Germany international was shown in an Easter edition of the newspaper being crucified on the cross.

In reference to the Monty Python film Life of Brian, in which a young Jewish man is mistaken for Jesus Christ, an accompanying headline read, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" - a song from the 1979 comedy.

Berlin - Germany has decided to ban genetically modified maize, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday. The decision affects MON 810 seeds produced by US agriculture giant Monsanto, which is the only genetically modified seed currently allowed on German soil.

Monsanto's seed was due to be planted on 3600 hectares of German farm land this year, predominantly in the east of the country.

MON 810 includes a gene which protects it against a pest, the European corn borer butterfly. The seed has been approved for commercial use in the European Union since 1998.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on the nation's business and political leaders to meet next week, a government spokesman said Tuesday, as Europe's largest economy faces its biggest downturn since the World War II, Amid signs that the global recession had tightened its grip on Germany during the first months of the year, Merkel's planned economic summit comes as the country starts to gear up for a national election scheduled for September this year.

Berlin - The Berlin Wall may have long since been demolished, but visitors are flocking to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum - just yards from the spot where Russian and American tanks angrily squared up to one another at the height of the Cold War. The museum, depicting some of the more bizarre escapes made during the Wall's 29-year-old history, and the grim methods used by the East German regime to stop its citizens fleeing the communist state, has been crowded with visitors over the Easter weekend.

Berlin - German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek- Zeul condemned Monday the murder of Afghan-German provincial legislator and women's rights activist Sitara Achikzai in the Afghan province of Kandahar. "This brave woman wanted to help the people in Afghanistan and applied herself with her full engagement for the rights of women," the minister said.

Achikzai, who was aged in her 50s, was shot dead Sunday afternoon by Taliban fighters riding on motorbikes outside her home in Kandahar city.

Berlin - The fate of five Germans held by pirates off the coast of Somalia remained unclear Monday, hours after the captain of a US-operated cargo ship was freed from Somali hostage takers in a dramatic US Navy rescue operation. Germany's Foreign Ministry was intensively trying to resolve the hijacking of the Hansa Stavanger freight ship, a spokeswoman said on Monday. She could not give further details of negotiations taking place.