Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday the development of a new strategic concept for NATO would top the agenda at next week's summit of 26 NATO member states, co-hosted by France and Germany.

"NATO needs an adaptation of its strategy to new challenges," Merkel told the German parliament, adding that the transatlantic alliance needed to incorporate the "basic principle of networked security" to address current and future threats.

Berlin  - German consumer confidence has slipped as the global economic uncertainty deepens, a survey released Thursday showed.

The Nuremberg-based GfK marketing institute said its forward- looking consumer confidence index came in at 2.4 points in April compared to 2.5 points in March, which was revised down from a preliminary reading of 2.6 points.

"Despite a flood of negative information about economic development, the overall mood among German consumers has remained virtually unchanged," the Gfk said.

Berlin  - The global economic crisis was precipitated in part by "massive speculative fluctuations in international energy and commodity markets," former German environment minister Klaus Toepfer said Wednesday.

Speaking at an energy forum in Berlin, Toepfer said: "We need to radically rethink the global mechanisms for our energy supply system to avoid suffocating the incipient, desperately needed economic upturn.

Berlin  - Germany is providing 600 soldiers to help protect next week's NATO summit, the government said in a written parliamentary response disclosed Wednesday.

Their duties would include providing first aid and helping guard the 3,500 delegates against potential attacks from atomic, biological or chemical weapons, the statement said.

Some 15,000 German police will be on duty during the gathering from April 3-4 in the towns of Baden-Baden and Kehl in Germany and Strasbourg in France.

Berlin - Just over 40 per cent of the 165,000-strong Daimler workforce in Germany will be on short-time from April 1, the company's management board chief Dieter Zetsche said Wednesday.

Zetsche said some 68,000 employees will be on reduced working hours as a result of the global turndown that has led to a crippling decline in sales of new cars.

The car industry was facing its worst crisis this century and could only hope to recover if all sides pulled together, he said, urging unions to support the management's course of action.

Berl