Bonn - Hackers have started trying to hit people where they live by distributing e-mails with fake news of local atrocities in the hope of getting people to open a link and expose their computer to danger. One trick is to send out an e-mail with a subject line reading, "At least 18 killed in your city," according to the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

The included link as though it leads to a Reuters news article, but secretly delivers a damaging program to the system, if the user clicks on a video player. The only safe option is to delete the e-mail without opening the link.

Bonn - The UN's head of climate change Yvo de Boer said Wednesday that talks in Bonn had brought a degree of "clarity and convergence" to the process of drawing up new global climate change commitments by the end of 2009, although the ten-day talks brought few tangible advances.

Industrialised countries were not able to agree on common goals for emission reduction at the talks in the former German capital, which are the first in a series of meetings paving the way to a replacement of the Kyoto Protocol.

Bonn  - Internet users are advised to download the latest version of the Flash player to protect their computer from hacker attacks. The software is available free of charge at http://get.adobe.com/de/flashplayer.

The latest flash version is now required to display the content on many web sites, says the German Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology (BSI) in Bonn. Earlier versions suffer from a security hole that could allow hackers to gain control of external computers.

Bonn, Germany  - Government ministers from around the world Tuesday began a three-day conference designed to lay the groundwork for improving access to education around the world.

One of the goals of the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development is to help the 75 million children around the globe who have no access to schooling.

The goal was set in a programme called the UN Decade, which was established five years ago. The conference in the former West German capital of Bonn is reviewing progress made so far and looking at the future.

Bonn - A new round of United Nations climate change negotiations kicks off in Bonn on Sunday, as 2,000 delegates from around 180 countries gather in the former German capital.

The 10-day conference is the first of three planned meetings paving the way for December's Copenhagen summit, where final talks are due on a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012.

The United States' position will be keenly observed in Bonn, since Washington has recently changed tack on climate change under President Barack Obama.

Bonn, Germany  - The worldwide economic downturn will not necessarily put a damper on sustainable tourism, according to experts.

"At the moment, no change in booking behaviour is evident," Heinz Fuchs, senior policy advisor for Tourism Watch, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Tourism Watch is an agency of the Bonn-based Protestant Development Service (EED).