Hamburg - Accidents snarled high-lying snowed-over roads Friday in Germany as Alpine countries stood by for high winds, sinking temperatures and heavy snow.

In the upland central state of Thuringia, a highway maintenance vehicle spreading salt to melt the snow was struck by a skidding truck, destroying both vehicles, police said. The drivers suffered only minor injuries.

Further north in the Harz mountains, trucks became immobilized when they could not climb steep grades on a snow-covered federal highway and had to be towed free.

Germany's first snow of this winter at sea level, a couple of centimetres deep, covered parts of northern Germany early Friday. The weather front, which marked the shock arrival of winter, was moving south.

Budapest - Hungary, one of Europe's hardest-hit nations in the global financial crisis, could begin talks aimed at adopting the euro as early as 2009, Finance Minister Janos Veres said Thursday.

Veres said he was envisaging negotiations for Hungary to join Europe's Exchange Rate Mechanism, known as ERM-II. Nations have to meet ERM's currency stability rules for at least two years before being considered for eurozone membership.

Frankfurt - A new grim warning from the US Federal Reserve about the outlook for the giant American economy triggered another share sell-off around the world with stocks in Europe slumping by about 3 per cent in early trading Thursday.

Europe's broad-based Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index had dropped 2.9 per cent to 2228.99 as the trading day got underway following steep falls across Asia and after stocks on Wall Street plummeted by more than 5 per cent on Wednesday.

Strasbourg, France - European Accounting Office chief Vitor Caldeira on Thursday strongly criticized irregularities and sloppiness which he said were causing billions of euros' worth of European Un

London, November 19: A European brothel has been flooded with clients after it gave lifelong free entry to clients who have its name tattooed on their arm.

A brothel reputed to be the largest in Europe has been overwhelmed with interest after offering free entry for life to customers who have its name tattooed on their arm.

The customers at ‘Pascha’, which boasts of having more than 120 prostitutes across its 12 stories, were offered to spare themselves the entry fee of 4 pound for life along with discounts on other services like lap dances.

The manager, who had pinned the tongue-in-cheek promotion, had been overwhelmed when more than 40 eager men rushed to put their arms forward to avail the scheme, reports the Telegraph.

Paris  - Zimbabwe's embattled prime-minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai Tuesday charged that entrenched Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe had denied him a passport, forcing him to travel on special documents through Europe.

"It is really ridiculous that the prime minister of a country has no passport," Tsvangirai said in Paris. "I hope that this changes soon."