Frankfurt  - The chiefs of an Islamic charity were sent to prison in Germany Wednesday after the Turkish men had admitted siphoning millions of euros away from alms donated by devout Muslims for the poor.

As the trial ended, German prosecutors disclosed that a senior government official in Turkey, Aykut Zahid Akman, who used to live in Germany, had also been a suspect but could not be arrested.

Akman, who chairs the Radio and Television Council that regulates Turkish broadcasting, had received some of the funds embezzled from the Deniz Feneri charity, a Frankfurt prosecutor said.

Frankfurt - European stock markets remained jittery on Wednesday after the US central bank's bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG) failed to impress investors.

After opening sharply higher in the wake of the Federal Reserve's 85-billion-dollar rescue action, French shares dipped into the red following Wall Street's weak opening.

At mid-afternoon the Paris Bourse's benchmark CAC 40 had fallen by 0.05 per cent, to 4,085.53. Insurance giant Axa still led the winners, up by 2.66 per cent to 20.29 euros, while banking shares were managing to stay in the black.

Societe Generale was up by 0.63 per cent, to 56.32 euros, and Credit Agricole, France's largest retail banking group, had gained 0.12 per cent, to 12.09 euros.

Frankfurt - German stocks regained some ground Wednesday, with nervous investors encouraged that Washington had agreed to bail out the insurance giant American International Group (AIG) with 85 billion dollars.

By mid-morning, the DAX index was running at 6,017, up 0.9 per cent, with investors piling into German bank stocks despite continuing concern Wednesday in London about the outlook for a British bank, Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS).

Deutsche Bank pulled 2.1 per cent higher to 52.83 euros and Commerzbank, which had slumped 22 per cent in the past few days, rebounded 3.4 per cent to 14.44 euros.

Frankfurt - Six novels have been short-listed by judges for the German Book Prize, an annual, 25,000-euro (35,000-dollar) award for German-speaking authors, the German Book Trade Federation said i

Frankfurt  - The European Central Bank was joined by the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan in pumping more than 150 billion dollars into financial markets in attempts to stem the tide in the fallout from the US credit crunch.

The ECB on Tuesday pumped 70 billion euros (99.9 billion dollars) into financial institutions, in addition to the 30 billion euros that it provided on Monday.

Frankfurt - Shares on European markets nosedived on Monday in financial turmoil triggered by the collapse of one of the biggest US investment banks and the sale of another.

Lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy protection after frantic negotiations throughout the weekend failed to produce a buyer. Hours earlier, Merrill Lynch agreed to be bought out by Bank of America Corp for 50 billion dollars in stock.

Germany's blue-chip DAX fell 4 per cent, while the Paris bourse lost 4.9 per cent and the London Stock Exchange was down more than 4 per cent by mid-afternoon.