Stuttgart - Doubt was raised about Mercedes' future in Formula One racing by a supervisory board member said ahead of Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.

"Formula One is not accepted among the employees. One has to take notice of that," Helmut Lense, a works council chairman and board member of Mercedes' parent Daimler, told Thursday's edition of the Stuttgarter Zeitung daily.

Lense said that recent workforce meetings at Daimler plants revealed the negative attitude towards the expensive sport and added that Mercedes should pull out of F1.

Berlin - The two parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel's government have agreed to restrict benefits enjoyed by corporative executives which have been widely blamed for a "culture of greed" in high finance, party sources in Berlin said Thursday.

While there would be no cap on executive pay, which has been proposed in many nations, executives would in future be barred from cashing in their stock options during their period of employment.

Berlin - As German analysts are estimating an economic shrinkage of some 6 per cent in 2009, voices are now beginning to warn of the dangers of social unrest.

Presidential candidate Gesine Schwan said Thursday that popular anger could grow significantly in coming months, as initial measures to counter the economic downturn wore off.

"If there isn't a glimmer of hope that the situation is improving, the mood could become explosive," the Social Democratic (SPD) candidate told the daily Muenchener Merkur.

Berlin - Germany is to expand its cultural diplomacy abroad, reaching out to academics by building a series of missions to highlight German scientific and engineering achievements, officials said Thursday in Berlin.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the offices were part of a push to invest more in cultural diplomacy.

The first such House of Science has been opened in Sao Paolo,

Brazil, and more are planned in Moscow, New Delhi and New York.

Berlin - An elderly German woman who was taken hostage by self-described Islamists three months ago in Mali was being cared for at the German embassy in Bamako, the German Foreign Ministry said in Berlin Thursday, one day after her release.

The 77-year-old retired teacher was one of four western tourists abducted on January 22 in the Sahara desert during a cross-country adventure tour in four-wheel-drive vehicles in Niger and Mali.