Cologne - German and Brazilian industry leaders launched a business conference Monday against the backdrop of rapidly growing economic ties between the two countries.

"German company investment in Brazil is already at a record level," said Juergen Thumann, the president of Germany's Federation of Industry (BDI).

"An investment program of about 200 billion euros (296 million dollars), a stable economy and a steady hand on the nation's finances, along with recent positive reports from rating agencies would help German investment in Brazil to increase," said Thumann on opening the conference, held in the west German city of Cologne.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel stepped up her calls Monday for Russia to fulfil the Georgian peace plan and to undertake an immediate and complete withdrawal of its troops from the nation after a conflict lasting more than two weeks.

"We expect that the points that have been agreed to, but not yet met, will be fulfilled in the next few days," said a German government spokesman Thomas Steg.

In particular, this includes dismantling control points stationed along key transport routes and the Russian troop presence in the port city of Poti, Steg said.

Frankfurt  - Germany could be on the brink of a major shakeout in its fragmented banking industry with investors betting Monday on an announcement this week of an 8-billion-euro (12 billion-dollar) merger between two of the nation's leading banks.

Indeed, shares in Allianz SE jumped more than 1.0 per cent in early trading Monday on speculation that the German giant insurer could announce this week a deal to merge its troubled banking offshoot Frankfurt-based Dresdner with cross-town rival Commerzbank AG.

Bucharest  - Romanian border police have arrested a 37-year- old German citizen on suspicion of multiple counts of human trafficking and enforced prostitution, the Romanian Mediafax news agency reported on Monday.

The man was arrested on the Romanian-Hungarian border, and was travelling in the direction of Germany in the company of three women aged between 14 and 22.

Police also found detailed accounts of the man's income, as well as well as an appointment calendar with client information.

Stockholm - A German woman charged with beating two small children to death in Sweden in March this year should serve a life term or be confined to a closed psychiatric institution, the prosecution said Monday.

In her summing up, prosecutor Frieda Gummesson told the court in the central city of Vasteras there could be no doubt that the 32-year- old student, who comes from Hanover, was guilty of the March 17 murder.

Berlin - The German military attache in Moscow described the Russian military response in Georgia as "appropriate" in an internal document, according to a report in the Sunday edition of the German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).

"The extent of the use of military force by the Russian side appears - seen from here and despite reports to the contrary from Georgia and the picture conveyed by the media - not inappropriately high," Brigadier General Heinz G Wagner wrote on August 11.

The German Foreign Ministry said it did not comment on internal documents.