Mogadishu - Somali pirates have released a German couple kidnapped in late June as they sailed through the Gulf of Aden, a local official said Saturday.

The official from the port town of Bosasso in the semi-autonomous Puntland region told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the couple, identified only as Juergen and Sabine, had arrived in the town and were waiting to fly out.

Pirates abducted the couple from their yacht off the lawless Horn of Africa nation's coast on June 23 and demanded a ransom of 2 million dollars.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed concern Friday about the e

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel hopes the Beijing Olympics will be peaceful, the government press office said Friday as the opening ceremony got under way in the Chinese capital.

Frankfurt - A pilot strike at a regional subsidiary of Germany's Lufthansa was causing new cancellations of 140 flights on Friday morning, but the airline expected air traffic to be back on target by the afternoon, the company said.

Only 30 out of 170 flights of Lufthansa wholly-owned subsidiary Lufthansa CityLine GmbHwould were taking place as scheduled, but the strike would be over by noon, the airline said.

A spokeswoman of the Cockpit Pilots Union confirmed this. The strike would end as planned after 36 hours, she said, adding that the union wanted to give the airline time to present a new pay offer.

Berlin - Despite growing global economic uncertainty and the strong euro, German exports rebounded in June to report a bigger- than-forecast 4.2-per-cent increase, data released Thursday showed.

The surprise increase in Germany's seasonally adjusted exports in June came after a sharp 3.4-per-cent fall in May as strong demand from the world's leading emerging economies helped to boost Europe's biggest economy's key export machine.

Economists had predicted that the data, which was released by Germany's statistics office, would show exports posting a more modest gain of about 1.8 per cent.

The June rise resulted in Germany's trade surplus widening to a record 19.7 billion euros. Export posted an annual 7.9-per-cent rise in June.

Frankfurt - Europe's biggest phone company Deutsche Telekom AG reported Thursday a 35-per-cent slump in second-quarter earnings as the strong euro and erosion of its German customer base hit the group's profits.

Germany-based Telekom said it booked net profits of 394 million euros (608 million dollars) in the latest quarter compared to 604 million euros.

This followed a 2.9-per-cent drop in second-quarter revenue to 15.13 billion euros with a tough round of savings helping to offset the pressure on the group's earnings.

"We made good progress during the first half of the year in achieving our strategic objectives, both in operations and in cost savings," said Telekom chief Rene Obermann.