Berlin - German airports faced severe disruptions at the height of the holiday season Monday as ground and cabin staff at Lufthansa, the country's largest airline, went on strike for higher pay.

The strike, which began at midnight, targeted the main hubs at Frankfurt and Hamburg although Munich, Dusseldorf and Cologne-Bonn were also to be affected.

The services trade union Verdi said its main aim was not to cause cancellations but to hit the company financially. It is demanding a substantial pay rise for 50,000 workers.

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Berlin - Germans no longer think twice about paying the rent or auctioning off an old tennis racquet online. The internet is now part of everyday life for 80 per cent of Germans. But a recent survey by Forsa, an opinion research institute, showed that 4 million Germans have fallen victim to computer crime.

They account for 7 per cent of all computer users over 14 years, according to BITKOM, the Federal Association of the Information Industry, Telecommunications and New Media.

Bonn - Internet users are currently being warned too look out for e-mail messages claiming to be from package courier UPS. The messages, delivered in English and in German, actually originate from hackers, the German Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology (BSI) reported recently.

The messages tell the recipient that a package could not be delivered due to a non-existent address. The message then encourages the user to click on an e-mail attachment to check the delivery slip data; anyone who does so allows a Trojan virus to sneak onto their computer.