Berlin - Barack Obama's call for a renewed transatlantic partnership drew a positive response from German politicians Friday, as the Democrat senator prepared to travel on to France on the next leg of his foreign tour.

Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian CDU/CSU, said the speech had been in the best tradition of US foreign policy.

Speaking to German media, Von Klaeden said the speech could as well have been made by Obama's rival for the US presidency, Republican Senator John McCain.

Herat, Afghanistan - Surrounded by tight security, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived Friday in Afghanistan for a surprise visit.

Steinmeier, who is expected to stay several days in the country, arrived Friday morning in the western Afghanistan city of Herat in a German military plane.

It is Steinmeier's third visit to Afghanistan.

Germany currently has 3,500 troops stationed in the war-torn country and is under pressure from NATO allies to increase the presence by 1,000 soldiers by this autumn.

Moscow- Russian investigators said Germany had handed them documents related to the 2006 murder by polonium poisoning of Russian spy defector Alexander Litvinenko in central London, news agency RIA- Novosti reported on Thursday.

German police were involved in the investigation when Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun, now living in Germany, was found to have met with Litvinenko on the day his poisoning with radioactive polonium-210.

Seligenstadt, Germany - Beer-flavoured ice-cream and similar novelties have failed to catch on in conservative Germany, where established flavours like vanilla and chocolate reign supreme, gelato makers said Thursday.

"Beer flavour attracted more attention from the news media than from customers," said Anna Lisa Carnio, spokeswoman for the Italian Ice-Cream Manufacturers' Association of Germany in Seligenstadt, south of Frankfurt.

Stuttgart, Germany  - German carmaker Daimler AG cut its 2008 earnings forecast Thursday in the face of a slowing world economy, a surging euro and increasing raw material costs.

The announcement by the manufacturer of luxury Mercedes Benz cars that it had revised down its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to more than 7 billion euros (11 billion dollars) sent the group's shares sharply down.

The Stuttgart-based carmaker had previously said that it expected EBIT from the group's ongoing operations to top the 7.7 billion euros it posted in 2007.

Daimler's shares dropped by about 8.0 per cent to 39.30 euros following the announcement.

Stockholm - German energy giant E. ON AG Thursday said it is has completed an agreement with Norwegian power group Statkraft to take full ownership of Swedish subsidiary E. ON Sverige.

The agreement signed Thursday in Stockholm sees E. ON take over Statkraft's 44.6 per cent stake in E. ON Sverige worth 4.4 billion euros (6.9 billion dollars) as well as a hydropower plant.

Statkraft was in return to acquire E. ON AG shares worth some 2.18 billion euros as well as assets in Sweden, Germany and Britain including hydropower plants, district heating plants and gas-fired power plants.