Berlin - Italy's domestic car market shrank by 19.5 per cent year-on-year in June, data released Wednesday showed, as the economic mood in the nation continue to darken.

New car registrations in Italy dropped to 184,275 last month compared with 228,924 in June 2007, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers' Association
(ACEA).

Last month's slump brought the overall drop in the Italian car market for the first six months to the year to 11.5 per cent.

Hamburg - A barge carrying diesel fuel was in collision with another vessel in Germany

Schwerin, Germany  - The parents of a five-year-old German girl who starved to death in her cot last year were convicted of murder Wednesday and each jailed for 11 years and 9 months.

Berlin - The German cabinet decided Wednesday to extend a block on workers from new members of the European Union in eastern Europe into 2011.

Berlin  - Opportunities for German business beckon in Algeria, a trade official said in Berlin before Chancellor Merkel's arrival later Wednesday in the North African nation at the head of a business delegation.

Andreas Hergenroether, chief executive of the German-Algerian Chamber of Commerce, said Algerians had high respect and awareness of the quality of German goods and would buy more if offered more.

In an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, he said, "A lot more trade could be done in the natural-gas business, where Algeria is the world's fourth largest producer."

Berlin  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has emphatically denied reports he expressed concern over moves to issue an international arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Beshir for genocide in Darfur.

Reports on Sudanese radio that he had expressed great concern over the application by International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo were "completely false," Ban told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) in an interview published Wednesday.