Berlin - Germany has decided to ban genetically modified maize, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday. The decision affects MON 810 seeds produced by US agriculture giant Monsanto, which is the only genetically modified seed currently allowed on German soil.

Monsanto's seed was due to be planted on 3600 hectares of German farm land this year, predominantly in the east of the country.

MON 810 includes a gene which protects it against a pest, the European corn borer butterfly. The seed has been approved for commercial use in the European Union since 1998.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on the nation's business and political leaders to meet next week, a government spokesman said Tuesday, as Europe's largest economy faces its biggest downturn since the World War II, Amid signs that the global recession had tightened its grip on Germany during the first months of the year, Merkel's planned economic summit comes as the country starts to gear up for a national election scheduled for September this year.

Wiesbaden - Key German manufacturing industry sales fell by a record 23.3 per cent year on year in February, figures released Tuesday showed. The nation's statistics office said the plunge came in the wake of a dramatic 27.5 per cent drop in foreign manufacturing turnover for Europe's biggest economy. Domestic sales slumped by 19.5 per cent over the previous year.

Leading the fall was the country's car industry with auto makers' turnover plummeting 39.6 per cent in February compared to the same month in 2008.

Hamburg, Germany - In these dire economic times, when tourists are down to their last shirt and hotels go bankrupt at the drop of a hat, only the most innovative and ingenious hotels can hope to get by on the bare essentials. The new Rosengarten Hotel (Rose Garden) in the quaint Black Forest region of Germany is bucking the downturn by booking buck-naked guests.

Berlin - German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek- Zeul condemned Monday the murder of Afghan-German provincial legislator and women's rights activist Sitara Achikzai in the Afghan province of Kandahar. "This brave woman wanted to help the people in Afghanistan and applied herself with her full engagement for the rights of women," the minister said.

Achikzai, who was aged in her 50s, was shot dead Sunday afternoon by Taliban fighters riding on motorbikes outside her home in Kandahar city.

Vilseck, Germany - The final trial of a group of US servicemen who were accused of murdering four blindfolded Iraqi men and dumping their bodies in a Baghdad canal began Monday in Germany. Master Sergeant John Hatley, 40, the highest-ranked of five accused, has been charged with premeditated murder by the military court in Vilseck, Germany, where their unit is based.