Stuttgart  - Serbian striker Danijel Ljuboja was kicked out of VfB Stut

Nuremberg, Germany - The Japanese trading-card game Bakugan Battle Brawlers and the matching television series ramped up a push into western Europe at the Nuremberg Toy Fair Thursday.

The television series, which went on air in Japan in 2007, started several weeks ago in German on Cartoon Network Deutschland, a pay-TV channel. Rights holder CTM said Thursday it expected free-to-air broadcasting of Bakugan on the Tele 5 channel to begin next month.

Hamburg - The International Biathlon Union (IBU) on Thursday provisinally suspended the athletes who submitted positive doping tests at the World Cup opener in December.

The announcement came little more than a week ahead of the world championships in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from which these - allegedly three Russian - athletes are now barred even if the case is not solved by then.

The IBU said that "the substance found in the positive a-samples of the athletes are non-specified substances of the WADA Prohibited List.

Berlin - German organizers have sold almost 200,000 of the 500,000 tickets on offer for the world athletics championships in Berlin, it was announced on Thursday.

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit spoke of "strong demand at this early stage" at a news conference in which the organizing committee also said it was "on track" in its preparations for the August 15-23 event.

Ticket sales are to generate 15 million euros (19.4 million dollars) for the overall event budget of 44 million euros.

Hamburg - Belgian cycling talent Frederieck Nolf died in his sleep in Qatar where he was taking place in the Tour of Qatar, his team and race organizers announced on Thursday. He was 21 years old.

Nuremberg, Germany - Toys made of a renewable material, bamboo, or tiny cars that demonstrate low-emission engines are eye-catching examples of a green trend at the Nuremberg Toy Fair which opened Thursday.

While no one could claim that the vast variety of plastic dolls and semiconductor-filled remote-control cars at Nuremberg are biodegradable, a few manufacturers have put environmental standards at the centre.

"We see it as the children's future. Toys ought not to damage our environment," said Felicitas Hoegger of Slowtoys, a tiny Swiss company, that uses recycled cardboard to make dolls' houses.