Karlsruhe, Germany - The European Court of Justice may be asked to decide whether a Berlin library owns the copyright to an opera by composer Antonio Vivaldi, German judges said Thursday.

Vivaldi has been dead for 267 years and everything else which the Italian composed is free to perform without paying fees.

But the state-run Berlin Academy of Song says it owns the long- lost Vivaldi opera Motezuma.

The academy published several sheets of the music on its website after rediscovering the opera in its old-music archives in 2002.

Berlin - Owners of old cars in Germany swamped a hotline with calls this week after the government invited applications for a big cash handout to anyone crushing an old car and buying a new one.

Berlin officials said the hotline registered 270,000 calls on the first day, Monday, far more than telephonists at the trade agency BAFA could answer. On Tuesday the rush ebbed a little to 150,000.

The government has promised 2,500 euros (3,250 dollars) to anyone owning a car more than nine years old who takes it to the wreckers and buys a new low-pollution car.

Rabat/Berlin - Six people were believed to have drowned after a German sailing boat capsized off the port of Mahdia north of the Moroccan capital Rabat in stormy weather, Moroccan police sources said Thursday.

Two days after the accident occurred on Tuesday, there was virtually no hope of finding any of the victims alive, the sources said.

A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry also said that the six, who included three Germans, had probably drowned.

The seventh occupant of the boat, a 19-year-old German woman, managed to swim ashore.

Bochum, Germany - Former Deutsche Post chief executive Klaus Zumwinkel appeared in court Thursday to face charges of tax evasion related to funds hidden in the Alpine principality of Liechtenstein.

Zumwinkel, 65, is accused of concealing 966,000 euros (1.2 million dollars) from German tax authorities in trust funds managed by the LTG Bank in Liechtenstein.

He was detained in February 2008 after prosecutors obtained evidence from Germany's BND foreign intelligence service on trusts administered by the bank on behalf of wealthy tax-shy Europeans.

Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called Thursday for humanitarian assistance to be delivered to civilians cut off by government and rebel clashes in the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka.

Steinmeier expressed concern for more than 300,000 refugees on a coastal 30-kilometre strip of land, in the area held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group.

"They have been completely cut off from international aid for more than 10 days," the German foreign minister said.

Frankfurt - A technical problem paralysed Frankfurt airport, for almost an hour on Thursday, forcing the cancellation of around 60 flights and the diversion of more than 20.

The hitch meant the German Weather Service was unable to transmit visibility data for pilots and air traffic controllers between 6:35 am and 7:25 am.

The air traffic controllers had no reliable visibility data at a time when there was a light early morning fog, said flight security spokesman Dirk Pulver.