Cologne/Detroit  - While other US car companies are busy slashing the gas-guzzlers from their model lines, Ford is showing the next generation of its Ford Mustang - a sports coupe famous for anything but frugality.

The redesigned Shelby Mustang GT500 graces the Ford stand at the Detroit car show which lasts until January 25 and is set to reach the showrooms by early spring. Power is provided by a supercharged version of the hardy V8 engine with stump-pulling 540 horsepower.

Potsdam, Germany  - One of Germany's 16 states is to lend the Jewish community money to build a synagogue in Potsdam, the old royal city that is now an outer suburb of Berlin, officials said Tuesday.

The community will be asked to repay the cost from donations after the 5-million-euro (6.5-million-euro) house of worship is completed at the end of 2012. The state of Brandenburg is to donate a plot of land in the heart of Potsdam, which is its state capital.

Berlin  - The deepening crisis in the global car industry resulted in two of Germany's top carmakers announcing Tuesday plans to introduce shorter working hours as auto sales plummet in the face of the global economic slump.

While the world's leading luxury carmaker BMW AG unveiled plans to implement shorter working hours for 26,000 employees at four plants, Europe's biggest auto manufacturer Volkswagen AG said about 61,000 of its workers would be hit by a move to shorter hours at its German production sites.

Berlin - Tom Cruise, who plays the lead role in the film Valkyrie about a 1944 attempt to kill Hitler, spoke ahead of the film's European launch Tuesday of the duty he felt to accurately portray a little-known aspect of Nazi Germany.

The Hollywood co-production is based on the plot carried out on July 20, 1944, when the aristocratic German officer Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler by placing explosives under his table.

Berlin  - July 20, 1944 has become a symbol of the military anti-Nazi resistance in Germany, marking the day when 36-year-old Colonel Claus Schenk Count of Stauffenberg tried to kill Adolf Hitler in order to start talks with the Western Allies for an end to World War II.

Stauffenberg planted a bomb hidden in a briefcase in Hitler's eastern headquarters Wolfsschanze in Eastern Prussia during a briefing with Hitler.

He then travelled back to Berlin, waiting for the death of the

dictator with his fellow plotters in the Bendler Block, the General

Berlin - The Berlin Film Festival announced Tuesday the names of the members of the jury which will decide who takes home the prestigious prizes from next month's Berlinale.

Headed up by academy award winning British actress Tilda Swinton, the jury for the 59th Berlinale comprises Spanish director Isabel Coixet, Burkinabe director Gaston Kabore and Swedish best-selling author Henning Mankell.