Stuttgart - Daimler of Germany confirmed Tuesday its desire to sell the one-fifth of US automaker Chrysler which it still owns after their unhappy marriage.

"We continue to be interested in selling the 19.9 per cent," said a spokeswoman in Stuttgart, the same day as Chrysler and Fiat announced a preliminary agreement to merge.

The German carmaker's talks with private-equity investor Cerberus on a sale of the stake ground to a stop last autumn, when Cerberus demanded compensation from the Germans in connection with the earlier sale of the majority of Chrysler shares.

Berlin - Further signs of the impact on German industry of the world economic slowdown emerged Tuesday when two of the nation's leading companies announced tough measures aimed at facing up to the rapid deterioration in global growth.



While the world's leading luxury carmaker BMW AG announced plans to introduce shorter working hours for 26,000 employees at four plants, giant German retailer Metro AG said it wanted to cut 15,000 jobs from its worldwide workforce over the next three years.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is hoping for improved US-German relations under the Obama presidency, she said in a television interview on Tuesday.

"I hope that our cooperation is shaped by listening to one another, and making decisions on the basis that one country alone cannot solve the world's problems," Merkel said Tuesday on German state broadcaster ARD.

"This is the spirit in which I will encounter him," the chancellor added.

Sana'a, Yemen  - Army and security forces surrounded on Tuesday a remote mountain village in southern Yemen where armed tribesmen are holding hostage a German oil expert and two local engineers, local security sources said.

The sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that armoured personnel carriers and patrol vehicles laid siege to the Khubar Laqmoush village in the south-eastern province of Shabwa.

Berlin - German investor confidence could edge up again this month, a key indicator to be released Tuesday is forecast to say, amid efforts from governments and central banks around the world to halt the downturn underway in the global economy.

Drawn up by the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research, the ZEW index is forecast by analysts to post a marginal increase to minus 44.5 points in January after posting a bigger- than-expected rise to 45.2 in December.

An increase in January would represent the third consecutive rise in the index.

Hamburg  - The idea is as simple as it is ingenious - people from all over the world come together in an online network to offer accommodation on their sofas to others. In return, they can spend time abroad on a couch anywhere around the globe.

Online communities that bring so-called couch surfers together such as hospitalityclub. org, bewelcome. org and couchsurfing. com are booming.

Couchsurfing. com alone has about 600,000 members according to the website's operators. But in order for you to enjoy a good night's sleep on a foreign couch, there are a few things to take into consideration.