Ruhpolding, Germany  - World champions Germany ended Russia's winning run on Wednesday with first place in a biathlon women's relay race on home soil.

Andrea Henkel, Kati Wilhelm, Kathrin Hitzer and Magdalena Neuner took the lead on the second leg of the 4x6-kilometres race for victory in 1 hour 16 minutes 41.2 seconds in front of a big home crowd in Ruhpolding.

It was the first season win for the German women's relay which had won all races in the last campaign but saw Russia triumph in the first three relays this time around.

Berlin  - The German Open women's tournament in Berlin has been sold back to the governing body WTA by its Qatari owners and won't be played anymore in the German capital, it emerged on Wednesday.

According to local daily Der Tagesspiegel, the German Tennis Federation (DTB) and other officials were not informed about the move.

The daily said that WTA boss Larry Scott confirmed the sale in an email to Josef Minderjahn, head of the hosting LTTC Rot-Weiss club.

Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is to embark on a new mediation mission to the Middle East on Wednesday, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Steinmeier planned to visit Jerusalem, the West Bank town of Ramallah and the Egyptian capital Cairo in an effort to accelerate efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, spokesman Jens Ploetner said.

Steinmeier visited the region over the weekend and offered German assistance in improving security along Gaza's borders in order to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the coastal strip.

Dusseldorf, Germany - Luxury German car manufacturing group Daimler is intensifying its work on a new strategy to improve its range of vehicles adjustment to climate protection requirements, the German economic news weekly magazine Wirtschaftswoche reported.

Berlin  - German economic growth slowed to between 1.3-1.4 per cent in 2008, heralding a sharp slowdown this year, analysts expect data to be released on Wednesday to show.

After turning in a solid 2.5-per-cent growth rate in 2007, Germany slumped into a recession in the third quarter last year. A slew of data last week showed the slowdown in Europe's biggest economy rapidly gaining momentum as the year came to an close.

Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives are looking for victory Sunday when voters in the state of Hesse go to the polls for the second time in 12 months to elect a new parliament.

Opinion polls give her Christian Democrats (CDU) a comfortable lead over the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), junior partner in an uneasy coalition with the chancellor's party in Berlin.