Berlin  - A whiff of countryside is coming to the German capital, as the world's largest agricultural fair opens Friday in Berlin.

Alongside cows, pigs and tractors, 1,600 exhibitors from more than 50 countries will converge on Berlin's exhibition centre for the 74th annual Green Week from January
16-25.

As many as 400,000 visitors are expected to view more than 100,000 culinary specialities from around the world, spread along eight kilometres of exhibition space.

The Netherlands, this year's partner country, receives a special focus, while newcomer Kyrgyzstan is exhibiting alongside Green Week veterans such as Italy's wine, cheese and olive oil producers.

Stuttgart - Fiat chief marketing officer Luca de Meo is to join Germany's Volkswagen grou

Berlin - Germany is ready to make a contribution towards renovation work at the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The spokeswoman said the government was in contact with Polish authorities about what was required. "We consider it a core duty of Germany to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive," she said.

An estimated 1.1 million European Jews died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz during World War II. The concentration camp, built in 1940, is badly in need of repair.

Cologne, Germany - The world's largest flower garden, the Keukenhof in The Netherlands, is marking the 60th anniversary of its birth with a US theme.

The festivities include a mosaic of more than 25,000 flowers in the shape of the Statue of Liberty, according to the Dutch tourist office in Cologne.

Keukenhof chose the theme as 2009 is the 400th anniversary of explorer Henry Hudson's arrival under the Dutch flag in present-day Manhattan.

The colony of New Amsterdam that was founded there later became modern-day New York.

Berlin - The three parties supporting German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed late Monday in Berlin on a fresh round of stimulus for the weakening German economy, sources at the meeting said.

Senior officials said the governing parties had committed to a huge wave of spending likely to inject 50 billion euros (66 billion dollars) into the economy as well as a massive government fund to boost struggling industries with loans and guarantees.

The "credit and guarantee fund" will reportedly be worth 100 billion euros (135 billion dollars).

Officials said its name would be a way of stressing that it was not a vehicle for taking industries into government ownership.

Berlin  - Frankfurt's Hahn airport has cancelled plans to introduce a three-euro departure tax, the finance minister of the German state of Rhineland Palatinate, Hendrik Hering, announced Monday.

As a result, Irish budget airline Ryanair, which had threatened to withdraw from Frankfurt Hahn if the proposal went ahead, has confirmed that its 11 aircraft will remain stationed at the airport.

Ryanair lists 50 destinations departing from Frankfurt on its website, including flights to Italy, Morocco and Slovakia.