Dusseldorf  - German researchers have developed a test method for a possible new doping substance named S107, state network ARD reported on Saturday.

ARD said that a Cologne-based centre for preventative doping science developed the test method for the substance which is not yet listed as a doping substance by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her party eased Saturday their opposition to using a multi-billion state fund to nationalize industries that are reeling from the world recession.

Only a day earlier, Merkel had said through a spokesman that the planned 100-billion-euro (135-billion-dollar) fund would merely extend financial guarantees to troubled companies such as the Opel division in Germany of the US carmaker General Motors.

Berlin - Defying recession, the Skoda division of German Volkswagen intends to expand its factory in China and build another in India, according to the chief brand officer at Skoda, Reinhard Jung.

In a report released Saturday by the German weekly Auto Motor und Sport, he said, "This year we want to double our Chinese capacity, which is currently 50,000 to 60,000." He said Skoda would set up new factories in Russia and China.

Hamburg - Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called in an open letter published Saturday for closer ties with the United States under its next president, Barack Obama.

He offered German aid to Iraq, and German homes for some of the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the letter, published in the news magazine Der Spiegel. Steinmeier was in Cairo on Saturday and bound for Jerusalem on Sunday on a Mideast peace mission.

In the open letter to Obama, Steinmeier wrote, "Let's write a new trans-Atlantic agenda and infuse life into it."

Hamburg - Lukas Podolski expects his summer return to Cologne from Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich to be finalized soon, the Germany striker said in an interview published on Saturday.

Podolski, 23, told the Bild daily that "a few details need to be finalized. I believe that we will reach an agreement soon."

Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and general manager Uli Hoeness indicated realier the clubs were were close to an agreement as well after Cologne made an improved offer.

Munich - Russian gas monopoly Gazprom has begun talks with Germany on creating western Europe's biggest gas storage site in a bed of rock on the German coast of the Baltic Sea, a news magazine said Saturday.

Gazprom would be able to feed gas to the site through the planned Nord Stream pipeline under the sea which it is building in a joint venture with German gas companies. The past week's halt in supply via Ukraine has highlighted the issue.