Berlin  - Marko Pantelic shot Hertha BSC to a place in the Champions-League Friday, spoiling with a 2-1 win Christoph Daum's anniversary celebration as a Bundesliga coach.

BERLIN, Nov. 28 -- A 104-year-old Dutch singer is suing an author in Berlin over claims that the singer performed for Nazi SS officers at the Dachau concentration camp in 1941.

Johannes Heesters said he was forced to visit the camp, which was located outside of Munich, Germany, as part of a Nazi plan to hide the truth about what was happening at the facility, but he denied ever performing for guards at the camp, Radio Netherlands reported Friday.

Heesters filed suit Friday against author and documentary filmmaker Volker Kuhn, 75, who said former Dachau prisoner Viktor Matejka told him during a 1990 interview that Heesters had performed for the SS, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Leipzig, Germany  - One of Germany's leading classical orchestras walked out on its first strike in its 265-year-history Friday, with musicians of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig demanding bett

Nairobi/Berlin - Somali pirates have seized a Liberian- flagged ship in the Gulf of Aden, although several crew members managed to escape overboard and were picked up by a German Navy helicopter, US Navy and German officials said Friday.

"The Liberian-flagged tanker Biscaglia was successfully attacked today in the Gulf of Aden," Commander Jane Campbell of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"Two helicopters from a coalition ship found several people in the water and transferred those individuals to a French ship that is on national tasking," she added.

Frankfurt - Commerzbank AG's shares surged Friday after Germany's second-biggest bank said it was fast-forwarding its bid for rival Dresdner Bank as a result of the more favourable terms for the purchase created by the world financial crisis.

Frankfurt-based Commerzbank said that it was planning to wind up its takeover about six months ahead of time with the financial crisis resulting in the offer for Dresdner being cut to 5.1 billion euros (6.6 billion dollars) from a previous 9.8 billion euros.

Frankfurt  - Commerzbank AG's shares surged Friday after Germany's second-biggest bank said it was fast-forwarding its bid for rival Dresdner Bank as a result of the more favourable terms for the purchase created by the world financial crisis.

Frankfurt-based Commerzbank said that it was planning to wind up its takeover about six months ahead of time with the financial crisis resulting in the offer for Dresdner being cut to 5.1 billion euros (6.6 billion dollars) from a previous 9.8 billion euros.