Hamelin, Germany  - The rats are back in Hamelin, where a legendary Pied Piper once rid the Germany city of both rodents and children.

The city confirmed Tuesday it was battling a rat population explosion in an area of overgrown former garden allotments close to the city centre.

"It's like a rubbish dump in there and has developed into a rat refuge," said municipal spokesman Thomas Wahmes. After a rapid rise in rat numbers this year, the vermin were spreading into a new housing estate nearby.

Trieste, Italy - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi began hosting German Chancellor Angela Merkel for a day of talks Tuesday, with the current global economic crisis expected to feature high on the agenda.

The discussions, taking place in the north eastern Italian Adriatic Sea port of Trieste, were to be followed by a joint news conference scheduled for around 1430 GMT.

Traunstein, Germany - The collapse of a snow-covered indoor ice-skating rink in Germany, which killed 15 people two years ago, was the fault of the engineer who built the rink in 1973, a court ruled Tuesday.

The district court in Traunstein gave the 68-year-old a suspended, 18-month prison term for committing homicide by negligence.

Under the enormous weight of snow, roof beams snapped and the building collapsed on skaters on January 2, 2006 in the Alpine resort of Bad Reichenhall, in Germany's far south-east corner.

The court acquitted the architect of the building and another engineer who had inspected the building in 2003 without noticing that moisture was weakening the laminated-wood beams.

Nuremberg, Germany - Japan's Kyocera Mita Corporation announced takeover plans Tuesday for the German office services company Triumph-Adler AG.

The Osaka-based company said it would submit an offer of 1.90 euros (2.40 dollars) per share in order to secure around 60-75 per cent of the German firm's share capital.

Kyocera Mita already has a 29.9-per-cent stake in Triumph-Adler AG, the announcement said, adding that Triumph-Adler would remain a listed company.

Berlin - Germany's footballers can earn up to 200,000 euros (252,000 dollars) per man if they make it to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the biggest bonus to date in the nation's qualifying matches.

The German football federation DFB said in a statement on Tuesday that nominated players will get 20,000 euros per match for a maximum 200,000 euros if Germany qualify directly for the World Cup as group winner.

Amman  - Jordanian Foreign Minister Salah Bashir met Monday with a visiting delegation of German lawmakers and stressed Berlin's role in pushing forward the peace negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

"The minister underscored the importance of the European Union's role, particularly that of Germany, both on the international and regional levels, in spurring the Middle East peace process and giving a hand to the Palestinians and Israelis to enable them reach a peace agreement," a Foreign Ministry statement said.