Hannover, Germany  - Hannover 96 and VfL Bochum will

Berlin - Automobile manufacturer Opel said Friday it was seeking credit guarantees from the German government, following a sharp downturn in orders.

Sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa the company was looking for some 200 million euros (252 million dollars) in support from Berlin and the four German states where it has factories.

An Opel spokesman said the company would only make use of the guarantees if the situation of its parent General Motors (GM) deteriorated to the effect that production and project development at the German subsidiary was affected.

Hainichen, Germany - An 18-year-old girl who claimed that neo-Nazis scratched a swastika on her thigh after she defended a child from a racist attack was convicted Friday of faking a crime.

A court in the east German town of Hainichen sentenced her to 40 hours of community service at the end of a closed-door trial that heard evidence from 22 witnesses and two experts.

The alleged attack in November last year shocked Germany, with commentators calling for a crackdown on neo-Nazi thugs.

Berlin - Kinga Goncz, foreign minister of Hungary which was rescued last month by international lenders from financial collapse, called in Berlin Friday for better European Union coordination in crises.

He spoke after meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Both said they favoured joint EU strategies to deal with financial and economic crises.

"I'm firmly convinced this will work," said Steinmeier.

"Europe can only be strong if we work together and coordinate our actions with one another," said Goncz.

Berlin - The authoritarian ruler of Turkmenistan met Friday in Berlin with Chancellor Angela Merkel amid keen Western interest in the former Soviet republic's rich oil and gas deposits.

"Cooperation between our two countries is far from complete," Merkel said after her meeting with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, 51, who took over two years ago after the death of dictator Saparmurad Niyasov.

The one-party state has been criticized by exiled dissidents and human-rights watchdogs.

Berlin - German experts compiling a brief for the G20 summit in Washington proposed in Berlin Friday that a worldwide register of loans be set up so that governments can see at a glance where debtors might default.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she anticipated that the Group of 20 leaders would on Saturday issue "work instructions for the next 100 days" to experts. Those experts would then report back on world economic reforms at a later summit.

Merkel is to argue in Washington for a set of reforms drafted over the past two weeks by a panel of leading German economists.