Sydney  - Teenage

Jakarta  - A tsunami early warning system developed and funded with German assistance is to begin operations Tuesday in Indonesia, nearly four years after the Asian tsunami of December 2004, which claimed 230,000 lives.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who attended the launch ceremony in Jakarta, called the system a "milestone for international disaster preparedness."

The German government financed the 45-million-euro (58-million- dollar) project.

Berlin  - The mood among German investors remains downcast, a key indicator to be released Tuesday is forecast to show, with the survey representing a key test of sentiment in Europe's biggest economy amid the fallout from the world financial crisis.

Drawn up by the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research, the ZEW index is forecast by analysts to have edged up slightly from minus 63 in October to minus 62 this month after signs that an element of calm has returned to global share markets after weeks of chaotic selling.

Hamburg - Germany coach Joachim Loew will have some clear words to say to the squad he names Thursday for next week's classic encounter with old rivals England.

Loew is to use the opportunity of the friendly international in Berlin to lay down some rules and guidelines on how he expects his players to behave for the rest of the qualification campaign for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

Gorleben, Germany  - Fierce protests accompanied the arrival of a shipment of radioactive waste at a northern German long term storage site early Tuesday, one day behind schedule as thousands of anti-nuclear activists tried to hold up the transport.

After more than 80 hours by train and truck, 11 containers with spent nuclear fuel from German nuclear power plants arrived at Gorleben in Lower Saxony at 0:17 am (2317 GMT).

Frankfurt - Italian author Claudio Magris, 69, on Monday received a top German award for ideas.

The 20,000-euro (26,000-dollar) Walter Hallstein Prize was presented in the city of Frankfurt.

"My dream is of a European state," said Magris. He said the important problems could no longer be solved at national level.

Joschka Fischer, a former German foreign minister, eulogized Magris at the ceremony as "a great European intellectual."