Hamburg  - It's nearly summer, and flowers and plants are coming out, but not just on balconies and in gardens.

Baghdad - Iraq's deputy electricity minister said on Wednesday that leading German company Siemens will provide Iraq with equipment to strengthen its power grid.

Iraq has agreed with Siemens that the company will share in the building of a total of 16 power plants with a capacity ranging from 160 to 270 megawatts, Salam Kazaz told the Iraqi al-Sabah newspaper.

He said that the power plants were aimed at strengthening the country's power network with 3,250 megawatts of power within two years.

"The deals will be sealed with Siemens after the consent of the prime minister's office," Kazaz said.

The negotiations with the German company are taking place in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

Berlin - Iran's nuclear programme, the situation in Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process and other international issues are set to dominate the programme when US President George W Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel meet near Berlin Wednesday.

Bush arrived on his farewell visit to Germany Tuesday from the EU-US summit in Brdo, Slovenia to spend the night at Schloss Meseberg, the baroque palace 70 kilometres north of the capital that the German government uses as a guesthouse.

Bush and Merkel, together with their spouses, walked in the palace gardens and had dinner together, Merkel returning the hospitality extended to her by the president on his ranch near Crawford, Texas in November last year.

Ingolstadt, Germany - Audi is offering the Audi R8 supercar with the option of full LED headlamp technology in addition to daytime running lights.

Berlin  - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Moroccan counterpart Taieb Fassi Fihri discussed the slow progress in peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians when they met in Berlin Tuesday.

Steinmeier said there was still a chance the two sides could come to a framework agreement this year in line with the Annapolis process initiated by US President George W Bush in November last year.

An agreement would not have to resolve all outstanding issues but had to outline the process towards reaching a two-state solution.

Berlin - Wolves are breeding successfully in the wild in Germany for the first time since being exterminated as dangerous vermin a century ago, nature conservation association NABU said Tuesday.