Munich - An avalanche Saturday on the German side of Alps swept away five men using snowboards, killing one of them, police said.

The mass of snow came off the side of the Wallberg, a mountain in the Tegernsee alpine holiday region south of Munich, at about mid-day as the men were making downhill runs in an area not marked out as ski lane.

Munich, Feb 13 : The latest image by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has detected strong winds and powerful radiation coming from an armada of massive stars in the Carina Nebula.

The large and beautiful image displays the full variety of this impressive skyscape, spattered with clusters of young stars, large nebulae of dust and gas, dust pillars, globules, and adorned by one of the Universe's most impressive binary stars.

It was produced by combining exposures through six different filters from the Wide Field Imager (WFI), attached to the 2.2 m ESO/MPG telescope at ESO''s La Silla Observatory, in Chile.

Munich - Franck Ribery has no intention of leaving Bayern Munich in the near future, but will not commit himself to the German Bundesliga champions on a long-term basis.

Confronted with big interest from Spanish giants Real Madrid and other clubs, The French star Ribery told Wednesday's edition of the Sport Bild weekly that "no one must be afraid that Ribery will leave the Bundesliga."

Ribery, 25, has contract in Munich until 2011 which Munich would like to renew as early as possible. But Ribery said "that depends on the talks between my adviser and the club."

Munich - Bayern Munich coach Juergen Klinsmann indicated Real Madrid had inquired about midfielder Franck Ribery but said he was confident the France star would be staying "for a long time" at the German champions.

"We have an exceptional player and the enquiries there have been - whether Real Madrid or whoever - speak for him," Klinsmann told Bavarian television late Monday.

Munich - Germany's five star hotel, the Alpenhof

Munich (Germany), Feb. 9 : President Barack Obama''s national security team has given a dire assessment of the war in Afghanistan, with one official calling it a challenge "much tougher than Iraq" and others hinting that it could take years to turn around.

U. S. officials said more troops were urgently needed, both from America and its NATO allies, to counter the increasing strength of the Taliban and warlords opposed to the central government in Kabul.

They also said new approaches were needed to untangle an inefficient and conflicting array of civilian-aid programs that have wasted billions of dollars.