Munich - Hard-hit by the global financial crisis, German state-owned bank Bayerische Landesbank is planning to axe about every fourth job as it launches a new restructuring drive, banking industry sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Monday.

The 5,600 job cuts in its workforce of 19,000 are to fall both in the Munich-based BayernLB's domestic and international operations.

The ailing bank said in October that was tapping the Federal Government's special 500-billion-euro (645-billion-dollar) bank rescue package to help it limp through the financial crisis. The bank is half-owned by the Bavarian state government.

Munich - A former German soldier described Thursday how he dragged a crate of explosives inside a house where 11 Italian men were detained to be killed.

His former commander, 90, is on trial for murdering the prisoners by blowing them up at Falzano, Italy in 1944.

The witness, who at the time was a 21-year-old sergeant in the 818th battalion of the German Army mountain combat engineers, said, "there was an order to do a blast."

The engineer, who regularly worked with explosives, put a box inside the village house.

Munich  - BMW engineers are working on a new car key with an integrated credit card chip for simple pay functions at the filling station or shopping centre, according to BMW researcher Hans-Joerg Voegel.

The chip is designed to communicate with a card reader and the customer only has to place his/her car key on the counter and leaving behind a signature.

But, according to Voegel, engineers are looking at incorporating other personal data such as favourite radio stations, a telephone directory or subscriptions to BMW's Online platform "Connected Drive."

Munich - A 46-year-old mother-of-three who is reputed to be Germany's richest woman and has drawn huge publicity in a "gigolo" case has given a rare glimpse of the pressure created by her wealth.

Susanne Klatten, who reported to police in January that a Swiss man romanced her then tried to extort millions of euros from her, has given only one interview about her ordeal. An indictment is expected within weeks.

Munich, Nov 22 : A team of French astronomers has used the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Very Large Telescope (VLT) to detect a planet-like object located very close to the star Beta Pictoris, and which apparently lies inside its disc.

With a projected distance from the star of only 8 times the Earth-Sun distance, this object is most likely the giant planet suspected from the peculiar shape of the disc and the previously observed infall of comets onto the star.

Munich  - The clock ticks without heeding the loss of youth and vivacity - causing unease especially among women.

"Young" is no longer a description for people who reach important milestones such as their 40th, 50th and 60th birthdays. While some people have difficulty accepting their age, a few things such as a a flirtation test or a new project can help.