Munich - Giant German electronics group Siemens AG said Tuesday it had reached an agreement with

Munich - German conglomerate Siemens decided Tuesday to sue two former chief executives for setting up a system of corruption that paid kickbacks to secure lucrative foreign contracts.

The supervisory board of the German electronics and engineering group decided claims should be brought against 10 former members of the main executive board who left as the scandal was exposed.

They include two former chief executives, Heinrich von Pierer and Klaus Kleinfeld. The company accuses them of lapses from their duty to keep the company organization well-run in the period 2003 to 2006.

The decision to sue is a first in the normally cosy world of big German corporations where past management errors are usually ignored.

Munich  - The market fallout unleashed by the US mortgage crisis continued to take its toll on the European financial sector with the giant German insurer Munich Re forced Friday to slash its 2008 earnings forecast.

The world's second biggest reinsurer expects earnings this year to come in at "well above" 2.0 billion euros (3.14 billion dollars) compared to a previous estimate of between 3.0 and 3.4 billion euros.

The projection sent Munich Re shares down by more than 10 per cent to about 104 euros.

"The main reason for this is the turmoil on the capital markets, which has led to an appreciable reduction in the group's investment result in the first half of 2008," the Munich-based company said announcing the results.

Munich, July 25 : Astronomers have indicated that a recent supernova may not be normal as initially thought, with the star that exploded now understood to have collapsed into a black hole, producing a weak jet, typical of much more violent events, the so-called gamma-ray bursts.

The object, SN 2008D, is thus probably among the weakest explosions that produce very fast moving jets.

This discovery represents a crucial milestone in the understanding of the most violent phenomena observed in the Universe.

Munich, July 25 : Using the ESO’s (European Southern Observatory’s) Very Large Telescope Interferometer, astronomers were able for the first time to witness the appearance of a shell of dusty gas around a star that had just erupted, and follow its evolution for more than 100 days.

This provides the astronomers with a new way to estimate the distance of this object and obtain invaluable information on the operating mode of dense stars that suck material from a companion.

Munich - Germans love to invite friends over for a party in the back yard.

A survey published in the July edition of a German home magazine shows that 71 per cent of the people surveyed enjoy throwing a garden party. The same percentage like being invited to garden parties given by friends or acquaintances, the survey showed.

The survey also showed that all neighbours are invited to 41 per cent of the garden parties. About one-third of the people surveyed invite friends over weekly during the warm summer months.