Wiesbaden, Germany  - A further German banking group, the mortgage lender Aareal, asked Sunday to be partly nationalized by the German government as it struggles to cope with the financial crisis.

In a statement from its head office in the city of Wiesbaden, Aareal said it had obtained an equity injection of 525 million euros (682 million dollars) and up to 4 billion euros in cover from federal loan guarantees, as set out in German bail-out legislation.

Wiesbaden, Germany  - Rainstorms, dust or bumpy rides across open terrain, the Panasonic Toughbook CF- 52 is ready for everything, its manufacturer claims.

The laptops and their 13.3 inch touchscreens are resistant to splashing water and can survive a fall from up to 76 cm, Panasonic reports. The hard drive is also flexibly anchored to the motherboard, including an extra layer of foam to prevent jolts from leading to data loss.

Wiesbaden, Germany  - Rainstorms, dust or bumpy rides across open terrain, the Panasonic Toughbook CF- 52 is ready for everything, its manufacturer claims.

The laptops and their 13.3 inch touchscreens are resistant to splashing water and can survive a fall from up to 76 cm, Panasonic reports. The hard drive is also flexibly anchored to the motherboard, including an extra layer of foam to prevent jolts from leading to data loss.

Wiesbaden, Germany - German exports in December slumped a sharp 7.7 per cent in year-on-year terms to 67.4 billion euros (87 billion dollars) in value, federal statisticians said Monday in Wiesbaden.

The cost of Germany's imports declined 3.3 per cent to 60.4 billion euros.

The export decline continues a trend that was most noticeable with a November slump of 11.8 per cent, the worst fall in the year-on-year data for the past 15 years in Europe's biggest economy.

Wiesbaden, Germany  - Roland Koch, a key supporter of Chancellor Angela

Wiesbaden, Germany  - Beer consumption in Germany, which once prided itself as a world champion of beer culture, has declined for yet another year as Germans reach for a glass of fizzy water instead, national statistics issued Thursday show.

Domestic sales by the German breweries fell 0.9 per cent last year to 8.7 billion litres, and exports were down even more sharply, the Federal Statistics Office said.

EU nations took 1.1 billion litres, down 1.2 per cent and non-EU nations 0.3 billion, down 4.1 per cent.