GERMANY: An American exchange student who got stuck in a giant vagina sculpture was freed by firemen in southwestern Germany.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger alienated some Roman Catholics in Germany with his zeal enforcing church orthodoxy. But in the conservative Alpine foothills of Bavaria where he grew up, he remains a favourite son who many think will make a good pope.

Scores of people are feared dead after a Russian passenger jet with dozens of people on board and a cargo plane collided over southern Germany.

Scores of people were feared dead today after a Tupolev 154 and a Boeing 757 airliner collided over the southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.