German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday she could not be sure that troops could be withdrawn from war-torn Afghanistan by 2014 as planned, as she made a surprise trip to the country.

The point has not yet been reached where Germany can say "we can pull out today," Merkel said, according to German news agency DPA. "And therefore, I can also not say that we will manage that by 2013/2014. The will is there, we want to do that and we are working towards that," she said.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle arrived Saturday in Yemen for a brief visit to discuss bilateral cooperation with the country's new president, Saba news agency said.

Westerwelle will hold talks with President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi on "fields of bilateral cooperation," the state news agency said.

World powers said Thursday that mooted upcoming talks with Iran focused on its nuclear program must be "serious", without pre-conditions and produce "concrete results."

"We call on Iran to enter, without pre-conditions, into a sustained process of serious dialogue, which will produce concrete results," said a statement on behalf of the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany, known as the P5+1.

Ethiopian rebels said Tuesday they had released two German tourists held hostage since January 18 after a gun battle that killed five other backpackers in the remote Afar desert region.

The two were handed over to German embassy officials and local elders in the desolate northern Ethiopian region on Monday, the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF) said in a statement.

A pair of Swiss policemen cast a suspicious eye as a creature in a space helmet with a camera mounted on top and carrying an astronaut's backpack wanders around Basel's St. Johann Park.

But what appears to be a visiting extra-terrestrial turns out to be a maverick designer, Jan Torpus, who is pushing the boundary between the real world and fantasy in a project he calls "augmented reality."

born Christian pastor, sentenced to death, whose execution Berlin fears is imminent.

"At the request of Minister (Guido) Westerwelle, the Iranian ambassador was summoned yesterday (Friday) to the foreign ministry for the German government to convey its deep concern over the fate of Christian pastor Yusuf Nadarkhani and to demand his immediate release," a spokeswoman said.

Oetzi the iceman, whose 5,000-year-old remains were found in the Alps 21 years ago, might have died of a heart attack had he lived longer and was allergic to milk products, new research suggests.

After analyzing raw data gained from a sequencing of Oetzi's DNA, researchers have discovered he was genetically predisposed to cardiovascular disease, and that he already had a hardening of the arteries when he was killed.

The United States is drawing up a new draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria demanding humanitarian access to protest cities where thousands have been killed, diplomats said Tuesday.

If put to a vote it would be the third time Western nations have tried to get a Security Council resolution on the 11 month old crisis.

Germany said Sunday it had withdrawn its national and international staff from Afghan ministries after U.S. members of NATO forces in Kabul were shot dead at the Afghan interior ministry.

"The Risk Management Office on Sunday morning ordered its German and international experts in agencies and ministries to be withdrawn" in the Kabul area, the cooperation ministry said in a statement.

Top economic powers at the G20 meeting in Mexico's capital this weekend were set to urge Europe to do more to tackle its financial crisis before they commit to new funding for the IMF.

The European Union is seeking to gain support for an additional $500 billion of resources for the International Monetary Fund at the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Mexico City on Saturday and Sunday.