Justin Bieber's pet monkey, which was seized by German customs in March, officially became German property Tuesday after the Canadian pop sensation failed to claim the animal, officials said.

Mally, a capuchin monkey, is temporarily in an animal refuge in the southern city of Munich where he was visited Tuesday by Germany's environment minister.

German software giant SAP said on Tuesday it intended to employ hundreds of people globally with autism as software testers and programmers over the next seven years.

The company, which has already launched pilot projects in India and Ireland, said the move aimed to find workers "who think differently", leading to innovation.

Germany on Monday called for "visible" progress in implementing a landmark deal between Serbia and Kosovo before securing Berlin's backing for Belgrade's bid to join the European Union.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle hailed the April 19 EU-brokered agreement to normalize ties between Serbia and its former southern province as "historic" but said momentum needed to be continued.

Germany's foreign minister said on Saturday his country was prepared to help create conditions for a resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Guido Westerwelle, on a two-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, was quoted by a foreign ministry statement as saying "Germany is ready to help create a climate of confidence" that would permit talks to resume.

Visiting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Friday reaffirmed his country's friendship for Israel in "challenging times" for the region, as tensions mount over the Syrian conflict.

"I want to underline that in these challenging times Germany stands alongside its Israeli partners," Westerwelle said at the start of talks in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling his host a "dear friend."

Germany's foreign minister is set to meet Israeli leaders Friday and the Palestinian caretaker premier Saturday during his visit to the Middle East to promote a U.S. initiative to revive peace talks, a spokesman said.

Guido Westerwelle told Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas by phone on Wednesday that Germany "unreservedly supports" the initiative, said the ministry spokesman.

A German court ruled Tuesday against the country's version of search engine Google, finding that keywords thrown up by its 'auto-complete' function can be defamatory and ruling the company must remove offending words after complaints.

The case centered on a complaint by an unnamed entrepreneur who found that when he typed his name into the search box of the site www.google.de, the auto-complete function suggested results with the added words "Scientology" and "fraud".

A German journalist is being held by Syrian forces in the northern battlefield city of Aleppo, a Berlin newspaper reported online Monday, citing his call for help via a mobile phone text message.

Armin Wertz, an Indonesia-based veteran reporter writing for German and Asian media, had entered the conflict-torn country from neighboring Turkey in early May, said the Tagesspiegel daily, for which he works on a freelance basis.

U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Berlin next month for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a German government spokesman said Friday.

Deputy spokesman Georg Streiter told a regular news briefing that Obama would stop in Berlin June 18-19, after a G8 summit in Northern Ireland.

German exports, the driving force of Europe's top economy, are being weighed down by the eurozone debt crisis, data showed Friday, amid otherwise promising signs.

Seasonally adjusted data showed that Germany's trade surplus fell slightly in March to 17.6 billion euros ($23.0 billion) from 17.7 billion euros in February, according to figures from the federal statistics office.