Focus: Turn off lights for Earth Hour

    BERLIN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Germany's Hamburg, Berlin and Bonn joined Saturday's Earth Hour event sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund to dim lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time to highlight the global threat of climate change.

    In Hamburg, lights went off at the local landmark St. Michaelis Church, the town hall and the scene of the local folks festival "Dom" from 8:30 p.m.. In Berlin the famous Red Town Hall also merged into darkness at the same time.

    "Despite the current economic crisis, we should send a signal for climate protection," said Klaus Wowereit, mayor of Berlin.

    Bonn, which hosts the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also joined the Earth Hour event on the eve of a ten-day U.N. climate change negotiations. The session is the first in a series of talks leading up to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen at the end of this year, which is supposed to clinch a new international agreement on climate change.