Burger King is being sold to private equity firm 3G Capital in a deal valued at $3.26bn (£2.1bn), it has been announced.

The fast food chain, with 12,100 outlets worldwide, had been the subject of takeover rumours for days.

Burger King floated on Wall Street in 2006, four years after being bought by a group of private equity firms.

The group - TPG Capital, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs Funds - still own 31% of Burger King shares.

The deal, worth $24 a share, comes after Burger King's stock price surged more than 15% on Wednesday and opened on Thursday up 23% at $23.25.

In a statement, the companies said that the deal represented a 46% premium to Burger King's share price before news of a possible takeover surfaced.

3G will also take on Burger King's debt, valuing the deal at $4bn in total.

No longer unique

Read more: Burger King sold to buy-out firm for $3.26bn (£2.1bn)

Ten election campaign workers have been killed in an air strike by Nato-led forces in Afghanistan, officials say.

The governor of the northern province of Takhar, Abduljabar Taqwa, told the BBC that two people were also wounded in the attack in the Rostaq district.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the incident, saying that "pro-democracy people should be distinguished from those who fight against democracy".

A Nato spokesman said a "precision air strike" had hit a militant's vehicle.

The target was a senior member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who regularly co-ordinated and conducted attacks with Taliban insurgents, the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said.

"Intelligence tracked the insurgents travelling in a sedan on a series of remote roads in Rostaq district. After careful planning to ensure no civilians were present, coalition aircraft conducted a precision air strike on one sedan and later followed with direct fire from an aerial platform.

Read more: Afghan election campaign workers 'killed in air strike'

The German central bank has called on the country's president to dismiss one of its board members over comments he made about immigration and Jews.

The call came after the board met for a second day to discuss the issue.

Earlier, President Christian Wulff said he was concerned Germany's image could be damaged by Thilo Sarrazin's remarks.

Mr Sarrazin has criticised German Muslims, suggested the existence of a Jewish gene, and warned of ethnic Germans being outnumbered by migrants.

The call for his dismissal was an unprecedented move by the Bundesbank - a proudly independent institution - and was taken under unprecedented pressure, says the BBC's European affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu in Berlin.

In his book, Germany Abolishes Itself, Mr Sarrazin states Muslim immigrants refuse to integrate.

Read more: German bank calls for controversial member to be fired

Apple has launched a social network as part of the latest version of its iTunes software.

Ping, as it is known, allows users to build networks of friends and professional musicians, in a similar way to services such as Twitter.

The service also builds playlists based on what friends are listening to.

Analysts said it represents a challenge to existing music-based social networks such as MySpace.

"It's a social network all about music," said Mr Jobs, launching the application at an event in San Francisco.

"We think this will be really popular very fast because 160 million people can switch it on today," he said.

The service will be accessible through iTunes 10 software on Macs and PCs as well as through the iTunes application on iPhones and the iPod Touch.

Network killer?

Read more: Apple launches social network for music called Ping

Ferrari has decided to recall all of the 458 Italia cars it made this year, following reports of a number of the luxury cars catching fire.

Ferrari said its engineers had flown around the world to investigate five reports of "thermal incidents".

As a result, it will be asking the owners of more than 1,200 of the supercars to bring them in for modification work.

The 458 Italia typically costs about £170,000 ($260,000).

Read more: Ferrari recalls Italia cars after reports of fires