Getting over budget deficit with "sex"

Challenged with a 100 million euro ($133 million) deficit, one western German city has introduced a day tax on prostitutes to help whittle down its budget gap.

The new "pleasure tax" requires prostitutes in Dortmund to purchase a 6 euro "day ticket" for each day they work, or face a potential fine. The city estimates that the new tax will add some 750,000 euros to its coffers each year.

"Dortmund has financial problems like many cities in Germany," city spokesman Michael Meinders told Reuters. "We considered several sex taxes but this was the most practical proposal."

The new tax went into effect in August but the day tickets have not been available until this week.

An alternative proposal was to charge a 1 or 2 euro fee to anyone entering Dortmund's red-light district, but this idea got little political support, Meinders said.

Such taxes are not unusual in Germany where prostitution is legal and sex workers must pay tax on their income. Cologne introduced a 150 euro "pleasure tax" on sex workers in 2004 and later added a 6 euro day tax option for part-time prostitutes.

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Assange for Nobel?

Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder.

In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate".

"Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him," the source from inside president Dmitry Medvedev's office told Russian news agencies. Speaking in Brussels, where Medvedev was attending a Russia-EU summit yesterday , the source went on: "Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate."

Russia's reflexively suspicious leadership appears to have come round to WikiLeaks, having decided that the ongoing torrent of disclosures are ultimately far more damaging and disastrous to America's long-term geopolitical interests than they are to Russia's.

The Kremlin's initial reaction to stories dubbing Russia a corrupt "mafia state" and kleptocracy was, predictably, negative. Last week Medvedev's spokesman dubbed the revelations "not worthy of comment" while Putin raged that a US diplomatic cable comparing him to Batman and Medvedev to Robin was "arrogant" and "unethical". State TV ignored the claims.

Subsequent disclosures, however, that Nato had secretly prepared a plan in case Russia invaded its Baltic neighbours have left the Kremlin smarting. Today Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Nato had to explain why it privately considered Russia an enemy while publicly describing it warmly as a "strategic partner" and ally.

Nato should make clear its position on WikiLeaks cables published by the Guardian alleging that the alliance had devised plans to defend Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia against Russia, Lavrov said.

"With one hand, Nato seeks agreement with us on joint partnership, and with the other, it makes a decision that it needs to defend. So when is Nato more sincere?" Lavrov asked today. "We have asked these questions and are expecting answers to them. We think we are entitled to that."

Lavrov said his attitude towards the leaked US state department cables was "philosophical". "It is interesting to read, including what ambassadors write to provide a stream of information to their capitals," he admitted.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's hardline ultra-nationalist ambassador to Nato, also today voiced his support for the embattled Assange. He tweeted that Assange's arrest and incarceration on Monday at the City of Westminster magistrates' court demonstrated that there was "no media freedom" in the west. Assange's "fate" amounted to "political persecution" and a lack of human rights, the ambassador said.

In London, meanwhile, Russia's chargé d'affaires and acting ambassador in the UK, Alexander Sternik, said relations with Britain had improved since the coalition came to power. He complained, however, about the hostile reaction in the British media after Fifa's executive committee voted that Russia – and not England – should host the 2018 World Cup.

In a briefing to journalists this morning, Sternik said: "While the English bid was technically a strong one, the Russian bid was in line with the well-known Fifa philosophy of opening new frontiers for world football. The vote result was therefore quite logical, and while the disappointment of many in England is understandable, the media outrage was a step too far. It's not cricket, as the English say."

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Sampras sans trophies?

During his legendary tennis career, Pete Sampras earned dozens of trophies, medals and plaques for his on-court achievements and acquired the treasure trove of memorabilia you'd expect from one of the most famous athletes in America.

Most of it is now gone, stolen from a storage unit in which Sampras had been keeping the objects. The 14-time Grand Slam champion told Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times that he discovered the theft three weeks ago.

The 14 Grand Slam trophies Sampras won  are safe, with the exception of the award from the 1994 Australian Open. The other 13 are at his home or in Portland's NikeTown. Everything else, though -- the 64 trophies from non-majors, rewards from his two Davis Cup wins, an Olympic ring, his six year-end trophies for finishing No. 1 -- was stolen.

Sampras said he doesn't know whether the memorabilia was targeted or whether the thieves wanted to take his furniture (also stored in the units) and ended up with a lot more.

The married father of two had the memorabilia at the storage facility in West Los Angeles because his family has moved homes so many times in the past few years. He tells Dwyre that it never occurred to him that his items might not be safe.

Other items stolen included magazine covers, newspaper clippings and autographs from famous admirers like Eddie Vedder, Elton John and Carlos Santana.

Sampras didn't seem to be as disappointed in the loss of the trophies, but rather in the history lesson they could provide for his two sons, who are ages 5 and 8. He told The Times:

"I'm not one to gloat about trophies, or show them off. I've never been like that. I just want them for my kids to see. They didn't see me play, but I'd like them to see these things. [...]

"For me to have it for my kids is priceless. I just hope it hasn't already been destroyed. That's why I wanted to get the word out now. I know this is a longshot, but I'd regret it if I didn't at least try. Maybe somebody knows something.

"That's all I can hope for."

Just like stealing a Van Gogh, there can't be too much of a legitimate market for stolen tennis trophies. What do the robbers plan to do with this stuff? I'm pretty sure somebody will get suspicious if the 1996 winner's trophy from Kitzbühel, engraved with the name Pete Sampras, pops up on eBay.

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Age no bar…

The very oldest men are still interested in sex but illness and a lack of opportunity may be holding them back, Australian researchers reported.

The "male" hormone testosterone was clearly linked with how often a man over 75 had sex, and doctors need to do more studies to see if hormone replacement therapy might benefit older men, the researchers said.

Zoe Hyde of the University of Western Australia and colleagues surveyed more than 2,700 men aged 75 to 95 for their study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

They asked a range of questions about health, relationships and sexual activity.

"The older men were, the less likely they were to be sexually active, but sex remained at least somewhat important to one fifth of men aged 90 to 95 years, refuting the stereotype of the asexual older person," they wrote in their report.

"Of those who were sexually active, more than 40 percent were dissatisfied with the frequency of sexual activity, preferring sex more frequently."

More than 30 percent of the men reported some sort of sexual activity in the past year, but more than 48 percent said sex was important, suggesting many of the men wanted to have sex but could not.

Age was a factor but so were testosterone levels, the lack of an interested partner, and various diseases from diabetes to prostate cancer.

More than 40 percent of the men who had not had sex recently said they were not interested.

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Puppy love?

An Australian man who married his 5-year-old Labrador in a city park said his relationship with the canine is "pure love" and "not sexual."

Joseph Guiso of Toowoomba wed Honey the Labrador in a ceremony Monday while surrounded by 30 close friends and family in Laurel Bank Park, The (Toowoomba) Chronicle reported.

"You're my best friend and you make every part of my day better," Guiso said in his vows.

"It's not sexual," he said after the ceremony. "It's just pure love."

Guiso described himself as a "religious guy" who could not handle the guilt of living with his love out of wedlock.

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Kiss n bite?

Police in Wisconsin said they arrested a woman who bit her 79-year-old husband's tongue off during a kiss.

Investigators said the Sheboygan man called 911 at about 11 p.m. Monday and an ambulance and police were dispatched to the home when operators had difficulty understanding the man, the Sheboygan (Wis.) Press reported Tuesday.

Officers said they arrived to find the man and his wife, 57, singing Christmas carols outside of their home. Sgt. Doug Teunissen said the man revealed half of his tongue had been bitten off by his wife while they were kissing inside shortly earlier.

The man was initially taken to the Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center and later transferred to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa.

The man requested his wife not be arrested, but she was taken into custody on suspicion of mayhem-domestic violence.

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Da Vinci Code!

A coded manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered in a public library in the French city of Nantes.

The document was found after a journalist came across a reference to it in a Leonardo biography, the library said.

It was among 5,000 manuscripts donated by wealthy collector Pierre-Antoine Labouchere in 1872 and then forgotten.

The text is written from right to left in Leonardo's trademark mirror-writing and has yet to be deciphered.

"He was most probably writing in 15th-century Italian, and possibly in other languages," the head of the Nantes library, Agnes Marcetteau said.

The fragment of paper with brown scrawls is the second rare item uncovered in the Labouchere collection, after a score by composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was found among the documents in 2008.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the most important artists and scientists of the Renaissance.

His masterpieces include the Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre museum in Paris. He also designed the prototype for a flying machine with a rotating wing similar to today's helicopters.

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