Nine-month-old Milagros Cerron is carried by a doctor at the hospital in Lima, on February 1, 2005. The Peruvian baby dubbed the ‘Little Mermaid’ because she was born with a rare condition in which her legs are fused, will have surgery this month to try to separate them, doctors said. (Pilar Olivares/Reuters)

[Quote:]

A U.S. university in Wisconsin has blocked an attempt by Republican students to raise money for a group called “Adopt a Sniper” that raises money for U.S. sharp-shooters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The students were selling bracelets bearing the motto “1 Shot 1 Kill No Remorse I Decide.”

“Clearly the rhetoric of that organization raised some questions and we had some strong objections as a Jesuit university,” Marquette University school spokeswoman Brigid O’Brien said on Thursday.

Models present outfits from the fall-winter 05/06 collection by Swarovski during the Pasarela Gaudi fashion show in Barcelona, Spain February 3, 2005. The Pasarela Gaudi shows run until February 4. REUTERS/Albert Gea

wait a sec… that’s their fall/winter collection? I must live in the wrong country…

[Quote:]

A senior U.S. Marine Corps general who said it was “fun to shoot some people” should have chosen his words more carefully but will not be disciplined, military officials said on Thursday.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and is slated to be portrayed by star actor Harrison Ford in an upcoming Hollywood movie, made the comments at a conference on Tuesday in San Diego, California.

President Bush carries an unidentified child after speaking at North Dakota State University Bison Sports Arena Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005 in Fargo, North Dakota. Bush is on a five-state tour to sell the American public the agenda he laid out before Congress in his State of the Union address. Bush focused on his proposal to change the Social Security system, which he says is heading for bankruptcy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

(I wonder if his parents read the Bible)

[Quote:]

A celebrated Berlin prostitute has said that German job centre advisers shouldn’t shy away from offering jobs in the sex industry to the long-term unemployed.

Molly Luft, who sold her famous Berlin brothel two months ago and now runs a bar in the city’s lively Kreuzberg district, on Monday said the sex industry was always looking for new recruits.

“Why shouldn’t they send the unemployed to work in the sex industry? Before it was a grey zone, but now employees are insured and receive benefits,” Luft told Reuters. “People would no longer be unemployed and could earn themselves a living.”

Most business sectors in Germany are shedding workers, and unemployment is expected to exceed five million, nearly 11 percent of the workforce, in January for the first time since reunification in 1990.

German sex workers have been on a par with any other employee since the government legalised prostitution in 2001. They are entitled to social security benefits and pay taxes.

Registered brothel keepers also believe they have a right to seek new staff through job centres and have been scouring job seekers’ databases for suitable matches.

“I was always looking for workers over 30 years in the trade. People aren’t willing to work very much but they expect to earn a lot of money,” Luft said.

A spokesman for the Federal Labour Office said that if job seekers said they were prepared to work as, for example, dancers in strip bars, advisers could put them in touch with any suitable employers, but vacancies would not be displayed in job centres.

He also stressed job centres would not look for prostitutes on behalf of brothels, nor offer sex industry jobs to people who hadn’t specifically mentioned it as an area of interest.