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A profession O and CONgre$$ won't be messing with 'pay' rates anytime soon?

BERLIN — Part of Berlin's red-light scene is going green. One bordello, hoping to stave off falling demand in the economic crisis, has begun offering discounts to customers who pedal bicycles to the door. "It's very difficult to find parking around here, and this option is better for our environment," said Thomas Goetz, who owns the brothel Maison d'Envie, or House of Desire. Local residents in Prenzlauer Berg - a part of former East Berlin now home to scores of trendy boutiques, restaurants and clubs - had staunchly supported the Green party in recent elections and have welcomed the bordello's...

Group once linked to Barack Obama taped giving advice to 'brothel owners'By Toby Harnden in Washington Published: 9:19PM BST 13 Sep 2009 Acorn employees were taped giving advice on tax avoidance and employment of 13-year-old illegal immigrants to Right-wing activists posing as brothel owners. "It is clear that Acorn's affiliation with the 2010 census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 census efforts," said Robert Groves, the census director. Acorn - the Association of Community Organisations for Reform...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- A New Zealand taekwondo athlete has opened a brothel to help fund his bid to compete at the 2012 London Olympics, local media reported Sunday. Logan Campbell, 23, told the Sunday Star-Times newspaper he hoped his Auckland "gentleman's club," which provided escort services, would help him raise about $200,000 toward his London Games campaign. Campbell, who finished in the top 16 in the featherweight division at last year's Beijing Olympics, said he spent around $90,000 competing in international events leading up to the games.

Video report. Don't worry - the video has no porn. ;) Personally, I wouldn't spend 5 cents for Air Force Amy.

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees.

"Chicken Ranch transfer blocked By MARK WAITE PVT The Chicken Ranch brothel will remain under its present ownership for the time being, after the Nye County Licensing and Liquor Board unanimously rejected a request for a brothel license by Bruce Kahn Tuesday. The vote came after a recommendation by Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo. "It's a long standing position that a brothel license is the most privileged license in the state of Nevada, if not the United States of America," DeMeo said. A documentary film crew from Los Angeles was taping the discussion. The sheriff said Lt. Jack Grimauld spent...

A woman who had just scored a precious high-paying job in the midst of a disastrous economy was willing to fly in from out of town to take it.Her new boss, Susan Austin, had spared no expense and the woman was quickly whisked into a waiting limo at the Reno, Nev., airport. For the sake of privacy, we're calling the woman "Kimberly," and the coveted job she got was as a prostitute at one of the few places in America where it's legal -- the self-proclaimed "world famous" Mustang Ranch. "I'm nervous, you know," said Kimberly, who would be working...

An Iranian police chief in charge of fighting vice in Tehran was jailed today for reportedly consorting in an underground brothel. Local media reported that General Reza Zarei was jailed after being caught with six naked women at a prostitution den in the Iranian capital. Ali Reza Jamshidi, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, confirmed today that Mr Zarei had been taken to jail. He refused to elaborate further about the case, however, saying it was now “in the legal stage.”

Tehran, 10 March (AKI) - Tehran's police chief, Reza Zarei, has been arrested after he was found nude in a local brothel with six naked prostitutes, according to report on the Iranian Farda News. Farda News is a website said to be close to the mayor of Tehran and former chief of the police forces, Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf. Following the raid, Zarei stepped down from his post as police chief. The news of his arrest however was not reported by any official Iranian news agency. According to a popular Iranian website Gooya, the order to raid the brothel was given...

Ferdinand Piëch, the former head of Volkswagen who is known as the patriarch of the German motor industry, denied knowledge yesterday of a company slush fund to pay for prostitutes and mistresses of company workers, in a trial that has called into question the national system of labour relations. Mr Piëch, who is at the heart of Porsche’s current takeover of Volkswagen, said that no one had reported to him the tales of sex and sleaze haunting Europe’s largest car manufacturer. The 70-year-old entrepreneur was testifying at the trial of two senior employees accused of defrauding the German company. The...

WARSAW — A Polish man visiting a brothel was surprised to find his wife working there, Reuters reported. Click here to read the full story. The woman, who had told her husband she had been working at a store in town to make extra money, Reuters reported.

RENO, Nev. (AP) - It's not exactly your average Republican fundraiser. A Nevada brothel owner is giving Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul his stamp of approval and plans to start raising money for the Texas congressman. Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, says he'll leave collection boxes outside the door so people can drop in their political contributions. A spokesman for Paul says the politician with a libertarian streak doesn't condone prostitution on a personal level. But, he says, "it's not the role of federal government and it's not in the constitution for federal government to...

RENO, Nev. — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, an underdog Texas congressman with a libertarian streak, has picked up an endorsement from a Nevada brothel owner. Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, said he was so impressed after hearing Paul at a campaign stop in Reno last week that he decided to raise money for him.

LONDON (Reuters) - A Roman Catholic bishop in the city of Portsmouth is backing a campaign to legalise brothels without in any way condoning them. The Right Reverend Crispian Hollis supported the local branch of the Women's Institute which wants to licence brothels. "If you are going to take a pragmatic view and say prostitution happens, I think there is a need to make sure it's as well regulated as possible for the health of people involved and for the safety of the ladies themselves," Hollis said. "That's not to say I approve of prostitution in any way. I would...

Say you write for or edit the metro section of a major metropolitan newspaper and you have a juicy story of a local ex-mayor who was arrested for running a brothel. It's right on the heels of the Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) prostitution scandal and the politician in the local story in question was once a sheriff's deputy, clearly no stranger to anti-prostitution laws. Party affiliation is just one more tidbit of information that couldn't hurt your readers, right? Not for the Washington Post. Seventy-two year old former Dumfries Mayor Melvin Bray was "charged with running a brothel out of...

NEW ORLEANS — Sen. David Vitter, who publicly apologized after being linked to an alleged prostitution ring in Washington, D.C., was once a client of a high-priced New Orleans brothel, a former madam said Tuesday. Saying he was a "decent man" who appeared to be in need of company when he visited the brothel, Jeanette Maier added unexpected details to a scandal enveloping the first-term Republican... ...Maier pleaded guilty to running the Canal Street brothel in 2002. Vitter won his seat in the U.S Senate in 2004.

The sentencing today of an illegal immigrant caught up in an Eastern Shore prostitution ring turned into a debate on immigration policy.Javier Merino-Torres of Mexico was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison despite a plea for leniency from his attorney, who cited the employment and social needs fulfilled by his client and others like him.“He works here because there is no work at home,” the attorney, David Bouchard of Chesapeake, told the judge.“What I’m suggesting is that we have created a monster because our economy depends on these people,” Bouchard said.He suggested that the judge deviate from sentencing guidelines...

May 10, 2007 Tax inspectors seek slice of prostitutes’ earnings by Roger Boyes Berlin’s brothels are accustomed to all sorts of nocturnal visitors, but not, on the whole, to tax inspectors with clip-boards and stopwatches studying financial turnover. The cash-strapped German capital this week dispatched inspectors into establishments such as Lust Land to drum up revenue from the city’s 7,000 sex workers. “Prostitution is a strong economic sector in the capital,” says Gerry Woop, spokesman for Berlin’s economic administration. According to the German Institute for Economic Research, prostitution in Berlin has an annual turnover of €300 million (£203 million), making...

It was the jewel of Pompeii's libertines: a brothel decorated with frescoes of erotic figures believed to be the most popular in the ancient Roman city. The Lupanare — which derives its name from the Latin word "lupa," or "prostitute" — was presented to the public again Thursday following a yearlong, $253,000 restoration to clean up its frescoes and fix the structure.

A SYDNEY brothel owner has resorted to offering petrol discounts to clients in a bid to boost business. Madam Kerry's brothel in western Sydney offers clients a discount of 20c a litre if they use one of its "service providers". Kerry said high petrol prices were hurting the sex service market as much as any other industry. "We wanted to think outside the box, we have gone quieter with the high petrol prices and we wanted to find a way to give something back to our clients," Kerry told AAP. And on top of the money back from the brothel,...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A centuries-old brothel teetering on the verge of collapse has red-faced Chinese officials pondering heritage versus morality behind closed doors, state media reported Thursday. A local government in Jinggang, a town in central Hunan province, must decide whether to restore crumbling Hongtaifang, a brothel established in 1733, and face the ire of residents who see it as debauched, Xinhua news agency said. "The brothel was a place where women were humiliated in the old society," Xinhua quoted Xiao Yisheng, a retired university professor, as saying. "Its restoration could be seen as promoting prostitution." Tan Feng, a student...

AUSTIN (AP) - Brothels in the Austin area and Oklahoma City that used immigrant women and catered mostly to undocumented workers were part of a multistate prostitution ring federal agents have partially broken up, court documents say. Women from Mexico and Central and South American countries worked in the prostitution houses and in some cases reported being held against their will, documents show. The brothel near Austin was the second in that area run by the same man, officials allege. Juan Balderas-Orosco, 34, escaped capture when authorities raided the first one four years ago, but he was arrested June 29...

The two-year criminal investigation of a Srinagar brothel – allegedly protected and patronized by top Indian and state officials – could do more than titillate; it could undermine what faith many Kashmiris have left in the Indian government. "This discredits the state more and more. Whatever credibility was left ... it is now gone," says Sheikh Showkat Hussein, a law professor at the University of Kashmir. "When the deputy inspector general of [Border Security Forces], K.S. Padhi, was arrested, he said, 'This was part of our counterinsurgency operation. We were doing our job. We used to enlist girls for spying...

<p>BRAZEN BRAZILIAN: South American stunner Andrea Schwartz not only ran the biz but sold her own knockout body, too, the DA says.</p> <p>Rivals of Brazilian bombshell Andrea Schwartz - who cops said also sold her own services to appreciative customers - shed no tears as she was indicted yesterday on money-laundering, prostitution and drug-sale charges.</p>

A Cologne brothel touting for clients with a World Cup-themed banner has blacked out the flags of Iran and Saudi Arabia after threats from Muslims. The giant banner on a high-rise building shows a semi-naked woman and the flags of the 32 countries in the World Cup, which kicks off in June. The Pascha brothel's owner, Armin Lobscheid, said a group of Muslims had threatened violence over the advert. He said they had accused the brothel of insulting Islam by using the flags. First there were telephone threats of violence, then about 30 hooded protesters armed with knives and sticks...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Four Chinese citizens pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges related to running an underground network that sold Asian women for sex out of Bay Area brothels. The four entered their pleas in U.S. District Court to charges including conspiracy to harbor aliens, money laundering and tax evasion. Prosecutors said they led a $700,000 enterprise that transported Taiwanese, mainland Chinese and Korean women to the United States to sell them for sex in 10 residential brothels in San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and San Mateo. Xiao Feng Shen, 35; Jia Jing Chu, 34; Yan Song, 42; and...

Police contend that a husband and wife who ran a prostitution ring from their home in a prosperous suburban Boca Raton neighborhood kept a list of bad customers, and attracted a clientele from North Miami Beach to Palm Beach Gardens. The trade was so vast for David Bachmann, 41, and his estranged wife, Michelle Harris Bachmann, 42, that David Bachman kept a list of more than 1,600 bad customers, police contend in court documents. Police say David Bachmann kept a computer file that included men who threatened violence and who might be police officers. His notations also suggest his operation...

Mini-brothels get go-ahead to operate on your doorstep By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor(Filed: 18/01/2006) Your view: time for change?Prostitutes will be allowed to work together in mini-brothels under plans published by the Government yesterday.   New laws will see prostitutes getting help for drug and alcohol problems rather than being fined At present, only a single prostitute working from home or a room escapes prosecution provided she does not solicit for business. Premises with two or more women offering sex are defined as brothels and are unlawful.The Government aims to change the legal definition to allow three individuals,...

PAHRUMP -- She has yet to apply for a brothel license, but former "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss has moved to Nye County and revealed the identity of the first man picked to work at her Stud Farm for women in nearby Crystal.

Some prostitutes are failing to take advantage of new rights German prostitutes are campaigning to ensure any future government does not withdraw their workers' rights, as some MPs have proposed, the BBC's Ray Furlong in Berlin reports.It was an unconventional rendition of the German national anthem, going intermittently out of tune as the singers' voices didn't quite make the high notes. But this was no ordinary choir or concert. A group of about a dozen women had gathered in front of the Reichstag to deliver a lyrical warning against repealing the prostitution law which Germany approved in 2002. The...

Germans on the dole are being offered a 20 per cent discount at brothels. Germans on the dole are being offered a 20 per cent discount at brothels. People looking for the discount sex just need to show their unemployment benefit card to qualify for the reductions. Brothel manager Silvia Rau who runs the Villa Bijou bar in Dresden said that the previous average number of 150 guests per week has sunk to 80 in recent months. She hopes that the new policy will bring back the customers and also provide them with some comfort in "difficult times". According to...

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year. Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers. The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe. She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested...

Do as the French DoAnd in other low-minded news involving French-speaking international diplomacy: France's daily Le Parisien revealed on December 20 that one of that country's best-known public magistrates, Pierre Hontang of Bayonne, is now under intensive Justice Ministry scrutiny for his alleged behavior at the Fifth Conference of European General Prosecutors in Germany this past May. Hontang attended the gathering as keynote speaker for a session on "fundamental principles of ethics for prosecutors." According to a preliminary report by a joint task force of French and German police investigators, however, Hontang also slipped away from the conference at least...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- City officials on Friday shut down a two-family home they said was doubling as a brothel and makeshift market for produce and pornography. When police arrived Friday, they found shelves packed with shriveled onions, garlic gloves, rotting mangoes and bananas. A scale hung over an empty cash register. Movies and Latin CDs lined the walls and pornographic videos were tucked behind a curtain. Inside three small bedrooms, tables were topped with sexual paraphernalia. "We're trying to figure out what part everybody played. I've never seen anything like this," Police Lt. J. D. Smith told the New...

Marlene Baldwin knows business. She learned from the best business minds in the country. Chief executive officers. Business owners. The rich and famous. And not at any snobby East Coast business school. We're talking up close and personal. Whispered in the ear, in some cases. So it comes as no surprise that Baldwin has been named California Businessman of the Year by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Posted on Wed, Jan. 28, 2004 RUNNEMEDE - Borough officials suspended Police Chief James Martin Leason without pay yesterday, a day after he was arrested outside an alleged brothel and charged with promoting prostitution. In a news release, Runnemede officials said Leason was off-duty when he was arrested Monday afternoon in Maple Shade. "The mayor and council are shocked and disappointed by Chief Leason's arrest," the statement said. "However, the safety of the residents will not be affected by this incident." Lt. Mark Diano, a 28-year veteran, will take the reins as interim chief. Mayor Frank Hartman was not available...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Nevada Brothel Association shows willingness to accept share of taxes CARSON CITY -- It comes as a surprise to some lawmakers that most brothels are exempted from paying a new tax on live entertainment approved last month as part of a record tax increase. "I thought we included brothels," said Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas. "It was one of the unintended consequences when we changed the bill. Brothels weren't part of the discussion." Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, also thought brothels were included. "We may have unintentionally left them...

US complains about brothel called The White House Date: July 7 2003 The US Embassy in New Zealand had lodged a complaint with a brothel that calls itself The White House. After brothels were legalised in New Zealand this month, The White House in Auckland, which previously described itself as a massage parlour, advertised for prostitutes in a newspaper advertisement last week. The ad, which said the brothel was "looking for more ladies to join the day and night shifts", appeared with a logo almost identical to the US presidential seal, showing an American bald eagle with a ribbon in...

THE US Embassy in New Zealand has lodged a complaint with a brothel that calls itself The White House, a newspaper reported yesterday. After brothels were legalised in New Zealand this month, The White House in Auckland, which previously described itself as a massage parlour, advertised for prostitutes in a newspaper advertisement last week. The ad, which said the brothel was "looking for more ladies to join the day and night shifts", appeared with a logo almost identical to the US presidential seal, showing an American bald eagle with a ribbon in its mouth, holding the arrows of war and...

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Having sex in Chile can take you to new heights. At least that's the claim of local brothel Fiorella, which offers clients a flight over the capital, Santiago, accompanied by two ravishing women. For $500 a client is entitled to an hour-and-a-half session in a small but lavishly decorated aircraft complete with a cooler for fruit and champagne. "We've been offering this service for around a month-and-a-half now. The standard service is for a gentleman accompanied by two of our girls, but we can also accommodate a group session," a woman answering the business' phone line,...

AUSTRALIAN investors enthusiastically backed the world’s oldest profession yesterday after a Melbourne company’s brothel became the first on the globe to have a marking listing. Shares of the bordello enterprise doubled on the first day of trading after it hired the Hollywood madam, Heidi Fleiss, to spice up the stock listing for its "recession-proof" business. About 1.4 million shares of the company, the Daily Planet, changed hands. "Obviously the price is going to go up. It’s sex ... and everyone knows sex is a smart investment," Fleiss said. The Daily Planet’s brothel, in a Melbourne suburb, has a bar lounge...

Here in Camberwell, we like to think of our town as New England's most progressive community. In other parts of America, people who practice the oldest profession don't have the same rights as other workers. But in Camberwell, if they're denied their rights, they'll go to court. Aurora Van Brook heard the doorbell ring, and checked out the man at the entrance of the Exotique Massage Studio. He looked okay, so she buzzed him in. From the back, the three associates who weren't occupied came to reception to line up. Aurora had worked the streets of lower Manhattan in her...

AFP ANKARA, March 15 Enlarge As Turkey considers whether to allow the United States to use its territory for a possible war against Iraq, a brothel owner has hatched plans to offer US soldiers a pleasurable welcome, the Anatolia news agency reported Friday. Ali Rumuz, who already runs a brothel in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, has applied to authorities to open a second establishment in the neighbouring city of Mardin to serve US soldiers, the agency said. According to press reports, US forces are planning to set up logistical support bases in Mardin if Turkey allows them to deploy...

MUSTANG, Nev. (AP) - The federal government announced plans Monday to demolish the Mustang Ranch, Nevada's first legal brothel and its best known. The ranch's pink stucco main building and a smaller unit will be destroyed rather than renovated, said Mark Struble, spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management. "The buildings were built for a specific purpose in mind and they realistically can't be used for anything else," Struble told The Associated Press. The structures along the Truckee River violate building safety codes. "They certainly didn't pump their profits back into the buildings," Struble said. "It would take too much...

Mayor Safe After Brothel Drinking Spree BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil (Reuters) - A mayor from Brazil's ruling Workers' Party, whose disappearance had alarmed the government, was found in a hotel after a three-day drinking binge which started at a brothel. Fearing Mayor Chico Ferramenta could be the latest victim of a series of attacks on local Workers' Party officials, senior party officials had asked local police in the state of Minas Gerais to launch a thorough search. As it turned out, Ferramenta -- mayor of a town called Ipatinga -- had left home on Monday morning with $500 in his pocket...

Four charged with trafficking of girls 05/30/2002 By TODD BENSMAN / The Dallas Morning News Federal authorities in Dallas are holding four Hondurans on charges related to a human-trafficking ring run out of a Fort Worth brothel, according to court records released Wednesday. Charged in a federal criminal complaint with conspiracy to harbor aliens are Dino Antonio Molina, 32; Dilicia Suyapa Molina, 27; Roger Galindo-Sepeda, 28; and Maria Isabel Cruz, 34. The two men and two women were among up to 90 people, rounded up in FBI raids May 16, who were part of an international inquiry into allegations...