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ROME (Reuters Life!) –
Rome's largest taxi cooperative is trying to improve the bad name of the city's cabbies, notorious among tourists to one of the world's best loved cities.

A ride from either of Rome's airports to the center of the Italian capital can cost twice what it should, with drivers often squabbling over the right to carry apparently inexperienced visitors and inventing excuses not to pick up locals.

That is set to end, according to Radiotaxi 3570, which has launched a system for tourists to pay on line before they leave home.

"We want to change the public's perceptions about Rome taxi drivers," said 3570's Chairman Loreno Bittarelli at a press presentation, adding that the same services would soon be available in other large Italian cities.

The on-line booking system will also allow tourists to order a cabbie who speaks English, French, Spanish or German. Another scheme will let customers order and pay via telephone text message.

Improving the image of taxi drivers is part of a broader attempt to spruce up services for visitors and end scams.

A colorful billboard campaign recently launched by the town council announces: "Rome loves tourists."

Under the slogan: "Be smart, don't try to be clever," the posters tell taxi drivers, hoteliers and shopkeepers that "more honesty and transparency help you and your city."

(Reporting by Gavin Jones; editing by Robin Pomeroy)

LONDON (Reuters) –
Jonathan Littell, who won France's prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2006 for "The Kindly Ones," has picked up another prize for the same work — the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

The annual prize was contested this year by literary heavyweights Philip Roth for "The Humbling," John Banville for "The Infinites" and Paul Theroux for "A Dead Hand."

The judges praised what they called Littell's "ambitious and impressive" novel, which was originally published in French.

"It is in part a work of genius," they said.

"However, a mythologically inspired passage and lines such as 'I came suddenly, a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg' clinched the award for The Kindly Ones.

"We hope he takes it in good humor."

Littell was not expected to attend the prize ceremony in London.

The award was established by Auberon Waugh in 1993. It is designed to draw attention to the "crude, tasteless, and often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in contemporary novels, and to discourage it."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; editing by Patricia Reaney)

SOFIA (Reuters) –
Bulgarian villagers have named their home-made rakia brandy "Borisovka," playing on the name of Prime Minister Boiko Borisov to thank him for stopping parliament from raising taxes on alcohol.

Last month, the Balkan country's new center-right government abandoned plans to raise alcohol taxes after public anger that this would threaten a centuries-old tradition of making wine and rakia at home.

But the parliament's budget commission later proposed a hike from 2010 and parliament was due to approve the increase on Wednesday when Borisov, a firefighter by training with a black belt in karate, stepped in and asked deputies to scrap the plan.

To express their gratitude, the villagers of Kapatovo, 170 km (100 miles) south of Sofia, decided to call their 2009 rakia "Borisovka," emulating Russian vodka brand "Putinka" that plays on the name of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

"The people of my village and other villages are jubilant. But not because we are drunkards, this must be clear. We simply want to preserve this tradition of making rakia at home," Standart daily quoted Kapatovo's mayor Ognyan Kukov as saying.

Bulgarian families are allowed to produce 30 liters a year of rakia, a traditional grape brandy, without paying tax.

"We must protect the ordinary people who spend their time hoeing the vineyards," Borisov has said.

Kukov will send several bottles to Borisov, Standart said.

To try to secure revenue during the recession, parliament instead raised the tax on gambling by 5 percentage points to 15 percent.

"Better slightly tipsy than robbed," media quoted parliamentarian Krasimir Velchev, from Borisov's GERB party, as saying.

(Reporting by Anna Mudeva)

GUARAJUBA, Brazil (Reuters) –
Brazil's coffee industry is engaged in a tireless battle against rogue roasters who cut corners and costs by bulking up their products with corn, soy or even wood, the ABIC industry association says.

The tainted products have not been known to cause health problems in the consumers who drink them, usually unknowingly, but the industry takes a hard line against the fraudulent practice to protect the beverage's image.

The joint initiative known as the Seal of Purity is run by the Brazilian Coffee Industry Association (ABIC) and involves laboratory testing of coffee picked at random from supermarket shelves. The seal was launched 20 years ago.

"The most common thing is to find wood from the (coffee) tree and shells from the beans but you can also find corn or caramel, which is much cheaper than coffee," said Almir Jose da Silva, ABIC's chairman.

Most of Brazil's exported coffee is shipped as raw beans, confining this problem to products sold at home. Silva said the problem was still small given the huge amount of coffee sold in Brazil, the world's No. 1 coffee grower and No. 2 consumer.

Brazilian law prohibits the sale of coffee with more than 1 percent impurities, and ABIC has taken upon itself to weed out producers who flout the rules. It reports sub-standard products to the public prosecutor and health authorities.

"Our forecast for 2010 is to carry out more than 3,000 collections" to test, Silva said. ABIC members whose coffee is consistently free of impurities are allowed to use the Seal of Purity label on their packaging.

THREE STRIKES

Roasters falling short of the law on the other hand, are given the opportunity by judicial authorities to fix the problems within a set time and their contaminated batches are withdrawn from sale.

The fine is doubled if more impure coffees are discovered at a later date and then companies can eventually be shut down by the government authorities if the practices continue.

This year, 10 firms were thrown out of ABIC and reported for deliberately bulking up their products. Some even go to the trouble of heating sugar to confection caramel to add, which unusually imparts a bitter rather than sweet taste.

Silva said the presence of contaminants was occasionally accidental, but rarely.

"Some don't take the necessary precautions but in the case of fraud using corn and sugar, this is done deliberately by the industry," Silva said, adding firms involved were immediately expelled from ABIC since their actions were intentional.

He said he knew of no cases of health problems due to such products but said impurities could cause discomfort.

"These coffees can make you feel unwell in the stomach or make you burp a lot," Silva said in an interview.

ABIC's efforts in hunting down fraudulent coffee producers are intended to avoid damage to coffee's image and also to help the industry continue to recruit new drinkers.

"Research shows that when coffee is good quality it develops the habit of consumption and when it is bad it can stop people drinking coffee. Quality is what develops consumption," Silva said.

(Editing by John Picinich)

DUBLIN (Reuters) –
Irish workers caused traffic jams on Tuesday as hundreds made use of a one-day public sector strike to do some Christmas shopping in the cheaper stores across the border in Northern Ireland.

Unions said more than 250,000 teachers, nurses and other public sector workers were taking part in the strike against government plans to cut their pay.

Managers of shopping centers on the UK side of the border said business was like at weekend or pre-Christmas peaks.

"(It) is a direct result of the day of (strike) action," said Peter Murray, manager of the Buttercrane shopping center in Newry, just north of the border on the main Dublin-Belfast road.

Many families traveled north because schools were closed for the day south of the border.

Shoppers from the Republic of Ireland have caused a mini-boom in places like Newry, cheaper due to the weakness of sterling against the euro, lower UK value-added-tax (VAT) and rents, while adding to the woes of the former "Celtic Tiger" economy.

"There are no strike specials," Murray added on Irish public radio RTE, which said there were 5-mile (8-km) queues into Newry.

The chairman of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions' public service committee, who warned a second round of strikes could take place on December 3, said he had not seen any evidence of public servants spending the day shopping.

"I have visited picket lines this morning and saw tens of thousands of public workers who were picketing. I have no evidence of public servants spending their day shopping," Peter McLoone told a news conference.

(Reporting by Andras Gergely and Padraic Halpin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

BERLIN (Reuters) –
A car expert says he has tracked down Hitler's favorite Mercedes to a garage near the town that helped the Austrian-born Fuehrer become a German citizen.

Classic cars specialist Michael Froehlich said he found the bullet-proof touring car after charting its postwar travels from Austria to Las Vegas and back to Munich, where Hitler burst onto the political scene with a failed putsch in 1923.

"It was the best car in the world at the time. Better than the Bugatti, Bentley, Rolls Royce or whatever," Froehlich told Reuters from his office in Duesseldorf. "It was his favorite car: the one he used most often, which he used for parades."

After being commissioned by a Cypriot buyer to find the vehicle, Froehlich discovered it had been bought by a farmer near Braunschweig, where in 1932 local Nazi officials got Hitler a civil servant's job so he could claim citizenship.

"I thought it was an interesting job, but on the other hand I wasn't too thrilled, because my parents and grandparents suffered greatly under his regime," Froehlich said of the commission.

The dark blue car, which Froehlich said had spent decades in the basement of the Imperial Palace Casino in Las Vegas, was recently sold by the heirs of a Munich brewing tycoon before he traced it "in under two months" to northern Germany.

Froehlich said reports the buyer was Russian were mistaken, and rejected the notion that past owners of the vehicle with the number plate "1A 148 461" were admirers of the dictator.

"They weren't Nazis from what I can see, I think it's something they saw as a business investment," he said. "I can well imagine that an old Hitler banger has a certain value."

Froehlich declined to name the car's price tag, or give details about the buyer, but said the 1935 edition custom-made vehicle could fetch "more than 10 million euros ($14.91 million)."

Though he had not yet had outside confirmation of the car's authenticity, the owner's paperwork left no doubt, he added.

"The Mercedes sales register shows this 770 K model was ordered for the Fuehrer and Chancellor of the Reich in 1935," he said.

Only 88 of the series were ever made and the Braunschweig car showed all the special modifications made for Hitler, who had to be driven because he had no "Fuehrerschein" — a German word made up from "driver" and "license" — Froehlich said.

"He was a Fuehrer without Fuehrerschein," he said.

CARACAS (Reuters) –
Unfazed by a recession and rampant inflation, image-conscious Venezuelans show no signs of cutting back on the facelifts, liposuction, and breast augmentation that have become de rigueur beauty treatments.

"There is never a question of not doing it, but of how you can do it. We all want to get everything done," said Helen Patino, a 37-year-old former model who had her first breast augmentation when she was 21 and her third about three months ago.

Venezuela's inflation is the highest in Latin America, up more than 20 percent in the first 10 months of this year and the South American nation is in recession after a five year boom.

Hard times may even encourage cosmetic procedures as people look for ways to lift their spirits, with many dipping into savings or taking on debt to get operations, surgeons say.

"The financial crisis has spurred people to spend more on themselves … to console themselves in this crisis. I have not seen demand diminishing," said Peter Romer, a plastic surgeon in Caracas.

For Iris Delgado, a 57-year-old dental technician, a lack of funds was not an obstacle to getting a recent eyelid tuck.

"With the economy, one has to make sacrifices, because you don't have the money. So, you get it from credit cards, from family and you pay for it," said Delgado, who borrowed 7,000 bolivares — about $3,250 — for the procedure, a move she saw as a hedge against inflation in plastic surgery prices.

Like Delgado, many go into debt to finance cosmetic surgery, according to those in the industry.

"It's an investment that people make and they look for money everywhere," said Romer, adding that one of his patients moved into a smaller apartment to get a makeover and another traded her car for a facelift.

Leoncio Barrios, a social psychologist at the Central University of Venezuela, said such stories are the exception. "The majority of middle and lower-income women do not have property to sell or the capacity to save," he said.

"What is clear is that in the subway you can see ads for clinics that offer credit for this type of surgery, and that women who work use their vacation bonuses and borrow from their work savings accounts," he added.

The industry will make sure that cosmetic work remains within reach to ensure a steady flow of income, Barrios said.

"NEED TO BE BEAUTIFUL"

Despite the hefty price tag, the choice to get cosmetic surgery is not considered a luxury for some Venezuelans.

"We need to be beautiful," said Patino.

Competition among women, by far the biggest consumers of plastic surgery in Venezuela, to look their best is fierce, and social pressure to get work done is high.

"Socially, there is a lot of demand, especially from men, to have a good body," said Prem Pratita, a 27-year-old who had a breast augmentation a few weeks ago.

In this image-conscious country, famous for beauty queens who win record numbers of international pageant titles, the idea of getting cosmetic surgery is instilled at a young age.

Patino recalls how, as a child, her mother and aunt dreamt of surgery to get rid of wrinkles. Now, with a child of her own, the subject is already on the table.

"I told my husband, 'Look honey, if she has your nose, she's going to get surgery,'" said Patino.

Some young women even describe moving up a few cup sizes as a rite of passage.

"It's a transformation from being a girl to being a woman," said Pratita, who said she was one of the last in her circle of friends to have the procedure.

"Everybody has a breast augmentation. Three or four of every seven women have one," said plastic surgeon Angel Pena, who likens his surgery to body decoration practiced for centuries.

"By nature, human beings have the desire to look better … this desire is timeless and it's a desire that doesn't depend on your economic situation … it's not that frivolous."

(Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Sandra Maler)

TAIPEI (Reuters) –
A man in Taiwan was robbed of more than $2 million in cash that he had just withdrawn from the bank, a police official said on Tuesday.

Three masked gunmen robbed the 50-year-old victim on Monday afternoon in the southern city of Tainan, logging the highest-value robbery in city history with a heist of T$77 million (2.39 million), said a police investigation official surnamed Chang.

The gunmen approached the victim, surnamed Tsai, as he drove from the bank to his watch shop nearby, Taiwan's Central News Agency said. One shot a shop employee in the foot during a scuffle to fight off the gunmen, the agency said.

Police are looking for the three men while advising people in the 769,000-population city to be more vigilant.

"We're putting out a notice on public safety, telling citizens that we're ready stand beside them for protection as they use the bank," Chang said.

(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) – A judge on Friday blocked a Tennessee law that allowed people to bring handguns into restaurants and bars.

The law that took effect in July allowed handgun owners with permits to pack their pistols in places serving alcohol, providing the establishments made more than half their profits from food.

Nashville Judge Claudia Bonnyman said the law was "fraught with ambiguity" and ruled in favor of a suit brought by restaurant owners who argued gun owners would not be able to determine if an establishment met the criteria.

"We will have vigilantes shooting up bars all over," said Randy Rayburn, the owner of three upscale cafes, who led opponents of the law.

Supporters were considering a possible appeal, or new legislation.

(Reporting by Pat Harris; Editing by Andrew Stern)

OSLO (Reuters) –
The people of Bergen rolled out the cookie dough Monday as local police tried to sniff out vandals who destroyed the Norwegian city's traditional Christmas decoration — a town of gingerbread houses.

Saturday vandals entered a massive tent in central Bergen and crushed most of the 650-cookie-house town, topping off the ruins with paint and fire extinguisher foam.

Police in Norway's second largest city asked the public to offer information that could lead to the perpetrators.

"The people who did this must be full of gingerbread dust, They will smell a long way," police inspector Erik Sveaas told news agency NTB.

Local media reported that the destruction had shocked the residents of Bergen, a picturesque city on the North Sea coast where children decorate hundreds of gingerbread houses every year before Christmas.

Steinar Kristoffersen, who runs the Bergen Sentrum foundation behind "the worlds largest and greatest gingerbread town," said the opening of the exhibit will be postponed well into next week due to the vandalism.

"We are rebuilding the whole landscape and are receiving a lot of gingerbread houses. Many want to lend a hand," Kristoffersen told Reuters.

In an Internet campaign, some petitioners suggested the perpetrators be pilloried, but local Bishop Halvor Nordhaug cooled the atmosphere and told local paper Bergens Tidende: "We must not lynch anyone over a few gingerbread houses."

(Reporting by Richard Solem, editing by Paul Casciato)