A day after New York City came up with a $1,000 (Lm294) bagel, a local restaurateur unveiled a $25,000 (Lm7,353) chocolate sundae yesterday, setting a Guinness world record for the most expensive dessert.

Stephen Bruce, owner of Serendipity 3, partnered with luxury jeweller Euphoria New York to create the Frrozen Haute Chocolate, a blend of 28 cocoas, including 14 of the most expensive and exotic from around the globe.

The dessert, spelled with two Rs, is infused with five grammes of edible 23-carat gold and served in a goblet lined with edible gold. At the base of the goblet is an 18-carat gold bracelet with one carat of white diamonds.

Woman given loans for sex

A German bank manager gave loans to a woman for sex and then embezzled thousands of euros to buy the silence of her relatives, authorities said yesterday. When the man realised he could not offer the jobless woman a loan because of her poor credit history, he offered to lend her the money personally in return for sexual favours, said a spokesman for a court in the southern town of Tuebingen.

The 31-year-old then stole the money from the bank. The pair continued their arrangement for the next three years. In total, the man diverted some €520,000 from clients' accounts, of which he gave about €70,000 to the woman, and kept €40,000 for himself.

The biggest chunk of the cash went to her relatives who were blackmailing the bank manager, a married man with children.

Gangsters' 10 commandments

Mafiosi wanted: Must swear absolute loyalty, be punctual and avoid bars. A list of "10 commandments" for gangsters, found at the home of the Sicilian Mafia's top boss, has given investigators a unique insight into what makes a perfect mobster.

Italian newspapers yesterday published what appeared to be a "constitution" for the Cosa Nostra, a list of principles which was found in the house of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, the suspected "boss of bosses", who was arrested on Monday.

$5.9 million for dusty vase

An 18th century Chinese vase which had been gathering dust in the bottom of a wardrobe was sold for £2.8 million (Lm1.72 million), Sotheby's auction house said.

The blue-and-white "dragon vase" from the Qing dynasty was discovered by chance when its owner remarked to Sotheby's expert Alastair Gibson that she thought she owned a vase similar to one on display at a London exhibition.

Sotheby's said the seller was Swiss and the buyer was fine art advisory group Littleton & Hennessy Asian Art.

Revolutionary toilet humour

Beijing authorities have scolded a local Communist revolution-themed restaurant for harming national sentiment by painting a sign "liberation zone" pointing the way to its toilets. Times Gone Past, a restaurant featuring waiting staff clad in People's Liberation Army uniforms and decorated with photos of revolutionary heroes and maps of military battles, had taken the "red" theme too far and had been ordered to remove the sign, Beijing News said yesterday.

"Many customers had expressed their dissatisfaction, believing that putting 'liberation zone' on par with a toilet was akin to blaspheming the revolution and was an overly-casual use of the term," the paper said.

China's Communist Party referred to regions captured from occupying Japanese troops during World War II as "liberation zones" and later applied the term to territory seized from US-backed Nationalist forces during the 1945-1949 civil war.

'Evil' camel beauty contests

A leading authority of Saudi Arabia's hard-line school of Islam has condemned camel beauty contests as evil, saying those involved should seek repentance in God. Camel pageants have become major events in the desert kingdom in recent years as tribes hold ever larger competitions, with bigger prizes and wider publicity.

Delicate females or strapping males which attract the right attention during a show can sell for more than a million riyals (about Lm78,000).

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