<B>Mother expects second sets of quadruplets</B>

An Australian mother is pregnant with her second set of quadruplets in what her doctors say could be a world first. Dale Chalk, 26, of suburban Brisbane, gave birth to two girls and two boys in August using in-vitro fertilization. The Queensland Fertility Group, which carried out the earlier IVF procedure, said Chalk is now pregnant with another set of quads. “It could be a world-first. I’ve never heard of it happening anywhere else,” said Warren DeAmbrosis, a doctor with the fertility group, of Chalk’s second quadruple pregnancy.

But doctors warned that Chalk and her husband Darren faced a high risk of seeing the new quadruplets born prematurely or with abnormalities. “There’s at least a 50 per cent chance that these babies will be delivered early and that places significant risks on the babies, but it also places significant emotional and economic costs on both the family and the community,” said Sydney IVF clinical director Mark Bowman. “Prematurity and abnormalities are the two single biggest issues in multiple pregnancies, even twins,” he told Channel 7 television. David Wood, a pediatrician from Brisbane’s Mater Hospital neo-natal intensive care unit, said Chalk deserved a medal for what she would go through. “The risk is of prematurity and low birth weight and the high risk of death, or chronic lung disease or intra-cranial haemorrhage as well as a whole host of other problems,” Wood said.

<B>Discount at brothels for unemployed</B>

Germans on the dole are being offered a 20 per cent discount at brothels, according to ananova.com. 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 told ananova , 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”. Rau further said that the initiative came from the prostitutes’ union, who proposed the discount measure as a way of helping the long-term jobless out of their depression.