London, Oct 6 : Business firms come under billions of pounds every year in lost production, thanks to stress and personality clashes at workplace, says a new study.

The study conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and business psychology firm OPP has revealed that, on average, an individual spends two hours a week dealing with some form of conflict, which may cost millions of lost working days a year.

According to the study, conflict is an "inevitable" part of the workplace, but has now grown to such an extent that it is deteriorating British business because it is so poorly managed.

London, Oct 6 : In a unique bid to encourage Dutch prostitutes to abandon their profession, the city council has offered them to award "credits" in return for good behaviour, according to reports.

Under the new scheme, the sex workers in the Dutch city of Eindhoven would receive so-called "street miles" that they can use to buy free designer clothes or furniture, if they agree to change their career for a safer lifestyle.

"We needed to come up with incentives that these women might latch on to," the Independent quoted Veronique Beurskens of Eindhoven council, who is leading a drive to rid the city of street prostitution, as saying.

London, Oct 6 : The German, who are believed to lack a sense of humour, have challenged its age-old stereotype by opening a museum that celebrates the country’s sense of humour.

Frankfurt-based Caricatura Museum is to become a shrine to the country''s humour, satire and comic art, which have so far remained largely unknown to the international public.

According to curator, Achim Frenz, the project is the "fulfilment of a life-long dream".

"We have only just opened the museum because until now we didn''t have enough comedy to put in it," the Telegraph quoted Frenz as saying.

London, Oct. 6 : British cops spend just eight minutes an hour on patrol due to red tape, Home Office figures show.

Despite Government vows to slash paperwork, police have one hour 39 minutes on the beat in a 12-hour shift, it was revealed yesterday.

A survey of 43 forces in England and Wales in 2007-8 showed only 13.8 per cent of cops’ time was on patrol, down from 15.2 per cent in 2004-5.

According to The Sun, Tory MP Paul Bone gave the figures in an answer to questions.

Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “Officers say they are absolutely overburdened by bureaucracy, form-filling and sitting in front of computers when they want to be out fighting crime.”

London, Oct 6 : The Government of UK is considering a 12 billion pounds plan to monitor the e-mail, telephone and Internet browsing records of every person in the country, in a bid to boost the fight against terrorism.

According to a report in the Telegraph, the huge eavesdropping programme would involve the creation of a mammoth central computer database to store hundreds of billions of individual pieces of communications traffic.

MI5, which is the UK’s counter-intelligence and security agency, currently has to apply to the Home Secretary for warrants to intercept specific email and website traffic.

But, under the new plan, Internet and mobile phone networks could be monitored live by GCHQ, the Government listening post.

London, Oct. 6 : The British Government has decided to abandon its proposal to hold terrorist suspects for 42 days after being told that it will be defeated in the House of Lords.

Ministers have privately admitted that there is not “a cat in Hell’s chance” of the legislation being passed into law when it returns to the House of Lords this week.

The Government has decided against using the Parliament Act to force the measure through after peers reject it, The Times has learnt.

That decision will effectively confine the controversial proposal — which the Prime Minister fought tooth and nail to get through a Commons vote in June — to the legislative dustbin.