Frankfurt  - When it comes to choosing clothes, even a good friend isn't completely neutral.

Women who can afford it therefore have sought the advice of a personal style consultant. But as men become more style conscious, they too are increasingly enlisting personal shoppers who advise them style matters and support them in their search for the right outfit.

"This is a service that is well-established in the United States," said Andreas Rose, a style consultant and personal shopper in Frankfurt.

Saarbrucken, Germany  - For professional cyclists, track and field athletes and weightlifters the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs is a serious offence.

But amateur athletes and people who are simply dedicated to a chosen sport routinely use pills, powders and injections, according to a German government health report.

Stockholm  - A Swedish district court has criticized the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences for discriminating against women in its selection process for applicants to veterinary studies.

The district court in the university city of Uppsala, north-west of Stockholm, ruled that 44 women were discriminated against by being denied places in veterinary school even though they had the same grades as the male applicants.

Bielefeld, Germany  - Only one out of 10 Germans desire eternal life, according to a survey of 1,002 people conducted in January by the opinion research company Emnid based in Bielefeld, Germany.

The survey also showed that only 2 per cent of those questioned would like to live to be 150 or 300 years old, while 8 per cent desire a life span of 110 years. Fifty-six per cent would like to live to be 90 years old, and 16 per cent said they would be satisfied with 70 years.

Bonn, Germany  - German's main competition agency, the Federal Cartel Office, fined US software company Microsoft 9 million euros (12 million dollars) Wednesday for imposing a retail price for its Office Home & Student 2007 software.

Microsoft said it would pay the fine to avoid a lengthy legal dispute and was reviewing its internal processes in Germany to ensure they complied with German law in future.

Straubing, Germany  - A convicted sex killer took a prison's chief psychologist hostage in Germany and allegedly repeatedly raped her before surrendering to police early Wednesday, Bavarian officials said.

The state's justice minister, Beate Merk, said police were still investigating how the 51-year-old prisoner, who had faced his first sex charges at the age of 13, had obtained a knife and managed to tie up the woman in her office Tuesday evening.

He surrendered several hours later after armed police had surrounded the prison at Straubing, near Munich.