Eiffel Tower named Europe’s most valuable monument: What else made the list?

The Eiffel Tower isn't just the most widely known landmark in Paris. It's also just been rated the most valuable landmark in all of Europe.

A new study by Italy's Monza and Brianza Chamber of Commerce values the Eiffel Tower at about $544 billion, placing it far ahead of other historic locations, including Rome's Coliseum (about $90 billion), Milan's duomo (about $81 billion), the Tower of London (about $70 billion), Madrid's Prado Museum (about $58 billion) and even Great Britain's Stonehenge (about $10 billion).

Outside Europe, the White House in Washington is ranked as one of the world's most valuable landmarks, valued at over $101 billion. But that's still less than 20 percent of the estimated value of the Eiffel Tower.

Because none of these landmarks is actually up for sale, the values were calculated by estimating the inherent worth of the landmark to its home country, including the number of annual visitors and monetary value it brought in through tourism.

The 1,063-foot-tall Eiffel Tower wasn't always seen as so valuable. It was a controversial project at the time of its creation in 1889 and was even designed so that it could be easily demolished. Over 7 million people in 2011 paid to travel to one of its three viewing platforms.

In November 2011, it was announced that the Eiffel Tower would be covered in plants starting in January 2013, temporarily transforming the structure into the world's tallest tree, as part of an effort to highlight sustainable energy efforts.

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TAIWANESE MINISTER WANTS MEN TO SIT DOWN TO URINATE

Is it an unnecessary form of emasculation or a reasonable expectation of men in the modern age? The minister of Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has said that men should sit down when urinating. The BBC reports that Stephen Shen has stirred debate online by suggesting the change in bathroom habits would lean to a cleaner environment. Shen has instructed local governments to put up notices in public restrooms "advising" men to sit when using the toilet.
"We want to learn from Japan and Sweden," Yuan Shaw-jing, EPA director general of environmental sanitation and toxic substance maintenance, told the BBC. "In Japan, we heard 30 percent of the men sit."
In June, Sweden's Left Party put forward a motion requiring men to sit down when using the toilet. Along with improved public hygienic standards, the Left Party cited research that it claims shows men "empty their bladders more effectively" when sitting down.
Taiwan's EPA said it has no authority to force men to change their bathroom habits and is simply putting up the notices as a suggestion to help improve the sanitary standards of the nation's estimated 100,000 public toilets.
And lest someone accuse him of hypocritical behavior, Shen told the BBC he practices what he preaches, both at home and when using public restrooms. YAHOONEWS

17 PEOPLE BEHEADED IN AFGHANISTAN FOR ATTENDING PARTY

Fifteen men and two women have been found beheaded in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province. Officials said the victims were killed by Taliban insurgents as punishment for attending a mixed-sex party with music and dancing.

The bodies were found in a house near the Musa Qala district, 46 miles north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, on Monday, said the district governor Nimatullah, who goes by only one name.

"The victims threw a late-night dance and music party when the Taliban attacked," on Sunday night, Nimatullah told Reuters.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility.

Men and women do not usually mingle in Afghanistan unless they are related, and parties involving both genders are rare and highly secretive affairs.

For the Taliban, flirting, open displays of affection and the mixing of men and women are vehemently condemned.

In June, Taliban gunmen stormed a luxury hotel near Kabul demanding to know where the "LovePeddlers and pimps" were, according to witnesses. Twenty people were killed.

The Taliban said it launched that attack on Qarga Lake because the hotel was used for "wild parties".

During their five-year reign, which was ended by US-backed Afghan forces in 2001, the Taliban banned women from voting, most work and leaving their homes unaccompanied by their husband or a male relative.

Those rights have been painstakingly regained but Afghanistan remains one of the worst places on earth to be a woman.

A spokesman for the Helmand governor, Daud Ahmadi, said a team had been sent to the site of the beheadings to investigate. yahoonews