World Briefs

Two brothers are giving a new artistic meaning to "hanging out" as they eat, read and sleep on the side of a building in a bustling part of Rio de Janeiro - to the bemusement of passers-by.

Using climbing gear to manoeuvre between a bed, desk, hammock and old-fashioned gramophone all nailed to the wall, Tiago and Gabriel Primo have been spending up to 14 hours a day in their "house" on the side of an art gallery since May.

The brothers, both artists, said the main challenges of staying on the wall were rain, physical fitness and dealing with drunks who wanted to tell them their life stories at night. The two have to leave the wall for bathroom breaks.

They say the project is meant to challenge people's ideas about living space and provoke reactions from passers-by. (Reuters)

Pushy French are world's worst tourists

Penny-pinching, rude and terrible at foreign languages: French people are the world's worst tourists according to a study of the global hotel industry released yesterday.

The study asked 40,000 hotels worldwide to rank tourists from 27 countries based on nine criteria, from their politeness to their willingness to tip.

Clean, polite, quiet and uncomplaining, Japanese tourists came top of the crop. At the other end of the spectrum, French holidaymakers and business travellers were the least open to new languages, ranked last for generosity and readiness to tip, and next-to-last for their overall attitude and politeness.

Despite cliches about beer-guzzling hordes descending on Mediterranean resorts each summer, Britons came a surprise second for their overall attitude, politeness, discretion and even elegance.

France's rivals for the "worst tourist" tag, Spaniards and Greeks came near the bottom of the pack in almost every category. (AFP)

Hiker survives 11 days on only a picnic

A 62-year-old French woman hiker survived 11 days lost in the Pyrenees mountains with nothing but a picnic to eat, her husband said yesterday.

Therese Bordais lost her way after wandering ahead of the rest of her hiking party, in the Ondesa national park in the Spanish Pyrenees on June 26.

Spanish rescuers scoured the area with helicopters and dogs for over a week until spotting her on Monday at the foot of a gorge, where she had spread brightly coloured clothes by the side of a stream to attract attention.

"Frankly, I had lost all hope. How on earth can someone survive 11 days without food, alone out in the storms?" said her husband Marcel Bordais. (AFP)

Falls, dies in hot chocolate

A man fell into a vat of hot melted chocolate and died on Wednesday at a factory in New Jersey, a spokesman for the local public prosecutor said.

The 29-year-old man was among four workers on a platform above the vat who were dumping in pieces of solid chocolate to be melted down.

"He somehow slipped and fell into the vat," Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said. "Inside the vat, he was hit by a piece of equipment called the agitator that's used to stir, and that killed him."

The vat at the Cocoa Services Inc plant in Camden was around 2.5 metres deep. The man appeared to have died instantly from the blow to the head from the agitator. (Reuters)

'Relatives' pursue Singapore millionaire

A Singaporean millionaire who appealed for help to find his long-lost wife and son in Malaysia has been swamped with responses from people claiming to be his relatives.

Yak Eng Wai, 62, who made his fortune with an automotive business in Brunei, was splashed in Malaysia's dailies this week as he mounted a search for his first wife Ooi Suan Im and son Ah Teck. The Star daily reported that he last saw his wife in 1972 when, pregnant with Ah Teck, she decided to leave their Singapore home to be with her family in Malaysia's Penang state, leaving behind their two-year-old son.

Yak visited them a few times but later lost touch. The older boy died in 1983 of an illness.

"I've already experienced the anguish of losing one child. Not knowing how the other one is doing is incredibly painful. I don't think my first wife even knows about the death of our elder son," he told the Star.

Mr Yak, who later remarried, has a 25-year-old daughter.

The Malaysian Chinese Association said it had received numerous calls from people claiming to be the millionaire's family, but that none of them had checked out. (AFP)