A tightrope walker has made a bid for a new world record by scaling the support cables of a mountain cable car in Germany.
Freddy Nock climbed up to the summit of the Zugspitze – Germany’s highest peak – without a balancing pole.
The mountain is 2,962 metres high.
It was the first of a series of record-breaking tightrope walking feats the Swiss man is attempting over the next week.
After his successful ascent was cheered by onlookers, Mr Nock admitted he was relieved it was over. He said: “I can not say that I will again attempt such a walk.
“I have it behind me and I do not want to do it again. Not without a balancing pole.”
His website said his motto is “making the impossible possible”.
Mr Nock is reportedly set to submit his ascent without a balancing pole for entry in the Guinness Book of Records. (AFP)
Missing brides
Police in China have launched an investigation into the suspected abduction of about 100 Vietnamese women who had been sold as brides to Chinese men, state media said.
The missing women had been living in remote villages in the central province of Hunan, the official Xinhua news agency said late on Saturday, citing local police and family members.
After the women disappeared, some husbands received phone calls ordering them to pay ransoms or their wives would be sold again, Xinhua said.
The report did not say when the women disappeared.
Local police would not comment on the investigation when contacted yesterday.
Hu Jianhe, who paid 36,388 yuan (about $5,700) for his Vietnamese bride in 2008, said his wife called him two months after she went missing. (AFP)
Mind the turtles
Bulgarian turtles will soon be crossing a major highway linking the capital Sofia to neighbouring Greece, according to new plans announced.
The highway will feature special tunnels to allow endangered turtles to cross underneath, in a bid to protect two species of the marsh-inhabiting reptiles as well as rare snakes and lizards, regional development minister Rosen Plevneliev said.
Apart from the tunnel crossings, the 15-kilometre section of the highway between the southwestern town of Sandanski and the Kulata border checkpoint to Greece will be sealed to all “turtle traffic” by concrete walls, fences and nets, Plevneliev added.
Another road to Greece further east was already made to pass through a special tunnel when it was built, in order not to disrupt bear populations on both sides of the border. (AFP)
Cow whisperer
A “cow whisperer,” helicopters and infrared cameras: no effort is being spared to find Austrian runaway cow Yvonne, who escaped slaughter in May to seek refuge in a Bavarian forest.
The cow has become a media star in Germany and Austria, having evaded capture for almost three months, with Germany’s leading newspaper, Bild, putting up a $14,000 reward for her capture earlier this week.
But an Austrian animal sanctuary, which has offered to buy Yvonne to spare her another traumatic trip to the slaughterhouse, is resorting to more unusual means to find the timid animal.
A “cow whisperer” has been communicating with Yvonne every day by telepathy, Britta Freitag from the Aiderbichl sanctuary near Salzburg told the Austria Press Agency on Friday.
The cow apparently understood she would not be harmed but remained too afraid to show herself following the distressing transfer from her Austrian farm to Bavaria, according to these telepathic conversations.
Meanwhile, efforts to locate the bovine animal by helicopter and using infrared cameras had come to nought, although she was reportedly sighted twice Thursday, before vanishing again into the wild. (AFP)
Comic attack
A Fringe performer was attacked with a glass bottle while he was dressed as Colonel Gaddafi.
Comedian Jeff Mirza, 47, who is from East London and is of Pakistani descent, told police he was handing out flyers off Edinburgh’s Royal Mile when a man approached him and asked for a cigarette.
Mr Mirza shook his head and the man continued on, but when the comedian turned around he was struck on the back of the head with a glass bottle. (PA)