World Briefs
Angela Merkel recycles dress
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has become a hate figure across much of Europe for her strict austerity drive, put her money where her mouth is and wore an old dress for the Bayreuth Festival.
Mrs Merkel, who topped the guest list for the glittering opening gala of the legendary music festival late on Wednesday, wore the same metallic blue dress that she appeared in four years ago. And the national press was quick to pick up and heap praise on Mrs Merkel’s thriftiness.
“The cost-cutting Chancellor recycles her dress,” ran the headline in the daily Bild. The regional Berliner Zeitung pointed out that Mrs Merkel last wore the dress in the crisis year of 2008 and the Frankfurter Rundschau said: “It’s a time of belt-tightening for everyone.”
Der Spiegel said that by choosing to wear an old dress, Mrs Merkel was practising what she preached in these times of crisis.
Rescuers freed from mine
Fifty-three rescuers have been freed after becoming trapped while trying to save five coal miners stuck underground when a tunnel collapsed at a southwest China mine.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the rescuers had been trying to help five miners trapped since the tunnel at the Anlilai mine in Guizhou province collapsed on Wednesday.
But as they tried to enter, the tunnel collapsed a second time and trapped the rescuers. Xinhua said the 53 were pulled out through a freshly dug tunnel. The work to reach the trapped miners is continuing. China’s coal mines are among the world’s deadliest and have frequent explosions, cave-ins and floods.
Niagara daredevil’s new feat
A US high-wire artist who crossed Niagara Falls in June is to attempt a new feat over a New Jersey beach, but this time shedding the safety harness that caused some to belittle his previous stunt.
Nik Wallenda’s latest challenge, set for August 9, is to walk 450 metres, some 30 metres above an Atlantic City beach, in less than 30 minutes.
On June 15, the 33-year-old Mr Wallenda walked across a cable suspended above the Niagara Falls. Some said it was more of a PR exercise than a death-defying stunt as he wore a safety harness that meant he would come to no real harm.
But the acrobat said he only wore a harness at the insistence of ABC, the American channel that televised the event.