{short description of image}
help-for-you News . PRT11-201Article.html 201
  Note the UTC time and source of information.
. -News for Thurs.11 April & Fri. 12 April 2002

This web page may be blank on the above date(s). At a later date it may contain content specific to the above date(s). That content would be news bulletins, background information, editorials, and other information as well as information specific to Canada, parts of Canada, as well as other countries and their regions. This information would be of value to those who analyze the news such as historians, teachers, and students. There is also a growing set of world maps to support your research.


After the American election that resulted in George Bush becoming President it was common to hear European journalists and politicians expressing the opinion that Mr. Bush "lacks the necessary sophistication and political skills" to be considered a great leader. He has proved them all wrong! They are now silent on that subject. And further, they have proved they are only describing themselves as in the following BBC news release regarding a political row in Germany based on, of all things, the color of a man's hair. I find it hard to believe such sophisticated statesmen can carry on in this manner when the world has so many very serious problems about which a responsible person would be tearing out their hair.




Schroeder's 'hair-dye case' in court
Schroeder
Gerhard Schroeder does not see the funny side 
A German court is considering a libel action brought by Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder against a news agency which reported that he dyes his hair. 

Friday's hearing lasted 10 minutes, and the Hamburg court said it would deliver its judgment on 17 May.

Earlier this year the DDP agency quoted a woman image consultant suggesting teasingly that Gerhard Schroeder, aged 58, should admit that he dyed his hair to keep it looking dark. 


Someone who touches up his hair also touches up statistics 
Karl Josef Laumann, Christian Social Union 
It would be better, she suggested, for his "credibility".

Mr. Schroeder won a court injunction to stop DDP carrying further reports about his hair, but it ignored the ruling.

Lawyers for the 58-year-old chancellor said that since the injunction had been broken, "we are obliged to sue".

Gerhard Schroeder
Mr Schroeder's hairdresser says the chancellor has "some grey hairs"
Mr Schroeder's conservative political rivals have made much of the row, one claiming that "someone who touches up his hair also touches up statistics".

DDP says it could not accept the court injunction, because it would have become the only German media outlet unable to report on the matter.

Its editor-in-chief, Bernd von Jutrcenzka, has argued that the injunction was unnecessary because the agency published a retraction.

He has also pointed out that the chancellor took no action against the image consultant, Sabine Schwind von Egelstein.

'Very natural'


I would know if Gerhard Schroeder was colouring his hair 
Mr Schroeder's hairdresser Udo Walz 
In his fashionable hair salon in Berlin's Uhlandstrasse, Mr Schroeder's regular hairdresser Udo Walz is definite that his famous client is telling the whole truth. 

"I would know if Gerhard Schroeder was colouring his hair," he says. 

He insists the chancellor's hair is "very natural. He looks great." 

Udo Walz is even more specific. "If you go close, like I do, you can see that he has some grey hairs" underneath the thick mat of dark brown locks. 

But Udo insists the grey hairs just stay there, and are hard to see. 

His written testimony to the court, along with that of Mr Schroeder's former hairdresser in Hanover, was submitted to the court by Mr Schroeder's lawyers.

Mr Schroeder has a reputation for being more laid-back than most of his compatriot politicians. 

But many media reports in Germany imply that on this issue his sense of humour has taken a holiday. 

A court ruling is expected soon, at the latest within three weeks.