■ Germany
Shroeder's dog supermodel
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's dog Winston Holly is the face of a new line of pet care products to be launched next month, the Rossman store chain announced Friday. The chain said it will be selling the new range -- including dog shampoo, brushes and fake bones -- in 150 of its estimated 800 stores across Germany. A spokesman said the idea came from the chancellor's wife, Doris Schroeder-Koepf, who was said to be fed up with her border terrier's ability to "chew up certain objects in just a few minutes." The spokesman said the product line of "quality accessories for dogs" was drawn up after about a year of careful research.
■ United States
Charles' last album a hit
The late soul legend Ray Charles is still stirring up the music charts more than five months after his death, with his last album going multi-platinum across the globe. The man dubbed the "genius of soul's" final studio album has now been certified silver, gold and platinum worldwide following his death from liver disease in June, his publicists said. Genius Loves Company, which has featured on the top 10 of the Billboard music charts since its August 31 debut, has shipped more than two million copies in the United States and more than three million worldwide. Charles's 250th album has now gone gold, silver and platinum in North America, Europe and beyond, becoming the best selling recording of his remarkable six-decade career.
■ Peru
New `Kon-Tiki' trip planned
A grandson of Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian who 60 years ago sailed from Polynesia to Peru aboard Kon-Tiki, will launch a reenactment of the trip in April 2005 across the Pacific.
Olav Heyerdahl, 27, will set sail with a crew of five from Lima's port of El Callao for Polynesia. Starting on April 28, the crew, which as last time will consist of five Norwegians, one Swede and a parrot, expects to cover a distance of 8,000km from Peru to Polynesia in 101 days, just like Heyerdahl did on his legendary voyage in 1947. Heyerdahl set off on his Pacific crossing on the Kon-Tiki, a raft made of balsa wood and named after the ancient Incan sun god Tiki, to prove that the indigenous population of the Polynesian islands could have originated in Latin America and was not exclusively the result of migration from southeast Asia as prevailing theories held. The extraordinary crossing, in which the crew experienced close-up encounters with whales, giant octopuses and sharks, later became the subject of a book, which has been translated into nearly 70 languages.
RSS