Court Settles Tangle over Chancellor's Hair

After months of tabloid speculation, the German chancellor won a court order on Friday upholding a ruling stopping press reports that had suggested Gerhard Schröder dyed his hair. The German constitutional court turned down an appeal from German news agency DDP which was fighting an earlier injunction, barring it from repeating an insinuation that Schröder kept the grey hairs at bay with a bottle of hair dye. The court said the original suggestion, which came from a political consultant, was not the crux of the case, rather it was more concerned with the news agency's scrupulousness in checking the accuracy of opinions expressed by third parties in interviews. "The original dispute was not concerned with whether the chancellor dyes his hair. It was not in dispute that this was not the case," the court said. Schröder's lawyers presented statements from Schröder's hairdresser which said the chancellor's hair is chestnut brown. Not grey.