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G.I. Joe Just Got Some New Enemies

Also available in frilly pink dress.

Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have been turned into action figures, giving you the choice of crushing the 'evil' tyrants or just decorating your desk.

The range of fully posable figures from herobuilders.com also includes likenesses of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and comes with a selection of costumes, such as a frilly pink dress and an S&M outfit -- check out the web site for a pic of Saddam posing in a body harness and G-string.

The 30cm tall figures are priced from $24.95.

Herobuilders also makes custom dolls, meaning you can have an action figure made of yourself.

Made-to-order figures cost $450 for the first toy, covering sculpting, and are $39.95 for each doll thereafter.

Pamper your Pooch

　

Aromatherapy for dogs.

If Fido is far from fragrant or Rover isn't relaxed, perhaps all they're needing is some soothing scents.

Applying the aromatherapy idea to pooches may not be a world first, but making such a novel creation out of famous Japanese Mino-yaki pottery surely is.

To win one of these super-cute items with a traditional touch, just answer the following question:
Mino-yaki comes from (a) Gifu, (b) Okinawa, or (c) Mars?
Send your answers to giveaway@kansaiscene.com or giveaway@tokyo-scene.com, with your name, postal address and telephone number, and subject 'pet prize'.

If you don't win, you can always buy one; at Tokyu Hands in Shinsaibashi, Sannomiya or Esaka. See www.evasion.co.jp (Japanese) or email info@evasion.co.jp (English or Japanese) for more details.

Welcome Furoshiki Comes Of Age

Welcome Furoshiki has welcomed 9000 newcomers to Japan.

'A knock on the door, a smiling face and a wealth of information' is how Welcome Furoshiki, a free community service that celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, describes itself, and the more than 9000 newcomers they've welcomed to Japan wouldn't disagree.

Established in 1983 by Charlotte Kennedy-Takahashi, the President of Oak Associates, Welcome Furoshiki helps those new to to Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka or Kobe areas orientate themselves.

Unlike many similar organisations, they not only provide English-language 'survival' information but personal contact through a network of representatives and are looking forward to providing face-to-face assistance for many years to come.

We wish them many happy returns!

Welcome Furoshiki can be contacted at 03-5472-7074 in Tokyo and at 06-6441-2584 in Osaka.

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Japan news

A 40-year-old mother in Ibaraki prefecture was arrested for allegedly ordering her teenage daughter to shoplift items from a supermarket in order to save money.

The Osaka District Court ordered a dachshund owner to pay 6.6 million yen to the family of a woman who died of pneumonia four months after she fell and broke her leg after being barked at by the dog. The judge ruled that her resistance to diseases may have been diminished by stress as a result of her leg injury.

A 53-year-old housewife in Osaka pleaded guilty to restraining her stroke-afflicted husband in a dog collar outside their home, causing him to choke to death. Several days before his death, the woman had chained her husband to the verandah, but after he escaped she decided he needed a collar.

A head found in Osaka Bay in November was identified as that of a 45-year-old company president who wasn't reported missing, even by his family, until three months after he vanished. His wife and her brother were arrested for allegedly killing the man, cutting him up and dumping his remains in the sea, apparently because his wife thought he was lazy.

The number of Net-based child-prostitution crimes in Japan hit 268 in 2002, more than double that of the previous year.

A 32-year-old woman was found dead of apparent starvation in her western Tokyo apartment and her severely malnourished friend, who was lying next to her, was hospitalised. Police believe the pair had not eaten since mid-January.

Six teenage boys were arrested on suspicion of extorting at least 500,000 yen from a 14-year-old junior high school student in Tokyo. The victim withdrew the cash from his father's bank account to pay the protection money to the youths. However, several million yen is missing from the account, leading police to suspect the teens extorted even more cash than they are letting on.

The Tokyo District Court rejected a suit filed by a man seeking damages over the emotional distress he suffered after a high school girl wrongly accused him of groping her on a train.

A restaurant in Tokyo recently offered the Titanic Dinner 2003, a 9,000 yen feast inspired by the last meal eaten by first-class passengers aboard the luxurious British passenger liner before it sank into the ocean in April 1912.

The population of Tokyo stood at a record 12,289,519 as of Jan. 1, up 11,805 from a year earlier. There were 344,221 registered foreign residents, up for the seventh consecutive year. By nationality, Chinese accounted for the highest number, followed by Koreans and Filipinos.

JR workers on the Kisei line in western Japan have at last succeeded in keeping deer out of the path of oncoming trains by spraying a slurry of lion dung near the tracks.

A driver fell asleep at the helm of a bullet train while it was speeding 270 km per hour with 800 passengers on board. The train's autopilot system pulled it to a halt at a station, but the driver remained asleep until shaken awake by a station official.

More than 660 inmates have died over the last three years inside Japanese prisons, which are continually criticised by human rights groups for their severe discipline and secrecy.

A teacher and former teacher of Nova Co. filed a complaint with the Osaka Bar Association claiming their human rights have been violated by the school's policy of banning foreign teachers from dating their students.

"It felt like I was walking into a nightclub," said Hiroshi Yagi of the ruling Liberal Democratic party, showing cultural sensitivity in describing the traditional outfits worn by Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese students at a high school graduation ceremony.

A 120kg wild boar entered the city of Numazu, Shizuoka prefecture, and ran amok, injuring four men, two women and a dog.

Last year, researchers found, in whale organ-based products, mercury levels 5,000 times the acceptable levels set provisionally by the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry.

A high school principal in Sukumo, Kochi Prefecture, faked the school records and boosted the grades of an acquaintance's son, who dropped out last year, to make the youth eligible for college entrance exams.

The Kinki Nippon Railway Co. will begin recycling its discarded commuter passes into polyester clothes. The roughly 2 million railway cards used each year would provide enough material to make about 3,000 pieces of polyester clothing.

After making it through heart surgery, a 3-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest while in intensive care, but the 29-year-old intern assigned to watch over him ignored monitors and alarms showing the child's heart had stopped and blood pressure had fallen, thinking it was simply a problem with the monitors. The boy suffered brain damage. The former intern was fined 200,000 yen.

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International news

Pubs in Britain are closing at a rate of 20 per month amid soaring property prices and thinning crowds. Only 15 percent of Londoners and 23 percent of Scots visit the pub once a week or more, compared to over 40 percent in the northwest and in Wales, according to an industry survey.

Police in India are paying junkies to verify whether drugs confiscated in busts is the real thing. Drugs sold on the streets of New Delhi are often so heavily cut with anything from boot polish to household dust that the cops have no idea what they have, so they pay addicts a `taster's' fee before sending the drugs on to a lab.

Germans missing the good old days of the former communist East will next year be able to visit the GDR Funpark in Berlin, featuring a border crossing complete with surly guards, authentic housing blocks of flats, standard uniforms, propaganda films and sparsely stocked shops.

Michael Jackson once paid a witch doctor $150,000 to put a voodoo death curse on 25 people, including Steven Spielberg, according to a magazine report.

A German couple were fined by police after being caught changing places behind the wheel while driving at 80 kph. In the back seat was a sleeping baby and some hashish.

A study has found that women who undergo breast-enlargement surgery are three times likelier than others to commit suicide, suggesting some women who opt for the procedure may be emotionally frail and vulnerable to psychiatric disorders.

A recent report by the UN claims that one in 10 of all passengers on flights from Jamaica is smuggling drugs. British police and customs officials have estimated that around 20 people on each flight from Jamaica are drug mules.

A university study has found that video games can not only divert teenagers' minds from homework, but can also distract players' attention from pain.

The children's TV series Thomas the Tank Engine shows too many crashes and may make kids frightened of going on a train, according to a British psychologist.

The Chinese government ordered the Rolling Stones not to play four of their best-known tracks during their mainland tour this month because they suggest sexual acts. Audiences in Beijing and Shanghai are not allowed to hear Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Woman, Beast of Burden, or Let's Spend the Night Together.

Residents of Wollongong, a coastal city 90 km south of Sydney, want to symbolically defect to France and have asked the country to represent them at the U.N. because they say the Australian government does not represent their antiwar stance on Iraq.

Princess Diana is "having fun" in the afterlife, hanging out with Mother Teresa, working with children and watching over her own sons, according to a pair of psychics who told London's Daily Mail that they've been in touch with Lady Di. They said Diana told them that she plans to marry her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and is not bitter about her death in a 1997 car crash.

News section compiled by Jason Mills