Tourism bosses in a Japanese prefecture have come up with what they hope will draw more feline-loving visitors: a Google-style street view for cats.

Billed as a world's first, officials this week launched an online map that explores the streets of port city Onomichi from the purr-spective of a four-pawed visitor. 

Australian animal welfare officers Wednesday put out an urgent appeal for shearers after finding a huge sheep with wool so overgrown its life was in danger, with a national champion set to take on the challenge.

The very woolly merino sheep was spotted wandering on its own near Mulligan Flats, a grassy woodland just outside the national capital Canberra, by bushwalkers who alerted local RSPCA officers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin may be nearing his 63rd birthday, but he can still beat a team of kids in hockey. With the help of some of Russia's most formidable hockey veterans, that is.

Putin marked the opening of the school year on Tuesday by taking part in a game against student players from the Sirius academy for gifted children at the Shaiba arena in Sochi, one of the hockey venues at the 2014 Olympics.

An ice cream chain in China's commercial hub Shanghai is offering a lickable likeness of the head of executed Japanese war criminal Hideki Tojo to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Iceason parlors are selling ice cream bars on a stick with the image of Tojo, former Japanese army general and prime minister, in a campaign with the slogan "10,000 people together eat the Japanese war criminal."

A group of hackers on Tuesday claimed they had downed the website of Britain's lead law enforcement agency after it arrested six people over similar attacks.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) website was offline for around an hour after suffering a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, claimed by hacking group Lizard Squad.

Here comes the bride all dressed in white. And, don't look now, but here come thousands of bicyclists not dressed in anything.

Nude and body-painted participants from this year's Philly Naked Bike Ride cruised through the wedding day photo shoot of lovebirds Ross Cohen and Blair Delson.

Thousands of prepaid travel cards featuring a popular Japanese porn star sold out in a matter of hours in Taipei on Tuesday, despite a groundswell of objection from women's groups and politicians.

All 30,000 commuter cards featuring Yui Hatano were sold by 4:18 am local time after going on sale at midnight, the EasyCard Corporation said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced criticism on Tuesday from ultra-Orthodox politicians for having eaten in a non-kosher restaurant serving rabbit, escargot and lobster during a recent trip to Italy.

An ultra-Orthodox news website quoted officials from the United Torah Judaism alliance, part of Netanyahu's coalition, as saying that eating in a non-kosher restaurant was unacceptable for a prime minister of the Jewish state.

Syria's embattled government, facing a four-year war that is encroaching on the capital, on Monday inaugurated a park in Damascus to honor North Korea's founding father Kim Il-Sung.

The 9,000-square-meter park (about 2.2 acres) lies in the southwestern Damascus district of Kafr Sousa, atop the ruins of recently bulldozed homes.

An Egyptian muezzin has been suspended by the authorities after being accused of intoning "Prayer is better than Facebook" in his early morning call for people to pray.

The action was taken against Mahmud al-Moghazi, who denies the charge, after devout Muslims complained that he had altered the traditional call to prayer, an official told AFP on Monday.