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Cologne  - Overusing a hair dryer can damage the hair.

This is exactly why companies that make hair dryers are introducing new models that are supposed to be gentler on the hair. Not that blowing the hair dry can be considered healthy, experts say. But a certain beauty effect can be realized at least in part.

The best thing for the hair is and remains not submitting it to hot air.

Dresden, Germany  - Wearing a purple tie in the workplace is no problem these days - in fact men can really celebrate those purple and lilac hues which look perfect with the right business suit, says style expert Simone Piskol from Dresden in Germany.

"If all the other components match there is no reason for not wearing a purple tie at work," said Piskol. "An anthracite-coloured suit goes best since virtually every other colour clashes with purple."

Of course a person's choice of clothes depends to a large extent on his or her line of business. "I wouldn't choose this combination for formal occasions and it's not really the right kind of thing for an insurance representative," said Piskol.

Tokyo  - Stronger yen dragged Tokyo stocks down Thursday as it erodes overseas earnings of Japanese firms.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 177.37 points, or 1.8 per cent, to 9,663.48 as investors sold export-oriented issues.

The broader-based Topix index was also down 15.8 points, or 1.71 per cent, to 907.23.

On the currency markets at 9 am (0000 GMT), the dollar traded at 95.94-99 yen, down from Wednesday's 5 pm quote of 96.46-49 yen.

Sydney  - Six Australian graffiti artists caught defacing trains in London had been on a global graffiti spree that had taken them to Japan, Germany, Spain and Italy, news reports said Thursday.

The Sydney men, known as the AMF Crew, were jailed for vandalism, Australia's Daily Telegraph reported from London.

British authorities said they had recorded their crimes in more than 1,000 photos.

Berlin  - German philosopher Juergen Habermas, who turns 80 on Thursday, is not one to shy away from topical debate.

Considered Germany's greatest living philosopher, Habermas recently pointed his finger at the politicians who, he said, had done nothing to prevent the financial crisis.

"Politics ridicules itself if it moralizes, instead of basing itself on the coercive right of the democratic lawmaker," said the philosopher and political sociologist, who received worldwide acclaim for his critical theory of rationality.

Copenhagen/Nuuk, Greenland  - "I'm a genuine product of Danish Greenland and was actually programmed to fail," Greenland's new Premier Kuupik Kleist remarked.

Born in 1958, the embodiment of a "lapse" by a craftsman from Denmark, he was first forced into a foster family and then packed off to his Arctic homeland's former colonial master, where drug addiction nearly ruined him.

Today Greenlanders pin their hopes on him.