orld-popular cartoon characters The Smurfs are now 50 years old and Belgians have prepared a big birthday bash starting early this week. The celebration will cover key European cities including Paris and Berlin. The Smurfs, the diminutive blue-colored forest dwellers, were created by late Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, fondly called 'Peyo,' through a comic strip in the late 1950s-back then, they were still called Schtroumpf. In the early 1980s, Smurfs debuted on US television and became hugely popular worldwide since then.

Long Island high school principal Nicholas Restivo recently banned all Halloween costumes at the school, due to three senior girls who showed up at the school controversially dressed as the scantily-clad comic book hero, Captain Underpants. The girls were described to have been wearing beige-colored leotards and nude stockings, under white briefs, and red capes, as reported by the Associated Press. The report said that their choice of costume made them look naked.

Afrol News on Thursday ran a satiric comic strip panel on the United Republic of Tanzania. Located in East Africa and bordered by Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and the Indian Ocean, the tiny nation is one of the poorest countries on earth. As is the case in much of Africa, Tanzania has had more than its share of problems, but perhaps not as many problems as Zimbabwe has had.

A collector, Todd McDevitt, bought a near-mint copy of Detective Comics No. 27, a pre-World War II comic featuring Batman's debut, found recently in an attic. McDevitt would not say how much he paid for the comic or who he bought it from but believes the issue to be worth around $250,000.

A Norwegian appeal court ruling has declared that striptease is an art and should therefore be exempt from value-added tax (VAT). Three judges ruled unanimously that "striptease, in the way it is practiced in this case, is a form of dance combined with acting. " It was compared to other stage acts that enjoy VAT exemption in Norway.