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.

A man from China got the shock of his life upon discovering a chicken he placed in the freezer for two days came out alive and crowing. According to Gan Shugen, of Chengdu City, he got the hen which was wrapped in a thick plastic bag with its legs bound as a gift from a relative.

ree press advocates in China are sounding the alarms after a Chinese man was beaten to death by officials after trying to film a confrontation between city officials and residents of Wanba village in Tianmen over the dumping of waste near their village. According to the report, 24 municipal inspectors have been detained so far for their involvement in the incident, in which 41-year-old construction company executive Wei Wenhua was beaten to death for trying to record a scuffle between city officials and village residents on his cell phone. The villagers were attempting to stop trucks from unloading waste near their homes when the fight broke out.

Using improvised props and set design, a group of friends has transformed their garage into a film studio to recreate two Star Wars films. The group used household objects as scenery, toys as props and PC wizardry to recreate the special effects to produce spoof of two Star Wars movies, calling them The Empire Strikes Backyard and Star Wars - The Emperor's New Clones.

Naughty Clint Westwood will not likely receive a Christmas present from Santa Claus anytime soon. The 22-year-old drama student at the University of Montana shoved a pumpkin pie into Santa Claus, who was entertaining visitors of Southgate Mall in Missoula.