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.

American novelist Norman Mailer, who at 84 died due to renal failure just last month, became the recipient of the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award, which identifies authors responsible for tasteless depictions of sexual acts in novels. The late author was given the award for his work on his literary description of the incestuous physical encounter between Adolf Hitler's parents.

Chinese farmer Zhou Zhenglong, 52, has gone back into the wilderness to take more photos of the tiger, in an effort to refute accusations that the photo he earlier submitted was a fake. A former hunter in the Chengguan Township of Zhenping County, Zhou said that he planned to track down the tiger and bring back more photographs. He has been searching for tiger tracks for the past three days.

Six elephants including three calves died in India's north-eastern state of Meghalaya after getting drunk on rice beer and running through a paddy field where they were electrocuted, officials and residents said Tuesday. The incident happened in the village of Chandan Nukat, about 250 kilometres west of Shillong, the state capital, on Sunday night.

early 100 wild elephants rampaged on a river island in India's northeast Assam province on Saturday, demolishing homes, feasting on sugarcane and panicking residents, officials said. "The herd is wandering just about anywhere in Majuli. A forest guard was injured and about 50 houses have been pulled down, forcing residents to take shelter in a makeshift relief camp that we have set up," LS Changsan, Jorhat district magistrate told the media.