● <B>INDIA. 80 people charged for burying children alive. </B>Indian police have charged 80 people for burying children alive in an ancient Hindu ceremony known as ?the festival of pits?. The ceremony, in which children ? some less than a year old ? are buried alive briefly and then dug up, happened on Monday in southern Tamil Nadu state, The Asian Age reported yesterday. Authorities have been trying for years to stop it and people found guilty face up to three years in jail and or a fine of 5000 rupees ($114). Every two years, parents who have vowed to bury their first-born if they are blessed with a child, take part in the Kuzhimattru Thiru Vizha ceremony. The children are drugged to make them unconscious and placed in shallow ?graves? in temple courtyards. The pits are covered with leaves and dirt and the children are pulled out after Hindu priests chant a brief prayer ? lasting up to a minute.

● <B> AUSTRALIA. Qantas tightens security after camel suit stunt. </B>Australia?s national carrier Qantas Airways will install cameras in baggage handling areas at airports around the country and in the holds of some aircraft after a series of security breaches, one invloving a camel suit. In a much publicised security breach last week, a Qantas baggage handler drove across the Sydney airport tarmac wearing a camel suit which he had taken out of a passenger?s baggage. The camel suit incident prompted scores of passengers to contact a Sydney newspaper with reports of stolen clothes, laptops and underwear from their baggage at airports.

● <B> INDONESIA. Sumatra on volcano alert despite signs of calm. </B>Areas of Indonesia were still on high alert over two volcanoes despite signs their activity was abating, vulcanologists said yesterday as frightened residents remained in makeshift camps. Mt Talang on Sumatra island had visibly calmed down after belching out smoke and hot ash, triggering the evacuation of more than 26,000 people. ?There is now less smoke coming out of Mt Talang ... the height of the smoke is down to 250 metres (820 ft),? Surono, a vulcanologist from the Directorate of Vulcanology and Geophysics in the Java city of Bandung, told Reuters.

● <B> POLAND. Pope Street lined with sex shops.</B>As an unfortunate quirk of fate would have it, the avenue that runs through the heart of the Polish capital, Warsaw, bearing the name of native-born Pope John Paul II is a high holy place for sex shops, a Polish newspaper pointed out Wednesday. And while the avenue?s residents have repeatedly asked city authorities to intervene and force the shops to move or shut down, Warsaw officials say they have no legal grounds for making such a demand. Although their line of business is in contradiction with the Vatican?s, the sex shops joined the rest of Poland in paying tribute to John Paul II last week, drawing their shutters yesterday night as hundreds of mourners packed the avenue bearing the pontiff?s name and lit candles in memory of the pope.