around the world in a few pics

I know what you did last winter....

Children in India cheaper than buffaloes

Traffickers are selling children in India for amounts that are often lower than the cost of animals and most of them end up working as laborers or commercial sex workers, activists said on Tuesday. "Children are purchased like buffaloes," said Bhuvan Ribhu of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), quoting a study that is due to be released later this year. "While buffaloes may cost up to 15,000 rupees ($350), children are sold at prices between 500 and 2,000 rupees ($12 and $45)," he told Reuters.

The group estimates that children account for 40 to 50 percent of all victims of human trafficking. They are sold to work as domestic laborers, or in the carpet industry, on farms or as commercial sex workers. The traffickers-police connection was so strong in some parts of the country that traffickers scout freely and children rescued from brothels and bonded labor were often victims again, he said.

Homeless children sit along a road outside a temple in New Delhi April 2, 2007. Traffickers are selling children in India for amounts that are often lower than the cost of animals and most of them end up working as laborers or commercial sex workers, activists said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Tanushree Punwani

Liquor is banned, so order cola with a wink

President Hugo Chavez's government may have banned liquor in the days leading up to Easter Sunday to cut road deaths, but "Blondie" the barman still pours a bracing "Coca Cola" for hard-drinking Venezuelans. "Long live the dry law," he said with a grin as he handed out another round of Cokes with rum. Sales of booze after 5 p.m. are now officially prohibited until April 9. Yet despite the ban, it is almost as easy as ever to get a drink in Caracas, although bartenders have to be careful. In restaurants, beer or whisky bottles are removed from tables, and some even serve wine in coffee cups. "It is really ridiculous, like implementing a Muslim regime," said Jorge Dominguez, 36, leaving a liquor store at 4.55 p.m. with two chinking carrier bags full of beer. The dry law is usually enforced in Venezuela during periods such as elections, not over major holidays when Venezuelans are planning to head to the Caribbean beaches and hit the bars. Venezuelans are prodigious spirit drinkers and were the world's No. 7 Scotch whisky importers last year, according to the Scotch Whisky Association. Business lunches can often entail polishing off a bottle of Johnnie Walker scotch. Chavez has attacked the whiskey habit as an affectation of his arch-enemy the United States.

Prisoner fights her way to freedom?

Thai inmate Samson Sor Siriporn boosted her chances of freedom by beating Japan's Ayaka Miyano to win the vacant women's WBC light-flyweight title at the notorious "Bangkok Hilton" prison Tuesday. Under the gaze of dozens of prison guards, Siriporn, a convicted drugs dealer, battled through the unforgiving Thai heat to score a unanimous points victory and kick-start parole proceedings for her early release.

"I've been in jail for a long time now, I hope this will see me released early," said Siriporn, flanked by mean-looking guards and surrounded by photographers.

When I'm free I'll carry on fighting. I want to fight all over the world." Fighting in a makeshift ring in the grounds of the infamous Klong Prem prison with the Thai crowd chanting "fight, fight," Siriporn was on the attack from the start and repeatedly forced Miyano on to the ropes with a barrage of punches. The intense afternoon heat took its toll on Miyano, who twice fell to the canvas as a result of Siriporn's relentless attacks, which drew rapturous applause from the few thousand prison staff, factory workers and taxi drivers who flocked to see her fight for freedom.

Siriporn, 24, was jailed seven years ago for selling "ya ba" methamphetamine pills and took up boxing to pass the time and to protect herself from violent inmates. Thai corrections department chief Natti Jitsawang said Siriporn's criminal days were over and her victory would likely see her freed three years early.

"We will start the process for her parole immediately," Natti told reporters just moments after the fight. "I think it's very likely she will be released as a result of this victory, maybe in a couple of months. We gave her a chance to show us her talent, and she has done that. He added: "She is a changed woman, and now she has the chance to be free and fight around the world

Grieving couple commits suicide after dog dies

Unable to come to terms with the death of their pet dog, an elderly couple in southern India committed suicide by hanging themselves, police said on Monday. The bodies of 67-year-old retired soldier C.N. Madanraj and his wife, Tarabai, 63, were found on Sunday in their home in a suburb of Hyderabad. Police said the childless couple had held a burial ceremony for their dog of 13 years, called "Puppy," and hosted a feast for friends before hanging themselves in their bedroom. "The couple described the grief over their pet dog in the suicide note they left on March 29," said police inspector V. Anantaiah

Don't make me axe you again

A Danish woman whose teenage son locked himself into her car and refused to get out borrowed a policeman's axe and smashed open a window to make the boy change his mind, police said Monday. A spokesman for the police in Flensburg near the Danish border said the 15-year-old locked the doors after his mother left the car to go shopping and refused to come out. "She called police asking for help," the spokesman said, but the youth still refused to budge when an officer arrived. "So she borrowed his axe and smashed open a window. It was a rather unusual way to resolve the matter."

Woman loses battle to turn dead dad into diamond

A German woman's plan to turn her dead father's ashes into a diamond was thwarted Tuesday by her grandmother. A district court in Wiesbaden ruled the 19-year-old could not take the cremated remains to Switzerland where a company creates synthetic diamonds from ashes. "The daughter of the deceased could not provide sufficient proof that it was his final wish to be pressed into a diamond," the court in western Germany said, ruling in favor of his 86-year-old mother. The court said the daughter's views on the care of the remains took precedence over the wishes of the dead man's mother but ruled that any decision had to be in accordance with the expressed wishes of the deceased.The ashes are placed in a press under intense pressure and heat, replicating the forces that create a natural diamond, over a period of several months. Synthetic diamonds have been manufactured from carbon since the mid-1950s.