TALLINN, Aug 31, 2007 (AFP) - Tech-savvy Baltic state Estonia is to open an embassy in the Internet fantasy world Second Life, joining the likes of Sweden and the Maldives, the foreign ministry said Friday.

'The virtual embassy will be located in the Second Life website, that has nearly 10 million registered users and already hosts a virtual site of Sweden,' Marten Kokk, deputy chancellor at the ministry, told AFP.

BUNOL, Spain, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Some 40,000 Spaniards gathered in this eastern town on Wednesday to hurl 115,000 kilogrammes (240,000 pounds) of tomatoes at each other in the annual Tomatina festival.

Bare-chested participants also included hundreds of mainly British, French and German tourists who were drenched in red juice in a riotous display of self-indulgence during one of the world's messiest festivals.

LONDON, Aug 31, 2007 (AFP) - The number of divorces in Britain has hit a 30-year low, according to official figures released Friday.

The statistics show that 148,141 couples divorced between 2005 and 2006, a 4.5 percent fall on the previous year. It is the second consecutive year that the figures have dropped.

Divorce lawyers say that the figures may be linked to the increasing number of couples living together and not marrying.

MACAU, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - The world's largest casino-resort, a gaudy mix of baccarat, shops and Venetian canals, opened here Tuesday aiming to accelerate Macau's heady transformation from gambling haven to Asia's top entertainment draw.

Thousands of people, some of whom began to queue as early as 1.00 pm, rushed into the casino as the Venetian Macao resort threw its doors open to the public who quickly filled up some of the gaming tables.

BELGRADE, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - A retired Serbian physics professor has built a house with plastic bottles in the place of bricks, a local newspaper reported on Monday.

Tomislav Radovanovic, who came up with the idea before becoming a pensioner, built the dwelling from around 14,000 bottles in the central town of Kragujevac, 130 kilometres (80 miles) south of the capital Belgrade.

'I had the idea to build such a house while speaking to my students about alternative construction,' he told the Politika newspaper.

LONDON, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Two more victims of a wave of teenaged gun shootings marred the end of Notting Hill Carnival, Europe's biggest, which brought 850,000 people onto the streets of London.

Police said they arrested one person late Monday in connection with the shooting of a 17-year-old found bleeding from his shoulder.

A 14-year-old boy was also shot in the leg at the carnival. No arrests have been made but the youngster was likely to be discharged from hospital Tuesday.

MACAU, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - The sky above its canal-lined shopping mall may be fake, but the epic scale and ambition of the new Venetian Macao is undoubtedly real.

The numbers for the massive 2.4 billion-dollar project are staggering: 3,000 hotel rooms; a gaming area the size of three football fields with more than 800 tables; one million square feet of convention and meeting facilities.

It is little wonder that visitors are digging into their welcome packs for the complementary map of the vast complex to help find their way around the Venice-inspired behemoth.

MACAU, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - When he was 12 years old, Sheldon Adelson started selling newspapers on a street corner in Boston. His aim was to earn 35 dollars to buy a new bike.

Now 74, and ranked by Forbes magazine as the sixth richest man in the world worth 26.5 billion dollars, the casino and entertainment mogul still remembers his first successful business venture.

SYDNEY, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - The Australian government Monday admitted no Internet child safeguards were foolproof after a teenager claimed he was able to break through its multi-million dollar pornography filter in minutes.

Sixteen-year-old Melbourne teenager Tom Wood said it took him less than 30 minutes to override the cyber barrier technology which was launched by Prime Minister John Howard earlier this month.

MACAU, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - A day before his 2.4 billion dollar gamble in Macau even opens to the public, Sheldon Adelson, the world's sixth-richest man, said his gargantuan Venetian casino resort is already another winner.

His Venetian Macao opens Tuesday with 3,000 hotel rooms, a theatre and a sports stadium, spread out over what the company says is the second-largest building in the world in terms of floor area.