JAKARTA - INDONESIA arrested two people allegedly involved in smuggling migrants by boat to Australia, police said on Friday.

'We have caught two people, a Pakistani and an Indonesian, for taking Pakistani and Afghan migrants to Australia through Indonesian waters,' police detective Widjaya said.

MANILA - PHILIPPINE schools will use free food and grants to lure back millions of children who have dropped out due to poverty and other reasons, the education department said on Friday.

And in the bid to boost pupil numbers, local officials have been asked to help locate the dropouts and convince their parents to send them back, it added.

BANGKOK - THOUSANDS of stuck travellers finally flew out of Bangkok's main airport on Friday as it resumed full operations, but political uncertainty dragged on after the king cancelled his annual birthday speech.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej turned 81 on Friday but pulled out of his customary birthday address the previous day due to illness, ending hopes that he might offer guidance on a way out of the nation's long-running political crisis.