Thousands of Bulgarians gathered Friday by the seaside to greet the first July sunrise of the year, celebrated since the communist era as a symbol of summer, freedom and a new beginning.

The popular July Morning sunrise ritual, which first emerged in the 1980s, obtained its name from the Uriah Heep song traditionally played at the moment the first sun rays shine over the Black sea.

A government in northern India is offering prizes including television sets, food processors and even a Tata Nano car for people who agree to undergo sterilisation, a doctor told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"We want to promote sterilisation," Pratap Singh Dutter, the deputy chief medical officer of Jhunjhunu district in the north Indian state of Rajasthan told AFP.

Fish and chips-loving Britain celebrated its devotion to the national dish on Wednesday by cooking the world's biggest-ever portion of chips.

The Fish and Chip Shop at the Adventure Island fun park in Southend-on-Sea, east of London, cooked up 448 kilos (988 pounds) of chips, piled up inside a giant box.

A former showgirl turned local politician for Silvio Berlusconi's ruling party denied on Thursday accusations from prosecutors of being a "brothel manager" for the Italian prime minister.

At a pre-trial hearing in Milan this week, a prosecutor accused Nicole Minetti, a local councilor for the People of Freedom party in the northern Lombardy region, of procuring young women for the 74-year-old Berlusconi.

Saudi Arabia has arrested five women for getting behind the wheel in defiance of a ban on female drivers in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom, media outlets and activists said Wednesday.

"A girl who was driving, accompanied by her brother in Jeddah's southern neighborhood of Al-Suleymania, was arrested," Saudi news website Sabq.org reported.

A French woman claiming to have been brainwashed by the secretive Catholic society Opus Dei is suing it for allegedly keeping her illegally as a domestic servant, she told Agence France Presse Tuesday.

Catherine T., who asked not to be identified by her family name, said she joined a hoteliers' school in northeastern France in 1985, aged 14, which she later discovered was run by associates of Opus Dei.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote a message on Twitter on Tuesday praising Jesus and announcing the launch of a new Vatican website in the first "tweet" by a leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

"Dear Friends, I just launched www.news.va. Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI," wrote the pope, using his formal name in Latin -- the Vatican's official language.

A South Korean dog meat festival has been cancelled following growls of protest from animal rights activists, one of the would-be organizers said Tuesday.

The Korea Dog Farmers' Association had scheduled for Friday a festival aimed at promoting traditional dog meat consumption, said Ann Yong-Geun, an adviser to the association.

Margaret Thatcher's famous handbag which struck fear into the hearts of British ministers during the former premier's rule sold at a charity auction for £25,000 ($40,350, 28,000 Euros) Monday.

Thatcher frequently used the black Asprey bag on important occasions, such as summits with then U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during her 1979-1990 premiership.

Far away from the Caspian Sea, sturgeon is raised in ponds cooled in the heart of the Gulf desert of Abu Dhabi, carrying in their wombs a form of black gold strange to these countries -- caviar.

Production of the desert-grown caviar will begin later this year and by 2012, consumers in the oil-rich Gulf region will begin savoring the "food of the kings".