The schoolgirl told her shocked friends that she was pregnant, but later said she had suffered a miscarriage, The Sun reported Wednesday.

The girl, now 13, shared the news with her friends on a social networking site.

She is the younger sister of the girl who became the country's youngest mother after she became pregnant when she was just 11.

'The sisters are extremely close and the younger one always said she wanted to grow up just like her big sister and have a baby of her own. Nobody was very surprised when she announced that she was pregnant,' a family friend was quoted as saying.

The girl was taken into care from her home in West Lothian.

A friend said: 'The wee girl always looked up to her big sister and wanted to follow in her footsteps. Unfortunately that meant getting pregnant before she'd even hit her teens. What's the point in bringing even more children into this family, just so they can be put into care too?'.

The girl claimed her unborn child's father didn't believe she was pregnant and she said required 'drink and drugs' to help her forget her loss. She also talked about having sex after running away.

'This story is a real tragedy - it's history repeating itself. The girl is nothing more than a child herself, yet she's talking about drink, drugs and sex. She shouldn't even know about these things at her age.

'It's like her big sister all over again. She drank and chain-smoked and got into trouble all the time,' a source said.

West Lothian Council spokesman said: 'It's not appropriate to discuss individual cases.'

'From our own salary, we take care of them... It's just a small initiative towards our social responsibility,' Superintendent of Police Suryanath Singh told IANS.

The police officers take care of the everyday needs of those they adopt, including food, clothes and shelter. And all this, without any financial assistance from anyone.

'Believe me, a unique sense of satisfaction comes while helping others. You just have to provide a very small share of your salary to bring a smile on the faces of those who have been left alone by their sons or daughters,' added Singh.

Singh adopted Kandhauli Prasad, a resident of Ahirwar village, around 20 days ago. He came across Prasad during an official inspection of the village and was moved by the elderly man's plight. The locals told him that Prasad's family had abandoned him because he was unable to contribute to the family income.

Singh's act was appreciated by his colleagues and others in the police department and they decided to follow suit. Now at least 16 police officers are taking care of around 20 elders, most of them weak and frail.

'I believe the adoption process will go a long way in changing the tough image of the cops. There's a common perception that police do not listen to the poor or downtrodden and work against them,' Singh said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police P.L. Verma, who has adopted an elderly widow, said: 'We believe that taking care of the needs of the poor and helpless elders will help the police empathise with their pain and agony, which in turn would soften their stand towards the poor.'

Police officers who have taken up the noble cause say they will continue with the adoption process even if they are transferred to a new place.

(Asit Srivastava can be contacted at asit.s@ians.in)

The survey by Tesco Bank found that modern couples do not take the plunge for at least two years and one in three couples don't do it at all, Daily Express reported Monday.

Of those who do get married, 56 percent like to maintain some kind of financial independence and don't pool their resources.

'This pooling of -resources left some people feeling powerless or even exploited. Inequality remained an issue because many women did not - and still do not - earn as much as their male partners.

'So, the joint account needed -careful negotiation. People aren't good at talking about money so it became an area where problems could lurk. Most people like to have their 'own' money to spend without having to -justify it to another person,' Karen Pine, co- author of the personal finance book Sheconomics, was quoted as saying.

While half of couples in Leeds, West Yorkshire, still pool their financial commitments, 70 percent of couples in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, prefer to keep their finances separate.

'Most of us still try to -retain a modicum of f-inancial -independence,' said a Tesco Bank spokesperson.

During her questioning by city police, Pinky, 25, a divorcee, told police she was forced into prostitution to make both ends meet.

'She did it under compulsion and her story is indeed tragic...a victim of terror attack and forced into prostitution,' a senior police official said.

Pinky's former husband Aten Timung, 31, a daily wage earner and father of a three-year-old child, was critically injured in the serial bombings that rocked Assam Oct 30, 2008.

Timung was at the Ganeshguri market in the heart of Assam's main city of Guwahati when one of the nine near- simultaneous explosions spread across the state went off, killing more than 100 people and injuring over 800.

The explosion not only crippled Timung for life but also broke his family with his young wife being forced into prostitution after their divorce.

Police busted the sex racket earlier this week and picked up two women from a rented accommodation, one of whom was identified as Pinky. She told police interrogators that Timung divorced her last year as he was unable to feed the family.

'Pinky took shelter in her mother's home in Guwahati and looked for a job to make ends meet,' the police official said.

But very soon, her plight was exploited by unscrupulous people around her - a woman acquaintance promised her financial help of Rs.10,000 and instead forced her into prostitution.

After her arrest, she was kept at a women's shelter home run by the Global Organization for Life Development (GOLD), an NGO in Guwahati, before she was handed back to her mother with some counselling.

'It is sad that women hit by terror attacks are exploited very cruelly with some of them forced into nasty things like prostitution. There could be many more such stories that have not come out,' Manumati Barman, a GOLD coordinator, told IANS.

'Insurgency is the root cause of many social evils...thousands of families have been shattered, children orphaned, women widowed, and some of them forced to beg for making ends meet,' Barman said.

Pinky's case is definitely not an isolated one and some feel a thorough study would unravel more such disturbing facts.

'There are instances of women victims of insurgency begging on the streets for a living, some cases of young mothers who lost their husbands to militant bullets remarrying and then again being divorced,' said Arunima Das, a reasearcher who has looked at the impact of insurgency on women and children in Assam.

'The list of women suffering due to insurgency is long and shocking. There is a need for a more comprehensive study on the sufferings of women hit by insurgency.'

More than 20,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in Assam during the past two decades, while thousands have been maimed for life in terror attacks.

(Syed Zarir Hussain can be contacted at zarir.h@ians.in)

Sixt, a German car hire firm, has urged customers to rent a small Citroen C3 hatchback through the advertising campaign, Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

'These advertisements are entitled to be funny and we need to inject a little fun into our business after such a difficult period experienced by many of our clients,' Sixt president in France, Jean-Philippe Doyen, was quoted as saying.

The international media has often pointed out the height difference between First Lady Carla Bruni, who is 5 feet 10 inches tall, and her husband who is 5 feet 5 inches tall.

The firm could face legal action for referring to Bruni and Sarkozy in a promotional campaign. 'People have been sued for this kind of thing before,' French daily Le Parisien observed.

Sarkozy is one of the world's shortest heads of state. He is a little taller than North Korea's Kim Jong-Il and Russia's Dmitry Medvedev, both of whom stand at 5 feet 3 inches.

To make up for the height difference, Bruni has been photographed wearing flat soles while Sarkozy wears specially-made 'stacked heels' to make him appear two inches taller, the media report said.

British Naturism members from across the country arrived at Flat Holm Island in the Bristol Channel and other tourists weren't allowed there over the weekend, unless they agreed to strip off too, The Sun reported Tuesday.

Flat Holm Island is the place from where Marconi sent the first ever radio message across water in 1897. It is about five miles from Cardiff.

Tim Hughley noticed the blood at the Westgate Burger King restaurant in West Auckland when his wife Rachel was about to bite into her burger. The still-wet blood had soaked into the bottom bun.

'I looked over because my wife was complaining they'd forgotten the lettuce. And I see this splatter of blood,' Hughley was quoted as saying by the New Zealand Herald.

Both of them checked to see if they had any cuts on their hands, but found nothing. They realised the blood must have come from the store counter where food was being packed for customers.

Burger King spokesperson Rachel Allison said the chef had a cut and had not noticed he was bleeding. As soon as the Hughleys complained, he was taken off burger-making duty and the food-making area was sanitised.

The company apologised profusely to the couple and offered vouchers, which they declined and said they would consider taking legal advice.

'What would have happened if my wife had bitten it and got hepatitis or AIDS?' he said.

Rachel Hughley said the incident was disgusting. 'The first thing I was thinking was AIDS or hepatitis B,' she said. 'It's blood - I was about to throw up.'

Hughley said when he showed the burger to the manager, he jumped and said: 'Oh my God, blood'. But instead of tending to the couple, the manager told them to wait and went back to the drive-in counter to serve customers.

Burger King staff do not wear gloves. They follow the practice of washing hands every hour and recording each wash on a form.

An Egyptian archaeological team has found 383 bronze coins in northern Qaroun Lake in Fayoum, 80 km southwest of Cairo, Xinhua reported Thursday citing Egypt's state-run MENA news agency.

Egyptian Culture Minister Farouq Hosni said the bronze coins are in good condition and were unearthed by a team of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities.

Zahi Hawwas, the council's secretary-general, said the coins, each weighing 32 grams, represent Ptolemy III Euergetes, who was the third ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt.

The Ptolemaic Dynasty was founded by one of Alexander the Great's generals and ruled Egypt for some 300 years, fusing Greek and ancient Egyptian cultures.

The team also discovered three necklaces made of ostrich eggshells, which are all in good condition, and a pot of kohl eyeliner from the Ottoman Empire.

Khaled Saad, head of the team, said this discovery is the first of its kind, adding that the remains of an ancient prehistoric whale were also found.

The bamboo parasols, or chhatris, once a ubiquitous feature at the ghats, are now literally fighting for their survival. There are only 130-150 parasols left at the over 250 ghats in this city, according to a study conducted by the Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

What is more worrying is that now in the entire city there is only one family of artisans that knows the traditional art of making parasols. 'The parasols that have given a unique identity to Varanasi and its ghats are disappearing fast. They are literally on the verge of extinction now,' Kalyan Krishna, professor at BHU's history of arts department, told IANS.

'If adequate measures are not taken for their revival, the parasols will soon become a thing of the past in the next five to seven years,' he added.

He attributes the disappearance of parasols primarily to the declining strength of benefactors.

'Earlier, driven by the belief that donations would help them attain punya (religious merit), a large number of people donated money to the priests, who in turn used to spend a major portion of it on maintenance of the parasols and ghats,' said Krishna, who is also convener and executive trustee of the Varanasi chapter of the Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

'With the passage of time, people gradually stopped giving donations to the priests and that eventually had a negative impact on the parasols. Today you will hardly come across a parasol that doesn't need any maintenance,' he added.

According to the research team, a standard chhatri would cost around Rs.2,000 today. But finding someone to make it would be a difficult task.

Hit by the falling demand, the craftsmen involved in making chhatris moved to other work.

'Today most of the craftsmen who were once associated with parasol-making have taken up the work of denting and painting of cars and other vehicles,' Krishna said.

In a bid to protect the centuries-old tradition from dying out, Krishna, along with his research team, has initiated a campaign 'Save the vanishing symbol of the identity of Kashi' to raise funds for repair of the existing chhatris.

'We have formed several teams that have been entrusted with the task of collecting money for the maintenance of chhatris. Some foreigners have also become a part of our campaign,' R. Kumar, one of the team members, told IANS.

'The response of the public is satisfactory. Initially, we have aimed to generate funds for maintenance and setting up of around 30 chhatris,' he said.

(Asit Srivastava can be contacted at asit.s@ians.in)

The study showed that a typical close friendship lasts 18 years with most best friends meeting at school, work or university. But at the same time people lose touch with around 24 friends over the years, reports express.co.uk.

Three-quarters of best friends are revealed as family members, with mothers topping the list at 39 percent, followed by sisters at 23 percent, while one in 10 people nominated their spouse.

Eighty-four percent of the respondents said relationships with family and friends were the most important things in their life.

Shefali Mattani of Nivea, which commissioned the survey, said: 'It is only the really strong friendships which continue despite life's interruptions and of course family members are often the most reliable and trustworthy people to turn to.'

Two-thirds of those questioned said a busy lifestyle meant they saw friends less and less, although a third were happy to confide in their pals over the internet.

'There really is nothing like making the effort to meet face-to-face. That is why we are urging people to take time out, really think about the relationships they have, and celebrate close family ties and friendships,' said Mattani.