Local authorities in Quezon City, Philippines are encouraging more hog raisers to collect scrap foods from households to feed their pigs after a successful pilot-testing of such programs in nine barangays (villages) in the city. Under the program implemented eight months ago, hog raisers conducted door-to-door collection of leftovers and kitchen waste in the community. The aim of the program is to reduce the amount of garbage generated by households and at the same time lessen the expenses of hog raisers by feeding the collected scrap foods to their pigs.

Dropping an earlier plan to censor the photo, the subway walls in Tokyo will now feature a nude and pregnant Britney Spears. The advertisement space at the posh Omotesando station next week will be rented by HB Japan Inc. , publisher of the Japanese edition of Harper's Bazaar. They aim to promote their October issue with Spears posing naked on the cover. The AP reports that the advertisement that will appear in Tokyo is the same that was used in the August issue of the magazine's U. S. edition. It shows the 24 year old Spears baring her belly but she covers her breasts with her hands.

In a bid to preserve the species of the red haired, long armed apes, zookeepers in the Netherlands are planning Internet dates for orangutans. Zookeepers in Netherlands say the plan to hook up Dutch and Indonesian orangutans will test the compatibility between the two.

To obtain a different cool taste and global appeal, a Greenland brewery has declared it will make beer with pure water from an ice cap. "This is an old dream finally coming true," Greenland Brewhouse co-owner Steen Outzen told AFP Wednesday. "Our aim is to make a unique, very high-quality beer. "

Sixteen percent of Chinese women or 55 million are illiterate, particularly in the rural areas where the brutal system of feudalism is still being practiced. Zhao Shaohua, vice chairwoman of the All-China Women's Federation gave the figure at a conference on Asian women being held in Beijing.