India's lucrative outsourcing sector is not limited to back office jobs. It is now emerging as a major supplier of "back bedroom jobs" as an infant outsourcing hub as well. According to the International Herald Tribune, reproduction is the newest addition to the Asian tiger's outsourcing industry. Couples from the United States and Europe are asking Indian women to serve as surrogate mothers, leading to a boom in the number of clinics offering the procedure.

A massive $2. 7 billion (20 billion yuan) income is expected to be earned by China's catering industry during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. The huge food bill covers the meals of 280,000 athletes, Olympic officials, media and other workers from 200 nations as well as 5 million overseas and 120 million domestic tourists. It will be an unprecedented opportunity for the nation's catering sector which is used to making just $3. 2 billion (24 billion yuan) a year, said Bian Jiang, spokesman of the China Cuisine Association (CCA).

An Egyptian teacher who wears the niqab, an outfit usually black and covers the entire body including the face and reveals in some cases, only the eyes, paid an unemployed man to wear the clothing and take her driving test. However, when the man showed up to take the test, traffic security officers noticed his shoes and suspected a man was underneath the clothes. The man eventually cracked and confessed that the teacher paid him $120 to take the test for her. The woman, who had been waiting at a near by cafe, was arrested.

Ousted and jailed President Joseph Estrada, who is awaiting the decision of an anti-graft court on an $89-million plunder case, is being sued for the same charge by an unlikely complainant: the self-professed owner of the entire Philippine archipelago. The inquirer. net reported on Thursday that Homobono Adaza, the lawyer of Prince Julian Tallano, who claims to be the legal owner of the entire archipelago, is lodging a complaint of plunder against the deposed president with the Office of the Ombudsman on Friday.

Private letters and mementos giving a rare behind-the-scenes look at royal British weddings have gone public at Windsor Castle. The items on display include extracts from Queen Victoria's journal written shortly before her 1840 marriage to Prince Albert, in which she describes him as "excessively handsome. "The journals are part of a collection put together to mark the diamond anniversary of Britain's Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.