Low-level filing clerks and receptionists are among 700 usually desk-bound civil servants at the Home Office recruited for the temporary work as they cope with the massive influx of visitors expected for the Olympics.

For Omnicom Group's OMD, 2008 proved to be a year of redemption after a difficult 2007, when the agency failed to capitalize on key opportunities and learned some painful lessons.

Forensic police swarmed the crypt of a Roman basilica on Monday to exhume the body of a reputed mobster as part of an investigation into one of the Vatican's most enduring mysteries: the 1983 disappearance of the teenage daughter of one of its employees.