A United States envoy confirmed on Wednesday that North Korea has begun preparations for a nuclear test as the Stalinist state claimed it has taken a key step towards the manufacture of more atomic bombs. North Korea is believed to have as many as eight nuclear weapons, according to estimates, but has not tested one so far.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is planning mass action against retailers after the Competition Commission found that there would be no competition concerns should retailers sign Cosatu’s proposed code of conduct, which sets a target of 75% local content for clothing products on retailers’ shelves.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) journalists and technical workers have voted to strike in protest at thousands of job cuts, union officials said on Wednesday. The BBC now faces the threat of a walkout at TV and radio stations across the country later this month and the possible disruption of some programmes.
Defending champion and top-ranked Roger Federer cruised into the third round of the Hamburg Masters and avenged his Olympic defeat by beating Tomas Berdych 6-2, 6-1 on Wednesday. In his first tournament following a three-week break to rest inflammation in both feet, Federer will next meet Tommy Robredo.
MWeb may have to retrench 109 employees after its acquisition of Tiscali South Africa three months ago, it was reported on Wednesday. The company’s chief executive, Kim Reid, said "certain duplications and/or redundancies" have been determined after MWeb evaluated the effects of acquiring Tiscali and combining the two businesses.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a closed-door meeting with his restive Labour Party on Wednesday during his first real confrontation with lawmakers who have called for him to resign after Labour’s majority was slashed in last week’s election.
Jesus Christ is having trouble convincing United States courts to let him keep his name. It’s not the Messiah who is facing this problem, of course, but an American business-owner who, about 15 years ago, adopted the name of the Christian God’s son. The man, born Peter Robert Phillips Jnr, started his legal battle in 2003.
A tiny Canadian shrub is the quickest-moving thing in the plant world, using a catapult mechanism to eject its pollen at a speed hundreds of times faster than a launched rocket, scientists have found. The plant, bunchberry dogwood, grows in thick carpets in the vast swampy, spruce-fir forests of the North American taiga.
For more than a century, teams of donkeys have carried tourists down the beach at Blackpool, one of Britain’s top tourist destinations. But only now are they to get a compulsory lunch break. A wide-ranging "employment rights" charter for donkeys was announced on Wednesday.
In an unusual first for the art world, a London auction house announced on Wednesday it will sell a series of abstract paintings by a chimpanzee, Congo, once feted as the "Cezanne of the ape world". Congo became famous in the late 1950s when his swirling works were exhibited in London.