Domestic workers are entitled to an eight percent across the board wage increase from November 1, the Labour Department said on Friday. Labour spokesperson Snuki Zikalala said in a statement wages must be increased by at least eight percent calculated on an hourly rate.

Academics in California have confirmed what every office worker in the land has known for years: we are drowning in a rising sea of information. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, say the amount of information being generated worldwide has increased by 30% each year since 1999.

America moved a step closer to serving meat and milk from cloned animals or their progeny yesterday when the government’s food regulation agency said they would be as safe to eat as conventional foods. The FDA concluded that adult clones are virtually indistinguishable from traditionally bred livestock.

Iran appeared to have passed a stiff international test on its suspected nuclear weapons programme yesterday when the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Tehran had supplied its inspectors with a ”comprehensive” record of a project that goes back 20 years.

A rightwing German MP last night faced numerous calls for his resignation after he talked of ”the Jews” as a ”nation of perpetrators” and alleged they were responsible for the deaths of millions of people during the Russian revolution. In a speech to his constituents the MP claimed that Jewish people had a ”dark side”.

A new scheme aimed at ending the ”blood diamond” trade will not stop the illicit commerce that fuels conflicts across Africa, say NGOs. About 60 countries attending a three-day conference in South Africa agreed to what they call a voluntary peer review system.

There are two ways of looking at South Africa’s clinical demolition of big-hitting Samoa, which saw the Springboks beat the Pacific Islanders by 60 points to 10. Either England, who only sneaked past the islanders 35-22, aren’t as good as we thought. Or the Boks, with Derick Hougaard at fly-half, are a potent weapon.