Mass arrests in Tibet; Bush urges China to talk
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BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have launched mass arrests of Tibetans in Lhasa for interrogation about the fiercest anti-Chinese uprising for decades, a Beijing-based source told Reuters on Wednesday.
President George W. Bush urged Chinese President Hu Jintao by phone to open dialogue with the exiled Dalai Lama. Hu said China would not talk to the [...]
Global poverty to halve by 2015 Africa seen lagging
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world is on course to halve extreme poverty by 2015, but Africa will fall far short of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
A new report by the global institutions also warned that urgent action was needed to tackle climate change, which threatens [...]
How new technology keeps the flame burning
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ATHENS (Reuters) - The tradition of the Olympic flame is rooted in Greek sporting heritage dating back thousands of years but new technology keeps the fire burning whatever the elements — or modern-day protester — can throw at it.
Well, almost.
This week a torch was briefly extinguished in Paris to keep it from protesters opposing China’s [...]
India takes on China over Africas riches
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India has granted Africa radically improved terms of trade in the clearest
signal yet that it intends to compete head-to-head with China for access to
the continents natural resources.
Speaking at the inaugural India-Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi, Manmohan
Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, said that tariffs would be scrapped on a
host of African imports, from diamonds and [...]
India takes on China over Africas riches
Posted by admin
India has granted Africa radically improved terms of trade in the clearest
signal yet that it intends to compete head-to-head with China for access to
the continents natural resources.
Speaking at the inaugural India-Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi, Manmohan
Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, said that tariffs would be scrapped on a
host of African imports, from diamonds and [...]
Universities fear imminent student drought
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The number of school leavers is expected to plummet over the next 10 years, leaving 70,000 university places unfilled - the equivalent of nearly six universities.Universities will have to compete harder, target more mature students and those from outside the EU to fill seats in lecture halls as a historic dip in the birth rate [...]
Should elite cease to be a dirty word
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YesThe idea of an academic elite is a fundamental, democratic good and one that we must defend vigorously if British education is to compete seriously on the global stage. The trouble is that the word elite is now heavy with pejorative connotations. Its beginnings were innocuous enough. It came from the Latin eligere, meaning “to [...]
Rise of the prodigies 50% increase in university students under 18
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The number of under-18s studying at English universities has gone up by over 50% in the past six years, according to figures that suggest that ambitious teenagers are taking advantage of new anti-discrimination laws to demand an early place.There are nearly 8,000 under-18s at university - up from less than 5,000 in 2002, figures obtained [...]
Theres no shame in striving for excellence
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Excellence is good, elitism is bad was the overwhelming message from all sides of a politically diverse panel at a debate hosted this week by Education Guardian and the thinktank Agora on whether “elite” should cease to be a dirty word. It was obvious from the start that a panel who had studied at “elite” [...]
The village that built a huge business empire
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REMEMBER seeing rubbish strewn in an unkempt and stagnant river behind a villa during a visit to China’s richest village, Huaxi in Jiangsu province, last July.
That’s the first impression I had of the village whose residents have at least a bungalow and a car each as well as savings of more than a million yuan [...]
