Latest international news

China accuses US-based scholars of spying
China has begun trials of two scholars who are accused of spying for the United States, according to the State Department. Li Shaomin, a US citizen who taught at Hong Kong’s City University, and Gao Zhan, a US resident and research scholar at the American University in Washington DC, were arrested on visits to China in February.

Brazil tightens control of faculties
Brazilian education minister Paulo Renato Souza has announced that he will close university faculties and suspend or terminate higher education courses that he considers to be of poor quality. The decision follows accusations of insufficient control on sub-standard faculties created for commercial gain. 

US-funded Afghan library opens
A new library has been opened at the Kabul Medical Institute in Afghanistan, together with an accommodation block for visiting United States medical lecturers. The $250,000 facilities were paid for by Loma Linda University, in California.

Iranian scientists join Cern
Iranian physicists will join researchers at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory in Geneva, following an agreement signed yesterday. Iranian industry will also help to build the experiments that will investigate why fundamental particles have mass, which are due to start in 2005. The researchers will come from the Sharif University of Technology, the Beheshti University, the University of Mashad and the Institute for Physics and Mathematics in Teheran.

• Get daily news from The THES by email. Sign up for a free trial .