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£20m mall unveiled by Queen
The Queen was this afternoon opening the £20 million Medway mall project being pioneered by Greenwich and Kent universities at Chatham. The eventual aim is to create a joint campus that will offer courses from the two universities, Mid-Kent College of Further and Higher Education and other local colleges.

Sentencing of retired Burmese professor condemned
Human Rights Watch condemned as "harsh" a seven-year jail sentence imposed on Tuesday on a 74-year-old retired university professor who took part in a pro-democracy demonstration in November in front of the Rangoon City Hall. Salai Tun Than, who is retired from Yezin University in Pyinmana, Upper Burma, distributed copies of a petition calling on the Burmese government to hold a general election in one year and to transfer power to the winners.

Quiet reception for professor's invention
Retired Huddersfield University professor Selwyn Wright has invented a silence machine that can switch off noisy neighbours or the din of road works with the press of a button. It is able to silence a specific source of noise while other sounds remain audible. He developed the machine in his garage with a grant from the Department of Trade and Industry.

Online access to OUP for a fee
Oxford University Press is publishing its language and subject reference dictionaries online - for a fee. Accessing the information will cost from about $250 (£175) a year for schools to just under $3,000 for libraries.