News in brief

Paris
Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist and philosopher, has died aged 71. Director of studies at the EHESS (School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences), he was elected to the Collège de France in 1981 - where he gave his farewell lecture in March last year on the subject of Pierre Bourdieu.

Vilnius
Lithuanian leaders are split over legislation to introduce university tuition fees of 1,000 litas (£177) in the next academic year.
Fees will be waived for students who gain high grades, and low-interest student loans, repayable over 15-20 years, will be available.

Campinas
Twenty-one of the 40 examiners who corrected a geography entrance exam to Brazil's Universidade Estadual de Campinas have been dismissed after irregularities were found in the correction process. Of the 12,000 examinees, 1,600 will have to re-sit.

Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia is to introduce a loyalty pledge for university academics from the beginning of the new academic year in May, to stop what prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has called the poisoning of students' minds. University students will also have to sign the pledge to eradicate anti-government activities on campus.

Florence
Lecturers at Florence University have protested at alleged attempts by Silvio Berlusconi's government to curb the powers of the Italian judiciary.
The government says it is defending itself against politically motivated judges who are trying to undermine the government with corruption trials and investigations.

London
A scheme to provide access to academic journals for 70 university libraries in poorer states in Africa has been launched by the Association of Commonwealth Universities.
Member universities in eight African Commonwealth countries in the bottom third of the United Nations' human development index are eligible for journal subscriptions from participating publishers at 10 per cent of the regular cost.