Don's Diary
SATURDAY. Fly from Heathrow at 7am with a brief stopover at Frankfurt and then by Ukraine Air International to Simferopol, capital of the Crimea. The flight is remarkably pleasant, as is the wine...
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Final Word
This week's Final Word comes from a double act who created a cultural icon: "My two dear friends came in the evening, and the last post brought a letter from Lupin in reply to mine. I read it aloud...
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Speaking Volumes: Mémoires d'une Jeune Fille Rangée
Jill Forbes on Simone de Beauvoir's Mémoires d'une Jeune Fille Rangée . I first came across Memoires d'une Jeune Fille Rangee in the Penguin translation published in 1963. I had just returned from a...
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Portugal suspends tuition fee law
The incoming Socialist government in Portugal is suspending the controversial tuition fee law as promised by leader Antonio Guterres in the party election manifesto. In its place students at state...
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Expats ponder career prospects in ex-colony
With 600 days to go before Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule, expatriate academics, who are reluctant to work under a Chinese dictator, are starting to reconsider their career options. Stanley Vittoz...
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Black woman scores v-c first
Former black consciousness activist Mamphela Ramphela is to be the first black leader of an historically white university and South Africa's second woman vice chancellor. She was chosen last week as...
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Myanmar students rally for rights
Hundreds of students in Rangoon have defied the military government of Myanmar (Burma), to honour the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They gathered in front of her home to celebrate a traditional...
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Aid for TV fans with poor sight
Visually impaired people will soon have much less difficulty in following television programmes thanks to an audio commentary that fills in the gaps between dialogue. Known as Audiotel, the technique...
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Sleep arousals checked
It may be of little comfort to sufferers of insomnia to learn that some kinds of sleeplessness are worse than others. Some restless periods in bed, which scientists call "arousals", tend to cause...
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The trek that filled a planet
Thousands of years ago human beings trekked the 2,000 kilometres across the "ice-free corridor" from Siberia through to the Americas. This last great continental colonisation has now become the...
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Coventry in race for cleaner car engine
Coventry University has teamed up with Northampton-based formula one racing giant Cosworth in a race to build the first fundamentally different car engine for a century. Cosworth, whose high...
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Chip thieves target colleges
Colleges and universities are being targeted by gangs of thieves on the lookout for scarce memory chips worth up to Pounds 800 each, writes Alison Utley. John Heap, head of computing services at...
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Campus plan staggers under damning reports
A flagship plan for a campus in West Belfast has been severely holed below the waterline by two Government-commissioned reports. The University of Ulster is now fighting a rearguard action to keep...
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Students protest at housing
Manchester University has backed down on proposed rent increases in halls of residence this term, following a student rent strike. Students, who voted unanimously in favour of the strike in a packed...
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Welsh work exerts a magnetic attraction
Independent researcher Roger Coghill, from Pontypool, Gwent, is doing his best to broaden understanding of scientific research in the former Eastern bloc. Mr Coghill has brought at his own expense a...