Category: news

At least 37 people are killed in a collision between a train and a small bus in eastern Ukraine, police say.

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Leighton Andrews will respond to the Browne recommendations

Welsh education minister Leighton Andrews is to respond to the findings of a review of higher education in England being published on Tuesday.

It is expected the cross-party Browne review will recommend the cap on university tuition fees is scrapped.

This would allow institutions to charge more than double the £3,290 a year they currently receive.

The assembly government says it is keeping an eye on developments and will consider the implications for Wales.

Other expected recommendations in Lord Browne’s report include higher interest rates for the repayment of student loans.

Though devolution gives Welsh ministers the opportunity to diverge from English policy on universities, some educationalists fear the consequences of doing so in this case.

They have warned that if English universities were able to charge tuition fees of £7,000 a year and their counterparts here were not, an existing funding gap between English and Welsh universities could get even larger.

‘A disaster for Wales’

Last year the Welsh affairs select committee estimated that the gap already costs Welsh universities £61m a year.

Andrew Parry from Glynwdwr University in Wrexham told BBC Wales that a two-tier system where Welsh universities fall behind English ones is a distinct possibility.

National Union of Students Wales president Katie Dalton said: “The cap being raised is a disaster for Wales in that institutions in England will be able to charge more and Welsh insitutions would be underfunded.”

The proposals for England are being outlined by a panel of experts, chaired by former BP chief Lord Browne.

An initial response from Education Minister Leighton Andrews on how Wales reacts to the proposed changes in England is expected on Tuesday afternoon.

It may be some time before there is full clarity on these issues, as the way the Browne recommendations will be taken forward by the UK coalition government is ot yet clear.

‘Dishonest’

The Liberal Democrats campaigned at the general election against fee rises and all the party’s MPs have signed a pledge to oppose them.

Ministers have been trying to reach a compromise that will be progressive enough to secure their backing.

Ceredigion Liberal Democrat MP Mark Williams has said it would be “dishonest” if he voted with the coalition government to scrap the upper limit on university tuition fees in England.

Mr Williams said it was “huge principle” and he would vote against it.

Mr Williams told BBC Wales: “I think it would be dishonest for me personally to do anything other than that and an abstention is not a vote against those increases.

“I’ve fought four elections in the Ceredigion constituency with two excellent universities – in Lampeter and Aberystwyth – and I’ve made commitments over those four elections and specifically at the last general election and on that basis I’m sticking by that pledge.”

The UK government is also considering asking all but the poorest graduates in England to pay a “market” rate of interest on their student loans.

Currently all graduates pay a low interest rate, linked to the base rate, on their tuition fee and maintenance loans.

The earnings level at which they start repaying loans may also be raised.

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US President Barack Obama has spoken to David Cameron about the death of kidnapped British aid worker Linda Norgrove in Afghanistan.

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The police officer blinded by Raoul Moat has said that he still sees the gunman’s face at night, three months after the shooting.

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Veteran broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson criticises celebrities who try their hand at fronting talk shows.

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BBC deputy director general Mark Byford is to leave the corporation in March 2011 and the post closed, the BBC is expected to announce.

Mr Byford is in charge of the BBC’s journalism and his responsibilities include editorial policy and planning for the London Olympic games

He joined the BBC in 1979, aged 20, as a “temporary holiday relief assistant” in the television newsroom in Leeds.

The BBC has not officially confirmed the decision yet.

Mr Byford, whose salary is £471,000, has a total remuneration package worth £485,000, according to the BBC’s 2008/2009 accounts.

Mr Byford took on his current role in January 2004, but just three weeks later had to step up to acting director general after Greg Dyke resigned following the publication of the Hutton Report.

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A gun has been recovered and four men arrested in County Tyrone.

Police officers investigating alleged dissident republican activity stopped a car near Cookstown late on Monday night.

They searched the vehicle and found the weapon and a quantity of ammunition.

The four men were taken to Antrim PSNI station for questioning.

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Two people are killed and 10 wounded in an explosion on board a Nato helicopter in eastern Afghanistan, coalition officials say.

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The eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il says he opposes a dynastic succession that would see his younger half-brother take power.

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A Greek tanker transporting kerosene and a Cypriot container ship have collided off the Dutch coast.

The collision happened in the North Sea, some 30km (19 miles) from the port of Scheveningen, according to Dutch news agency ANP.

No-one was injured in the incident although the tanker’s hull was pierced and the highly flammable fuel was leaking out.

An oil dispersion ship and rescue vessels are on their way to the site.

The tanker is reported to have a crew of 25 people. Twelve people were on board the Cypriot ship.

“There is a hole in the tanker’s waterline which has triggered a leak,” Jan Regeling, a spokesman for the Dutch coastguard, told AFP.

Reports say the hole is five-metres (16 ft) wide. The kerosene posed no public health risk, was evaporating rapidly and was not expected to reach the shoreline, according to another coastguard spokesperson quoted by Reuters.

The Cypriot vessel has requested permission to sail for Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

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Zuckerberg is a billionaire six times over

The Social Network, movie about the rise of internet phenomenon Facebook, has topped the US box office chart for a second week.

Social Network, written by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, stars Justin Timberlake and newcomer Jesse Eisenberg.

The film charts the history of the website from its launch in 2004.

It goes on to track the legal battle between creator Mark Zuckerberg and several fellow students at Harvard.

His former friends claim he stole their idea.

The Social Network took $15.5m (£9.8m) in its second week.

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Medical workers in the city of Aden in southern Yemen say two explosions there have killed at least one person and injured at eight others.

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Engineers have “extreme public safety concerns” following their initial assessment of the fire-ravaged Hastings Pier.

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David Cameron is to chair a meeting of the National Security Council ahead of the strategic defence and security review.

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A road crash south of the Polish capital, Warsaw, has left 17 people dead, police have said.

The accident occurred at dawn in thick fog when a lorry and a minibus collided near the town of Nowe Miasto nad Pilica, 80km (50 miles) from Warsaw.

Sixteen people were confirmed dead at the scene and one later died in hospital. One person is being treated for serious injuries.

Poland’s Interior Minister Jerzy Miller is travelling to the crash scene.

Police have launched an investigation.

A police spokeswoman told Reuters news agency: “All we know so far is that a van pulled over into the opposite lane and had a head-on crash with a Volvo [lorry].”

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