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Looks at the competition which universities in Great Britain are facing from global and corporate competitors. Examination of information from a Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals' briefing paper; Reference to distance learning courses offered by on-line institutions; Recommendations for British universities. INSET: The rise of the mega-competitor.

Presents information on economist Paul Krugman. Krugman's aspirations to become an academic; Examination of statements issued by Krugman; Krugman's study of history; Information on Krugman's stylish theory and its impact on economic crises; Details on Krugman's first research paper. INSET: Courting antagonism to make his theories hit home.

Reports in August 1998 that staff at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa was fired after allegedly selling examination papers. Description of an investigation at the University; Description of the activity that led to the investigation.

Focuses on infertile couples in the United States, who are using classified advertising in student newspapers to allocate ovarian eggs from students. Suggestion that students are willing to risk their health for money; Evidence of ovarian complications in a student due to fertility drugs; Comments from Joseph Clark, who works on `Ubyssey,' the University of British Columbia student paper.

Focuses on the impact which consultation responses to the British government's `Learning Age' green paper, could have on funding for further and higher education from the year 2000 to 2002. Criticism of how the government handled access to study to the National Vocational Qualification level three; Response of the Fryer group to the consultation; Concerns of the Association of Colleges.

Opinion. Offers 13 suggestions on how external examiners in the educational sector should be treated. Importance of sending drafts of examination papers; Measures which should be taken when allowing external examiners to look at examination material; Why the use of systematic order should be avoided.

Focuses on the Association of Colleges' (AoC) response to the Great Britain's government's paper entitle `Accountablity in Further Education.' Why the AoC rejected the government's plans for further education.

Reports on Phyllis Starkey's, minister of parliament for Milton Keynes South West, search for a Commons debate on whether women are getting a fair deal in researching in science, engineering and technology. Concerns regarding a paper in the `Nature' periodical dated 1997; Information on a survey conducted by the Swedish Medical Research Council; Information on Starkley.

Focuses on public-funded scientific research in the United States. Comments from Diana Hicks, researcher at CHI Research; Percentage of papers filed which were funded by public research; Production of scientific literature in Great Britain.

Focuses on the development of degree pass standards by the Quality Assessment Agency in Great Britain, for chemistry, history and law. Information on the response paper; Views of the Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals.

Presents information on a report called `Mapping the Landscape' which was produced by the Wellcome Trust and contained information on Great Britain's biomedical research outputs between 1988 to 1995. Identification of universities that produce the most biomedical papers in Great Britain; What the report indicated.

Reports that according to research by London Institute of Education, differences between south and north European education systems are affecting attempts to develop joint learning policies. Contents of a paper to be published during June, 1998 for the European Commission; Details on the findings of the study on the convergence of education policies.

Reports that the Quality Assurance Agency may be in conflict with the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education in Great Britain. Reference to the contents of a paper published by the Institute of Education; Comments made by Roger Brown, principal of Southampton Institute and former chief executive of the Higher Education Quality Council; What could cause this conflict.

Reports on the settlement of the strike by lecturers at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, after students served legal papers to its president and the head of the staff union. Circumstances surrounding the strike; Indication that an agreement was reached between the university and its full-time academic staff; Comments from Chris Adams, Dalhousie student union president.

Reports that the Association of University Teachers is sending ballot papers to members, in relation to the offering of a 2 percentage pay increase for six months in higher education in Great Britain. Details on the closing date for the ballots; Indepth look at the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education's (Natfhe)involvement; Comments from Natfhe's universities negotiator, Liz Allen.

Looks at assurances rendered by quality chiefs to universities that they are not planning a national curriculum for higher education. Reference to attempts being made to introduce a national curriculum; Common factors which can be identified from the subject standards; Information on a paper published in the journal entitled `Quality in Higher Education.'

Offers the views of vice-chancellors regarding Higher Education Funding Council for England's plans to reward excellence in teaching, while highlighting issues addressed at a meeting being held by the council. Reference to some of the arguments being made by the vice-chancellors; Details on a paper introduced by the council; Comments from John Tarrant, vice-chancellor and principal at the University of Huddersfield.

Presents information as it relates to an agreement signed by Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia, which was to remove his cabinet on March 23, 1998. Factors which influenced Yeltsin to sign the agreement; Reference to a paper written by Neil Robinson, regarding problems experienced by Yeltsin.

Reports on the joint venture between English entrepreneurs and academics to publish the complete working notebooks of Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet, in a cash raising venture to preserve one of Russia's antiquarian collections. History on Pushkin's 18 notebooks; Condition of the Pushkinskii Dom in St. Petersburg, where books and papers belonging to Russian and European writers are kept; How long the Russians have been trying to raise money to restore this building.

Presents news briefs pertaining to education from around Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Reference to the green paper `Performance Management Through Capability,' which was commissioned by the New Learning for New Work Consortium and Institute of Personnel and Development; Investigations into the results of examinations at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland; Health care services for foreign students in Scotland; Score system for advance level engineering courses.

Reports that funds to train over 100,000 childcare workers must be made available, if the British government's plans for child care reform, is to be successful. Information on the government's plan for out-of-school children's clubs; Comments from Anne Longford, director of the Kids Club Network; Reference to the green paper `A National Childcare Strategy,' which is expected around Easter 1998.

Opinion. Comments on the government publication of the green paper `The Learning Age,' which relate to lifelong learning. Indication that the government fail to live up to the plans for lifelong learning; What must be done to compete in the global market; Information on the contents of the document.

Focuses on the `Your Rights to Know' white paper on freedom of information in the United Kingdom, while highlighting the Freedom of Information Act. Indepth look at the Act; Reference a report by Sir Richard Scott, on arms to Iraq; What statutory rights will be provided by the act.

Reports on the views of Great Britain's Liberal Democrat spokesman on further and higher education Phil Willis, of what is wrong with higher education in the country. Hopes of Willis of what a policy paper developed will produce; View as to what society wants from higher education; Comments from Willis.

Opinion. Focuses on the debate about the relevance of private finance initiatives (PFI) in universities. Reference to an article in the Treasury paper, `Partnerships for Prosperity'; Information on the negative and positive aspects of PFI.

Opinion. Reviews the happenings in higher and further education industry for 1997. What higher and further education's wish for 1998 must be; Views concerning much of the government of Great Britain's policy; Information on the Lifelong Learning white paper; Details on problems associated with fees, loans, applications and access policies in education.

Reports on calls made by social work professor, Paul Boateng, for the government to recommend changes in the training of social workers in its forthcoming social service white paper. Information on the abolition of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW); What CCETSW will be replaced with.

States that a report into the future of Oxford University, England is expected to suggest changes that would make it operate more like Cambridge. What the contents of Peter North's paper is expected to be like; How the day-to-day academic government of Oxford is run.

Reports that according to Kim Howells the long-awaited white paper on lifelong learning will be unable to accommodate all the recommendations made by Sir Ron Dearing. Details on a speech at the Society for Research into Higher Education annual conference at Warwick University.

Opinion. Focuses on the changes to be made in the educational system in universities in New Zealand. Information on proposals the green paper; Indepth look at the country's university system; What the main objectives of the universities should be.

Reports on the delay in the release of a white paper on the promised food standards agency in Great Britain due to arguments over the agency's nutritional role. Food industry's opposition to the agency's authority to give nutritional advice.

Reports on the discovery of brown dwarf stars by the Astrophysics Institute of the Canaries in Canary Islands. Description of brown dwarfs; Discovery of Teide 1 in the region of the Pleiades star cluster; Reporting of the first sighting of a brown dwarf in a paper published in 1995.

Opinion. Describes the purpose of a consultation paper on the future of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in Great Britain. Aim of the consultation effort to invite comments on a number of criticisms levelled against RAE; Collection of formal responses from institutions and direct contributions via an electronic discussion group on the Internet.

Focuses on a major study suggesting that needy South African students saddled with large study loans should be able to pay them off partly through community service work. Study titled `Community Service in Higher Education: A Concept Paper'; Offering of possible ways out of the financial mess in which many students find themselves; Nine international examples of student national service.

Focuses on a research paper from the Centre for Research on Higher Education dealing with religious or gender discrimination in employment in Northern Ireland.

Focuses on Welsh Office's rejection of plans to replace A levels with a Welsh baccalaureate. Blocking development of a legitimate new overarching qualifications; Government paper titled `Qualifying for Success'.

Opinion. Comments on the issues confronting universities in New Zealand. Green paper on the national qualifications framework; Problem about value or meaning of a New Zealand university degree; Universities' statutory power to approve degree courses and programs.

Focuses on the proliferation of conspiracy theories about the death in a plane crash of leading Indian nationalist, Subhas Chandra Bose, at the end of the Second World War. Need for the British Foreign Office to release papers on the incident; Absence of an official report on Bose's death by either the government of India or Great Britain.

Focuses on the impact of devolution proposals in Wales on a pioneering approach to funding strongly endorsed in the Dearing report on the future of higher education in Great Britain. Proposed separation of the Further Education Funding Council for Wales and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales; White paper titled `A Voice for Wales'.

Reports on the impact of the increase tuition fees on British underprivileged students. Concerns on the proposed fees; Life-long Learning white paper basis of the increase; Composition of the decision-making body.

Reports on the investigation of Richard Wilson, director of Lancaster University's Shakespeare program on the lost years of William Shakespeare. Development of a country house theater and arts center at Houghton Tower; Content of the Houghton family papers; Secret to a successful regionalist policy.

Analyzes the significance of the omission of intelligence documents from the publication `Constitutional Relations Between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power 1942-47'. Function of the Indian Political Intelligence; Declassification of papers from the India Office archives.

Examines the health benefits of the so-called Mediterranean diet. Link between low incidence of heart diseases and the Mediterranean diet; Problems with the large number of academic papers emphasizing the advantages of a single substance in regard to multifactorial conditions; Analysis of ingredients in recipe books and magazine articles that claim to portray Mediterranean recipes.

Profiles British lawyer and academic Anthony Julius. Interest in the subject of anti-Semitism; Love for poetry; Desire to get a paper in law and literature in the postgraduate master of laws degree.

Focuses on academic Ashwin Desai's decision to withdraw from an Oxford conference where he is due to deliver a paper concerning ethnicity and labor relations in Great Britain. Reasons for the decision of Desai; Criminal charges faced by Desai arising from an alleged campaign of intimidation held in a mixed-race university.

Reports on the possible involvement of the British government in debates over European mobility in education, training and research. Warnings made by a European Commission paper about obstacles on mobility; Difficulty in transferring grants or other forms of financial support.

Opinion. Argues against the use of the Ivy League metaphor to distribute funding among universities in Great Britain based on their research capabilities. Mechanics of ranking American universities included in the Ivy League; Need to rank university faculties by their average citations per paper; Important features of Ivy League universities.

Reports on a call for the return of the 150,000 British pounds disaster fund owed to the victims of a coal mine accident in Wales. Availability of government papers about the tragedy 30 years after the incident; Unlawful decision by trustees of charity to use funds in removal of heaps of coal waste.