News in brief

Madison
The University of Wisconsin System is to suspend undergraduate admissions pending confirmation of budget cuts by the state legislature. The university faces a $20 million (£14 million) cut on top of a $51 million reduction in its budget.

Ottawa
Canada is to double its support for the Vancouver-based distance-learning organisation Commonwealth of Learning, from C$1.1million (£488,000) to C$2.2 million a year.

Aarhus
Michael Boss, head of Aarhus University's Centre for Irish Studies, has been elected president of the European Federation of Associations and Centres for Irish Studies.

Guatemala
Death threats have been received by 11 scientists who worked for the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation and the country's Centre of Forensic Anthropology and Applied Sciences on the exhumation of victims of massacres during the counter-insurgency campaign in the early 1980s.

Jerusalem
The director-general of Israel's Council for Higher Education and a higher education adviser have resigned after disagreeing with education minister Limor Livnat over the reduction of university representatives on the council from 18 out of 25 to 12.

Paris
France is to accept more medical students for second-year studies to prevent a shortage of doctors in the next 20 years. The number of students passing their first-year exams should rise from 4,700 to 6,000 a year from 2003.