World watch

Zacatecas
More than 1,700 teaching staff at Mexico's Universidad Aut"noma de Zacatecas have halted lectures for 18,000 students in support of a demand for a 30 per cent pay rise after rejecting a 10.5 per cent offer.

Blantyre
The University of Malawi is investigating how meat infected with bovine tuberculosis appeared on the plates of 500 students at its agricultural college. The students detected that something was wrong with the meat when they sat down to eat.

Canberra
Australia's federal education minister has welcomed a report showing that 91 per cent of graduates were satisfied with their undergraduate courses - the highest satisfaction rating ever. David Kemp said it demonstrated that universities were responding positively to student needs.
http:///www.gradlink.edu.au/gradlink/gcca/g_ceq.htm

Rieti
Three universities in central Italy - Rieti, L'Aquila and Viterbo - are planning a course for water tasters with the local chamber of commerce. The universities will provide biologists, chemists and hydrologists, while local hotel and catering staff training colleges will supply the tasting expertise. The course is for university students of environmental and food science and training college students.

Azerbijan
Students this week picketed Azerbaijan's defence ministry in protest at the phasing out of military courses in higher education institutions that allowed them to perform their compulsory military service simultaneously with their studies.

Ukraine
The Taras Shevchenko National University in Kiev has conferred an honorary doctorate on Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma despite a political scandal that appears to implicate him in the murder of an opposition journalist.

Rome
For the first time since 1938, Italian students will be allowed to graduate more quickly if they pass all exams and accumulate the necessary credits. Current reforms cancel a 1938 regulation stipulating the number of years for any degree course.