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After having its license to teach international students revoked last week, London Metropolitan University announced last night that they will be challenging the decision. In a statement, followed up by interviews by the vice-chancellor, the university strongly refuted the claims from the UK Border Agency and made it clear they will be taking immediate legal action.

The statement appeared on the university's website on Monday night and strongly denies the claims of UKBA:

"There is no evidence of systemic failings, as claimed. The evidence that we provided to UKBA clearly shows on file after file that we were taking every reasonable measure we could to be compliant."

It went on to describe how UKBA had significantly changed their requirements at least 14 times in the last three years and this is "creating confusion across universities in the country".

London Met now hopes to appeal against the decision, taking legal action "as a matter of urgency" in order for its students to return to study as soon as possible. Indeed, the vice-chancellor Professor Malcolm Gillies was in bullish mood during interviews, asserting:

The north of England has a huge new attraction, after a giant figure of a woman appeared carved into the landscape near Northumberland. The 400m long artwork is called Northumberlandia, though is also known as ‘The Lady of The North', and is the brainchild of landscape sculptor Charles Jencks.

The figure took seven years to plan and a further two to build, and is said to be the largest landscape replica of the female body in history. It is made up of 1.5 million tonnes of rock, soil, stone and clay, all of which were by-products of a nearby mine, and together make the tallest point a massive 34m high.

It began life as part of the planning permission for the mine to be created on the site, and a spokesperson from the Banks Group mining company revealed:

"It cost £3m for us to create Northumberlandia. We wanted to give something back. When we end a project on a mining site we restore it. With this project we heard there was some local concern about a negative effect on tourism, so we decided to go one step further than usual and create a tourist attraction to leave as our legacy."

The sculpture will be officially opened today by Princess Anne, and members of the public and go and explore the piece from Wednesday onwards.

The London 2012 Paralympics kicked-off on Wednesday night with a spectacular opening ceremony, before the Team GB athletes held up their side of the bargain with two gold medals on the first day.

Ceremony with a Message

The opening ceremony, whilst maybe not quite as spectacular as Danny Boyle's Olympic equivalent, was brilliant. A theme of scientific discovery and enlightenment ran throughout, and Professor Stephen Hawking was in the Olympic Stadium narrating the events going on around him. As a world-famous scientist who himself is severely disabled, he was the perfect candidate for such a role and brought with him the message: "Look at the stars and not down at your feet ... Be curious".

With the scientific theme running throughout, the ceremony started with a glowing, fiery orb that represented the Big Bang, before a pulsing mound of people came to represent the recent Higgs Boson particle discovery. There were hundreds of volunteers dancing with umbrellas, flying wheelchairs, spinning acrobats, giant human rights books and Ian McKellen reading Shakespeare. This was a ceremony that had a clear message but certainly didn't take itself too seriously.

A protest is building outside Downing Street this afternoon as students and NUS members gathered to show their anger over the treatment of London Metropolitan University's international students.

Thousands of non-EU students have been left stranded after finding out today that London Met has lost its license to admit international students. The judgement from the UK Border Agency leaves 2,600 students with no university to attend when the new term starts in less than a month and with visas that will run out in just 60 days.

The university's international students find themselves in an impossible situation. Existing students returning for their second or third years, as well as new students arriving for their first year, now face a desperate scramble to try and find a place at a different university.

"Serious, systematic failure"

The whole process started when London Met was first warned earlier in the year about their treatment of international students and abuses of the student visa system. They then had their status as a ‘highly trusted sponsor' suspended by UKBA over a month ago.

One of the stranger stories of the year hit Britain this weekend, as police hunted for a lion on the loose in Essex. The police were called in after there were numerous sightings from locals of what looked like a lion. However, after a fruitless 24-hours, the search was called off due to a lack of any evidence being found.

This bizarre story all started when a holidaymaker reported that he had seen a lion in a field near the Essex coast on Sunday evening. A grainy photo (above) of the animal was shown to experts at the nearby Colchester Zoo, who admitted that there was the possibility it was a lion.

With this ‘confirmation' the police got involved, advising people in the local area to stay indoors. With the news unsurprisingly spreading across Twitter like wildfire, more and more supposed sightings came flooding in and police launched a huge search for the beast. By Monday morning there were 25 officers, a specialist firearm unit and two police helicopters all on the hunt for the Essex Lion. A second picture supposedly taken in the local area also hit the news: