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Riots that started in small pockets of London on Saturday night, had last night spread throughout much of the Capital as well as to several other cities in the UK. Buildings and cars were set on fire, shops were looted and police were attacked in what are being called the worst riots in living memory.

It all started in Hackney, in East London, as early as 5pm yesterday afternoon, as young people, many of them teenagers, clashed with police. It quickly escalated and spread throughout the Capital as the police struggled to control the widespread violence. By midnight, huge fires blazed and shops had been emptied of their goods in Croydon, Peckham, Lewisham and Clapham in the South of London, Enfield in the North and Ealing in the West.

London suffered some of its worst riots for years over the weekend, as hundreds of people clashed with police in areas of North and South London. Shop windows were smashed, cars and buildings set on fire and stores looted after a peaceful protest on Saturday turned violent.

How it Started

The seeds of the riots were sown last Thursday, when a 29-year-old man named Mark Duggan was shot dead by the police in Tottenham Hale, North London. The exact details of the event are still unclear but it was initially claimed that he opened fire on the police, forcing them to retaliate. However, family and friends rejected this version of events, and on Saturday organised a protest of around 200 people who marched on Tottenham police station demanding answers.

What started out as a peaceful protest led by community members, quickly descended in to chaos, as hundreds of others joined, with the clear intention of using the protest as an excuse for violence. As tempers flared, two police cars were set on fire, marking the start of a night of destruction which quickly escalated. By midnight on Saturday, dozens of shops in the local area had been broken in to and burgled, and a number of buildings and a double-decker bus had been set alight.

The number of official universities in the UK is set to soar in the next year, after the government announced new plans for more relaxed regulations for institutions to gain the prestigious title. They are proposing that the number of full-time students needed for the institution to qualify will be cut from 4,000 to just 1,000. This could lead to more than a dozen small Higher Education colleges in London and throughout the UK winning full university status, in what would be the biggest expansion of universities for twenty years.

The Benefits of a Name

The proposals are all part of the wider scheme to create a more competitive and diverse Higher Education system in England, and the colleges awarded university status will enjoy a number of benefits. The association of the name alone will allow the colleges a better reputation, as they will be connected, in name at least, with the top universities in the UK. Furthermore, they will also be able to gain from the financial benefits that universities are eligible for.

Prof Peter Lutzeier, principal of Newman University College, Birmingham, has backed the proposals, explaining:

Remember Will and Kate's Royal wedding a few months ago? Even if you had been living under a stone, it would have been hard to miss it with the amount of attention it got in the media. However, chances are, you had no idea there was another royal wedding this weekend. On Saturday the Queen's granddaughter, Zara Philips, married English rugby star Mike Tindall in a low key ceremony in Edinburgh.

London has so much to offer that it is hard to choose the very best. However, after thinking long and hard, I have come up with a list of my favorite places and things to see and do in the city:

- Coffee Shop: The Natural Kitchen (City, EC4 and Marylebone, W1)

- Bookstore: Daunt Books (Marylebone, W1 and others)

- Park: Regent's Park 

- Museum: Science Museum (South Kensington, SW7)

- Market: Camden

- Season: Spring

- Theatre Venue: Royal Albert Hall (South Kensington, SW7)

- Musical: The Phantom of the Opera (Her Majesty's Theatre, SW1)

- Gym: Regent's Gym (Great Portland Street, W1)

- Shopping Area: Oxford Street, W1

- Chinese Restaurant: Phoenix Palace (Marylebone, SW1)