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London Metropolitan University's international student licence was reinstated this week, allowing them to once again recruit overseas students. The decision from the Home Office comes nine months after the university were initially punished by UKBA for allegedly not meeting its responsibilities.

The university has fought the decision ever since it was first made, and after a number of inspections over the last 6 months the government is now happy that the university meets the required standard. Interestingly, the Home Office have moved to revoke the decision just a matter a weeks after it was announced that UKBA was being disbanded and replaced.

The university will once again be allowed to sponsor Tier 4 visas for international students, meaning that new students can join and the current non-EU students will be able to complete their courses.

However, London Met is now face a 12-month probation period to prove their suitability, during which time the number of international students they are allowed to recruit will be limited.

During the announcement, Immigration Minister Mark Harper said:

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died yesterday at the age of 87. She was the first (and still only) female PM and ruled Britain for 11 years during the turbulent 1980's. She divided opinion more so than almost any other public figure, and the reaction to her death reflects this.

On the one hand, she is to be given a ceremonial funeral at St Paul's Cathedral, taking the same status as Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, whilst on the other, there is still a lot of anger towards her for many of her policies during her time in power. There is the contrast of hundreds of bunches of flowers left in condolence at her London home, and crowds gathering to celebrate her death in Brixton (an area that saw fierce riots during Thatcher's time in charge).

We've gathered together some of the reaction to her death from world leaders, newspapers and celebrities on Twitter.

British & World Leaders

After hearing of Lady Thatcher's death, current and former leaders from Britain and around the world led a chorus of condolences.

The digital revolution has led to many societal and cultural changes. Nowadays people tend to use electronic technologies anywhere and anytime. University students take notes on their laptops and on their iPads or tablets, they do research on the web library because the internet is a huge database without limitations, and also a time saver.

More and more websites are opening free online classes called MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses), which attract students massively. With web sites offering students the possibility to learn online, their popularity questions the future of higher education. Is this the future of higher education?

The Benefits of Online Courses

Every semester students have to register for their modules, hence everyone goes through the module descriptions and requirements to choose subjects of their interest. No one wants to pay for a module that won't interest them much, as they won't put much effort into it.

Easter in Slovakia is supposed to be the celebration of spring and birth. Well, the pounding snow last Friday morning surprised everyone.

However, the climate was still that of April and consequently the snow in the lowlands started to melt and caused flooding. Some villages had to be evacuated. During the second part of Easter festival guys go house-to-house and pour cold water on women and girls so that they stay healthy and pretty. I think the flooding is the revenge of Mother Nature for the years of watering.

The universal declaration of human rights was written in 1948; yet after more than sixty years there are countries where basic rights are denied. Freedom of speech is one of the most important evaluation criteria of a democracy: the more freedom of speech is allowed, the more a democracy is valid.

Saudi Arabia's regime, which profusely distances itself from the idea of democracy, is very keen on censoring: in 2005 it blocked Blogger, Google’s popular weblog tool; in 2010 it banned the use of Blackberry and temporarily blocked Facebook. Social networks are the latest target; the Saudi Arabian authorities have recently warned of blocking Twitter (defined a forum for unjust, incorrect communication) Skype, and applications such as WhatsApp and Viber.

As pointed out in a survey by the Opennet website, the attempt of censoring disturbing contents such as pornography seems to be an excuse to censor whatever the Saudi Arabia regime does not fancy: