International Round Up

Students broke through police lines whilst demonstrating against the planned introduction of tuition fees in the German city of Düsseldorf. Some 8,000 of the 40,000 strong demo, which marched under the slogan "Rich Parents For All!" made it as far as the offices of the regional parliament of the state of North-Rhein-Westphalia (NRW), where a short occupation took place. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder claimed that the 100 students who came to air their grievances about planned fees at his re-election campaign launch in Mühlheim "looked too old to be students".

In NRW, the local government is E1.4bn in the red after the federal government reformed tax laws, forcing the federal states in Germany to pay back big business millions of already collected tax. Prime Minister Wolfgang Clement says he will get 90 million Euros of this from students. Initially, unions though he wouldn't have much trouble, with Heiner Fechner from the German equivalent of the TUC saying;"They [students] aren't very well organised, as they don't have a strong lobby." Fechner has now been forced to eat his words admitting;
"The reaction to the government's plans, announced at the beginning of May, was quick. There was an unbelievable strike wave. That is dying down now, as students have exams."
NRW Action Alliance Against Tuition Fees
National Action Alliance Against Tuition Fees
Five students have been kidnapped and burned alive in a new wave of campus violence in Nigeria. The country's university sector is troubled by feuding between secret sects. At the Ondo State Polytechnic, a group of men from one sect entered the campus and clashed with a rival group, but the 'invaders' were captured, tied down and soaked with petrol before being set alight. Six students have been arrested for the murders. The deaths are just the latest in twenty years of attacks, resulting in hundreds of deaths, as cults exercise a reign of terror within the Nigerian University system. In the past weeks at the University of Nigeria (Enugu State), a mass shooting resulted in the death of over 20 people, leading to the indefinite closure of the university. Police estimate there are at least 20 active sects despite a law banning them being passed in 1999.
Misna, Five students killed
BBC, Police are investigating the campus killings
Xinhuanet, Six Nigerian Students Arrested Over Cult Activities
Pravda, Student secret society murders in Nigeria
About80 Indian students are to be expelled from Moscow for submitting fake documents, reportedly obtained by bribing local authorities. Some students, after completing the second year, allegedly jumped into the fourth or fifth course on the basis of these documents, accused a representative of the rector's office of the institute. One student claims they are being set up;
"The authorities used to encourage illegal admission by taking bribes through the middlemen. Since there is an inquiry into the allegation conducted by law enforcement agencies, they are now attempting to save their skin by expelling us."
Indonesian police used water cannon on 300 students who were demanding a government inquiry against House Speaker Akbar Tandjung, who is accused of embezzling £1.3million from treasury funds. Students claim he will escape justice in the country's notoriously corrupt legal system, and got slightly wet after breaking down the main gate outside the parliament building.
ABC, Indonesian parliamentary vote sparks student protest
Ananova. Indonesia, police use water cannon on students
High school students in USA will face random drugs tests following the Supreme Court ruling that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy. Maybe trying to keep students drug free is part on attempt to persuade more of them that they should take up arms should the time come. Surveys have shown that at present, 37 percent of college students would evade the draft, reviving memories of the 1970s Vietnam draft dodgers. Student opinion in the USA is flying in the face of the mainstream with 79% of students not thinking Western culture is superior to Arab culture, whilst 60% agreed that developing an understanding of the values and history of other cultures and nations is a better way to prevent terrorism than investing in strong military and defence capabilities.
In Kenya, the tear gas was brought out by police to quell students who were rioting following the death of a student, shot by Police in a campus drugs raid. Police say that Nairobi student David Kimuyu, lunged at them with a knife before being shot.