In
the news
History
lecturer Dr Owen Hartley was interviewed by BBC
Radio Leeds following the discovery of a Real
IRA arms dump in West Ardsley, Yorkshire. Talking to the
Yorkshire Post Dr Hartley suggested that 'in a
real rural country area, people are happily nosey. But
somewhere like this, they are used to strangers moving
in and out'. Human rights law professor Colin Harvey was
also interviewed about the find and its impacts on ITV's
Calendar.
Gwyneth
Paltrow, Courtney Cox and Julia Roberts have all donned
fat suits for recent films. University psychiatrist Dr
Andrew Hill commented on the impact of these portrayals
of over-weight characters in the Guardian:
"It is not demeaning. It helps an actress articulate what
it's like to live in a stigmatised state of body and negotiate
an environment designed for people without these differences."
Visits
to the University by minister for lifelong learning and
higher education Margaret Hodge and arts minister Baroness
Tessa Blackstone (Reporter 473) were both
covered by the regional press. In the Yorkshire
Post, Margaret Hodge praised work at the University
to encourage more young people from all backgrounds to
consider higher education. Her calls for more institutions
to improve access to higher education were repeated in
the THES.
Professor
Howard Cuckle identified the benefits of a new test for
Down's syndrome in the Lancet's editorial.
Subsequently quoted in the Guardian, he
said the test would bring 'for some, an early diagnosis
with safer and less traumatic therapeutic abortion and,
for most, an earlier reassurance'. His views were also
cited in the Daily Mail's coverage of the
new scan, which will reduce the risks posed to the foetus
by the current testing technique.
BBC
Look North's Harry Gration opened the Festival
of Languages in style (see page 7). The University's dancesport
team and Capoeira troop entertained some of the 700 school
pupils visiting the event. The activities were also captured
by the Yorkshire Evening Post.
David
Hall-Matthews contributed to BBC Radio 4's Four
Corners discussion on the influence of politics
on famine. Drawing on his experience in countries such
as India, he said: "We can't ever have famine without
some form of political dimension. It's not just a food
shortage, there is something else. Not every political
problem causes a famine."
The
University's decision to withdraw investment from tobacco
companies was reported across national newspapers, appearing
in the THES, Independent,
Guardian and Yorkshire Evening Post.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Alan Wilson explained the
decision to the Guardian: "We have a longstanding
policy of not accepting research grants from tobacco companies.
The decision to pull our endowment funds out of these
companies is a natural extension of this policy."
