Queer Students Feel ‘Betrayed’ after Cambridge College Bans Pride Flag

PINK NEWS: To mark the beginning of LGBT+ History Month, the University of Cambridge’s Gonville and Caius College flew the Progress Pride flag. One day later, they banned it.

For the last six years the college, one of the wealthiest at the University of Cambridge, has flown Pride flags from its flagpole, and this LGBT+ History Month seemed to be no different.

The college posted a video to its social media showing the “Progress Pride flag flying above Caius to mark the first day of LGBT History Month”.

But on Wednesday (2 February), a general meeting was held by fellows, who make up the college’s governing body and are responsible for changing statutes, where members voted to ban the flying of any flag other than the college banner. » | Lily Wakefield | Saturday, February 5, 2022

Anti-fascist Protesters Greet Speech by Marine Le Pen at Cambridge

THE GUARDIAN: French women [sic] who took over leadership of Front National party from her father, addresses university's debating society

Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far-right Front National party, was greeted by an anti-fascist protest as she addressed a Cambridge University debating group on Tuesday.

The daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who took over the party leadership from her father in 2011, spoke to students at the Cambridge Union Society in the afternoon.

Her appearance led the group Unite Against Fascism to organise a demonstration of about 200 people outside the venue. Officers from Cambridgeshire police attended.

Le Pen, 44, who has been an MEP since 2004, spoke about the future of the EU and French politics. A spokesman for the Union Society defended the decision to invite her to speak. » | Press Association | Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Fury at Omani Sultan's Cash for Cambridge
THE INDEPENDENT: Cambridge University is at the centre of a row over ethical funding of universities after accepting a new donation from the Oman government to promote religious understanding. The deal, signed only two weeks ago, is the second substantial donation the university has received from the Sultanate – bringing total funding to the university to well over £4m.

The university has also received £8m from the House of Saud to set up a new centre for Islamic studies.

Last night a newly created students' group, campaigning to promote "clean" funding of universities, called on the university to refuse to accept any more cash from either regime – on the grounds it could be compromised. Continue reading and comment >>> Richard Garner, Education Editor | Wednesday, March 09, 2011

My comment:

The Brits fly around the world like prostitutes, accepting money for this and that from this one and that. Would Sultan Qaboos accept money for Omani universities for the promotion of Christian understanding? Or the Saudi's king, King Abdullah? No, I thought not. So why do we have to accept money for the promotion of the under-standing of Islam? I am looking forward to the day when these things are done in a spirit of reciprocity. – © Mark

This comment also appears here

Cambridge Ideas: How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take to Change a Man?
THE TELEGRAPH: We have an addiction to energy that is not sustainable with oil, coal and gas. David MacKay, a physics professor at Cambridge University, investigates what it will take to get Britain off fossil fuels.

How many lightbulbs does it take to change a man?
Government advice about reducing number of plastic bags or switching of your phone charger when you are not using it is distracting Britons from the real energy issue, argues Prof MacKay: how will Britain power itself in a non-fossil fuelled world? >>> | Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Sustainable Energy – without the hot air >>>

Networked from Birth
THE GUARDIAN: Boris Johnson's election as mayor now means that there are two men with remarkably similar histories at the top of the Tory party: both he and leader David Cameron are Old Etonians who went to Oxford and were members of the same notorious drinking club. But the Conservatives are just reflecting modern Britain, says John Harris - a nation that is now less meritocratic than in a generation

And so it came to pass that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was elected Mayor Of London. Last Friday, at the formal announcement of his victory at City Hall, the proceedings were watched by his children, Cassia Peaches, Milo Arthur, Lara Lettice and Theodore Apollo. News of his win was presumably also cheered by his five siblings, all of whom went to either Oxford or Cambridge, including his Paris-based financier brother Leo, Sunday Times columnist sister Rachel, and half-brother Max - who, according to the London Evening Standard, is currently "studying for an MBA in Beijing". Meanwhile, media observers have inevitably been drawing attention to the new mayor's alma mater, and the fact that the election of one old Etonian may well have laid the ground for the arrival of another in Downing Street - who, if David Cameron makes it, will be the first Eton-educated prime minister since Harold Macmillan in 1957.

On the Tuesday before polling last week, the Today programme's John Humphrys testily asked Cameron about his and Johnson's past history, their now-infamous membership of Oxford University's Bullingdon Club, and the photograph of the two of them in the club's signature £1,200 tailcoats that last year mysteriously disappeared from public circulation. In that week's Sunday Times, there was a typically scabrous cartoon by Gerald Scarfe: Cameron and Johnson in "Buller" attire, locked in a triumphal embrace, simply captioned "Toffs rule OK". The Guardian's Steve Bell, meanwhile, carried on portraying Johnson as a nightmarish amalgam of Joseph Goebbels, Attila the Hun and Bertie Wooster. Networked from Birth >>> | May 9, 2008

BBC:
Ex-BBC Man Is Boris Johnson's Spokesman: New London mayor Boris Johnson has hired ex-BBC political correspondent Guto Harri as his director of communications >>> | May 9, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

£16m to Spread Islam
Photo of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Abdulaziz al-Saud courtesu of Google Images
THE INDEPENDENT: Two of the country's best known universities are to set up research centres aimed at promoting a better understanding of Islam.

Cambridge and Edinburgh universities will share a £16m endowment from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Abdulaziz al-Saud, a member of the Saudi Arabian royal family and chairman of the Kingdom Foundation – a charitable and philanthropic foundation set up to alleviate suffering around the world.

Both universities, members of the 20-strong Russell Group, which represents the leading research institutions, will set up study centres with the aim of fostering better understanding between the Muslim world and the West.

In Cambridge, the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies will seek to develop a "constructive and critical awareness of the role of Islam in wider society". There will be research programmes on Islam in the UK and Europe and the portrayal of Islam in the media. Public lectures, conferences and summer schools will be organised to promote better understanding, with policy makers from both worlds invited to become visiting fellows at the centre.

At Edinburgh, the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre for the Study of Islam in the Modern World will aim to concentrate on promoting understanding of the history of Islamic civilisation and of Muslims in Britain.

Professor Carole Hillenbrand, head of the department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Edinburgh, said the centre's programme would have "twin emphases on both the past and the present and how they reinforce and illuminate each other". Saudi Prince Gives Universities £16m for Study of Islam >>> By Richard Garner | May 8, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)