Hi guys, here's the second show of the semester, we had some great articles as ever. If anyone fancies writing for the News Team get in touch at nsr.news@ncl.ac.uk, or if you'd like to comment on any of the articles below.

The 12th of April saw Gordon Brown and key political members of Northern Ireland make a deal to devolve Irish policing and justice powers from Westminster to the Irish assembly within a matter of weeks. The agreement, described as a final piece in the jigsaw of the two decade long search for peace in Northern Ireland, will also result in several reforms, most importantly the stance taken on overseeing political parades.

Notably, the deal has sought to address the issues of the major political powers of Northern Ireland, meeting key demands of the Sinn Féin and preventing the Republican Party from leaving the power sharing agreement. The deal will also see the abolition of the Parades Commission, an organisation many view as being biased towards Nationalist concerns.

Speaking on the deal reached, Brian Cowen, Gordon Brown’s Irish counterpart, highlighted how the devolvement was an ‘essential step for peace, stability and security in Northern Ireland’. Anxiety of a governmental collapse had surrounded the fortnight long negotiations but this seems to have subsided with the Democratic Unionist Party’s leader Peter Robinson, also First Minister of Northern Ireland, assuring that the frustration felt during the talks was worth it to ensure the deal made would not fall through. Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin, further emphasised the need to forget the past and move forward, supported by Martin McGuinness, the deputy First Minister, stressing the need to show that Northern Ireland can work together.

This was however undermined by the significant absence of Ulster Unionists from the final round table session involving Cowen and Brown. The group’s official backing is still needed before the assembly can begin to put new legislation in place. Many remain sceptical that peace can be reached with the agreement and in particular members of the Traditional Unionist Voice party criticised how the DUP had until recently opposed a negotiation of this kind, seeing the deal as simply a weak surrender.

by Vicky Lumb

Universities minister David Lammy has revealed that the universities most at risk of falling victim to extremism are to have counter-terrorism police stationed on campus.

This follows speculation that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the man charged with attempting to detonate a substance on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day last year, became radicalised at University College London.

Lammy did not name the universities in question, but said that the institutions where the risk is greater were working closely with the police and Special Branch.

Former Nottingham University PhD student Rizwaan Sabir has raised concerns about the role of universities in the terrorism debate. Sabir was arrested in May 2008 under the Terrorism Act for possession of the Al-Qaeda Training Manual, after being reported to the police by Nottingham University after accessing the materials. Sabir believes that anti-terrorism laws are preventing the academic study of terrorism and counter-terrorism in British universities.

Whilst seemingly protected by the ‘Promoting Good Campus Relations’ guidelines set out by the government in 2008, which concedes that staff and students may require access to terrorist publications as part of their research, there appears to be a disparity between this and the Terrorism Act of 2006, which seeks to prevent “the dissemination of terrorist materials” and block access to documents which “glorify and/or encourage acts of terrorism.”

Sabir’s concerns carry a certain resonance after it was revealed that terrorism expert, Rod Thornton, has ceased to teach on terrorism at Nottingham University. This case highlights the conflict between universities’ tradition of academic freedom, and the fear of becoming subject to investigation should they wish to contribute to the much-debated topic of terrorism through academic research.

Without a change in governmental and institutional policy, cases such as that of Rod Thornton may become commonplace.

by James Willows-Chamberlin

Two furry goodwill ambassadors are making their way from the US to China as relations between the Superpowers take a turn for the worse.

US born pandas Tai Shan and Mei Lan are heading to China to become part of the giant panda breeding programme, and serve as a reminder of one of the more friendly agreements between the two countries.

A Chinese spokesman told the BBC that the pandas were a symbol of friendship between the Chinese and American people.

However, this nicety is rare in an escalating war of words between the two countries, that seems to have been triggered in Copenhagen in December and appears set to worsen after the Whitehouse’s recent announcement that the Dalai Lama will visit President Obama.

On Thursday the 4th of February, the Whitehouse confirmed the Dalai Lama’s visit. Beijing has warned that any such visit would seriously damage relations between China and the US. Because of the Dalai Lama’s stance on Tibetan independence, China sees him as a trouble maker and his visit to the US could be interpreted as US support of his views.

The Dalai Lama has visited many US presidents before, but Beijing had hope that Obama would act differently after his enthusiasm when visiting Beijing last year and his positive attitude towards China.

The Dalai Lama’s visit comes after a delay as Obama did not want it to affect his visits to Beijing in 2009.

This latest diplomatic issue between the two countries comes during a stage of increasing tension for the nations.

Problems arose in December at the Copenhagen environmental conference. Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC that the talks were “at best flawed and at worst chaotic”. Much of this chaos has been blamed on China and the US.

Some blame Obama for not turning the situation around, while others think that China’s tough position torpedoed the talks.

The environment is not the only point over which these Superpowers have locked horns. Beijing’s alleged interference with Google has also been a trigger for tension.

Beijing is accused of enforcing limits on searching through Google, blocking articles and sometimes certain sites altogether, through what is known as the “Great Firewall of China”.

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, followed this revelation with a tough speech in which she said that any country or individual that threaten internet freedom should face condemnation and consequences.

China warned that the Obama administration’s support for Google was endangering relations.

Fallout from the Bush administration has also had its effects.

The third instalment of arms to be sold to Taiwan as part of an agreement between Taiwan and the US under George W Bush has added to the troubles.

The plans to sell defensive arms, worth over $6billion, to Taiwan have angered China. China sees Taiwan as its own and has threatened to retaliate against individual firms selling the arms.

Another element brewing slowly under the surface are accusations that the Chinese currency is being deliberately undervalued to increase the country’s trade surplus.

All in all, these troubles seem to indicate a trend for worsening relations between two of the world’s most powerful countries. It remains to be seen how these problems will affect the rest of the world, but they are likely to at some point. When they do, we should all hope that the US has a large stock of pandas to keep China happy!

by Eleanor Wilson

Freedom of speech is seen as a human right in the UK but how would you feel if an organisation tried to stop this liberty within certain areas of the media?

In a comment from The Guardian Online Channel 4’s News Presenter, Jon Snow, highlights the fact that Ofcom, the British broadcasting regulator, used its power of censoring to block reports from Sri Lanka entering the British media.

Sri Lanka has one of the worst records for human rights in the world and when a story about nine men being bound and stripped naked by soldiers dressed in Sri Lankan uniform came to Channel 4, Ofcom banned the report from being made as the video could not be authenticated and the Sri Lankan government opposed the showing of the film as it viewed them in a bad light.

After investigation the UN confirmed that the video was authentic and Sri Lanka dropped its complaints against the nature of the content however the battle had become about Ofcom inhibiting ‘investigative reporting’ and helping a country ‘hide from public scrutiny’ as Snow states.

The question is whether Ofcom have a right to stop our freedom of reporting and speech. An organisation that’s key role is a regulation clearly has no place in protecting corrupt governments and preventing the exposure of human suffering and this is a view that Jon Snow made it clear that he shares.

by Annie Meek

Hopes that Sir Thomas Legg’s report on MPs expenses would mark a final, albeit hastily drawn line under the matter, were dashed last week when it was revealed that three labour MPs and a Tory Peer face criminal prosecution. In addition, the quality of Legg’s report itself has been highly criticised and in places turned over. There is even more cause for public anger now that it has been revealed that the lawyers of those accused hope to use an ambiguity of a section of the 17th century bill of rights to save their clients on an apparent technicality.

Legg’s report, covering five years of expenses claims, ordered that £1.3 million be repaid. However more than half of the appeals made by MPs against the report, which itself cost £1.16 million, were successful. An accompanying report from another judge Sir Paul Kennedy, in fact demanded that £180,000 be returned to the MPs, giving a revised bill of £1.2 million to be repaid by the 392 current and former MPs, whose claims though within the law were deemed unjustified. In his report Kennedy deemed the tainting of those MPs without evidence as damaging and unfair. Similar responses have come from within government: LibDem Norman Baker, highly critical of the biggest claims made by his fellow MPs, calling the report ‘sloppy’.

But the news of the charging of the three labour MPs and Tory peer under the Theft act have denied Legg’s report from being climactic in the whole expenses affair, now perhaps too long winded to justify a furore. ‘Outrageous’, ‘disrespectful’ and ‘criminal’ were words constantly used in the reporting of MPs expenses last year and now there seems to be support in the literal use of the third, if only with reference to a few cases. Elliot Morley, Jim Devine and David Chaytor are the three Labour MPs facing charges with Lord Hanningfield, or Paul White, the Tory peer set to join them at Westminster magistrates on 11th March. All deny the allegations. The three MPs, whose charges relate to a combined sum of around £58,000 claimed dishonestly, had already been banned from standing at the next election and have now been suspended until the legal proceedings have been finalised. This is an act which leader of the opposition, David Cameron, has labelled a Labour ‘headlong retreat’, it being thought the Tories wanted the three to have their whip withdrawn, meaning expulsion from the party. It was this that was taken from Lord Hanningfield, the now resigned leader of Essex county council, whose six charges under the theft act relate to him knowingly claiming for overnight expenses when in fact he was driving home from London, reportedly amounting to £100,000.

There has been further outcry with the confirmation by Keir Starmer QC, director of public prosecutions, that the question of parliamentary privilege will be tested in court. The right, enshrined in the 1689 Bill of Rights is intended to prevent politicians from being sued for anything they say in parliament, though its exact wording is not so conclusive. It states that ‘proceedings in parliament’ as well as ‘freedom of speech’ should not be questioned outside of parliament, with no further clarification of the former. The major political parties appear united on the correct interpretation of what is said in the bill with home secretary Alan Johnson saying the public would be aghast if the accused were to jump on the ‘get out of jail card’. But Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats is the only leader of the major political parties that has called for the legislation to be changed immediately in order to avoid such a possible escape route.

The mass public outcry at the revelations of MPs expenses last year was not economically motivated in essence. The government has been accused of much more costly wasting of tax payers money in the last few years; be it Trident, identity cards or the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But it was the Daily Telegraph’s leak of details of MPs expenses claims last year, surrounded by constant recession-driven news of job losses and budget cuts, that caused the most wide-scaled political disenfranchisement. It supported at the worst possible time, the public’s age-old belief of a gulf between politicians and real people. So though it seems unlikely that the ambiguous parliamentary privilege will save them from a possible seven-year prison sentence, even the three MPs and life peer’s taking the issue to court would surely be disastrous; surely not even David Cameron’s heartfelt back-to-basics billboard campaign could pull off the slogan ‘law-makers above the law’.

by Alex Bishop