French Open 2015: Maria Sharapova crashes out

Maria Sharapova overcame illness to reach the second week at the French Open but she couldn't get past a firing Lucie Safarova on Monday.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1AIhXIP

Press release: New measures to make criminals pay legal aid costs

The changes are the latest in a package of legal aid reforms which make sure those accused of a crime and are wealthy enough to pay for some, or all, of their legal representation do so. The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is expected to be able to order recovery of up to £2 million legal aid a year on average as a result of today’s changes to the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Legal aid costs can now be recovered from convicted criminals where their money and assets had been frozen by the courts under this law. Previously legal aid did not qualify for recovery from those assets, and so the only way to force criminals to pay up was through a separate, often unsuccessful, court battle after the criminal trial was finished. Today’s law change allows legal aid to be recovered once other compensation and confiscation orders have been made.

Legal Aid Minister Shailesh Vara said:

Too often people convicted of crimes have been able to avoid paying what they owe. Legal aid is taxpayers’ money and it is right we do not spend it on those who can afford to pay their own costs. These measures will make sure legal aid is repaid, and are another vital step in creating a fair and credible system.

Under the Proceeds of Crime Act those accused have financial assets identified which are then ‘restrained’ by the court — meaning they cannot be spent or moved by the person who has been charged until their trial is over. If they are convicted these assets can then be used by the court to pay compensation to victims or to make confiscation orders.

From today the new regulations will mean any finances left after those payments are made can now continue to be restrained if the person also still owes unpaid legal aid bills. In appropriate cases the court can now allow the LAA to use these remaining assets to cover any outstanding legal aid costs or contributions.

The changes are the latest in a series of moves to make sure the wealthiest who can afford to pay for their own defence costs are not unfairly leaving the taxpayer to pick up the bill.

In January 2014 a financial eligibility threshold of £37,500 or more annual disposable household income was introduced for Crown Court cases so that the richest defendants are no longer automatically provided with legal aid up-front at public expense.

This would typically be defendants who have at least £3,000 in disposable income, after they have paid key costs like tax, housing and childcare costs and other essential outgoings every month. This means the LAA no longer have to fight to get the money back after their trial.

Notes to editors

1. The new powers came into force on 1 June 2015 so that any new restraint order issued on or after that date will have a legal aid exception. They have been created by changes through the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and then enabled by a statutory instrument updating the relevant legal aid regulations, together with a Home Office statutory instrument amending the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Together they create a mechanism to allow restrained assets to be used to pay legal aid contributions.

2. For more information contact the MOJ Press Office on 020 3334 3541 or 020 3334 3536 and follow us @MoJPress on Twitter.

from Announcements on GOV.UK http://ift.tt/1M3sOOY

'I've always been optimistic I would come back'

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1AI9R2X

Speech: International higher education

Thanks Ciaran for that introduction and for inviting me to open Going Global. It’s a highlight in the annual international education calendar - a pleasure to welcome it back to London in my new role.

As someone lucky enough to do post graduate study in France and Belgium, some 15 and 20 years ago, I’m delighted that more and more UK students are now seizing the chance to broaden their horizons.

When I went off on the ferry to the Université Libre de Bruxelles in the mid-1990s, and a few years later to INSEAD in the forest of Fontainebleau, it was a niche move.

Today, the British Council’s research tells us that over a third of UK students are interested in studying abroad.

And while the increase in the number of those who actually take the leap is encouraging - almost 29,000 students last year – we need to do more.

CBI surveys show our businesses remain unhappy with UK graduates’ overall foreign language abilities and disappointed by their general cultural awareness. We must do more to prepare ourselves for the globalised world.

I welcome the strong demand for the EU’s Erasmus Programme and for the British Council’s Generation UK Programme, which aims to send up to 80,000 UK students to China and 25,000 students to India by 2020.

We must build on these important programmes, which both increase students’ employability and support the UK’s ties overseas.

A warm welcome to international students

The UK of course values international students who come to this country too. We recognise that competition for the brightest and best students from other countries is intensifying.

We will continue to ensure that our excellent education system remains a magnet for brilliant minds.

Today, we have more than 435,000 international higher education (HE) students, which means that nearly 1 in 5 students in our university population is from overseas – and over in 4 in our capital city.

They come for the world class quality of our education and the opportunities for research. We have more top ranking universities in London than in any other city in the world. With 4 universities in the global top 10, we rank second only to the US.

Our research base is world leading, our universities are world-class, we develop and attract the world’s brightest minds and we are second in the world when ranked by Nobel prizes.

The benefits to the UK

International students enrich this offering.

They contribute to our research capacity. And the £3.9 billion they bring in tuition fees helps our universities invest in first class facilities and provision. International students also stimulate demand for courses where domestic demand alone can be insufficient to sustain them, ensuring that a wider range of courses are available for all students and that some strategically important courses remain viable.

In particular, they help us maintain our first class STEM provision: 47% of post-graduate level students in subjects such as engineering and technology are from non-EU countries.

International students also provide a cultural cross-fertilisation that benefits everyone. In a recent survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute and Kaplan, 87% of university applicants said studying alongside international students would give them a better world view and 85% thought it would prepare them for working in a global environment.

Tapping top-flight student talent globally will not just mean the UK gains in terms of innovation, research and a broader science and skills base. Greater exchange of students now will mean stronger relationships later.

Today’s international students are tomorrow’s world leaders. They take friendships and loyalties home with them that later become trade links, cultural bonds and diplomatic ties. Nearly 80% of students anticipate developing professional links with the UK.

The immediate economic benefits from international students are real too - for every 100 non-EU students, 45 full time equivalent jobs are created and £4.6 million generated in UK businesses – and they are felt right across the UK.

London is the most popular destination in the world for overseas students, but 23% of non-EU students are in the North of England, 16% in the Midlands and 9% in Scotland.

These benefits are reflected in public attitudes. A number of polls, most recently one by YouGov for The Times, show the great majority of the British public (72% in this case) think we should have the current number of international students or more. Not fewer.

A clear message from the Prime Minister

I want students from across the world to understand our commitment:

We will roll out the red carpet to the brightest and best, to the talented workers and brilliant students that help Britain’s success.

There is no cap on the number of overseas students that can come to study at our universities.

That’s not just me, but the Prime Minister, speaking just a few days ago.

Sometimes people worry that they are taking places from British students. There used to be a limit on the number of British students that government would fund.

But we have a sustainable graduate repayment scheme in place, and we are in a position to remove limits on the number of UK students that publicly-funded universities can recruit, lifting the cap on aspiration.

No longer will there be young people eager to go to university, young people that universities wanted to teach, who cannot get places because of a limit imposed by Whitehall.

Genuine students

Government’s welcome to international students is genuine. But it is to genuine students.

It is right that we are clamping down on fraudulent applications and bogus colleges – we have stopped over 870 of these institutions from recruiting international students since 2010 and will take all steps necessary to protect international students from rogue providers and dodgy operators.

That’s why I can announce today (1 June 2015) that we have taken further action by appointing Graduate Prospects to help us expose unscrupulous organisations and remove misleading websites wherever they make an appearance.

Such changes are in the interests of all legitimate providers because they protect the reputation of the UK as a provider of high-quality education.

It is also right that we have reformed the student visa system to ensure that students who are not genuine cannot abuse the system. And we will take proportionate action to deal with overstaying wherever our new system of exit checks shows it to be an issue.

Strengthening our HE system

The best way to attract good quality students, from all over the world, is to maintain our world class higher education sector. And this we have.

But we are not resting on our laurels. We have introduced important reforms to our higher education system from 2012.

The OECD considers us to be one of the few countries in the world to have established a sustainable approach to higher education funding.

Increasing international student recruitment

So we have a strong offering to the world, which explains why we are currently the second most popular destination for international study, after the USA.

But I am concerned that some feel the UK does not welcome students as warmly as we once did and that there has been a decline of student numbers from some of our key partners, most notably India.

It is a personal aim of mine to overcome misconceptions about the UK in such important countries.

Data tells a good tale. Once here, Indian students’ satisfaction rate is 90%. And most of those say they would recommend their universities to others.

We will engage and explain. We will make clear that there is no cap on the number of students who can come to study in the UK and no intention to introduce one.

Nor is there any cap on the number of former students who can stay on to work - as long as they have a graduate job.

Across all our international education activity, we have an ambition to grow.

We are committed to increasing education exports from £18 billion in 2012 to £30 billion by 2020. We will not achieve that goal unless we continue to attract the brightest and best from around the world.

We are expanding our scholarship programmes. Last year we tripled funding for Chevening scholarships. This year the government will spend over £70m on scholarships in the Chevening, Commomwealth and Marshall schemes.

Enabling over 2500 scholarships and support for 60,000 alumni, these schemes help forge life-long links between our nations.

Conclusion

The breadth of attendance today is testament to the importance we all attach to international opportunities.

Global education leads to wealth, health and mutual understanding. It builds foundations for cultural and economic enrichment.

Going Global provides an ideal forum to discuss how we can make our ambitions a reality and I wish you all the very best for a successful conference.

from Announcements on GOV.UK http://ift.tt/1KxLHsh

News story: National reference tests: an overview

We are introducing the new national reference tests to provide additional information to support the awarding of GCSEs. The purpose of the tests is to provide evidence on changes in performance standards over time in English language and maths in England at the end of year 11. The tests should allow us to see, over several years, if there is a change in how students perform at the national level, which we will consider carefully in our awarding.

The tests will provide additional information that we expect will significantly advance our ability to detect genuine changes in performance and so improve awarding. We will act cautiously as we build our understanding of the information that the tests will provide and how this is used in awarding GCSEs.

Test design

There will be separate tests for maths and English. They will be based on the new content for GCSEs in maths and English language, which students will take for the first time in summer 2017.

The questions may not be in exactly the same style as the new GCSE questions, but they will be suitable for students who are studying for the GCSE. The questions used in the tests will not reflect any particular exam board’s style of GCSE questions. We will publish some example questions later this year.

Each test is divided into several booklets. Each student takes just one booklet, so no student has to take the whole test.

The reference test for maths, unlike the GCSE, will not be tiered. Most of the questions will be based on the GCSE content that all students taking the qualification have to study. There will be a few questions at the end of each booklet that will be based on the content only studied by those preparing to take the higher tier GCSE, but these will be clearly marked.

The reference test for English will include questions that require students to write longer responses as well others that can be answered with short, one sentence responses. There is no testing of spoken language in the English test.

The questions will remain largely the same from year to year to enable performance standards to be compared. Therefore, the questions used in the tests have to remain confidential and will not be published, and we will not be able to provide individual feedback to students.

Timetable

The new tests will be developed over the next 18 months and the first national reference tests will be taken in March 2017. In future years the information from the tests will be taken into account when GCSEs are awarded.

In September and October 2015, we will trial questions that have been developed for the new tests. In March 2016, we will hold a preliminary reference test. This will involve the same number of schools and students as future tests but the purpose of the tests in 2016 is to confirm that all the operational arrangements are working well. The preliminary test is a very important step that will allow us to introduce the reference test smoothly in 2017.

Who takes the test?

Each year, a random sample of 30 students from around 300 schools will be asked to take a test booklet in maths or English. The students will be in year 11 and will take the test in early March, before they take their GCSEs (in late May and early June). The test will take each student around an hour to complete. The results will be analysed only at the national level; there will be no results for individual schools or students.

We would expect all randomly selected pupils to take the test. This will provide the most statistically sound sample. However, headteachers will have the option to exclude pupils from the testing - at their discretion and in exceptional circumstances. This option would be used for a specific reason such as accessibility or situations where taking the test may cause undue distress for the pupil. NFER, which is administering the tests on our behalf, will make the test as student-friendly as possible and allow all reasonable and appropriate access arrangements so it is hoped that such exclusions will be needed only in rare cases.

NFER, will select the schools to take part each year. We will use a different sample of schools each year. The selected schools will provide a list of all their students in year 11 that they expect will take the GCSE (in maths or English language). From this list NFER will randomly select which students will be asked to take the test.

How will it be administered in schools?

NFER is working with us to develop the tests. In order to minimise the burden on participating schools, a test administrator from NFER will come to the school on a pre-agreed day and carry out the tests. The school will need to provide a room where the students can take the test and NFER’s administrator will invigilate it. The test will last around an hour for each student.

What results will be published and when?

Towards the end of August each year we will publish the national measures of performance in the tests, around when exam boards publish GCSE results. We will also explain how performance in the national reference tests has been taken into account in awarding the GCSEs.

The results of the reference tests will set out the percentage of students in that year who are predicted, based on the tests, to achieve at least a grade 4, a grade 5 or a grade 7 in their GCSE. The tests will show if these percentages change from year to year. And it is these changes, if any, that will be taken into account when GCSEs are being awarded. We are developing the details of what we will publish and will confirm this later in the year. The first time that we will able to compare performance between years will be in 2018.

There will be no results for individual students or schools. So, for example, no result can be recorded in students’ school records. The only information will be for England as a whole.

from Announcements on GOV.UK http://ift.tt/1AI6Akd

Jack Warner cites 'Onion' article to defend himself

An embattled former FIFA official has scored a spectacular public relations own-goal by citing an article by satirical news outlet The Onion in an attempt to counter criminal charges against him.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1FlcCTB

EPL 'Goodwill Tour' ends in racist orgy

Three Leicester City players apologized Sunday after a video surfaced that reportedly shows them participating in a racist orgy in Thailand.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1FlcCTs