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Russia faces student shortfall
Russian education minister Vladimir Filippov has warned that the number of young people entering higher education will fall over the next eight years because of low birth rates in the 1980s. By 2007, the number of secondary school leavers will have dropped to 1.3 million, some 400,000 fewer than current university admission plans.

Arafat supported
A survey of 75 Palestinian villages by researchers at Bir Zeit University found that 75 per cent thought Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had performed well or reasonably well in his job, while 15 per cent thought that he had not done well at all.