Thursday, December 12Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Tag: UK

Nato’s 70th Anniversary Overshadowed by Tensions
News

Nato’s 70th Anniversary Overshadowed by Tensions

Nato leaders are meeting near London as growing tensions between member states threaten to overshadow the summit marking the alliance's 70th anniversary. The three-hour talks are expected to address ever-growing issues such as cyber-attacks and the strategic challenges posed by China. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been named as the host and is set to remind the members that the commitment to defend one and other is at the heart of the alliance. The tensions began to grow Tuesday on the first day of the milestone summit as tensions began to bubble to the surface. US President Donald Trump and France President Emmanual Macron were already strained amid a dispute over taxes and trade, and there were comments from the French president last month that suggested the US commitment...
Trans-exclusionary Laws
Features

Trans-exclusionary Laws

On October 21 The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had drawn up a policy paper to define gender as strictly male or female. The administration further instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to consider ‘sex’ as an unchangeable condition that is determined by a person’s genitals at birth, despite the American Medical Association ruling last year that gender and sexual identities are not always binary. The proposed reforms have apparently been influenced by recent meetings of the UN’s Third Committee concerned with social, humanitarian and cultural rights, in which US officials have pushed for general assembly policy statements to remove what the administration sees as vague and politically correct language — an ‘ideology’ of treating gender as an indivi...
The 2016 Student Media Summit
Features

The 2016 Student Media Summit

This week saw the ninth annual Student Media Summit return to London. Hosted by the NUS and Amnesty International UK, the two-day Summit aims to educate and develop the skills of students involved in media and those wanting to pursue it in the future. Features editor, Yasmeen Frasso, talks about her experience. Walking down New Inn Yard on the morning of Thursday 18th August was a strange experience; the morning travels were filled with the excitement of actually being able to go to a place that, for the day, was not only a central hub for activism, but journalism as well. Two areas which journalist and keynote speaker, Laurie Penny, later explained to us are often largely intertwined. But, of course, anxiety also latched onto me. “Was I wearing the right clothes?” “Was I prepa...
Freshers Week: UK v. USA
Lifestyle

Freshers Week: UK v. USA

Third year student Abbie Jones speaks about her first few weeks on her study abroad year in California. I headed into UCLA with no expectations whatsoever. I believed that the movies about college in America must be wildly exaggerated. I didn’t expect a Project X or Bad Neighbours scenario when I arrived. But Fresher’s week or ‘Zero Week’ as UCLA students call it has differed fairly radically from my Fresher’s experience at Holloway. Roommates: It is the oddest thing to arrive home to someone snooping around my personal belongings but it happens and there is no forgetting it happened. Having a roommate is the norm in the USA and so far it hasn’t been as bad as expected. Although I do pray for those in triple occupancy. Luckily my roommate does not snore or scream in her sleep but I d...
News

NHS fees to be introduced for International Students

The government may begin to charge foreign students for use of the National Health Service, an investigation by Welsh student newspaper Gair Rhyyd has revealed. The findings suggest that the government is willing to implement a £150 surcharge to international students regardless of the impact they actually make upon the NHS, on entry to the UK. It is reported that the £150 charge would be added to international student’s visas, but would only apply to new students coming to the UK to study, not international students currently studying at UK universities. Allegedly a policy paper described the current system, which sees non-native students receive the same treatment as UK students as ‘very generous particularly when compared with international practice.’ It is thought that the new le...