Stranded by the volcanic eruption in Iceland, Dr Ambrose Field, who was due to perform an audio-visual piece based on fragments of work by the 15th-century composer Guillaume Dufay, composed an entirely new version of the piece that was sent electronically to the Chicago Early Music Festival organisers.

The faculty of modern and medieval languages at the University of Cambridge in the UK postponed oral examinations due to take place last week because many students and examiners were stranded abroad, also due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

Robert Gordon University in Scotland became the latest institution to scrap its homeopathy course after coming under pressure from a campaign against 'pseudoscience'. It was also attracting too few students.

Police seized more than 900 photographs from the offices of James Madison University's student newspaper, The Breeze, as part of their investigation into an off-campus event that turned into a riot.

A number of Rotary Clubs in Rwanda have pledged to support genocide survivors through education and health. The club said this was a way of getting close to the survivors and playing a role in their healing process.

During an Independence Day celebration, Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe said that the government is working hard to ensure the country's education system regains its status as one of the best in Africa.

The alleged unilateral implementation of an advanced English course for senior University of Namibia students is being resisted. Students say they did not budget for the course, and it is not part of the curriculum.

In a joint initiative, Coca-Cola South Africa and the University of the Witwatersrand Business School launched the Africa Centre of Excellence in Marketing, a R4-million project to raise African marketers' skills and enhance the continent's business sustainability.

An assistant professor of biochemistry at Rush University in Chicago, US, is facing felony charges after police officers who were called to his home during a domestic dispute found more than a dozen homemade explosive devices, which he claimed he had made for the country's Fourth of July celebrations.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory employee David Coppedge has filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court, saying that his advocacy of intelligent design led to his demotion. The lab is managed by the California Institute of Technology, which is also a defendant in the lawsuit.