UK Higher Ed: Prestige at a Discount

The competition is heating up and getting fiercer as UK higher education desperately fights to hold onto crashing foreign student enrollment. 

At least 22 universities are offering guaranteed tuition-fee discounts of up to £8,000 for overseas students. This shift is driven by a 17 percent drop in postgraduate enrollment in the two years leading to March 2026, stricter visa rules, and a 2024 ban on family members accompanying students. 

The reduced net fee at these varsities is likely to fuel concerns about the education sector's approach to recruiting overseas students, on whose fees it already depends.

The University of Nottingham, which set out plans to trim more than 600 jobs, offers an immediate £3,000 scholarship for 2026 taught master’s courses with no application needed, replacing merit awards. 

Meanwhile, the University of Aberdeen, where 100 jobs could be cut as part of a £10m savings plan, introduced an £8,000 scholarship directly deducted from the tuition bill. 

Furthermore, the University of Kent are offering a pre-approved £5,000 discount for master's degree entrants from 14 specific countries – including China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, and Vietnam – requiring no separate application process. 

The University of Leeds are also providing a hassle-free £5,000 regional scholarship reduction directly to eligible international undergraduate students, such as applicants from Kenya. 

Zeenat Fayaz, founder of The Brand Education, which advises universities on branding, said this “pricing war” could backfire by sparking competition between institutions on the basis of a degree’s cost rather than their own strengths. 

“Higher-tariff universities are not only offering scholarships, but they’re also reducing their grade requirements to allow students in... It’s a race to the bottom”.

AI Slop Map of Africa at AIDS Conference

A US State Department map of Africa mislabeled every country they depicted during a presentation at the AIDS 2026 conference (July 26-31, 2026) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

The slide was so egregiously wrong that multiple attendees whipped out their phones to get a shot of it; Emily Bass, a writer and AIDS expert, wrote about it at length. 

"The US government's failure to catch this error before displaying the slide at the top international AIDS conference in the world, in a session that featured the Director General of Nigeria as an invited guest, is not only disrespectful to African collaborators, it's also a significant tell", wrote Bass.

Senior officials from several African governments were reportedly among those present. 

The map shows six countries receiving US health funding and none of them are correctly named or placed. Nigeria has migrated north to become landlocked in the Sahara. Mozambique has roughly replaced Ethiopia. The Ivory Coast was placed in southern Africa, far from any coast, its name an ignored clue. Uganda and Malawi are not so far off, but drawn with wrong borders. Cameroon was named but assigned no territory at all. While one country on the Gulf of Guinea – a hypothetical union of Ghana, Benin and Togo? – went unnamed. Perhaps that is Cameroon now. 

The speaker was Jeff Graham, the US health envoy who oversees PEPFAR (⁠President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), a United States government initiative.

Whoever ⁠created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work. And Reuters reviewed video of the presentation and concluded that the map was AI slop. 

A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. 

The company said they were investigating the report. The State Department said they took "full responsibility" and blamed a staffer who changed the slide deck shortly before the event. 

This sort of thing is normal in the Trump administration. Last year, the White House's "Make America Healthy Again" report cited studies that did not exist, with fabricated references and other hallmarks of AI slop.

Containment Efforts Race the Clock in the DRC

Health authorities across Africa are struggling to contain an Ebola outbreak, centered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo). 

There are now more than 1,000 suspected Ebola cases in the DR Congo, and at least 246 deaths. Neighbouring Uganda has reported nine confirmed cases and one death. 

The current outbreak, a rare strain of Ebola known as Bundibugyo, has no proven vaccine and kills about a third of those infected.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said response efforts are being hampered by delays in identifying cases, warning that health authorities are effectively being forced to “play catch-up” as the outbreak expands. Suspected deaths linked to the virus have already surpassed 220. 

Although the WHO continue to assess the international threat level as low, they have raised the risk assessment inside the DR Congo from “high” to “very high”. The latest outbreak has primarily affected eastern regions of the DR Congo, where healthcare systems already face pressure from armed violence, mass displacement, and limited infrastructure. 

The WHO have classified the outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern, reviving memories of past Ebola epidemics that overwhelmed fragile healthcare systems and triggered international alarm. 

The current epidemic, officially declared on May 15, is the DR Congo’s 17th recorded Ebola outbreak since the virus was first identified in 1976. 

Governments across Africa and beyond have introduced measures aimed at preventing the virus from spreading across borders. Rwanda has temporarily closed its border with the DR Congo, while Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Burkina Faso tightened health screening and sanitary monitoring procedures. Uganda also suspended flights to neighboring DR Congo following the outbreak. 

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) have also expanded their Ebola response operations in eastern DR Congo and neighboring countries, deploying 200 volunteers. They are going door-to-door in communities to explain how the virus spreads, counter misinformation, and encourage early treatment. 

The UN allocated $60 million from their emergency response fund to help contain the outbreak. The WHO have reported the delivery of eleven tonnes of emergency medical supplies to support Ebola response operations in the DR Congo and have already allocated $3.9 million from their Contingency Fund for Emergencies.

World Cup Set for New Era as Giants Miss Out

The remaining places for this year's FIFA World Cup were finalised on Tuesday, capping a qualifying campaign that spanned nearly three years and setting the stage for the tournament's first 48-team edition. 

The competition will be held across the United States, Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19. 

The expanded format has opened the door to new contenders while leaving several established powers and high-profile players on the outside looking in. 

Italy will miss a third straight World Cup after losing its playoff final to Bosnia and Herzegovina on penalties. It has been a rapid fall for the Azzurri, which won its fourth World Cup title in 2006 and won the 2020 European Championship. 

Elsewhere, Nigeria's absence stands out in Africa, with the Super Eagles unable to navigate a competitive qualifying campaign despite a squad drawn from top European leagues. 

Chile, twice Copa America champions in the past 11 years, also missed out as the core of its golden generation fades. 

Poland is another notable omission, having lost its playoff final against Sweden, while Costa Rica, quarterfinalists in 2014, also missed out for the first time since 2010 after a poor CONCACAF zone qualifying campaign. 

Even with 16 additional teams in this year's tournament, the list is a reminder that qualification still leaves little margin for error. 

Besides the above, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has sought to allay doubts about Iran's participation in the tournament, insisting the team would play all of its group matches in the US as scheduled. 

There has been ongoing uncertainty over Iran's involvement because of the conflict in West Asia, with Tehran raising concerns over player safety and banning national and club teams from traveling to countries it considers hostile. 

The Iranian football federation said earlier this month they were negotiating with FIFA to relocate the country's World Cup matches from the US to Mexico.

Iran is due to face New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles on June 15 and 21 respectively, before meeting Egypt in Seattle on June 26.

In squash, Sivasangari Subramaniam (right) was handed an extended break at the El Gouna International Open after advancing to the quarter-finals via a walkover following the withdrawal of opponent Mariam Metwally of Egypt. 

The Malaysian was set to take on the world No. 33 yesterday but the home player pulled out after her father passed away. 

Sivasangari had booked her place in the second round with a hard-fought win over world No. 16 Nada Abbas in Giza, Egypt on Saturday. 

The 27-year-old Kedahan won 11-9, 9-11, 11-4, 11-6 in 47 minutes. It was Sivasangari's fourth triumph against the Egyptian in five meetings. 

The Global Hegemon That Is The Militaristic US

The United States is a global hegemon that proudly wears its hyper-militarism like a badge of honor. Best characterized as being bellicose, belligerent and brazenly confrontational. 

Indeed, the combative country has a hubristic history of military interventions and an indefatigable involvement in color revolutions and regime change, whether overtly or covertly. 

The same jingoistic country maintains a vast worldwide network of between 750 to 800 military base sites in at least 80 countries and territories to enable power projection and facilitate its military's global strategic objective of imperial and imperious domination. 

In this century alone, already ten countries have been at the receiving end of US aggression:

If you haven't already noticed, trigger-happy Donald Trump is involved in every one of them!

[Note: The above doesn't include the "proxy" war in Ukraine between the US and Russia – an admission made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself to Fox News on March 05, 2025].

Among the roster of hawkish US presidents, one is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2009 (i.e., Barack Obama!) and another (Trump lah, who else!) who literally begged for the award in 2025! (He didn't get it though – but the "unfit" winner still presented it to him, even if it means breaking the rules).

["Unfit" because she exhorted the US of A to attack her own country, i.e., Venezuela, so that she can be installed as president].

American foreign policy, after all, is engineered to maintain absolute global dominance, willingly triggering conflicts to ensure that both allies and adversaries recognize the US military as the undisputed numero uno!

The world will be in a better place if the US ceases to exist. Just saying.

Pop Music's Bias Towards English is Diminishing

English language music is losing its stranglehold on the charts, according to new data from music streaming giant Spotify. 

The company say songs in 16 different languages, including Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Turkish, Indonesian and Arabic, appeared in their Global Top 50 last year. That's more than double the figure from 2020. 

Bad Bunny, who sings exclusively in Spanish, was the most-streamed artist in the world. And Brit Award winner Rosalía sings in 14 dialects on her latest album, Lux. 

Spotify said Brazilian Funk was the fastest-growing genre in the world, with audiences up by 36%. K-Pop saw a 31% increase, and Trap Latino was up by 29%. 

All of those genres earned more than $100m in royalties from Spotify last year, the company said. English still dominates the charts, with 14 of last year's Top 20 best-selling albums sung exclusively in the language, according to the music industry body the IFPI. 

But South Korean bands such as Stray Kids, Enhypen and Seventeen all featured in the list, as did Japanese rock group Mrs Green Apple, as fans increasingly explore music outside the typical paradigms of rock and pop. 

According to a 2021 analysis of listening behaviour published in the journal Nature, this trend has been accelerating since 2017. Not coincidentally, that's the same year that streaming overtook CDs and vinyl as the music industry's biggest source of income.

Last week, Spotify's most-played chart included songs from Bad Bunny and Rauw Alejandro (Puerto Rico), Nadhif Basalamah (Indonesia), Tyla (South Africa), Tems (Nigeria), Ryan Castro (Colombia), El Bogueto, Peso Pluma, Neton Vega and Fuerza Regida (Mexico), Blackpink, Jung Kook and Jin (South Korea). 

Spotify's data was revealed as they announced their annual Loud And Clear report, which breaks down the global streaming economy. The streaming giant said they had paid $11bn in royalties to the music industry last year, up from $10bn in 2024. The figure makes it the highest-paying retailer globally, the company claimed. 

It is worth noting, however, that royalties distributed by Spotify don't necessarily go directly to musicians, with record labels, distributors, publishers, managers and songwriters often taking a cut.

At the Squash Australian Open semi-final yesterday, Sivasangari Subramaniam got the better of world No. 12 Nele Gilis, beating her 3-0: 11-8, 13-11, 11-4. 

And Malaysia's world No. 6 is just one match away from ending a 13-month title drought after storming into the final! 

Donald Trump is Emboldened

After the criminal acts against Venezuela – refer my blog post "US Kidnaps Venezuelan President And Wife" yesterday – US President Donald Trump is emboldened and he is now warning other countries. 

He threatens Colombia and its president, Gustavo Petro, describes Cuba as “ready to fall”, warns Mexico “to get their act together”, and reasserts his desire to acquire Denmark's self-governing territory of Greenland.

And don't forget that Iran, Canada, Panama and Nigeria are in his sights too.

I'm sure Russia and China are on his list – but I reckon he will deal with them last. After he's finished the job with the other countries. It should be easy-peasy. After all, who dares to challenge America's military might?

To Trump, might is right!

On Saturday, I was at a Toastmasters meeting in Kajang, where I was the Toastmaster of the Day. Photos of the said meeting:

US Kidnaps Venezuelan President And Wife

At 11:46 PM local time on Friday (03:46 GMT on Saturday), US President Donald Trump gave the green light to bomb Venezuela and kidnap President Nicolás Maduro (and his wife). 

Operation Absolute Resolve, carefully rehearsed for months, supposedly involved about 150 aircraft, taking off from 20 different airbases across the Western Hemisphere. US forces disabled Venezuela’s air defence systems, with Trump saying the “lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have”, without elaborating. The Venezuelan government reported that US strikes hit Caracas as well as the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira. 

US helicopters were said to have touched down at Maduro’s compound in the capital at 02:01 AM (06:01 GMT) on Saturday, and the president and his wife were forcibly taken. At 04:29 AM (08:29 GMT), just two and a half hours later, they were put on board the USS Iwo Jima, en route to New York. Trump later posted a photograph of the Venezuelan leader on his Truth Social social media platform, blindfolded, wearing a grey tracksuit.

While official casualty counts have yet to be released, a Venezuelan official told The New York Times newspaper on condition of anonymity that at least 40 people had been killed in the US attacks. 

Following Maduro's abduction, Trump says the US will run the country, including taking care of the country's oil infrastructure. 

[Note: It is unclear how Trump plans to oversee Venezuela. US forces have no control over the country itself, and Maduro's government appear not only to still be in charge but to have no appetite for cooperating with Washington].  

The latest episode has shown the US to brazenly disregard a country's sovereignty, blatantly dismiss international law, brashly violate the UN charter and boldly engage in “hegemonic acts”. This evil empire wreaks havoc around the world at will. And Trump is Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor! 

In fact, Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (or ACLED), the nonpartisan conflict monitor had asserted that the US carried out – or been a partner to – more than 622 overseas bombings in all, using drones or aircraft, since January 20, 2025, when Trump took office. The attacks contrast with his promise to voters to end US involvement in foreign conflicts. 

In 2025, the US had carried out military attacks against a total of seven countries, i.e., Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and of course, Venezuela.

A win against Fulham was Liverpool's sole objective yesterday. And they couldn't even manage that but instead, they produced a 2-2 draw and sharing the spoils in the Premier League. 

Former Liverpool man Harry Wilson fired Cottagers in front in the 17th minute. The Reds had to wait until the 57th minute before Florian Wirtz scored his second goal for the club from Conor Bradley‘s pass, despite looking offside. 

Liverpool thought they’d won it in stoppage time when Cody Gakpo netted at the back post, but Fulham rifled in an equaliser in the seventh minute of added time. 

Liverpool are now nine games unbeaten in all competitions, but they have not been convincing and the performances have been very uninspiring. During that run, the Reds have failed to beat Sunderland, Leeds (twice) and Fulham. 

Up next, a trip to the Emirates to face league leaders Arsenal on Thursday. If you must know, I don't have expectations.

South African Men's Liberation from Colonial Naming Values

South African husbands are now legally entitled to adopt their wives’ surnames – a right previously denied under civil registration laws – the country’s Constitutional Court have found, in a ruling described as "historic" in local media. 

In the decision issued on Thursday, Justice Leona Theron (left) found that the prevailing legal framework imposed outdated colonial values and reinforced patriarchal assumptions. 

According the Citizen outlet, Justice Theron stated that the tradition of women taking their husbands’ surnames stems from a “a colonial import rooted in patriarchal norms where women were seen as legally inferior to their husbands and expected to assume their identity”. 

In her decision, Theron noted that the law’s failure to offer men the same right constituted unfair gender-based discrimination. The court suspended the declaration for 24 months, granting Parliament time to amend the legislation or introduce a new framework. 

The court’s judgment followed a legal challenge brought earlier this year by two South African couples: Jana Jordaan and Henry Van Der Merwe, and Jess Donnelly-Bornman and Andreas Nicolas Bornman. 

According to reporting by News24, applicant Henry Van Der Merwe had been entirely blocked from assuming the surname of his wife, Jana Jordaan, despite the couple mutually agreeing on the change prior to their marriage. In a similar case, Andreas Bornman was denied permission by the Department of Home Affairs to hyphenate his surname to include that of his wife, Jess Donnelly. 

There are generally no prohibitions preventing husbands from taking their wives’ surnames across Africa. For example, in Kenya, the law allows any adult to change their name for any reason through a gender-neutral process involving a deed poll. In Nigeria, name changes are also done via deed poll. In Zimbabwe, a notarial deed of change of name and gazette publication is required. 

The exception is North Africa, where countries like Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt do not provide for surname changes through marriage at all, spouses must retain their birth names, and any alteration requires a separate judicial or administrative procedure.

At the $366,000 Egyptian Open in Giza on Saturday, world No. 8 Sivasangari Subramaniam, who received a first-round bye, opened her campaign in the second round against Egypt's world No. 45.   

She beat Nour Heikal 13-11, 11-9, 11-5 in 29 minutes. 

In fact, she's Malaysia’s sole representative to advance to the third round, following the elimination of three other Malaysian players including Rachel Arnold, Aira Azman, and national men’s number one Ng Eain Yow.

US Student Visa Arrivals Continue to Decline

The number of international students arriving in the US on student visas continued to fall in July, marking the fourth straight month of year-on-year declines. 

Asian countries, particularly India and China, have been hit hardest by restrictive immigration policies and processing delays introduced under the Trump administration. 

According to the International Trade Administration, an agency in the United States Department of Commerce, student visa arrivals fell 28% from a year earlier to below 79,000, the steepest monthly drop so far this year. 

Arrivals from India plunged 46%, while those from China dropped 26%. Together, the two countries account for more than half of international student enrollments in the US, a critical revenue source for many universities, Bloomberg reported. 

Last year, India and China made up 54% of international enrollments, while Nigeria and Japan ranked seventh and 13th, respectively. 

US institutions are already projecting a 30% fall in new international student enrollments this fall, which could cost the higher education sector an estimated $2.6 billion in tuition revenue. 

The decline stems from a series of policy shifts, including heightened visa scrutiny, interview backlogs, and social media background checks rolled out during peak application season. 

Zuzana Cepla Wootson, deputy director of federal policy at the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told India's The Economic Times that expanded screening measures and uncertainty around visa issuance are raising serious concerns, particularly for Chinese and Indian students. 

Although the US State Department paused student visa interviews in late May before resuming them in June, the new screening requirements further complicated the process. These disruptions, occurring during the busiest period for student arrivals, may also weigh on August numbers, Wootson added. 

International student enrollment in the US reached a record 1.1 million in the 2023–24 academic year, with India leading at nearly 332,000 students and China following at around 277,000, according to Open Doors. 

But from March 2024 to March 2025, overall enrollment fell 11%, based on data from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), run by the US Department of Homeland Security. 

Preliminary projections by NAFSA: Association of International Educators and JB International, an education technology partner, warn that visa bans, interview disruptions, and processing delays could deal a heavy blow to local US economies. 

Their analysis suggests the US could face a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollments this fall, resulting in an estimated $7 billion loss in spending and more than 60,000 jobs. 

Students from key markets including India, China, Nigeria, and Japan continue to face limited visa appointment availability, forcing many to abandon plans to study in the US this fall semester, the report added. 

Malaysia’s successful recovery of around 70 percent so far of 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s (1MDB) RM42 billion assets is the highest recovery rate when compared against other corruption scandals globally, a senior officer from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has said. 

MACC’s special operations division’s senior director Mohamad Zamri Zainul Abidin, who is also head of MACC’s 1MDB Asset Recovery Task Force, credited the success to a joint effort by Malaysian agencies. 

“Currently, Malaysia has successfully recovered approximately 70 percent of 1MDB assets, amounting to about RM30 billion out of the total RM42 billion. This recovery rate is significantly higher than the international average of around 30 percent, reflecting the effectiveness of the multi-agency effort led by MACC”, he asserted.

Vietnam Joins BRICS As 10th Partner Country

Vietnam has joined BRICS as their tenth partner country, marking a significant step in the bloc’s expansion, Brazil’s foreign ministry announced on Saturday. 

“With a population of almost 100 million and a dynamic economy deeply integrated into global value chains, Vietnam stands out as a relevant actor in Asia”, Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. 

The economic collective’s other nine partner countries are Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. Hanoi’s inclusion as a partner country grants it access to key economic initiatives without formal voting rights.

BRICS just got bigger!

Yesterday, I attended the Kajang Toastmasters Club meeting at Prima Saujana, Kajang in Selangor. It was very unusually well-attended; and therefore, the meeting unsurprisingly became a lot livelier. 

And we sold eight books, 4 TDIYS and 4 TPOYS.