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Surveys have revealed the unpopularity of Germany as a place for young foreign scientists. In response, Germans need to improve conditions suffered by academics; foreigners need to think more realistically about the country and its inhabitants.
The decision by Australia not to fund the European Southern Observatory is a sign that its politicians see its future in science as lying in the Asia-Pacific region. That conclusion is premature.
Britain will probably not rejoin Unesco at this stage, but has a right (and responsibility) to press for new terms of reference as the price for its subscription.
It is not an accident that the US Congress has been battling with President Bill Clinton over this year's budget. Both are under global pressure. Each must take care that their compromise does not wreck science.
After a year, the Republican party has full control of the US Congress and has been kinder to science than its critics allow. But that disposition is unlikely to last for long.
British plans further to tighten the laws on immigration into Britain are either discreditable or are doomed to failure, but either way appear to be designed against the impending general election.
Everybody is anxious to help mould Europe's research policy. The place to start is to say that episodic funding (by means of 'framework' programmes) is a bad idea. What is needed is a truly European research council.
The British Committee on the Safety of Medicines seems to have acted with needless haste by warning women against forms of contraceptive pills whose risks may not be all that great.
Cockfighting and bear-baiting have been banned for several decades in most grown-up countries, but fist-fights between people are tragically still allowed.