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Currie expected to become Ofcom chairman
Lord Currie of Marylebone, dean of City University business school and adviser to chancellor Gordon Brown, is expected to be appointed chairman of Ofcom, the new communications regulator today. At City he has introduced performance-related pay for academics despite stiff opposition.

British Library staff to strike on Monday
Staff at the British Library will go on strike next week in protest at a 4 per cent pay offer. The Public and Commercial Services union will lead its 979 members out on strike on Monday after members voted narrowly for industrial action. The British Library said that only 13 per cent of its entire staff supported the strike but service disruption would be "inevitable".

Students support extra tax to restore grants
Students would be willing to pay more income tax if it meant an end to tuition fees and the return of maintenance grants, according to a survey. The Virgin Student Insight Poll found that 58 per cent of students favoured paying extra tax in return for the restoration of grants and scrapping of fees.

Starting first job costs graduates ?3,500
Graduates have to spend nearly ?3,500 on clothes, travel and living costs during their first three months of work, a survey by HSBC showed today. The bank said many people would find the initial cost of a new job easily exceeded their income in the first few months of starting. The average starting salary for the 250,000 graduates leaving university this summer is ?20,000.

Oxford refugee researchers given ?1m grant
Oxford University researchers have received a grant of more than ?1 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to study the damaging effects on children of being forced to flee their homeland because of war. The Refugee Studies Centre will focus on children in war zones such as South Asia and Aghanistan.