STUDENTS BACK VANUNU

Glasgow University students reclaimed some credibility for themselves with an overwhelming vote for nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. Recent University of Glasgow Rectors have included children's entertainer Johnny Ball (permanently pissed), fat pop singer Pat Kane, ageing sports commentator Arthur Montford and South African activist Winnie Mandela.

Vanunu will replace actor and comedian Greg Hemphill who was elected to the Rectorship in 2001.

His supporters hope that will help his campaign to be allowed to leave Israel, where he is still forbidden from talking to foreigners.

Students at Glasgow University chose Mr Vanunu ahead of the former British Lion and Scottish rugby player John Beattie, the actor Jenni Keenan Green, and the Indonesian peace campaigner Annas Alamudi.

He received 1,033 votes to the 793 for Mr Beattie, a former student at the university.
"I am very happy," said Mr Vanunu yesterday, speaking from St George's cathedral in Jerusalem where he has lived since his release from prison in April following an 18-year sentence for revealing Israel's nuclear weapons programme to the media. "I would like to thank the students very much for electing me and I hope to be able to serve them. I hope it spreads the message for a nuclear-free world."

Read the - always excellent – Duncan Campbell for the full story here.

Or the campaign site here.

Photo shows Mordechai in an Israeli police van in 1986 holding a message to the world written on his palm: "Vanunu was hijacked in Rome 30.9.86".