Graduate unemployment is significantly higher than the overall national rate. Last year, one in five graduates left university without a job. Recent figures show that youth unemployment, inclusive of graduate unemployment, has dropped slightly to 30 per cent. The situation for leavers at the University of York is of particular concern, with students here reportedly having the worst job prospects of the top 25 universities in the United Kingdom. It probably hasn’t helped that the transition to information and service economy ravaged northern industry and left York with few areas of economic specialisation besides afternoon tea and Viking related souvenirs.

The Office for National Statistics projected that each graduate job would be contested by 45 students this year, though arrestingly this seems to have nearly doubled, with research suggesting employers are currently receiving an average of 83 applications per vacancy. As I know first-hand, graduate schemes in the beleaguered newspaper industry can attract over 350 applicants for just two places in times like these; those are not good odds. Graduates are staring into an unemployment abyss, with only the occasional slippery interview ledge to save them from a painful belly flop into the lake of volunteering.

Though cultural change has meant that returning to the nest is now seen as a perfectly acceptable option for graduates having a hard time in the jobs market, there is a danger that if youth unemployment doesn’t drop soon, we will sleepwalk into a masquerade of eternal youth. Instead of hosting sophisticated dinner parties, sitting down to Panorama in cords and stressing over the tax return, it will become increasingly common for 30 year-olds to count LEGO amongst their hobbies. But to get the economy back on track, we need investment in real British construction and infrastructure, not Danish toys. For many of us, it may be necessary to compromise and get reacquainted with Stickle Bricks.

He had set the deadline a year previously, and had originally promised the closure as one of his major election campaign policies. Now it seems the facility may not be closed before 2013, or even later

The long delay appears to be resulting from a combination of political obstacles, legal debate and dwindling motivation amongst the Democrats. The Senate has opposed attempts to implement a basic translation of the current Cuban-situated arrangement to a maximum security jail in Illinois.

This is despite Obama declaring his intention to conduct this move in the Presidential Memorandum of December 2009.

The completely un-superfluous matter of deciding on the best method for trying the 176 inmates of the crimes they may eventually be charged with is also contentious.

Trial in civilian courts is seen as being fairer and in greater accord with international law than the alternative of potentially secretive and partial military commissions. However, this would render much of the little evidence held against the terror suspects unusable due to the circumstances of its obtainment.

The Obama administration also appears to have downgraded Guantanamo’s closure as a priority as the idea becomes less popular with the electorate.

The dramatically reduced urgency being exhibited by a man once ideologically concerned with repealing the illiberal measures of the Bush presidency is being appeased by an effective media silence around Guantanamo.

In small part this is being enforced by the US military, which recently prevented a group of Canadian journalists from reporting on the trial of a Canadian citizen being held at the camp. This was following the printing of the name of a witness which was already in the public domain.

The accused was 15 and legally a child when it is alleged he committed the war crime of killing an American soldier, making the trial unfair.

Yet it is largely the media having become bored of the story that has allowed it to escape the public gaze in recent times. A quick search reveals that there has been only one deployment of the word ‘Guantanamo’ on guardian.co.uk in the last month, and even that was sadly out of context.

It may be true that the interrogation techniques likened to torture of the early years of the War on Terror have now ceased to be employed by US intelligence operatives.

However, the fact remains that over a hundred foreign nationals are still being detained and have not been tried of any crime because of the paucity of evidence against them. Many have been incarcerated for several years and will therefore have been subject to such coercive procedures as ‘waterboarding’.

Even if Obama’s preferred solution to the problem of the inmates’ future is taken up, and they are transferred to the US mainland, it is by no means certain that the Government will not continue to view their indefinite detention without trial as an option.

Despite the setbacks in the Senate, Obama and the media should not let the issue of closing Guantanamo fade away. The biggest blockade to mar Obama’s tennure so far has been the Senate.

The new report investigates pollution levels in Bhopal 25 years after a gas leak in a pesticide factory. The toxic leak, which occurred on the 3rd of December 1984, killed at least 20,000 people and left many more chronically ill.

The contaminated water is regularly used for drinking and washing by around 30,000 people. Several contaminants have been found at levels far exceeding those given in World Health Organisation (WHO) safety guidelines. Amongst these is the carcinogen Carbon Tetrachloride. The quantities found were 2,400 times higher than the recommended safety level. The toxins found are known cause problems ranging from cancer to birth defects in children.

There is further evidence that contamination levels of water in the city are still rising as a result of industrial waste which remains on the site, continually seeping into the ground.

The recent findings correlate with the health of Bhopal’s people. According to Amnesty International, 120,000 people are still suffering from chronic illnesses due to exposure on the night of the disaster.

A new generation is being affected by the continuing pollution of the environment, and is being referred to as ‘Bhopal’s second disaster’.

As many as one in 25 babies in the area are being born with a congenital defects or will develop defects later in life. There are also notably high rates of cancer and tuberculosis in the area.

At the time of the disaster the pesticide factory was owned by Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), an American multinational. The gas leak has been attributed to negligence and lax safety precautions. UCC settled out of court, with the Indian Government paying $284 million to victims.

“120,000 people are still suffering from chronic illness”

Union Carbide, which is now owned by Dow Chemical, sold its Indian subsidiary onto another firm in 1994. Following this, Dow rejects any further responsibility for compensating the current victims of the environmental pollution, or cleaning up the reported 8,000 tonnes of chemicals still in the factory.

While campaigners now say Dow is liable, questions must be asked of the Indian Government.

The Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh recently mocked activists in Bhopal by picking up a handful of soil and saying “see, I am alive”.

Broadcaster Jon Snow, who is the Patron of the BMA, said of this (with regards to this year’s anniversary): “That’s 25 years of evasion and denial from the parties responsible for this appalling crime. 25 years of struggle for justice on the part of the survivors.”

The German Chief of Staff, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, resigned on Thursday along with senior Defence official Peter Wichert. Franz Josef Jung, currently Labour Minister, and Defence Minister at the time of the air-strike, resigned on Friday. The incident occurred when two oil tankers which had been hijacked by the Taliban were destroyed by United States Air Force (USAF) planes. The order to engage was given by a German Commander. The consequent bombing raid killed scores of people who were in the proximity. The US emphasized that although the attacks were carried out by its personnel, the orders had come from Col Georg Klein.

For several days following the strike, Jung claimed there was no evidence that civilians were among the dead. He justified the attack, as having been necessary in the light of intelligence, predicting a possible assault on German troops. The recent resignations have been seen as an acceptance of responsibility for the events. It has been revealed that knowledge of civilian deaths was known earlier than previously thought. Many of the dead were in fact civilians, helping themselves to free oil rather than insurgents.

The apparently strategic and prolonged move to deny that any kind of mistake had been made, coupled with the resignations of three high-ranking officials, may serve as an indicator of the fragile state of public support for the German presence in Afghanistan. The attack was one of the most deadly that German forces have been involved in since the Second World War. Consequently providing tough decisions for Angela Merkel as Barack Obama nears an announcement about the future shape of US policy in the region.

Obama will perhaps face difficulties in trying to secure an increased commitment from his European allies in the coming days.