Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters are threatening to ramp up their campaign. Protest leaders say they could start occupying government buildings if the city's leader C. Y. Leung does not resign by the end of today. 

 

The organization responsible for ranking the world's universities has questioned the Federal Government's plan to deregulate fees. Twelve Australian universities have improved their positions in the latest world rankings, eight of them are now in the Top 200. But the Times Higher Education magazine which compiles the rankings says fee deregulation could harm Australia's smaller universities. 

 

But the risk is that you create winner and losers and the losers in Australia may suddenly find themselves falling out of these rankings because the current sustained fee levels and they are not getting the public taxpayer dollar to support them in addition to the fees. 

 

Phil Baty there. 

 

Now there's growing speculation that Essendon could dump Coach James Hird when the club's board meets today. Tensions have been rising since Hird decided to appeal a Federal court ruling on the doping scandal involving the club.