Lib Dems holds leadership husting in Harrow

Liberal Democrats leadership candidates Nick Clegg and Chris Hunhe took part in a webcast hustings in Harrow Campus, University of Westminster.

During the 50 minute hustings, each candidate had a 2 minute individual speech before answering questions selected from those emailed in by party members.

The debate contained four sections, respectively about Foreign, Green and Home Affairs, Pubic Services, Personal Values, and Party Management.

As a member of the crew from the University's School of Media, Arts and Design, I'm quite excited to have such a great opportunity to put my skills into practice, while getting involved with local political affairs.

From my point of view, Mr Huhne took most out of the hustings, expressed himself well and seemed to have maturer policies than Mr Clegg. But one thing is in common. They both said that they want to break the current two-party system.

Ballot papers for the leadership election have already been sent to the party's 70,000 members, and the result is due to be announced on December 17.

No matter who wins the election, he will surely face a difficult job to guide the Liberal Democrats to their promised land.

Chinese film festival

The first "Filming East" Chinese independent film festival opens in Oxford.

Speaking of Chinese films, westerners will surely come across names like "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon", "Curse of Golden Flower", and newly premiered "Lust, Caution", as well as the celebrity directors such as Ang Li and Zhang Yimou.

But in the "Filming East" festival, UK audience have a chance to find out the real life in China by watching films made by some unknown Chinese film makers.

The attendance of Mr John Tanner, the Lord Mayor of Oxford, gives the seven-day showcase a high-profile opening ceremony in a local cinema.(WATCH THE VIDEO)

The festival will be followed by screening tours across China and UK early next year in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games.

England crashed out of Euro 2008

England failed to qualify for Euro 2008 after a sorrowful 3-2 defeat to Croatia at Wembley.

Stunned. Devastated. Humilated. As an England supporter, you can probably use all the negative words you know to describe your feeling of England's astonishing defeat to Croatia at Wembley.

Outplayed, outclassed and even outfought. Though England once came back from two goals down, courtesy of a soft penalty, they deserved nothing from the game. The absence of all four regular defenders and both main strikers might be a big loss, but never an excuse.

Disastrous performance

Steve McClaren seriously underestimated the ability and determination of this Croatian team. It's definitely not a good idea to giving a young keeper his competitive debut in such an important game.

It was Scott Carson's horrible mistake that put England in trouble, but the performance of his teammates weren't much better either. Usually there may be one or two players having a bad game, but unfortunately for England, only Peter Crouch was on normal service.

England should've never dragged themselves into this make-or-break situation. A month ago, I was at Wembley Park before England v. Estonia match(WATCH THE VIDEO). After two convincing victories, England supporters were in completely different mood. They certainly didn't expect that England would end the qualifiers with two successive defeats.

Time for a change

Last week, former England and Manchester United full-back Paul Parker declared that it would be better if England do not qualify for Euro 2008. He'd rather see a failure as the wake-up call to English football, so that young local players can get more opportunities to come through the rank.

England's next major tournament, World Cup 2010 qualifying draw set to take place on Friday. Now, it's time for a change.

Eurostar's new era starts at St Pancras

Eurostar launches service from the £800 million refurbished St Pancras International station today, after a 13-year spell in Waterloo.

The new route will cut journey times to Paris by 20 minutes to two hours and 15 minutes, and to Brussels by 25 minutes to one hour and 51 minutes.

The 186mph high-speed rail service has been well promoted, but it starts from an inharmonious style. A nationwide railworkers' strike in France begins exactly on the "big day" of Eurostar, in protest at President Nicolas Sarkozy's planned pension reforms.

Although Eurostar insists the open-ended strike won't impact on its service, passengers will have difficulties to travel beyond Paris Gare du Nore, the terminal station of the newly completed £5.8 billion Channel Tunnel rail link.

Despite the amount of travellers is seriously affected by the strike, the renovated St Pancras International station still manages to give people a splendid impression.(WATCH THE VIDEO)