The reasons for my vote to keep the news items in the open forum are a) to help give the forum a busier and up-to-date feel about it during times when it's quiet on there and b) often an article I post bears some relevance to what a member has posted and I tie up with that to provide some background info and also to pad the thread out to give a fuller picture.
At the end of the day (or any other time
), it doesn't really bother me where the news goes as long as it's in the best interests of the forum and its members. The reason I put them on is mainly to provide instant immigration-related news to those who either haven't got the time to browse the online papers or tend not to be news-readers anyway. The articles are just little nuggets of info that I've picked out which may or may not be of interest to those looking into the forum.
