Akiko Yamanaka (山中 あき子, Yamanaka Akiko^?, born November 6, 1945) is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Iwate Prefecture and graduate of Tsuda College, she was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1996 as a member of the New Frontier Party. She later joined the LDP.

Kevin Watkins is a senior fellow at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. He was previously the director and lead author of the UNESCO's Education for All Global Monitoring Report.

Kevin Watkins has a BA in Politics and Social Science from Durham University. He also has a doctorate from Oxford University. He spent one year in India doing research for his dissertation: “The economics and politics of Indian Nationalism from 1880-1947”.

Kevin Watkins served as Researcher for the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (1983). He was then appointed as Head of International Development at the Catholic Institute for International Relations (1987-2001). He also became Head of Research in Oxfam (1991) where he covered issues such as debt relief, education , social policy and poverty.

In 2000, he was part of the drafting committee for the framework of action and the six Education For All goals during the World Education Forum.

From 2004-2008, he was director of the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Report. During this time, he directed a total of three reports, from 2005-2008:

Andrew Norton (born 1965) is an Australian author and researcher. He is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and Policy and Government Relations Adviser at the University of Melbourne. He is former director of the CIS's Liberalising Learning research programme and editor of its journal Policy.

From November 1997 to December 1999, Norton was the Higher Education Adviser to Dr David Kemp, Federal Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs. He was a fortnightly columnist for The Courier-Mail (1996-97) and a monthly columnist for The Education Age (2003). From 2003 to 2006 he blogged regularly at Catallaxyfiles.

Norton holds a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) and Bachelor of Laws from Monash University.

During the 2001 election, Andrew Norton was interviewed on SBS Worldview, ABC Life Matters, and The 7:30 Report concerning his opinions on ALP's higher education funding plans. Various newspapers and magazines have published articles by Norton about his market-based approach to higher education.

Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons) was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.

The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.