9am Briefing: Daughter of ex-airport boss fights for life after being hit by car

THE daughter of former Edinburgh Airport boss Gordon Dewar is fighting for her life after being run down by a car in Bahrain.

Olivia Dewar was struck by the vehicle in the village of Saar as she crossed a road from the Lamees Gardens residential compound on her way to a local supermarket, it is believed.

The 17-year-old is reported to be in a coma and suffered serious head and upper body injuries.

Olivia moved to the Gulf state earlier this year with her father, sister Georgia and step-mother, after Mr Dewar was appointed chief executive of Bahrain Airport.

Her mother Caroline has flown from Edinburgh to Bahrain to be by her daughter's bedside.

• EDINBURGH'S Napier and Queen Margaret universities are among the biggest losers in the share-out of next year's 1.5 billion funding for further and higher education revealed today.

Scottish universities and colleges face an overall funding reduction of around eight per cent.

Teaching budgets will fall by 10.9 per cent for all institutions.

Research funding has been maintained at the same level as last year in cash terms, but the Scottish Funding Council has decided to focus more money on the highest quality research.

Napier will see its research cash cut by 6.6 per cent and Queen Margaret's will be reduced by 10.9 per cent. Edinburgh University, by contrast, will have a 0.4 per cent increase in its research budget. Heriot-Watt will see a one per cent cut.

• NEARLY 14,000 Lothian homes are lying empty.

New figures show more than 100,000 properties across Scotland are unoccupied, the highest level in six years.

West Lothian, with 1679 homes, or 2.3 per cent, saw the second highest rise of the 32 council areas. Figures showed 10,040 properties, 4.3 per cent, in Edinburgh were vacant, with 734, 2.1 per cent, in Midlothian.

In East Lothian, 1491 homes, 3.4 per cent, were empty.