A New Record for Retractions?
July 4th, 2012Via: American Association for the Advancement of Science:
An investigating committee in Japan has concluded that a Japanese anesthesiologist, Yoshitaka Fujii, fabricated a whopping 172 papers over the past 19 years. Among other problems, the panel, set up by the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists, could find no records of patients and no evidence medication was ever administered.
“It is as if someone sat at a desk and wrote a novel about a research idea,” the committee wrote in a 29 June summary report posted in Japanese on the society’s Web site.
The fabrications could produce a record number of retractions by a single author if the journals, as seems likely, decide to retract the papers.
Feds Look to Fight Leaks With ‘Fog of Disinformation’
July 4th, 2012Via: Danger Room:
Pentagon-funded researchers have come up with a new plan for busting leakers: Spot them by how they search, and then entice the secret-spillers with decoy documents that will give them away.
Computer scientists call it it “Fog Computing” — a play on today’s cloud computing craze. And in a recent paper for Darpa, the Pentagon’s premiere research arm, researchers say they’ve built “a prototype for automatically generating and distributing believable misinformation … and then tracking access and attempted misuse of it. We call this ‘disinformation technology.’”
Angola’s Chinese-Built Ghost Town
July 4th, 2012Via: BBC:
The ghost towns of China, Ireland and Spain – full of large empty house estates – may be a phenomenon that is on its way to Africa.
Built for people who never move in, they leave those who did with a worthless property they cannot sell.
Perched in an isolated spot some 30km (18 miles) outside Angola’s capital, Luanda, Nova Cidade de Kilamba is a brand-new mixed residential development of 750 eight-storey apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units.
Designed to house up to half a million people when complete, Kilamba has been built by the state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) in under three years at a reported cost of $3.5bn (£2.2bn).
Spanning 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres), the development is the largest of several new “satellite cities” being constructed by Chinese firms around Angola, and it is believed to be one of the largest new-build projects on the continent.
The jewel in Angola’s post-war reconstruction crown, Kilamba is the star of glossy government promotional videos which show smiling families enjoying a new style of living away from the dust and confusion of central Luanda where millions live in sprawling slums.
But the people in these films are only actors, and despite all the hype, nearly a year since the first batch of 2,800 apartments went on sale, only 220 have been sold.
Research Credit: midnightagain
San Diego Man Stranded After Being Told He’s on the No-Fly List
July 4th, 2012Via: AP:
A U.S. citizen of Somali descent who has been stranded in Bahrain for two weeks after being told his name appears on the U.S. government’s no-fly list said Tuesday that he does not understand why he has been tagged as a suspected terrorist and is talking to U.S. lawyers.
The San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, held a press conference Tuesday to draw attention to the case of 20-year-old Ali Ahmed, who was denied entry into Kenya two weeks ago and then flown to Bahrain.
The Associated Press later called Ahmed in Bahrain.
Ahmed said he was told by the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain that he has been cleared to go home, but when he went to the airport Monday, he was blocked from boarding again. Ahmed said he stayed at a hotel at first. He now has been staying with a man contacted by family friends and is running low on money.
The San Diego man said he does not know why he would be on the federal list that includes thousands of known or suspected terrorists.
ACLU-NJ Launches Smartphone App That Lets Users Secretly Record Police Stops
July 4th, 2012Via: CBS:
New Jersey’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has taken its mission of policing the police to smartphones.
The ACLU has released an app called “Police Tape” that lets users secretly record police stops.
The ACLU’s Alexander Shalom said the app is easy to use.
“There’s really only three buttons that the user needs to deal with,” Shalom said. “There’s a know your rights button that educates the citizen about their rights when encountering police on the street, in a car, in their home or when they’re going to be placed under arrest, and there’s a button to record audio and a button to record video.”
Nicolas Sarkozy’s Home Raided by French Police
July 4th, 2012Via: Guardian:
French police have raided the home and offices of the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as part of an investigation into illegal campaign financing and alleged brown envelopes of cash from France’s wealthiest woman, the L’Oreal hairspray heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
Police searched the mansion rented by Carla Bruni in a chic gated community in the west of Paris, where she and Sarkozy live with Bruni’s 11-year-old son and the couple’s new baby daughter. Officers also searched the office of the legal firm where Sarkozy is a partner and the new office he moved into after losing the presidential election to Socialist Francois Hollande in May.
France Considering Making Those Who Own A Computer Screen But No Television Pay Up
July 3rd, 2012Via: Guardian:
The French government is considering extending the television licence fee to include computer screen owners to boost revenues for public-sector broadcasting operations, the culture minister said on Saturday.
President François Hollande’s Socialist government aims to raise an extra €7.5bn (£6bn) this year through tax rises included in an amended budget bill to be unveiled next week.
“Is it necessary to extend the fee to [computer] screens when you do not have a television? It is a question we’re asking ourselves, but obviously it would be a fee per household and you would not have to pay an [additional] fee if you have a computer and a television,” Aurélie Filippetti said on RTL radio.
She said the government would study the new measure in 2013.
The licence fee – €125 in mainland France and €80 in its overseas territories – is used to finance public television and radio.
Eurozone Unemployment Hits Record High
July 3rd, 2012Via: Financial Times:
The European Central Bank is widely expected to make an interest rate cut this week to try to invigorate the eurozone’s ailing economy after unemployment in the region climbed to a record high and a key survey of manufacturing showed the sector to be at its weakest in three years.
GlaxoSmithKline: Largest Case of Healthcare Fraud in U.S. History
July 2nd, 2012Via: Reuters:
GlaxoSmithKline Plc has agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges and pay $3 billion to settle what government officials said on Monday is the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history.
The agreement, which still needs court approval, would resolve allegations that the British drugmaker broke U.S. laws in the marketing of several pharmaceuticals.
GSK targeted the antidepressant Paxil to patients under age 18 when it was approved for adults only, and it pushed the drug Wellbutrin for uses it was not approved for, including weight loss and treatment of sexual dysfunction, according to an investigation led by the U.S. Justice Department.
The company went to extreme lengths to promote the drugs, such as distributing a misleading medical journal article and providing doctors with meals and spa treatments that amounted to illegal kickbacks, prosecutors said.
In a third instance, GSK failed to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration safety data about its diabetes drug Avandia, in violation of U.S. law, prosecutors said.
Drone Makers Urge U.S. to Let Them Sell More Overseas
July 2nd, 2012Via: Los Angeles Times:
Despite concerns about U.S.-made drones ending up in enemy hands, American military contractors are lobbying the government to loosen export restrictions and open up foreign markets to the unmanned aircraft that have reshaped modern warfare.
Companies such as Northrop Grumman Corp.and other arms makers are eager to tap a growing foreign appetite for high-tech — and relatively cheap — drones, already being sold on the world market by countries such as Israel and China.
“Export restrictions are hurting this industry in America without making us any safer,” Wesley G. Bush, Northrop’s chief executive, said at a defense conference this year. “The U.S. is struggling to sell unmanned aircraft to our allies while other nations prepare to jump into the marketplace with both feet.”
