Archive for the ‘Corruption’ Category
August 26, 2011
When plagiarism is not plagiarism
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Peshawar, Dr Azmat Hayat Khan was found guilty of plagiarism by a three-member committee of the Higher Education Commission that was constituted to probe the matter. The Higher Education Commission had submitted its report to the Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa who is also the Chancellor of the university.
For apparently political reasons, no action has so far been taken against the Vice Chancellor. Instead the University went on the attack. First they attacked the complainant, Mohammad Zubair, an assistant professor at the UoP Law College. They suspended him and have now dismissed him and are going through a paper exercise to strip him of his law degree. Now they have attacked the Higher Education Commission for finding their beloved Vice Chancellor guilty. The defence of the Vice Chancellor is ingenious. First they have objected to the procedures followed by the Commission in not interrogating the Vice Chancellor. Since they felt this argument was probably a little weak they then redefined plagiarism so that the Vice Chancellor’s plagiarism was no longer plagiarism!!
The University has effectively created a Cheaters Charter. It has reinvented and redefined a plagiarism “threshold” of allowable copying as being 19% for scholarly articles and 25% for theses. And since – they claim – the Vice Chancellor only cheated to the extent of copying 18% of his book from others – what he did was not plagiarism!!
From being a case of the Vice Chancellor’s plagiarism this has now escalated to become a case of blatant corruption at the highest levels of the University and not excluding the Chancellor – who is of course merely taking a political position as the Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
The ethical standards of the University of Peshawar are beginning to stink.
Pakistan Today reports:
The University of Peshawar issued a clarification on a news item pertaining to plagiarism stating certain elements from a political group were involved. ….
The HEC thus already had jumped to conclusions without inquiring into the matter which shows a partial approach and mala fide intentions. This in fact was the only inquiry in history in which the author under investigation was not called before the committee. The plagiarism policy of HEC point number eight section“E“ clearly reads that the author under investigation must be provided opportunity to justify the originality of their concepts. …..
The HEC Plagiarism policy states plagiarism cases be dealt by respective universities and the threshold is setup by the concerned University in light of the Quality Assurance guidelines of HEC. The percentage of allowed threshold decided by meeting of the Advance Studies and Research Board of University of Peshawar in light of HEC Quality Assurance guidelines, in its meeting held on 25/11/2009 was 19% allowed matching (threshold) for published research articles and 25% for thesis.
The plagiarism allegations against the Vice Chancellor were looked in HEC recommended software and the result was shown to be 18%. This is the same software which is being used all over the country and by HEC. The same document was checked manually and the matching percentage of Kulwant Kaur Book “Pak Afghan relations” to that of Dr Azmat Hayat Khan book was 17%. …….
The press release stated the case was in court and an unbiased decision would be issued because the author would get a chance to explain his point of view and the facts of the matter. It said the University of Peshawar considered the HEC’s recommendation of a penalty and the press conference organized by them as contempt of court (against PHC decision) and will take the case to legal corners. It claims that the victimizing campaign is spear-headed by Zubair Mehsud. The press release denied Zubair was being targeted, as claimed by a newsreport, for raising his voice against the VC.
The press release said ex-Law College faculty member Zubair had been terminated for engaging in political activities against the VC’s directives and the used of defamatory language when issued show cause notice to explain his position on the matter.
But the demands on the Governor to replace the tainted Vice Chancellor are continuing to grow.
Tags:Azmat Hayat Khan, Cheaters Charter, Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Mohammad Zubair, Plagiarism, University of Peshawar
Posted in Corruption, Education, Ethics, Pakistan, Politics, scientific misconduct | 2 Comments »
August 16, 2011
The amounts of money sloshing around in the EU in carbon trading scams is mind-boggling and puts even drug money into the shade. The EU emissions trading scheme has been one of the major drivers of corruption in the last few years. The latest scam to come to trial is in Germany where just the tax evasion amounts to €5 billion ($7 billion). The total value of the carbon trades involved in this particular fraud probably exceed €50 billion. The frauds revealed so far are just a tiny fraction of all the succesful frauds that have been perpetrated – and all with the undoubted help (and connivance) of EU politicians.
It would not be surprising if the total cost of the EU emissions trading schemes (assuming a conservative 80:20 principle) exceeded €250 billion. Eventually, the cost of all these carbon trades will have to be borne by EU taxpayers and electricity consumers.
Reuters reports:
A 5 billion euro tax fraud returned to haunt European Union’s emissions trading scheme on Monday as six individuals faced tax evasion charges at a trial which starts in Frankfurt. The case will haul the market’s multiple scandals back into the spotlight but is unlikely to implicate investment banks following a similar case against small firms in Britain.
In an activity which peaked in May 2009, traders bought carbon emissions permits in one country and sold them in another, charging for and then keeping the value-added tax (VAT) which they should have handed to tax authorities.
- The total value of the fraud was at least 5 billion euros ($7.1 bln) in lost tax receipts, according to Europol
- Charges have been brought against individuals at small firms. Europol said the fraud was linked to criminal networks operating outside the EU including the Middle East
- The biggest swoop, initiated by Germany in early 2010, saw more than 2,500 officers involved across European and other countries
- In Germany, prosecutors said in March that in addition to the six individuals charged, a further 170 suspects including seven Deutsche Bank employees were still under investigation and could be charged later
- In Britain, the first trial of seven suspects risked delay as the investigation unearthed new evidence
- It was easier to open an account on the carbon market registry than to open a bank account, allowing less reputable characters to participate.
- As a new market, tax authorities in EU member states were slower to spot the fraud opportunity
- The fraud was carried out on an unregulated spot market. Participants in such markets do not have to register with financial authorities, unlike in futures markets
- As well as making it easier for fraudsters to gain entry, unregulated markets do not force strict know-your-client (KYC) rules on law-abiding participants meaning criminals escaped detection more easily
- Officials at Paris-based Bluenext have not denied that their spot exchange was used by tax evaders but have maintained that they acted to stop the practice
- French tax authorities are demanding 355 million euros ($505 million) from Bluenext, owned by NYSE Euronext, in unpaid VAT related to trades that occurred on the exchange
- The EU’s head of tax, Algirdas Semeta, and of climate change, Connie Hedegaard, in June sent letters to EU states urging them to apply reverse tax charges which would remove the opportunity to buy EUAs VAT-free and then pocket the tax
- The carbon market has suffered scandals besides VAT fraud, including a phishing attack, the circulation of used emissions permits and cyber theft of EUAs
- The market has seen near-record low prices in recent weeks as the threat of a new downturn widens a glut in permits
Tags:Bluenext, carbon trading scams, Emissions trading, EU corruption, European Union, global warming
Posted in Alarmism, Business, Climate, Corruption, Energy, Ethics, European Union | Comments Off on One EU Carbon trading scam comes to trial: €5 billion just in lost taxes
August 12, 2011
When medical researchers have financial ties – running into millions of dollars – with pharmaceutical or medical equipment companies, and then publish scientific, peer-reviewed papers which are to the financial benefit of these companies, questions of scientific misconduct escalate to become questions of scientific fraud.
Medtronic is the world’s largest medical device company and Minnesota’s seventh-largest public company based on revenue, which totaled $15.93 billion for the fiscal year that ended April 29. Medtronic’s Infuse product is a bioengineered bone-growth protein that has been used in spinal fusion procedures for the past nine years and is used in about half of the 80,000 anterior lumbar fusion procedures performed every year in the United States.
According to Twin Cities Business, The Spine Journal recently published two articles about the product, one that claims the product may increase the risk of sterility in men, and another that claims that the product’s adverse effects were not reported in clinical research. Those effects reportedly include inflammation, back pain, infections, and potentially life-threatening complications. The Journal pointed out that researchers for 12 of the product’s 13 industry-sponsored studies had multimillion-dollar “financial associations” with Medtronic.
The Spine Journal seems to be on a crusade:
From the Nature News Blog:
The Spine Journal devoted its entire June issue – two clinical studies, two reviews, two commentaries and a scathing editorial – to picking apart Medtronic’s controversial bone growth treatment, Infuse. The drug, which is a recombinant form of the protein BMP-2, is used in some kinds of spinal fusion surgeries and racked up $900 million in sales last fiscal year, according to the New York Times.
Company-sponsored clinical trials for Infuse found no side effects directly linked to the drug. But a review and reanalysis of these studies published in Spine Journal found that the incidence of adverse events ranged from 10 to 50 percent, depending on the use. What’s more, the same review study, led by Eugene Carragee, of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, reports that the authors of the supporting studies had financial ties to Medtronic ranging from $560,000 to $23,500,000, with a median of $12 million to $16 million. In some cases, the authors of these studies did not disclose the full extent of their financial relationships with Medtronic.
“A consistent number of people involved with these studies got extraordinary sums,” Carragee told the Times.
Side effects of the drug include cancer, fertility problems, infections, dissolving bone, and leg and back pain. According to the Times, Medtronic reported the side effects to the US Food and Drug Administration, as required.
In response to the Spine Journal articles, Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak issued a statement that said: “While the Spine Journal articles raise questions about researchers’ conclusions in their published peer-reviewed literature, the articles do not raise questions about the data Medtronic submitted to the FDA in the approval process or the information available to physicians today through the instructions for use brochure attached to each product sold.”
The US Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into whether Medtronic illegally promoted Infuse for “off-label” applications not approved by the FDA, the Times reports.
The American Society of Business Publication Editors have acknowledged the efforts of the Spine Journal and awarded them the 2011 “Journalism That Matters” award. From the New York Times Media Decoder blog:
In June, the publication, The Spine Journal, devoted an entire issue to editorials and reports that challenged previous medical studies supporting the safety and effectiveness of Infuse, a bone-growth product sold by Medtronic. The product, a bioengineered material, is used mainly in spinal fusions.
The Spine Journal charged that academic experts paid by Medtronic to conduct earlier research about Infuse had issued biased and misleading results that overstated the product’s benefits and claimed that it did not pose risks.
On Friday, the American Society of Business Publication Editors celebrated the journal’s effort by presenting it with its 2011 “Journalism That Matters” award, an honor given in recognition of coverage that causes change by government or industry.
It is highly unusual for one group of researchers to publicly repudiate the work of professional colleagues. And by throwing down its challenge, the special issue of The Spine Journal, which is the official journal of the North American Spine Society, was something of a turning point in the debate over conflicts of interest in research paid for by makers of medical products.
Medtronic is on the defensive and is conducting a damage limitation exercise:
But there is little doubt that The Spine Journal’s coverage has had an effect. Last week, Medtronic took the unusual step of announcing that it was giving a $2.5 million grant to Yale so that independent researchers could conduct a broad review of all Infuse studies in order to determine the facts.
Related:
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110731/BUSINESS/307310070/Norton-pair-accused-hiding-risks-spine-drug?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Local%20News
http://beckersorthopedicandspine.com/spine/item/8901-two-more-spine-surgeons-cited-for-underreporting-infuse-complications
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/paul-taylor/medtronic-pledges-independent-review-of-bone-graft-product/article2119735/
Tags:American Society of Business Publication Editors, biased research, Infuse, Infuse dangers, Medtronic, Scientific misconduct, Spine Journal
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Media, Medicine, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | 3 Comments »
August 2, 2011
The case of fraud by Bengü Sezen a chemist at Columbia University goes back many years and was a scandal in 2007 and briefly reported back in December 2010 by Retraction Watch.
Bengu Sezen
Further details have now emerged from the Office of Research Integrity and are put together by Chemical and Engineering News which “show a massive and sustained effort by Sezen over the course of more than a decade to dope experiments, manipulate and falsify NMR and elemental analysis research data, and create fictitious people and organizations to vouch for the reproducibility of her results.”
A Master of Fraud (MFr) and it strikes me that she could probably have achieved great things if she had spent half as much creativity in real research as she did in duping her peers. Fraud by correction fluid in the age of photo-shopping seems particularly ingenious!!
Dalibor Sames: image njacs.org
No doubt there are extenuating circumstances but for this deception to have continued for a decade does not do any credit to her supervisor Prof. Dalibor Sames. Whether Sames has been subjected to any sanctions by the University is not clear. His role has been the subject of many posts and one “inside story” is available here.
The total number of papers retracted by Sames seems to be eight with Sezen involved in 6 of them.
C & EN carries the story:
Bizarre new details of the Bengü Sezen/Columbia University chemistry research fraud case are revealed in two lengthy reports obtained by C&EN this week from the Department of Health & Human Services. The documents—an investigative report from Columbia and HHS’s subsequent oversight findings—show a massive and sustained effort by Sezen over the course of more than a decade to dope experiments, manipulate and falsify NMR and elemental analysis research data, and create fictitious people and organizations to vouch for the reproducibility of her results. Sezen was found guilty of 21 counts of research misconduct by the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which is housed at HHS, in late 2010 (C&EN, Dec. 6, 2010, page 10). A notice in the Nov. 29, 2010, Federal Register states that Sezen falsified, fabricated, and plagiarized research data in three papers and in her doctoral thesis. Some six papers that Sezen had coauthored with Columbia chemistry professor Dalibor Sames have been withdrawn by Sames because Sezen’s results could not be replicated. The ORI findings back Columbia’s own investigation.
The Sezen case began in 2000 when the young graduate student arrived in the Columbia chemistry department. “By 2002, concerns about the reproducibility of Respondent’s [Sezen’s] research were raised both by members of the [redacted] and by scientists outside” Columbia, according to the documents, obtained by C&EN through a Freedom of Information Act request. The redacted portions of the documents are meant to protect the identities of people who spoke to the misconduct investigators.
By the time Sezen received a Ph.D. degree in chemistry in 2005, under the supervision of Sames, her fraudulent activity had reached a crescendo, according to the reports. Specifically, the reports detail how Sezen logged into NMR spectrometry equipment under the name of at least one former Sames group member, then merged NMR data and used correction fluid to create fake spectra showing her desired reaction products.
The documents paint a picture of Sezen as a master of deception, a woman very much at ease with manipulating colleagues and supervisors alike to hide her fraudulent activity; a practiced liar who would defend the integrity of her research results in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Columbia has moved to revoke her Ph.D. ……
…… After leaving Columbia, Sezen went on to receive another Ph.D. in molecular biology at Germany’s Heidelberg University. At some point during the Columbia investigation, however, Sezen vanished, though some reports place her at Turkey’s Yeditepe University. Her legacy of betrayal, observers say, remains one of the worst cases of scientific fraud ever to happen in the chemistry community.
See also
Julia Wang’s – The Sames and Sezen case, 2007
Chemical Villain of 2006: Dalibor Sames
The Sezen Files – Part II: Unraveling the Fabrication
Tags:Bengü Sezen, Columbia University, Dalibor Sames, Master of Fraud, Scientific Fraud, United States Office of Research Integrity
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Science, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | 4 Comments »
July 14, 2011
The latest case of bribery and corruption in defence contracts where the numbers have been revealed suggests that the going rate for commissions is around 3% of the contract value for simple component contracts.
In this case as reported by Bloomberg:
Armor Holdings Inc., the military- truck maker now a subsidiary of BAE Systems Plc, agreed to pay $16 million to resolve U.S. claims it bribed a United Nations official to win contracts connected to peacekeeping missions.
The company will pay $10.3 million to resolve criminal allegations and $5.7 million to settle related civil claims, the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission said in separate statements today. The violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which began as early as 2001, took place before BAE bought the company in 2007, prosecutors said. …..
The criminal probe by the Justice Department was settled with a non-prosecution agreement that cited the company’s cooperation and internal investigation in the case. In settling the SEC claims, Armor didn’t admit or deny the allegations.
The Justice Department said Richard Bistrong, who worked in Armor’s international sales unit, and another unidentified executive arranged for the UN agent to receive more than $200,000 in commissions for the 2001 and 2003 contracts. Bistrong pleaded guilty last year to bribing UN and Dutch officials to win body armor and pepper-spray contracts.
It seems this particular contract for the UN was for $6 million, with a declared profit of about $1 million and with the value of the bribe (commission) at about $200,000. Of course the commissions would have been put down as a cost so the real margin would have been well over 20%. A $16 million penalty might appear to be reasonably and sufficiently painful, but I am quite sure that it is small relative to the profits on all the other contracts which could not be penetrated. The amount is probably considered good value by Armor and their new owners considering the immunity they have gained from further sanctions which would also presumably prevent all other prior contracts from being scrutinised very closely .
British Aerospace Systems, the new owners of Armor, are well versed in the payment of commissions for the winning of contracts. They could probably teach their new subsidiary a thing or two about how to hide commission / bribe payments as legitimate expenses.
Related:
BAE Settles Corruption Charges
Tags:Armor Holdings, BAe Systems, Bribery and corruption, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Richard Bistrong, United Nations
Posted in Business, Corruption | Comments Off on Is 3% the going rate for defence contract bribes?
July 13, 2011
For the last 10 days the Rupert Murdoch / Rebekah Brookes/ NoTW scandal (broken by The Guardian and their intrepid reporter Nick Davies) has been raging in the UK. It is now a full grown 3-ring circus.
The story has all the ingredients of a new TV mini-series – a media tycoon, spineless politicians, amoral journalists, a red-headed siren, a multi-billion take-over bid, some corrupt policemen, some Clouseau-like investigators and a bunch of small-time criminals.
Yesterdays hearings of policemen at a House of Commons select committee was fascinating not just for the ineptness of the witnesses (with the exception of Sue Akers) but also for the smugness of the middle-aged, middle-class, self-righteous politicians putting the questions.
Making sense of the torrent of allegations now engulfing News Corp., its subsidiary News International and their newspapers is difficult. But Crikey has a good summary of events so far:
Closing down News of the World may have been James Murdoch’s second attempt at putting this problem “in a box”, but the allegations of phone hacking and criminal activity are now bleeding beyond the besmirched masthead, as British parliament calls for Rupert and James Murdoch and News International CEO Rebekah Brooks to front up to answer questions.
As News International continues to try to staunch the blood, now upgraded to a full blown haemorrhage, here’s a guide to the allegations thus far — where they’ve come from, and the subsequent response …
Read more
The story moves on into the House of Commons today…..
Tags:corruption, ethics, hacking scandal, News of the World, Nick Davies, Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Media | Comments Off on Rebekah in Murdoch’s wonderland: Hackers, blaggers, Clouseaus and dodgy geezers
July 5, 2011
The number of German politicians who have plagiarised for their doctorates grows. After zu Guttenberg, the story of Sylvana Koch-Mehrin and Jorgo Chatzimarkakis is building up into another dirty little tale.
EU politicians are less than impressive. The level of corruption and scams along with the level of arrogance of the EU politicians in Brussels is almost legendary. From my experiences I am fairly certain that the level of political corruption in Europe is significantly higher than for example in India – but far more sophisticated and difficult to find.
The distinct impression is of pigs feeding in a trough.
Pigs feeding from the EU trough
From Professor Debora Weber-Wulff’s blog:
Sylvana Koch-Mehrin had her doctorate rescinded by the University of Heidelberg for containing over 30% plagiarism in May 2011, and now in June she has been named EU commissioner for research, Spiegel Online reports.
This means that she is in the committee that determines research policy for the EU. She had been an alternate for the committee, her fellow FDP politician, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (his dissertation is currently at 71% plagiarism, but he is contesting the plans of the University in Bonn to rescind his doctorate as well) had the main seat. They have now changed places.
What does this say about research in Germany? What message does this give to the general populace about the importance of research? Plagiarists determining research policy? If today was April 1 I would have considered this an April Fool’s joke, but it is unfortunately true.
Poor Germany, all of your good researchers do not deserve this.
Update: A petition has been started requesting that she step down immediately. It is online in English, German, and French. If you feel so inclined, please sign. There are already almost 2000 signatures – on day 1 of the petition.
I just signed this petition and I am signer #8325.
Tags:EU Commisioner of research, European Union, Germany, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, Plagiarism, Sylvana Koch-Mehrin
Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, European Union, Germany, Politics, Scientific Fraud | Comments Off on Plagiarist with a recently rescinded PhD appointed EU Commissioner for Research
June 29, 2011
Churnalism is a form of journalism in which press releases, wire stories and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media in order to meet increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further research or checking.
Now we have Johann Hari (who I had never heard of till yesterday) apparently just lifting the writings of people he has interviewed and reproducing them as if they were said to him. The Telegraph:
Johann Hari, a multiple award winning political journalist who writes for newspapers around the world, was exposed after a reader noticed that a quote in one of his stories had been cut and pasted from a book.
Such was the controversy that he was forced to respond in a personal blog, but his defence only further fuelled the intensity of the attacks against him.
Within 24 hours the discovery had sparked a massive backlash as other examples of his alleged plagiarism were uncovered.
On Twitter, the micro-blogging website, users posted a series of jokes in which famous sayings in history were re-created as if Mr Hari had been told them in intimate interviews, while blogs from rival journalists accusing him of so-called “churnalism”. ….
Calls also grew for him to hand back his George Orwell prize, the most prestigious in political journalism, while the Independent, his main newspaper, received demands that he should be sacked.
His reversal of fortunes has been dramatic. Just a few days ago Mr Hari remained the darling of the left wing and was recently named as one of the most influential people on the left in Britain. He has reported from wars all over the world and been a regular art critic on television and a book reviewer.
As well as the Orwell Prize he has won awards from Amnesty International, the British Press Awards and Stonewall, the gay right activists. He has been a renowned critic of other organisations if he believed they strayed from the truth, especially those on the right, and has more than 60,000 followers on Twitter. ….
Last night the Media Standards Trust, which funds the Orwell prize, demanded an investigation to see whether he should be stripped of the award. It said that the issue had “the potential to damage its reputation”. The organisers of the award said they were following a “process” normally carried out in “situation such as this”.
Toby Young writes on his blog:
For some time now, Hari has been under fire for his cut-and-paste technique – that is, passing off things that his subjects have said elsewhere as things they’ve said to him during his interviews.
A typical example was his 2009 interview in the Independent with Malalai Joya, billed as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan” (hat tip Brian Whelan). Here’s an extract from the interview:
I ask if she was frightened, and she shakes her head. “I am never frightened when I tell the truth.” She is speaking fast now: “I am truly honoured to have been vilified and threatened by the savage men who condemned our country to such misery. I feel proud that even though I have no private army, no money, and no world powers behind me, these brutal despots are afraid of me and scheme to eliminate me.”
But did she actually say this to Hari? The words Hari quoted are identical to those in a press release for her book, Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak Out:
I am truly honoured to have been vilified and threatened by the savage men who have condemned our country to such misery. I feel proud that even though I have no private army, no money and no world powers behind me, these brutal despots are afraid of me and scheme to eliminate me.
The furore has forced Hari to respond in a personal blog entitled Interview Etiquette.
He does protest too much.
Churnalism is nothing new and neither is plagiarism by journalists. But Mr. Hari seems to have plagiarised not merely for “improving” the quality of his articles but also for mis-representing his interviews (and by inference his interview techniques) as being far more productive and effective than they actually were.
Not just plagiarism in the service of an over-inflated journalist ego but actually a lack of ethics which is tantamount to corruption.
Tags:Churnalism, ethics, Johann Hari, Plagiarism, Political journalism
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Media | 3 Comments »
June 16, 2011
There seems to be an incestuous relationship between the IPCC and a number of advocacy groups with the parties lobbying for each other. In the latest episode the IPCC has become the vehicle for publishing conclusions from a Greenpeace advocacy report on renewables:
The Independent:
Climate change panel in hot water again over ‘biased’ energy report
The world’s foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world’s energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released this week, it emerged that the claim was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years – and that the lead author of the section concerned was an employee of Greenpeace. Not only that, but the modelling scenario used was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.
Critics said the decision to highlight the 77 per cent figure showed a bias within the IPCC against promoting potentially carbon-neutral energies such as nuclear fuel. One climate change sceptic said it showed the body was not truly independent and relied too heavily on green groups for its evidence.
Yesterday, after the full report was released, the sceptical climate change blog Climate Audit reported that the 77 per cent figure had been derived from a joint study by Sven Teske, a climate change expert employed by Greenpeace, which opposes the use of nuclear power to cut carbon emissions.
Last night, the IPCC said it had been made clear that the 77 per cent figure was only one of the estimates made from the models and that Mr Teske was just one of 120 researchers who had worked on the report. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “Exxon, Chevron and the French nuclear operator EDF also contribute to the IPCC, so to paint this expert UN body as a wing of Greenpeace is preposterous.” But Mark Lynas, a climate change writer in favour of using nuclear and renewables to combat global warming, said: “It is stretching credibility for the IPCC to suggest that a richer world with two billion more people will use less energy in 2050. Campaigners should not be employed as lead authors in IPCC reports.”
The IPCC must urgently review its policies for hiring lead authors – and I would have thought that not only should biased ‘grey literature’ be rejected, but campaigners from NGOs should not be allowed to join the lead author group and thereby review their own work. There is even a commercial conflict of interest here given that the renewables industry stands to be the main beneficiary of any change in government policies based on the IPCC report’s conclusions. Had it been an oil industry intervention which led the IPCC to a particular conclusion, Greenpeace et al would have course have been screaming blue murder.
Climate Audit: IPCC WG3 and the Greenpeace Karaoke
The basis for this claim is a Greenpeace scenario. The Lead Author of the IPCC assessment of the Greenpeace scenario was the same Greenpeace employee who had prepared the Greenpeace scenarios, the introduction to which was written by IPCC chair Pachauri.
The public and policy-makers are starving for independent and authoritative analysis of precisely how much weight can be placed on renewables in the energy future. It expects more from IPCC WG3 than a karaoke version of Greenpeace scenario.
It is totally unacceptable that IPCC should have had a Greenpeace employee as a Lead Author of the critical Chapter 10, that the Greenpeace employee, as an IPCC Lead Author, should (like Michael Mann and Keith Briffa in comparable situations) have been responsible for assessing his own work and that, with such inadequate and non-independent ‘due diligence’, IPCC should have featured the Greenpeace scenario in its press release on renewables.
Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated and, if the institution is to continue, it should be re-structured from scratch.
Tags:advocacy groups, Climate Audit, Greenpeace, IPCC, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Mark Lynas
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Corruption, UN | 1 Comment »
June 11, 2011
Dirty football
The corruption that is endemic at the highest levels with the FIFA administrators is also evident at lower levels and with players involved in match fixing and the betting industry. The BBC reports:
Finnish football has been rocked by a match-fixing scandal which has implications across the world. Nine former members of one team and a Singapore national accused of organising the scams have been put on trial.
Meanwhile, a criminal investigation has begun into another club suspected of money-laundering. Betting syndicates have been said to make as much as $1.5m (£0.9m) from fixed games. The Finnish League, which began its new season in May, usually commands a low profile in the global game.
But events over the past few months have brought it to the attention of football’s world governing body, and its fight against corruption. Tampere, Finland’s former champions, have been suspended. The club received $435,000 from a Singapore company, but officials could not explain why they had been given such a large sum. Money-laundering is suspected.
Finnish police have said the case is linked to the trial of seven Zambians and two Georgians who used to play for a different club in the north of the country. They are accused of accepting bribes worth more than $750,000 to affect the outcome of matches.
In the same trial Wilson Raj Perumal, a Singaporean, is charged with arranging the payments. Fifa also want to speak to Mr Perumal about international friendly matches involving Asian and African teams that are suspected of being fixed.
Last month, two Zambian brothers who played for another Finnish side were convicted of taking bribes from Mr Perumal. The officer leading the investigation in Finland said there was serious speculation this was only the tip of the iceberg.
Meanwhile further details about the FIFA shenanigans continues. From The Guardian:
Another Caribbean football association has come forward to allege receiving $40,000 (£24,440) in cash at the meeting arranged by Fifa‘s presidential challenger Mohamed bin Hammam and one of its vice-presidents Jack Warner at the heart of the bribery scandal that has rocked the world football governing body.
Blatter: FIFA Corruption supervisor
The president of the Surinam FA has now claimed it received the cash in $100 bills in a brown paper envelope on arrival in Trinidad for the meeting with Bin Hammam on 10 May. ….
The new evidence from Surinam appears to back up the version of events outlined by other CFU members in the evidence file compiled by the US lawyer John Collins at the behest of the Fifa executive committee member and Concacaf general secretary Chuck Blazer.
The civil war within Concacaf further intensified as Fifa imposed a worldwide ban on Lisle Austin, who claimed to be acting president of the federation in the wake of the suspension of Warner and attempted to fire Blazer.
The whistleblowers were led by the Bahamas FA president Anton Sealey and vice-president Fred Lunn, whose claims were backed by statements from the Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands FAs. According to Lunn’s affidavit, he was given $40,000 in cash and after photographing the notes he returned the money and set in train the bribery investigation.
A split has formed in the CFU between those who have backed the claims in the evidence file, which also includes text messages and email traffic, and those who insist no inducements were offered.
Tags:corruption, FIFA, Finland, Singapore
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