Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category

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Results falsified but only “inadvertently” by researchers at Queensland University of Technology

July 31, 2013

There are strange goings-on down under at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

The story has all the necessary ingredients for a genuine scandal. Falsified results in a grant application and a paper, the paper retracted, grant money awarded on the basis of the alleged results, a University with commercial interests in the alleged results of the alleged research, a whistleblower’s name illegally revealed by the Vice Chancellor of the University, and the Crime and Misconduct Commission accused of colluding with the University.

The University has found that the falsification of results was inadvertent and not fraud and nothing to worry about.

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UPDATE: Now the QUT “investigation” which came to the “finding” that the falsification was “inadvertent” and not fraud is itself being questioned by the federal agency that gave the scientists a $275,000 grant for stem cell work.

31st July: The National Health and Medical Research Council is not satisfied with some of QUT’s investigative procedures and wants a review by the Australian Research Integrity Committee. The move is unusual, with the ARIC set up in 2011 to ensure research allegations of misconduct are investigated properly taking on just a handful of cases.

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It is compelling reading and lives up to the convoluted tradition of Australian politics. But I have some difficulty in telling the “good guys” from the “bad guys” – if there are any “good guys” in this saga at all!

29th July: QUT reputation at risk after grant application and research mistakes

RESEARCHERS at one of Queensland’s top universities have admitted to incorrectly filling out a lucrative grant application in a mistake that could cost the university hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The “inadvertent” mistake by Queensland University of Technology scientists has put the university’s reputation at risk, the Vice-Chancellor says. The National Health and Medical Research Council is examining the circumstances under which it awarded QUT a $275,000 grant for research, and QUT boss Peter Coaldrake said the university faced having to pay it back. 

Whistleblowers have exposed errors in the reporting of embryonic stem cell research, prompting an internal probe into alleged misconduct and the retraction of a key research paper. The lead researcher has admitted to The Courier-Mail that an “inadvertent mistake” occurred in the writing of the grant application and an associated scientific paper published in 2010.

The NHMRC awarded the money to fund research into stem cell cultivation at QUT’s prestigious Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation. The scientists were working on developing a “world-first” product to safely grow human cells in the lab without the use of risky animal proteins.

However, university insiders accused the researchers of exaggerating some results. “It was alleged that some data in the grant application had been falsified,” Prof Coaldrake said.

The scientists were subsequently cleared by a QUT inquiry. QUT later told the NHMRC there was no misconduct in the grant application. The journal involved has since retracted the article, a highly unusual step. …

30th July: QUT researchers cleared of fraud

AN “inadvertent” mistake in filling out a grant application by researchers at Queensland University of Technology saw the university awarded $275,000 for stem cell research and which has subsequently lead to an internal probe into research misconduct and the retraction of a research paper, the Courier Mail reported yesterday.

The NHMRC awarded the grant for research into stem cell cultivation at QUT’s Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation. The scientists were working on developing a “world-first” product to safely grow human cells in the lab without the use of risky animal proteins, the Courier Mail said.

But the researchers were accused of falsifying some results, even though the scientists were subsequently cleared by an internal inquiry of any wrongdoing.

The whistleblowers who drew attention to irregularities in the research say QUT has a conflict of interest because it is a shareholder in a company called Tissue Therapies which was set up with the express purpose of developing and commercialising products based on the research.

30th July: Premier Peter Beattie gave QUT researchers in grant controversy an extra $225,000 for related work

QUT scientists at the centre of a controversy over a $275,000 federal grant for a now discredited journal paper also received $225,000 from then premier Peter Beattie for related work, as part of a 2007 funding package worth more than $1 million.

But while QUT has informed the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the National Health and Medical Research Council about errors in the application for the federal grant and the retraction of a key research paper, the university has not told the State Government.

31st July: QUT vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake reports himself to CMC for disclosing whistleblower’s identity

QUT Vice-Chancellor Peter Coaldrake has reported himself to the Crime and Misconduct Commission after disclosing the identity of a protected whistleblower.

Prof Coaldrake named the person in an interview with The Courier-Mail in which he discussed the allegations by the whistleblower of research misconduct by QUT scientists. Prof Coaldrake later turned himself in to the CMC.

QUT later confirmed the employee’s status as a whistleblower protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act. This law makes it an offence for public officials to disclose the person’s identity without their consent, except for the purposes of official investigations. The offence carries a fine of up to $9000. …… In the same interview Professor Coaldrake declined to name four academics from other universities involved in investigating research misconduct allegations involving a retracted scientific paper. He said this was because he wasn’t sure if the academics’ identities were known by the stem cell researchers being investigated. … QUT has declined to explain why Prof Coaldrake volunteered the name of the whistleblower.

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Posted in Academic misconduct, Australia, Behaviour, Ethics, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »

Facebook and Twitter are “publishers”, not merely “couriers”

July 30, 2013

Social media like to claim that they merely provide a “platform” or  are just “communication enablers” or only provide “communication media” and therefore that they are not responsible – and should not be held responsible – for the content they disseminate.

But they protest too much.

It is quite wrong to compare Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn to a telecommunications enterprise or a postal service or a courier service or an e-mail service provider. In all of these a specific identifiable “sender” directs a communique to a specific, identified “receiver”. The carrying of the communique to the specific receiver is the service provided by the communications enterprise and is not in any sense “publishing”. The service provided by the social media is more than just the provision of a soap box in Hyde Park (a platform) or the provision of a Board or a Wall in a town square onto which a newspaper could be appended. Any website could be a platform for comments but the website owner must take ultimate responsibility for the content published on the web-site.

Facebook and Twitter disseminate their users communiques to a general audience without discriminating as to who may receive the communique. Their business models rely on this audience being as large as possible. Their advertising revenues depend upon the dissemination being as wide and as “indiscriminate” as possible. They are not so different to a radio or a TV broadcast where the broadcaster tries to reach as large an audience as possible. The broadcaster is clearly responsible and accountable for the content of the broadcast. A free newspaper being distributed at all Metro stations but where revenues are dependent upon advertising also has a responsible publisher. Any advertising revenue accrues to the publisher.

The clincher for me is that the placement of advertisements based on circulation is decisive proof of the existence of a publisher. All published material does not contain advertising. Not all advertising is proof of the existence of a publisher. A billboard or sandwich-board owner for example, is not a publisher. But the mere existence of advertising based on circulation numbers or “reach” or any similar parameter is conclusive proof – I think – of the existence of a publisher. And it is the person or organisation responsible for the circulation who takes the advertising revenues and in consequence must be the responsible and accountable publisher.

Freedom of speech does not really enter the argument. The publisher may choose to publish whatever he pleases. He may refrain from “censoring” his users if he so wishes. Or he may – at some cost – ensure that the content he publishes meets criteria that he sets himself. But he remains responsible and accountable for what he publishes. Facebook and Twitter cannot abdicate their responsibility because they choose not to exercise the quality control they could.

It seems to me to be self-evident that Facebook and Twitter are not “billboards” or “sandwich-boards” but are full fledged “broadcasters”. And a broadcaster is a publisher. They could take responsibility for the content they disseminate if they wanted to. It just costs. They can be held accountable for what they indubitably do publish – and they should.

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Media | 1 Comment »

Canada used indigenous children to “study” malnutrition

July 28, 2013

Yet another depressing story of how, in the name of “science”, the “establishment” made use of less “worthy” populations to carry out medical experiments.

This time in Canada from 1942 -1952.

There was no difference of principle and only one of degree between the medical experiments carried out in Nazi Germany and those carried out on native or disadvantaged populations in Australia, Canada, and the USA (among many other countries).

We may like to think that it does not happen any more. I am not so sure. The real story of Haiti and its cholera and the use of cheap, untested vaccines is yet to be told Similarly, some of the stories about the intentional “creation” of new strains of influenza and the subsequent discovery and dissemination of new vaccines for their cure may never ever become public.

Mosby, I. Social History 46, 145–172 (2013). Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation in Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools, 1942–1952

Abstract: Between 1942 and 1952, some of Canada’s leading nutrition experts, in cooperation with various federal departments, conducted an unprecedented series of nutritional studies of Aboriginal communities and residential schools. The most ambitious and perhaps best known of these was the 1947–1948 James Bay Survey of the Attawapiskat and Rupert’s House Cree First Nations. Less well known were two separate long-term studies that went so far as to include controlled experiments conducted, apparently without the subjects’ informed consent or knowledge, on malnourished Aboriginal populations in Northern Manitoba and, later, in six Indian residential schools. This article explores these studies and experiments, in part to provide a narrative record of a largely unexamined episode of exploitation and neglect by the Canadian government. At the same time, it situates these studies within the context of broader federal policies governing the lives of Aboriginal peoples, a shifting Canadian consensus concerning the science of nutrition, and changing attitudes towards the ethics of biomedical experimentation on human beings during a period that encompassed, among other things, the establishment of the Nuremberg Code of experimental research ethics.

Nature also reports:

Canadian government scientists used malnourished native populations as unwitting subjects in experiments conducted in the 1940s and 1950s to test nutritional interventions. The tests, many of which involved children at state-funded residential schools, had been largely forgotten until they were described earlier this month in the journal Social History by Ian Mosby, who studies the history of food and nutrition at the University of Guelph in Canada.

The work began in 1942, when government scientists visited several native communities in northern Manitoba and discovered widespread hunger and malnutrition. “Their immediate response was to study the problem by testing nutritional supplements,” says Mosby. From a group of 300 malnourished people selected for the tests, 125 were given vitamin supplements, and the rest served as ‘untreated’ controls. ….

Nancy Walton, a medical ethicist at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario, and former chairwoman of the university’s research-ethics board, says that such a project would never be allowed today, “but in the context of that time, it’s unfortunately not surprising”. Awareness of the need for informed consent in human studies was growing — informed consent was a central tenet of the Nuremberg Code, developed in the late 1940s — but the idea had not yet been adopted around the world.

“It’s not just bad ethics, it’s bad science,” Walton says of the Canadian government research. “They didn’t appear to try and prove or disprove any hypothesis that I can see, or make any statistical correlations.”

Indeed, says Mosby, very little of value came out of the research. He found no evidence that the northern Manitoba study was completed or published. The school experiments were presented at conferences and published, but they led to no important advances in nutritional science or improvements in conditions at the schools. “They mostly just confirmed what they already knew,” Mosby says. ….

 

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Tapes expose Irish Bankers warts and .. warts!

June 30, 2013

That Banks and Bankers all over Europe have made a killing over all the “bailouts” is no great secret. Just how they have done it – and very often in collusion with friends within Governments – is slowly coming to light.

This week it has been the turn of the bankers at the Anglo Irish Bank. The Bank was finally nationalised costing Irish taxpayers some €30 billion. That is over €6,000 per head of population! No doubt the bankers made sure of their severance packages before they bowed out.

ABC News: In the age of austerity, senior bankers laughing about public-funded bail-outs is not a good look, but that is exactly what has happened in Ireland. There is outrage after a national newspaper published details of a taped phone conversation between bank executives mocking regulators and boasting they fooled them. The bank ended up collapsing, costing tax payers around 30 billion euros.

David Drumm ” We need the moolah”: CEO Anglo Irish

Irish Independent29th June:

Anglo Tapes: Anatomy of the bank that broke Ireland

Irish Independent 30th June: Fresh revelations in the Anglo-tapes scandal about Brian Cowen’s administration shows his party was willing to save the failing bank at any cost, his political opponents claimed. ……. 

……….. Fine Gael Dail finance committee member Dara Murphy alleged it was further proof of the cosy relationship that existed between Fianna Fail, developers and Anglo Irish. “While there is no doubt that the entire country has been sickened to its very core at what the Anglo tapes have revealed this week, the reality is that tens of thousands of families are living with a daily reminder of the greed, avarice and utter contempt that was shown to the Irish people in respect of the dealings at Anglo,” he said. (more…)

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Europe, Fraud, Ireland | Comments Off on Tapes expose Irish Bankers warts and .. warts!

Pots and Kettles or Yeo-ing the Gummer

June 9, 2013

The Gummer has been Yeo-d. I have to conclude that Tim Yeo is the pot and Gummer is the kettle. Now if “Lord Deben”  – aka John Selwyn Gummer – fights back it could become a case of Gumming the Yeo.

Two articles today which need to be juxtaposed. This is perhaps mostly of domestic interest in the UK but I am always interested when Parliamentarians live down to my expectations. Of more general interest could be the manner in which “green” subsidies have been sucked out by the owners and developers of  wind and solar projects with the aid of venal politicians who have willingly helped to make the “rules”.

Was there ever a time when politicians died of shame?

Daily Mail: 

  • Tim Yeo has complained about Lord Deben’s undisclosed green interests
  • Mr Yeo has been paid more than £400,000 by three green companies
  • Lord Deben is chairman of firm which connects windfarms to National Grid

Tim Yeo, chairman of the Energy and Climate Change select committee, has protested about Lord Deben remaining chairman of Veolia Water UK while also chairing the Committee on Climate Change, an independent body that advises the Government on the impact of climate change.

Mr Yeo’s critics will argue his protest smacks of hypocrisy as he has been paid more than £400,000 by three green companies since 2009.

Lord Deben, John Selwyn Gummer – who as Agriculture Minister in 1990 tried to persuade his daughter Cordelia to eat a hamburger during the BSE crisis – was required to undergo a ‘confirmation hearing’ before Yeo’s committee last September after being appointed chair of the Climate Change Committee. ….. 

and

The Telegraph: 

Tim Yeo, the chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, also said he had coached John Smith, managing director of GB Railfreight, before the executive gave evidence to the committee last month. Yeo is a paid director and shareholder of Eurotunnel — the firm’s parent company.

Mr Yeo was filmed by undercover reporters working for The Sunday Times saying: “I told him [Mr Smith] in advance what to say. Ha-ha.”

When asked if he would be interested in a £7,000-a-day consultancy contract with a solar company, the MP said: “If you want to meet the right people, I can facilitate all those introductions and I use the knowledge I get from what is quite an active network of connections.”

The reporters queried if this included Government figures. Mr Yeo replied “Yes”.

The House of Commons’ code of conduct forbids MPs from acting as paid advocates, including by lobbying ministers. ….. 

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Corruption, Ethics, UK | 1 Comment »

Marc Hauser makes his comeback with “brain-training” for at-risk children

June 4, 2013

Marc Hauser who was terminated / resigned from Harvard for rather suspect data creation (the Hausergate affaire) is now making his comeback with a new enterprise called Risk-Eraser

Risk-Eraser transforms the learning and decision-making of at-risk children by building more effective programs. Our goal is to erase the risk in the lives of at-risk populations.

His program is touted as being evidence-based and involves critical thinking and “brain-training” to give a program which “helps students reach higher goals in both school and in their social lives, enables programs to run more efficiently, and empowers teachers to engage in the most exciting methods of pedagogy”. 

Google Maps: West Falmouth Hwy #376, W. Falmouth, MA, 02574

Some irony in his claim of being “evidence-based” and the line between “brain-training” and brain-washing is rather thin. Brain-washing – even in a good cause – and with vulnerable children would seem to raise a number of ethical issues.

​Risk-Eraser, West Falmouth Hwy #376, W. Falmouth, MA, 02574​

Looks nice there.

Currently he is the only member of the team. A Technical team and an Advisory team are said to be “coming soon”.

Marc Hauser, PhD

I am the founder of Risk-Eraser. The company grew out of two passionate interests: to understand human nature and to improve the lives of those less fortunate.  My PhD is in the mind and brain sciences.  I was a professor at Harvard for 19 years.  I have published over 200 papers and six books. I have won several awards for my teaching, and am the proud mentor of some of the best students in my academic areas of interest; these individuals now hold distinguished professorships at major universities all over the world.

 His main transgression may have initially been due to confirmation bias and this may have led to the data “manipulation”.  I am quite sure that not everything Hauser did or does is tainted — but the real problem is that discerning what is or is not suspect is going to be difficult.

To implement any confirmation bias with “at-risk children” could I think be very destructive.  Applying “brain-washing” techniques on “at- risk” children seems itself not to be devoid of risk.

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Posted in Academic misconduct, Behaviour, Ethics, psychology | 1 Comment »

Lobbying and ethics

June 3, 2013

The UK is once again facing the unedifying view of Parliamentarians who offer their services for payment. It causes no shock any more. It has almost become the behaviour to be expected.

BBC:

Three peers have been accused of agreeing to carry out Parliamentary work for payment.

Undercover Sunday Times reporters filmed the men appearing to offer to help a fake solar energy company.

Ulster Unionist Lord Laird and Labour’s Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate and Lord Cunningham deny wrongdoing.

The two Labour peers have been suspended from the party and Lord Laird has resigned the party whip pending an investigation.

In a separate investigation by the BBC’s Panorama programme in conjunction with the Daily Telegraph, Lord Laird was also secretly filmed discussing a retainer to ask parliamentary questions.

But it is not lobbying or the Rules of Parliament which are the fundamental problem. It is the ethics of Parliamentarians which is.

Not much has changed since I wrote this back in 2010.

…….  While the range of all possible human behaviour is generated by the individual’s values, it is subject to:

  • Law, which defines what a person may not do.
  • Morals, which define what a person ought not to do whether or not it is lawful.
  • Ethics, which describe what is correct and desirable for a person to do; which will always be moral and will usually be lawful.

…

There are probably many politicians who do have admirable intentions and who do not get involved with the murkier side of political funding. But politicians whether in the US or Europe or in Asia do sell “access” into the world of regulations and approvals. MP’s and even Ministers in the UK are not shy in offering their paid services from time to time. Ministers in India have their performance ranked according to how much they raised for the party coffers. Japanese politicians approve roads and highways in their constituencies that nobody needs, except the civil contractors, their employees and their shareholders. Parliamentarians across the world offer their services to raise questions in parliament or in parliamentary committees. The skimming off of funds, misuse of subsidies and regulatory scams such as the Carbon Trading scam are legendary in the European Union. All over the world many politicians propose the “pork belly” projects in their own constituencies, sometimes with little competition, to add to appropriations legislation. Just in the US alone there has been between 13 and 27 Billion US$ of appropriations for “pork” projects for each year between 2005 and 2009. Assuming that these projects just followed US or OECD guidelines on corruption, but made use of all the loopholes available, the contract awards could have legitimised between 400 M US$ and 800 M US $ every year which could have – and probably has – ended up in the funds of political parties and their lobbyists. A large number of the people involved in these channels have rather “sticky fingers” which allows the amassing of individual wealth as it flows. …….

….. In my experience, which is limited to contracting in the power generation industry, the reverse sequence, where corporations initiate the whole process while seeking competitive advantage and offer  pay-offs to politicians or contributions to their party funds, is not unknown but probably not as prevalent. …….

……. There is a pervasive atmosphere within the business world today taking the view that ethics is not a matter for corporations. Milton Friedman, Peter Drucker and others must bear their share of the responsibility for having propagated the view that corporations should only be concerned with the profit they deliver to shareholders. They have – maybe inadvertently – supported the view that humans in a corporate setting can and should abdicate their own ethical codes. The Wall Street Journal has declared from on high that ethics cannot be learned and ethics courses are irrelevant to business. Utter rubbish of course, but even the “newspapers of record” such as the New York Times or The Times or Der Spiegel or the Wall Street Journal have lost their famed objectivity and have become political advocacy channels. It is such high-profile and basically amoral views which have been greatly responsible for providing a cloak of respectability for the attitude that:

         i.            Corporations have no business to concern themselves with ethics, and

       ii.            Even if ethics is important then compliance with law is a sufficient substitute for having a code of ethics, and

    iii.            If an action is seen to be compliant with laws then this is sufficient.

………

The fundamental reason for behaviour to be ethical is not because of some collateral benefit it may bring but simply because it is the right and proper thing to do. The right and correct thing to do is sufficient in itself, and does not need excuses or justification. In spite of the Wall Street Journal’s opinion, ethics can be taught and can be developed.

from Essence of a Manager 

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“Moral Turpitude” at University of New Hampshire

May 10, 2013

“Moral Turpitude” at the University of New Hampshire which does not amount to “moral delinquency of a grave order” can still lead to dismissal. Seems to me like playing with words to be able to apply some common sense. But the UNH use of “to grieve” may be innovative if a little odd.

The University of New Hampshire has terminated the employment of a Professor for “moral turpitude”. The University press release (my emphasis):

After an extensive review of the facts, Provost John Aber has determined that it is appropriate to terminate the employment of Marco Dorfsman, associate professor of Spanish, effective May 17, 2013. Professor Dorfsman admitted to intentionally lowering the student evaluations of another faculty member. This serious breach of ethical standards constitutes moral turpitude that cannot be tolerated at UNH.

Provost Aber’s determination was informed by the recommendation of the Professional Standards Committee (PSC) of the Faculty Senate. The PSC members unanimously agreed that Professor Dorfsman’s conduct constituted moral turpitude and “evinces a gross disregard for the rights of others, is a clear and intentional breach of duties owed to others and to the university by virtue of employment at UNH and membership in the profession, in which such an act is considered contrary to the accepted and expected rules of moral behavior, justice, or honesty, and evokes condemnation.” The PSC’s recommendation contained a range of possible sanctions.

The provost’s decision reinforces UNH’s commitment to upholding and teaching ethical behavior. Professor Dorfsman’s conduct disregarded the rights of his colleague, undermined the evaluations submitted by our students (a prime source of data for employment decisions for all instructors), and corrupted an important process by which our faculty’s teaching effectiveness is measured.

If Professor Dorfsman decides to grieve the provost’s dismissal decision, the case will be decided by an arbitrator.

“To grieve” obviously has a rather special meaning at UNH. Clearly it cannot just mean “to sorrow” but must (also) mean “to contest”  or “to pursue a grievance” which is not an action I normally associate with “grieving”. I wonder how – if he decides to contest the dismissal – he is expected to demonstrate his grieving. Perhaps there is a threshold of proof of pain or sorrow or hurt or grief that he must first attain?

The CHE reports that “last year the university agreed to a new contract with its faculty union that eased the standard of discipline to allow the institution to fire professors who demonstrate moral turpitude”. This use of “moral turpitude” was introduced last year instead of “moral delinquency of a grave order”:

After a long stalemate, the University of New Hampshire has agreed to a new contract with its faculty union that lowers the threshold for the university to take disciplinary action against professors, according to Foster’s Daily Democrat. The sticking point in the contract talks stemmed from a 2009 incident in which a professor was convicted of indecent exposure, yet later allowed by an arbitrator to keep his job. Administrators had sought to fire the professor, but the arbitrator ruled that his crime, while morally delinquent, did not rise to the old contract’s standard of “moral delinquency of a grave order.” The faculty union objected to the university’s attempt to rewrite the contract, saying that the proposed disciplinary provisions were too broad. The language in the new contract has been changed to allow the university to fire professors who demonstrate “moral turpitude,” therefore easing the disciplinary standard, according to the newspaper.

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Financial Times accused of lying and shoddy journalism

May 10, 2013

Despicable when a newspaper of the stature of the Financial Times has to resort to this kind of shoddy journalism.

This is from Svenska Dagbladet (my free translation):

You are an Embarrassment Financial Times!

It must be deplored that some reporters cold-bloodedly invented information about the new WTO Director Roberto Azevedo.

The day after the World Trade Organization had chosen the Brazilian diplomat as new head a major article was published in the prestigious Financial Times. It began with a detailed description of how Azevedo appeared  when he came out of the WTO headquarters in Geneva at 18.30 on Tuesday night to meet a large press contingent. “He came out of the headquarters and met an expectant press gang outside,” writes the paper’s two reporters. The report continues on how Azevedo was quiet and did not say anything. But his happy facial expressions and his smile revealed that he had been elected.  A smile that was also used in the title:

The FT Headline: “Sealed with a smile: how Brazil got its man Azevêdo into the WTO”

By Claire Jones in London and Joseph Leahy in São Paulo Last updated: May 8, 2013 9:26 pm

The Brazilian candidate betrayed his success with a smile.

Just after 6.30pm local time on Tuesday evening, Roberto Azevêdo made his way out of the World Trade Organisation’s Geneva headquarters to find an expectant press pack gathered outside.

The Brazilian ambassador to the WTO remained silent. But his cheery expression was a giveaway: minutes earlier, Mr Azevêdo had been told he had secured the nomination to replace Pascal Lamy. With that, he capped an almost five-month campaign by Brazil that saw him visit 47 countries and join President Dilma Rousseff in key meetings with global leaders as she lobbied on his behalf. … 

The Svenska Dagbladet continues:

Not just embarrassing, it was just not true.

Azevedo did not come out of the WTO headquarters.

Nor was he silent, nor did he smile and  he certainly did not meet any press contingent. He was not even there!.

He sat and waited nervously with Brazil’s UN delegation several kilometers away.

The only one who received the news at WTO headquarters was Brazil’s deputy ambassador Estanislau Amaral.

I know this along with all the other journalists with certainty because we were there.  We saw Amaral hurrying out, spoke briefly with him, saw him go off in his official car. No Azevedo in sight. Moreover a picture of Azevedo was sent on Twitter at that moment  was sitting in his office in a completely different part of town with his wife Maria.

The FT journalists were not even there.

One sat in London, Claire Jones, and one in Sao Paulo, Joseph Leahy.  They invented the story that implied their presence and to provide a personal touch.  Not a very good journalistic idea for a magazine that should be concerned about its credibility and its reputation.

They could learn from what happened with journalists at Bloomberg this week. Two journalists in Prague published an article on the Czech National Bank one minute ahead of an embargo. It caused Bloomberg’s news director in Washington to hit the roof, take the next plane to Prague and and fire them on the spot.  Journalistic reliability is “extremely important” was the explanation.

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Plagiarism and fake certification fell top French Rabbi

April 11, 2013

I suppose this counts as a case of academic misconduct in the world of Man and one of “bearing false witness” in higher circles.

Picture of Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim

Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim (wikipedia)

Rabbi Gilles Bernheim  is considered a leading Jewish intellectual who has clearly been lifted high on the shoulders of giants who came before him. He has blamed one of his assistants who helped write his book for him for the plagiarism. The fake certification he had claimed was from the Sorbonne.

Does it count as as plagiarism if he didn’t even write his own book?

But it was surely all done in good faith.

 Yahoo News: France’s top rabbi is taking leave from his post after he acknowledged “borrowing” other people’s work and lying about his education, a top Jewish leader said Thursday.

Rabbi Gilles Bernheim asked for leave at an urgent meeting in Paris of leaders of the Central Consistory of France, which accepted the request, said Richard Prasquier, the president of France’s largest umbrella group of Jewish organizations.

Prasquier, speaking by mobile phone, said two other rabbis would temporarily fill the post of Grand Rabbi of France, which Bernheim will leave for at least six months. Talks about whether he might return at all will take place in the coming months, he said.

He said many people in France’s 500,000-strong Jewish community have been shaken over the case.

Bernheim faced accusations by a French academic who tracks suspected plagiarism that parts of his 2011 book “Forty Jewish Meditations” and part of a text he wrote about gay marriage, same-sex parenting and adoption were lifted from others. That text, written last fall, was cited in the Christmas address of Pope Benedict XVI last year.

Asked about the claims on Tuesday, Bernheim confirmed having carried out “borrowings … what others might call plagiarism” from others. “Not only do I deeply regret it, but I recognize it as a moral flaw,” he said of one instance.

Bernheim had also come under scrutiny for claiming nearly four decades ago to have received an “aggregation” — or high-level certification — in philosophy. On Radio Shalom, he acknowledged he did not actually have one, but had made the claim 37 years ago during an unspecified “tragic event.”

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