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No charges to be brought over climategate hack
K.M. Chaudary/AP/PA
UPFRONT
Polio workers targeted THE push to eradicate polio from the world took more than one bullet last week. On 20 July, Muhammad Ishaq, a local worker with Pakistan’s polio eradication programme, was shot dead in Gadap, a district of Karachi in southern Pakistan. Three days earlier polio drives in the area were suspended when a Ghanaian doctor and his driver were shot and wounded as they drove through Gadap. The shootings follow a ban on polio vaccination in northern Pakistan, declared in June by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander. Bahadur is using the ban in an attempt to force a halt to US drone attacks. Hostility to polio vaccination also rose after US agents used vaccination campaigns to gain access to families during the search for Osama bin Laden.
A Pakistani physician alleged to have helped the CIA was sentenced to 33 years in prison in May. Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan are the only countries where wild polio virus persists, with Pakistan considered the toughest hold-out. Gadap is one of three strongholds for the virus in Pakistan, and as an urban area with many migrant families it is a source of outbreaks elsewhere in the country. Hopes had risen that the programme was working, as no cases of polio have been reported in Karachi so far this year, after nine last year. Also, an independent assessment of the polio eradication drive reported in June that water samples from Gadap were virus-free. The assessors attributed the progress to local workers – like Ishaq.
Gene therapy first
the enzyme, fat clogs up blood vessels in the gut and pancreas of those with LPLD. So they have to avoid all fat in food. The new therapy, called Glybera, is produced by uniQure BV in the Netherlands. It involves injecting a virus containing a healthy copy of the gene into muscle cells in a patient’s leg. On 20 July, the European Medicines Agency recommended that Glybera be approved. The European Commission will make the final decision within three months – however, it usually follows the EMA’s advice.
–Banned in northern Pakistan–
No hacking charges
“We do not have a realistic prospect of identifying the offenders within the time imposed by law” years of the offence. “The complex nature of this investigation means that we do not have a realistic prospect of identifying the offender or offenders and 4 | NewScientist | 28 July 2012
Tokyo Electric Power Company
IT CREATED a media feeding frenzy and dragged climate scientists’ reputations through the mud, but nobody will be prosecuted for the “climategate” email hack. Thousands of emails were stolen from the servers of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in November 2009 and posted on a Russian email server. Climate sceptics seized on them to claim that scientists had conspired to withhold or alter data, unfairly manipulated the peer-review process and smeared their critics. The police investigation has run out of time, as in the UK people have to be charged with a computer crime within three
launching criminal proceedings within the time constraints imposed by law,” Norfolk Constabulary’s Detective Chief Superintendant Julian Gregory said in a statement. There is no evidence that the emails were leaked by a disaffected employee at the university, Gregory added. Since the hack, a series of inquiries have cleared scientists at the CRU and elsewhere of misconduct. However, they were criticised for not consulting statisticians and for their closed and unhelpful culture.
WHAT a milestone. After decades of development, regulators have recommended approval for the first commercial gene therapy in Europe and the US. The therapy is for a rare genetic condition called lipoprotein lipase deficiency. People with LPLD can’t break down fat globules in the bloodstream, known as chylomicrons. They lack the necessary enzyme, lipoprotein lipase, which is normally made in muscle cells. Because of defects in the gene for
Nuclear blame CATASTROPHIC meltdowns of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had less to do with the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on 11 March last year, and more to do with the plant owners’ and government’s failure to anticipate and prepare for emergencies on such an epic scale. That’s according to a report by an independent panel commissioned by the Japanese –Removed for safe-keeping– government. Released on
UPFRONT
Polio workers targeted THE push to eradicate polio from the world took more than one bullet last week. On 20 July, Muhammad Ishaq, a local worker with Pakistan’s polio eradication programme, was shot dead in Gadap, a district of Karachi in southern Pakistan. Three days earlier polio drives in the area were suspended when a Ghanaian doctor and his driver were shot and wounded as they drove through Gadap. The shootings follow a ban on polio vaccination in northern Pakistan, declared in June by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander. Bahadur is using the ban in an attempt to force a halt to US drone attacks. Hostility to polio vaccination also rose after US agents used vaccination campaigns to gain access to families during the search for Osama bin Laden.
A Pakistani physician alleged to have helped the CIA was sentenced to 33 years in prison in May. Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan are the only countries where wild polio virus persists, with Pakistan considered the toughest hold-out. Gadap is one of three strongholds for the virus in Pakistan, and as an urban area with many migrant families it is a source of outbreaks elsewhere in the country. Hopes had risen that the programme was working, as no cases of polio have been reported in Karachi so far this year, after nine last year. Also, an independent assessment of the polio eradication drive reported in June that water samples from Gadap were virus-free. The assessors attributed the progress to local workers – like Ishaq.
Gene therapy first
the enzyme, fat clogs up blood vessels in the gut and pancreas of those with LPLD. So they have to avoid all fat in food. The new therapy, called Glybera, is produced by uniQure BV in the Netherlands. It involves injecting a virus containing a healthy copy of the gene into muscle cells in a patient’s leg. On 20 July, the European Medicines Agency recommended that Glybera be approved. The European Commission will make the final decision within three months – however, it usually follows the EMA’s advice.
–Banned in northern Pakistan–
No hacking charges
“We do not have a realistic prospect of identifying the offenders within the time imposed by law” years of the offence. “The complex nature of this investigation means that we do not have a realistic prospect of identifying the offender or offenders and 4 | NewScientist | 28 July 2012
Tokyo Electric Power Company
IT CREATED a media feeding frenzy and dragged climate scientists’ reputations through the mud, but nobody will be prosecuted for the “climategate” email hack. Thousands of emails were stolen from the servers of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in November 2009 and posted on a Russian email server. Climate sceptics seized on them to claim that scientists had conspired to withhold or alter data, unfairly manipulated the peer-review process and smeared their critics. The police investigation has run out of time, as in the UK people have to be charged with a computer crime within three
launching criminal proceedings within the time constraints imposed by law,” Norfolk Constabulary’s Detective Chief Superintendant Julian Gregory said in a statement. There is no evidence that the emails were leaked by a disaffected employee at the university, Gregory added. Since the hack, a series of inquiries have cleared scientists at the CRU and elsewhere of misconduct. However, they were criticised for not consulting statisticians and for their closed and unhelpful culture.
WHAT a milestone. After decades of development, regulators have recommended approval for the first commercial gene therapy in Europe and the US. The therapy is for a rare genetic condition called lipoprotein lipase deficiency. People with LPLD can’t break down fat globules in the bloodstream, known as chylomicrons. They lack the necessary enzyme, lipoprotein lipase, which is normally made in muscle cells. Because of defects in the gene for
Nuclear blame CATASTROPHIC meltdowns of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had less to do with the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on 11 March last year, and more to do with the plant owners’ and government’s failure to anticipate and prepare for emergencies on such an epic scale. That’s according to a report by an independent panel commissioned by the Japanese –Removed for safe-keeping– government. Released on