The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Noted historian accused of stealing presidential docs
- China piracy sweep nets fake Tibetan books, porn films
- Screening has little impact on breast cancer deaths - study
| Noted historian accused of stealing presidential docs Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:34 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A noted U.S. presidential historian and another New York City man were indicted on Thursday for allegedly stealing valuable historical documents including copies of speeches by Franklin Roosevelt and a land grant document signed by Abraham Lincoln. Barry Landau, 63, and Jason James Savedoff, 24, were charged with conspiring to steal major artwork and theft of major artwork since December 2010, according to the two-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Maryland. Landau and Savedoff on Dec. 2 stole documents from Franklin Roosevelt's presidential library, including seven reading copies of speeches and Landau sold four of them for $35,000, according to the indictment. Such documents are copies of an address from which the president read, signed or initialled them, and sometimes had handwritten notes or corrections. The two men also were accused of stealing 60 documents from the Maryland Historical Society earlier this month, including a land grant that was dated June 1, 1861, and signed by Lincoln. An employee from the historical society alerted authorities to the possible theft leading to the probe. In a sign that prosecutors may believe more valuable historical documents may have been stolen, they urged anyone who has information about buying or the sale of such items to contact the FBI. "A nationwide federal investigation is continuing," U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said in a statement. He also said the case should "send a wake-up call to museums that entrust valuable documents to persons who claim to be engaged in academic research." Landau promoted himself as a U.S. presidential historian and been interviewed several times on television networks. He also described himself on his website as one of the biggest collectors of presidential memorabilia and artefacts. They both had been previously charged by local authorities in Baltimore, Maryland, for the theft there. Attempts to reach their attorneys were not immediately successful. If convicted on the federal charges, the theft count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and the conspiracy count has a 5-year maximum prison sentence. (Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| China piracy sweep nets fake Tibetan books, porn films Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:34 PM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China's latest crackdown on intellectual property piracy has netted more than 20,000 fake Tibetan-language text books, 90,000 copies of a well-known Chinese film as well as porn films, state media said on Friday. The United States and other Western countries have repeatedly complained that China has not kept promises to stamp out intellectual property theft. Countless pledges from Beijing to get tough have also failed to stamp out the problem, and pirated goods are commonly found in shops and on the streets of the Chinese capital. In the latest effort to convince a sceptical world its efforts are paying off, the official Xinhua news agency said Chinese courts had given sentences of up to six years in jail to 18 people for pirating the text books and films. "In one case, Zhang Xinfeng was found to sell more than 30,000 copies of textbooks, including more than 20,000 Tibetan books, to 25 schools in 19 Tibetan cities and counties between September 2009 to September 2010," the report said. Zhang got five years in jail and a 100,000 yuan ($15,521) fine, Xinhua said. Two other people were also given jail time for producing 90,000 copies of the 2010 Chinese film, "Let the Bullets Fly", by award-winning director Jiang Wen, as well as "porn discs", it added without elaborating. Xinhua said the sentences were "the latest move to show the country's determination to combat piracy". U.S. Department of Commerce General Counsel Cameron Kerry, in Beijing this week on a visit focused on anti-corruption and commercial rule of law issues, said piracy remained an area of concern. Washington would "like to see continuing improvement in the area of intellectual property enforcement", he told reporters. Software companies who have done business in China for years "haven't yet seen an uptick in software sales," even though China has touted that all central government agencies are using legally purchased software as of May, Kerry added. "The recent special campaign was effective at raising awareness, but these efforts need to continue," he said. "They need to deepen the audits of Chinese government agencies and state-owned enterprises." Chinese piracy and counterfeiting of U.S. software and a wide range of other intellectual property cost American businesses alone an estimated $48 billion and 2.1 million jobs in 2009, the U.S. International Trade Commission said in May. ($1 = 6.443 yuan) (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Ken Wills) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Screening has little impact on breast cancer deaths - study Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:34 PM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - Falling breast cancer death rates have little to do with breast screening but are down to better treatment and health systems, scientists said on Friday, in a study likely to fuel a long-running row over the merits of mammograms.
Researchers analysed data from three pairs of countries in Europe and found that although breast cancer screening programmes had been introduced 10 to 15 years earlier in some areas than in others, declines in death rates were similar. The findings suggest that "improvements in treatment and in the efficiency of healthcare systems may be more plausible explanations" for falling deaths rates from breast cancer, they wrote in a study in the British Medical Journal. World Health Organisation (WHO) data show that deaths from breast cancer are decreasing in the United States, Australia, and most Nordic and western European countries but breast screening is a hot topic among experts who disagree about whether nationwide mammogram programmes do more harm than good. The fear among some is that over-diagnosis -- when screening picks up tumours that would never have presented a problem -- may mean many women are undergoing unnecessary radical treatment, suffering the physical and psychological impact of a breast cancer diagnosis that would otherwise not have come up. But sweeping changes in U.S. guidelines two years ago that scaled back recommendations on breast screening caused an uproar among patient and doctors groups who said they put women at risk. That was swiftly followed by two conflicting European studies which further fuelled the row. The first, by Danish scientists, found that breast cancer screening programmes of the type run by health services in Europe, the United States and other rich nations do nothing to reduce death rates from the disease, while the second, by a British team, found "substantial and significant reduction in breast cancer deaths" due to screening. Then last month, researchers who conducted the longest ever breast cancer screening said it showed that regular mammograms prevent deaths from breast cancer, and that the number of lives saved increases over time. Every year, breast cancer kills around 500,000 people globally and is diagnosed in close to 1.3 million people. For this study, researchers from Britain, France and Norway used WHO data to compare trends in breast cancer death rates within three pairs of countries - Northern Ireland versus Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands versus Belgium and Flanders, and Sweden versus Norway. Each pair had similar healthcare services and similar levels of risk factors for breast cancer mortality, but were different in that mammography screening was implemented about 10 to 15 years later in the second country of each pair. The team, lead by Philippe Autier of the International Prevention Research Institute in Lyon, France, said they expected that reductions in breast cancer death rates would show up earlier in countries where screening was introduced sooner, but their analysis in fact showed little difference. The findings showed that from 1989 to 2006, deaths from breast cancer fell by 29 percent in Northern Ireland and 26 Percent in the Republic of Ireland; by 25 percent in the Netherlands, 20 percent in Belgium and 25 percent in Flanders; and by 16 percent in Sweden and 24 percent in Norway. "Trends in breast cancer mortality rates varied little between countries where women had been screened by mammography for a considerable time compared with those where women were largely unscreened," Autier's team wrote. "This is in sharp contrast with the temporal difference of 10 to 15 years in implementation of mammography screening and suggests that screening has not played a direct part in the reductions of breast cancer mortality." (Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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