AAAS Meeting Explores Ways to Improve Ethics Panels that Oversee Social Science Research

The ethics boards that oversee federally funded studies involving human subjects have become part of the research landscape since the 1970s. But some researchers in the social and behavioral sciences complain that the boards—established in response to abuses in biomedical research—too often take a heavy-handed approach toward survey research and other social science projects that pose minimal risk, if any, to those who participate.

By AAAS, USA.

Technology Policy Resource.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska—The news came in mid-September that Arctic sea ice had shrunk to its second smallest size on record, but even before that, 2008 had given many Alaskans a troubling sense that things were somehow out-of-kilter. Record summer rainfall caused damaging floods and swamped backyard vegetable gardens. Floods and high gas prices disrupted subsistence hunting and fishing out in the Bush. And schools in Alaska's urban areas reported a surprising surge in students, apparently because families are moving from rural villages

By AAAS, USA..

Climate change Policy Resource.

AAAS Analysis of Satellite Images Finds Hundreds of Structures Damaged in South Ossetia Fighting

Satellite images captured before and after the 7-8 August clash between Georgia, South Ossetian separatists, and Russia reveal that 424 civilian structures near Tskhinvali were damaged by 19 August, although they appeared intact in images taken on 10 August and earlier, according to a new AAAS report.

By AAAS, USA.

Education Policy Resource.

South Korea: Improve policing practices during protests

South Korean police used excessive force in some instances against demonstrators protesting earlier this year against the government’s decision to resume beef imports from the US, Amnesty International concluded in a report released today. The report - - including interviews with protesters, human rights monitors and journalists - - documents instances where the police misused crowd control equipment, such as water cannons, and arbitrarily arrested and detained individuals. The report also highlights a lack of adequate police training and police accountability.

By Amnesty International, USA.

Humanitarian Intervention Policy Resource.

Russian Federation: End impunity for violence against human rights defenders and journalists

Recent attacks on independent journalists and human rights activists illustrate the risks under which they work in Russia, Amnesty International said on the eve of the second anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. The organization urges the Russian authorities to end impunity for violence against human rights defenders and the media. “Human rights activists and journalists are the ones who bring to the public’s attention the failure of governments to live up to their promises of justice and rights protection made in national law and their obligations under international human rights treaties,” Amnesty International said

By Amnesty International, USA.< /p>

Human Rights Policy Resource.