Latin America Rising > Argentina feeding the people rather than political scientific research

 

Argentina's science, technology budget falls to lowest level since 2002

By Francisca Orellana

   

Argentina's science and technology budget has dropped to 0.156% of gross domestic product, its lowest level since 2002, according to a July report from the EPC, a group of researchers, analysts and consultants specializing in science, technology and innovation policy. Photo by ckstockphoto/Pixabay

Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Argentina's scientific expedition "Talud Continental IV," which live-streamed the Mar del Plata submarine canyon using the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian, became a cultural phenomenon.

The recently completed mission averaged 500,000 viewers per broadcast and drew more than 17.5 million views in three weeks.

The mission, led by scientists from Argentina's National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet) in collaboration with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcased the potential of Argentine science on the international stage.

However, that success contrasts sharply with the difficult situation facing scientific research in Argentina.

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The country's science and technology budget has dropped to 0.156% of gross domestic product, its lowest level since 2002, according to a July report from the EPC, a group of researchers, analysts and consultants specializing in science, technology and innovation policy.

The sector's share of GDP fell 48% compared to 2023. Spending in the first half of 2025 was down 19% from the same period in 2024, marking a decline of more than 40% in two years.

This is the lowest level recorded since 2002, when the country was in the midst of one of its worst economic crises.

Although the figure stood at 0.30% of GDP when President Javier Milei took office, severe cuts to science and technology have been made over the past two years as part of broader austerity measures to fund social programs.

The Ministry of Science was downgraded to a secretariat, while major research agencies faced steep reductions. Conicet lost 41% of its funding compared with 2024, the I+D+I Agency saw its budget cut by 67%, the National Institute of Industrial Technology fell 46%, the National Institute of Agricultural Technology lost 39.6%, the National Commission on Space Activities dropped 40%, and the National Genetic Data Bank saw its resources reduced by 50.4%.

The adjustment marks an unprecedented cut in government investment in science. In 2024, the state financed 59.5% of the country's research and development, while private companies contributed just 20.7% and universities 1.2%.

In research and development specifically, 61% of funding came from public agencies and universities.

Useful research as opposed to political research

The government, however, has prioritized other areas it considers key to development, including agribusiness, energy and mining, the knowledge economy and innovation, and health, while sidelining programs tied to climate change, the environment and social sciences.

The effects are already visible: insufficient resources for research, lack of equipment and supplies, suspended contracts, wage cuts and a growing brain drain of Argentine scientists abroad.

The effect on scientific employment is clear. An estimated 4,148 jobs have been lost in Argentina's National Science, Technology and Innovation System, a third of them at Conicet, which now has only 11,868 researchers.

For Guillermo Durán, dean of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, the problem goes beyond economics.

"There is a political decision to dismantle Argentina's science and technology system and the high-quality public university system that has always set us apart as a country," he said. His faculty lost 13% of its teaching staff in 2024 due to budget cuts and salary reductions.

"These people decided to end a series of very good programs for Argentina. The damage they are causing could take many years to recover from," Durán warned.

Agustín Campero, president of the Alem Foundation and former secretary of Scientific and Technological Articulation under President Mauricio Macri, agreed on the seriousness of the situation.

"It is dire and will have severe consequences for Argentina's development," he said.

The Science System Financing Law, approved by Congress in 2021, set a schedule for the gradual growth of state investment in science and technology to reach 1% of GDP by 2032. That is what the scientific community and universities are now demanding.

Corruption is Everywhere > Even in the Vatican; Zuma Resists Prison; Avenatti to Prison; Giuliani's Law License; Scientific Research Corruption

..

This stunning event is, unfortunately, about 40 years overdue. David Yallop documented these kinds of corruption in his amazing book "In God's Name" in 1984. 

Italian cardinal among 10 people charged by Vatican in landmark case

involving embezzlement, money laundering & extortion

3 Jul, 2021 12:52

FILE PHOTO: St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. ©  AFP / Andreas Solaro

The Vatican will prosecute 10 individuals, including Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, in a case involving embezzlement and extortion. The indictments are seen as a historic crackdown by Pope Francis on Church-linked crime.

The Holy See announced on Saturday that Becciu and nine others have been ordered to stand trial for alleged crimes stemming from the Vatican's purchase of a luxury property in London, as well as speculative investments that resulted in serious financial losses for the Church.

The cardinal was charged with embezzlement, abuse of office, and subordination. An Italian woman who worked for the senior Church official was also charged with embezzlement. 

Among their co-defendants are the former heads of the Vatican's financial intelligence unit, as well as two Italian brokers involved in the shady deal. Charges include extortion, fraud, and money laundering. 

Charges were also brought against four companies associated with individual defendants. Two of the firms are located in Switzerland, one in the United States, and one in Slovenia. 

The trial will begin on July 27, according to a Vatican press release. 

Becciu has now become the highest-ranking Vatican-based Church official to be accused of financial crimes. According to Christopher Lamb, Rome correspondent for the Catholic journal The Tablet, the cardinal’s indictment is without precedent. 

“This is the first time a cardinal has been prosecuted in this way, and the decision to charge marks a new, and potentially decisive, step in Pope Francis’ reforms of Vatican finances,” he wrote. 

Unless, of course, he ends up like John Paul 1.

As per Church law, the pontiff had to personally approve the decision to indict Becciu. The Italian cardinal has always maintained his innocence during the investigation into the affair, which began in 2019. However, he left a top post in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State last September after allegations of embezzlement surfaced. 

The move comes less than a month after the Council of Europe’s top financial watchdog called on the Vatican to ensure transparency in procedures to prosecute senior officials accused of money laundering and other crimes. The Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism noted that the procedure for obtaining papal consent in order to bring legal action against senior clerics is “not fully transparent.”

In April, Pope Francis issued a decree allowing bishops and cardinals working in the Vatican to be judged by a lay tribunal. Before this reform, senior clerics were answerable only to a body of high-ranking Church officials, known as the Court of Cassation.

Former South African President Jacob Zuma resists prison sentence

By Clyde Hughes

Zuma, South Africa's president between 2009 and 2018, says the court's sentence is essentially a death sentence

because of his age, 79, and the coronavirus danger in South Africa.  File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

July 6 (UPI) -- Former South African President Jacob Zuma found himself in a legal standoff with the country's Constitutional Court Tuesday after he refused to turn himself over to authorities for failing to appear at a previous corruption hearing.

The court sentenced Zuma to prison (4th story on link) last month when he declined to participate in an inquiry focused on his time in power from 2009 to 2018. He was given 15 months in prison on contempt charges for failing to appear at a required hearing.

Zuma said the court's decision was essentially "sentencing [him] to death" because of his age, 79, and the coronavirus danger in South Africa, according to CNBC.

He filed court challenges to the sentence with the Constitutional Court itself and the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

The high court case will be heard on July 12, but the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture said that court does not have jurisdiction to hear it.

"A high court in this country has inherent jurisdiction and national jurisdiction to enforce court orders, even of other courts, of other provinces, even of other tribunals, such as arbitration and even something that is to be done in a foreign jurisdiction," Zuma's attorney Dali Mpofu told The South African, arguing for the high court's intervention.

The Constitutional Court has ordered the minister of police and justice minister to take "legal steps" to arrest Zuma if he does not turn himself in.

UPDATE: 8 July 2021

South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma, who has been in police detention since Wednesday night as he starts a 15-month prison sentence for contempt, will be eligible for parole after around four months, the justice minister said.

Zuma turned himself in to police to begin his jail term for defying a court order to attend an inquiry into corruption while he was in power from 2009 to 2018.

‘Drunk on the power of his platform’: Former CNN regular

Michael Avenatti sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for extortion

8 Jul, 2021 21:35

Michael Avenatti following his sentencing for an extortion scheme against Nike at the United States Courthouse

in New York City ©  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Michael Avenatti, a lawyer best known for representing Stormy Daniels and appearing frequently on CNN, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison after being found guilty of trying to extort Nike.

Avenatti was convicted last year of trying to extort more than $20 million from the sportswear company, but his new sentence presents only the beginning of his legal troubles. Avenatti is also facing a trial in Los Angeles later this year on charges of fraud – and he’s been charged in New York City with cheating his once-star client, Daniels, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

At his sentencing on Thursday, Avenatti reportedly wept and said, “I and I alone have destroyed my career, my relationships, my life, and there is no doubt that I deserve to pay, have paid, and will pay a further price for what I have done.” 

His misfortune represents quite a fall from grace, as the celebrity lawyer was once a regular on left-leaning networks including CNN in 2018 and 2019, where he would often talk about Daniels’ suit against Trump – she claimed the ex-president once paid her hush money to cover up an affair, which he denies. Hosts would at times talk up the amateur pundit’s potential chances in 2020 running against Trump for Democrats. He appeared on CNN and MSNBC no less than 229 times across a two-year period, according to a Media Research Center analysis. 

CNN’s Brian Stelter even called him a “serious” contender against Trump in 2020, long before the lawyer faced his current legal troubles. 

Critics were all too happy to celebrate Avenatti’s downfall, and many used the news of his sentencing as an excuse to remind the world just how glowing and fawning Avenatti’s media appearances really were at the height of his anti-Trump fame. 

One mashup clip of Avenatti media appearances especially made the rounds following his sentencing. Among the bits in the footage, former ‘The View’ co-star and liberal activist Ava Navarro compares Avenatti to “the Holy Spirit.”

“It was around this time 3 years ago there were serious think-pieces arguing that Avenatti should run for president, on top of the glowing profiles and glossy magazine spreads,” Business Insider’s Grace Panetta tweeted. 

Though he reportedly acknowledged through tears that he would never practice law again, Avenatti did leave his future fairly open.

“I still feel positive. I know I can do better. I can be the person I dreamed of being,” he said. 

Avenatti was originally charged last year for the attempted Nike extortion. He was retained by a youth basketball league organizer who claimed the company was corruptly paying players. Avenatti took his client’s complaints and accusations and tried threatening Nike with bad publicity in exchange for a massive payout. 

US District Judge Paul G. Gardephe called Avenatti’s behavior “outrageous” at the Thursday sentencing, telling Avenatti he had become “drunk on the power of his own platform.”

Rudy Giuliani's DC law license suspended pending outcome

of New York case over his election-fraud claims

8 Jul, 2021 01:44

©  Reuters / Jonathan Ernst

Fresh from his New York law license being suspended for allegedly false election-fraud claims in support of former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani has also lost his rights, at least temporarily, to practice in Washington.

A District of Columbia court on Wednesday suspended Giuliani's law license in the nation's capital, pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings against him in New York. Such suspensions are required in DC when a lawyer faces disciplinary sanctions by another jurisdiction. 

A New York court last month suspended the former mayor's license there on accusations that he made “demonstrably false and misleading” claims to “courts, lawmakers and the public at large” while he helped Trump challenge Joe Biden's victory in last November's presidential election.

Giuliani was among the lead lawyers who represented Trump in trying to prove that Biden won the election through massive fraud. The legal challenges were thrown out in federal and state courts, in many cases based on technicalities.

Democrat politicians, such as US Representative Ted Lieu (D-California), were among the lawyers who lobbied for Giuliani to be disbarred and celebrated his New York suspension. The court rebuked him for allegedly inflaming “tensions that bubbled over into the events of January 6, 2021, in this nation's Capitol.”

Giuliani reportedly wasn't permitted to present a case in his defense in the New York proceedings, but he may appeal the ruling. He has said that there was no reason for disciplinary action because the election battle has ended and “he has and will continue to exercise personal discipline to forbear from discussing these matters in public anymore.” 

Giuliani also faces defamation lawsuits by voting-system firms Smartmatic and Dominion, which claimed they were damaged by his false claims.

More than half of scientists admit to research misconduct,

landmark survey with 6,800+ participants reveals

8 Jul, 2021 11:11

FILE PHOTO: © Pixabay

A major survey conducted across academia in the Netherlands has found that more than a half of scientists admitted to engaging in some type of questionable research practice in their work. 

The landmark study was conducted through the Dutch National Survey on Research Integrity, funded by the Dutch government.

The scientists sent out anonymized questionnaires to nearly 63,780 academics working in 22 universities and research centers across the Netherlands. The survey asked about various questionable research practices, ranging from insufficient attention to equipment and the use of unsuitable measurement instruments to improper citations and unfair reviews of manuscripts. 

A total of 6,813 respondents fully completed the survey, the results of which were published as a preprint on MetaArXiv this week. The study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, has found that 51.3% of participants admitted to having often engaged in at least one questionable research practice.

“We find that, across disciplinary fields, one in two researchers engaged frequently in at least one [questionable research practice] over the last three years,” the authors wrote. They added that one in 12 had reported having falsified or fabricated their research at least once during that time.

“Being a PhD candidate or junior researcher increases the odds of any frequent [questionable research practice], as does identifying as male and doing empirical research,” the authors wrote.

Gowri Gopalakrishna, the survey’s leader and an epidemiologist at the Amsterdam University Medical Center, told Science magazine that the guarantee of anonymity to respondents had helped to receive more truthful data.

“That method increases the honesty of the answers,” she said. “So, we have good reason to believe that our outcome is closer to reality than that of previous studies.”

It is, unfortunately, only about 11% of the total number of scientists queried. We can speculate as to the reasons why the remaining 89% did not. 

The question I would really like to see answered is whether or not a scientist had the luxury of finding a result that was not in keeping with those who funded the research.

Just How Reliable is Scientific Research These Days?

Sugar industry paid scientists for favourable research, documents reveal

Harvard study in 1960s cast doubt on sugar's role in heart disease,

pointing finger at fat

The Associated Press 


Newly uncovered correspondence between a sugar trade group and researchers at Harvard University in the 1960s shines more light on how food and beverage makers have attempted to shape the public's understanding of nutrition. (iStock)

The sugar industry began funding research that cast doubt on sugar's role in heart disease — in part by pointing the finger at fat — as early as the 1960s, according to an analysis of newly uncovered documents.

The analysis published Monday is based on correspondence between a sugar trade group and researchers at Harvard University, and is the latest example showing how food and beverage makers attempt to shape public understanding of nutrition.

Sugar industry's secret documents echo tobacco tactics

In 1964, the group now known as the Sugar Association internally discussed a campaign to address "negative attitudes toward sugar" after studies began emerging linking sugar with heart disease, according to documents dug up from public archives. The following year the group approved "Project 226," which entailed paying Harvard researchers today's equivalent of $48,900 US for an article reviewing the scientific literature, supplying materials they wanted reviewed, and receiving drafts of the article.

The resulting article published in 1967 concluded there was "no doubt" that reducing cholesterol and saturated fat was the only dietary intervention needed to prevent heart disease. The researchers overstated the consistency of the literature on fat and cholesterol, while downplaying studies on sugar, according to the analysis.

"Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind and we look forward to its appearance in print," wrote an employee of the sugar industry group to one of the authors.

It's astonishing how corporate America puts profits above the health and well-being of the very customers it fleeces. How many millions of people died prematurely because of this deception?

The sugar industry's funding and role were not disclosed when the article was published by the New England Journal of Medicine. The journal did not begin requesting author disclosures until 1984.


Harvard researchers were paid today's equivalent of $48,900 for an article that concluded there was 'no doubt' that reducing cholesterol and saturated fat was the only dietary intervention needed to prevent heart disease. (Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)

'No appreciable relationship'

In an editorial published Monday that accompanied the sugar industry analysis, New York University professor of nutrition Marion Nestle noted that for decades following the study, scientists and health officials focused on reducing saturated fat, not sugar, to prevent heart disease.

While scientists are still working to understand links between diet and heart disease, concern has shifted in recent years to sugars, and away from fat, Nestle said.

A committee that advised the federal government on dietary guidelines said the available evidence shows "no appreciable relationship" between the dietary cholesterol and heart disease, although it still recommended limiting saturated fats.

The American Heart Association cites a study published in 2014 in saying that too much added sugar can increase risk of heart disease, though the authors of that study say the biological reasons for the link are not completely understood.

The findings published Monday are part of an ongoing project by a former dentist, Cristin Kearns, to reveal the sugar industry's decades-long efforts to counter science linking sugar with negative health effects, including diabetes.

The latest work, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, is based primarily on 31 pages of correspondence between the sugar group and one of the Harvard researchers who authored the review.

In a statement, the Sugar Association said it "should have exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities," but that funding disclosures were not the norm when the review was published. The group also questioned Kearns' "continued attempts to reframe historical occurrences" to play into the current public sentiment against sugar.


Though scientists are still working to understand links between diet and heart disease, concern has recently shifted to sugars, and away from fat. (Matthew Mead/Associated Press)

Thinly veiled marketing

The Sugar Association said it was a "disservice" that industry-funded research in general is considered "tainted."

And yet, you had an awful lot to do with that. It's funny that when a particular industry, like sugar, decides they want to improve people's attitudes toward sugar, that funded research just happens to work in their favour. If the meat industry had funded a study at the same time, it would, no doubt, have shown the benefits of fat and put all our ills on the sugar industry.

Research benefits the entity that sponsors it or the sponsorship dries up and researchers have nothing to do and no income. Right now, environmental research funds in the US are controlled by a body that wants scientific proof of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Anyone who's research pokes holes in that theory has a very difficult time getting funding for further research. That, in itself, is a pretty strong indicator that AGW is not what it appears to be.

Companies including Coca-Cola Co. and Kellogg Co., as well as groups for agricultural products like beef and blueberries, regularly fund studies that become a part of scientific literature, are cited by other researchers, and are touted in news releases.

Companies say they adhere to scientific standards, and many researchers feel that industry funding is critical to advancing science given the growing competition for government funds. But critics say such studies are often thinly veiled marketing that undermine efforts to improve public health.

"Food company sponsorship, whether or not intentionally manipulative, undermines public trust in nutrition science," wrote Nestle, a longtime critic of industry funding of science.

The authors of the analysis note they were unable to interview key actors quoted in the documents because they are no longer alive. They also note there is no direct evidence the sugar industry changed the manuscript, that the documents provide a limited window into the sugar industry group's activities and that the roles of other industries and nutrition leaders in shaping the discussion about heart disease were not studied.


Companies including Coca-Cola Co. and Kellogg Co. regularly fund studies that become a part of scientific literature, are cited by other researchers, and are touted in news releases. (Matt Rourke/Associated Press)

'Public health extremists'

Nevertheless, they say the documents underscore why policy makers should consider giving less weight to industry-funded studies. Although funding disclosures are now common practice in the scientific community, the role sponsors play behind the scenes is still not always clear.

In June, the Associated Press reported on a study funded by the candy industry's trade group that found children who eat candy tend to weigh less than those who don't. The National Confectioners Association, which touted the findings in a news release, provided feedback to the authors on a draft even though a disclosure said it had no role in the paper. The association said its suggestions didn't alter the findings.

Did I mention I have a tropical island off the coast of Labrador for sale, cheap?

In November, the AP also reported on emails showing Coca-Cola was instrumental in creating a non-profit that said its mission was to fight obesity, even though the group publicly said the soda maker had "no input" into its activities. A document circulated at Coke said the group would counter the "shrill rhetoric" of "public health extremists."

The new name for 'truth' - shrill rhetoric.

Coca-Cola subsequently conceded that it had not been transparent (read - utterly dishonest), and the group later disbanded.