December 27, 2005 Tuesday meeting's article

Farmers continue to protest against police brutality    Farmers and civic groups urged the government yesterday to take responsibility for the death of two farmers after a recent demonstration against moves to allow increased quotas of imported rice into the country.   "The government must punish those who are responsible for causing death of farmers and should devise countermeasures to prevent the police abusing public power," said the alliance at a joint news conference held yesterday in Seoul.   An alliance of farmers and activists, composed of 444 civic groups demanded the President Roh Moo-hyun to make official apology and the chief of the National Police Agency Huh Joon-young and Home Affair Minister Oh Young-kyo to resign.   In line with the protest, the nation's human right watchdog said yesterday that it will also investigate the death of late Hong Deok-pyo. Hong, 68, who died in hospital on Sunday, a month after he was injured in a mass demonstration held in front of the National Assembly.   "Although we have focused on clarifying Jeon's case so far but will also look at Hong's case from now on," said an official of the National Human Rights Commission.   Last month, activists filed a petition to the national human rights watchdog to probe Jeon Yong-cheol's case who died ten days after participating a mass protest held on Nov. 15th.   Right after Jeon died, police presented an autopsy on Jeon by the National Institute of Scientific Investigation to show that he died from cerebral hemorrhaging and skull fractures as a result of a fall, not from direct blows to the head by police.   However, civic groups are claiming that Jeon and Hong died from "serious" injuries during scuffles with police at the rally and the police agency is attempting to cover up police brutality.   The human right watchdog said that they haven't seen problems in the autopsy results of the National Institute of Scientific Investigation so far.   However, investigators pointed out that the police seems non-cooperative in investigating the case.   "Although the police submitted lots of related photos and documents, they are not explaining when the photos were taken," said an official of NHRC.   "We already have reconstructed the situation on that day, but no one ever tried to go near the spot where Jeon was on that day," added he.   NHRC is scheduled to announce the result of their investigations on Jeon and Hong's case next week.   =================================================================================   Authors of Hwang's paper to be questioned    A panel at Seoul National University said yesterday that it plans to question two key co-authors of the article on Hwang Woo-suk's research published in the journal Science, as part of its intense investigation into the authenticity of the landmark work.   The independent panel, consisting of seven SNU faculty members and two outside experts, said it will delay publishing its mid-term report until tomorrow to allow for further inquiries.   While awaiting the result of the school's investigation, Science is reviewing Hwang's other paper from 2004 "in light of new questions about the authenticity of images in the 2004 paper," it said in a statement yesterday.   Hwang gained prominence from the 2004 paper which produced the world's first cloned human embryo.   The SNU investigation committee was set up to question Roh Sung-il, the second author of the paper who recently claimed that nine out of 11 stem cells presented in the paper were fake and raised further questions about the existence of the groundbreaking cells.   In May, Hwang's team announced that it had produced 11 different embryos from the cells of patients and then cultivated stem cell lines from them, increasing hopes for developing treatments for hard-to-cure diseases.   The SNU panel was also scheduled to interview Moon Shin-yong, another author of the 2005 paper yesterday afternoon.   Moon, a professor at Seoul National University Hospital, is also a senior author of Hwang's 2004 paper.   Critics of the paper raised suspicions that the cloned embryo does not exist at all, but was indeed an embryo taken from MizMedi, a fertility clinic run by Roh, former close collaborator of Hwang.   They say the photographs of the cloned embryo are identical to the images of embryos at MizMedi.   The stem-cell images published alongside Hwang's May 2005 paper are also duplicates and Hwang's junior researcher admitted that he fabricated the images at the request of Hwang.   The panel also questioned Yoon Hyun-soo, director of MizMedi, for four hours on Monday night. Researchers sent from the hospital developed cloned embryos into stem cells and those at Hwang's lab produced cloned embryos.   With the international scientific community eyeing the probe, the panel at the nation's top-rated university sealed off Hwang's office on Monday, analyzed records of experiments and interviewed 24 team members.   Key questions about his work, among other suspicions, are whether the landmark stem cells existed at all for the paper and if so, how many.   Later in the week, the panel will ask independent labs to perform DNA analyses on five stem cell lines which Hwang's team is currently growing to see whether they are authentic.   Meanwhile, University of Pittsburgh professor Gerald Schatten made a proposal in September for a $200,000 contribution to build a stem cell hub in the United States based on Hwang's work, the school's spokesperson Jane Duffield was quoted as saying by Yonhap news yesterday.   The Chosun Ilbo uncovered a document on the detailed budget where the money was requested for not only Schatten, but also Calvin Simerly, Laura Hewitson and Duffield.   The nation's largest newspaper called for a probe into the transaction of the money, given that the purpose of the large amount of money was not shown on the document.   However, Duffield said no transactions took place.   =================================================================================   Top 4 export items for Europe    Information-technology devices, beauty and healthcare products, auto parts and gardening materials stood out as Korea's four most popular export items to Europe this year, according to the Korea Trade Center in Amsterdam.   About 60 small and midsize businesses from Korea seeking to enter a new market made a total of six trips to the Netherlands between May and December this year, according to the trade support office.   The group of entrepreneurs from the four major exporting sectors had the chance to consult with buyers and gain insight into the European market, it added.   According to the trade center's report, the European buyers noted that the quality of the products from Korea's small and midsize companies was better than expected. They also expressed interest in expanding their range of Korean imports.   The importers, however, emphasized that Korean companies need to step up efforts on developing marketing strategies to help raise awareness of local goods, the report said. They say that Korean products, despite the better quality compared with most other Asian countries, are not as well recognized as those from Japan or Europe.   The field of IT and consumer electronics had the largest number of participants in this year's market search initiative, while it also attracted the largest number of buyers, according to the report.   With the popularity of online shopping increasing rapidly since last year, various computer-related parts and other IT products drew the most attention, it said.   For instance, European buyers said they expressed interest in importing items such as pen mice, projection keyboards and USB drives, if the pricing is right, according to the Korea Trade Center.   PDPs and LCD TVs were also popular items.   Korean-made beauty and healthcare products, which already have established a notable reputation in Europe, continued to attract buyers' interest. This year in particular, drew the attention of buyers looking for manicure items, such as nail clippers and scissors, the report said.   Traders in the healthcare business had the chance to tap the Netherlands this year. One product that drew interest included the herb-ion machine designed to relieve stress. Bio-related drinks also stood out, the report said.   Popular auto-related items included car accessories, lamps and hands-free cell-phone devices.   With gardening a popular pastime in Europe, Korean companies were successful in marketing related items like gardening tools, it said.