NightBlogger

New York Times
Ten central government departments, including the powerful Ministry of Finance, “misused or embezzled” more than $660 million last year, according to the latest report from China’s top auditor. The report, part of a long-running crackdown on government fraud, said 88 people had been arrested, 14 officials had been referred for prosecution and an additional 104 government employees had been punished for their roles in mismanaging or embezzling government funds, state media reported Thursday. Liu Jiayi, the nation’s top auditor, said in the report that a further $6 billion in government funds had been “mismanaged” last year, and that fraud had been detected in dozens of government bureaus, including the Ministry of Education, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Health, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Even the State Administration of Taxation was accused of fraud. More

Rising food prices are putting millions of people in East Africa at risk of severe hunger and destitution, the UK-based charity Oxfam has warned. Droughts, war and poverty have put an estimated nine to 13 million people in the region in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, it says. The situation has been made worse by rising food prices, with wheat and rice particularly expensive. A BBC correspondent says some people have started to eat animal feed. Many people in the remote north-eastern Afar region raise animals for a living but many camels have died and the goats are starting to succumb to hunger too. More

Companies collected millions of dollars in government contracts by claiming to have main offices in poor neighborhoods that were actually empty duplexes, part-time offices and other ineligible locations, congressional investigators charge. Billions more remain at risk because the Small Business Administration doesn’t usually check paperwork, rarely conducts audits and is slow to kick out firms that are no longer eligible for the $8 billion in special contract set-asides for small businesses, the Government Accountability Office said. More

(NaturalNews) Conventional medicine has a brilliant new career strategy for ambitious professionals: Earn money even after you’re dead! As revealed in a new congressional investigation, Medicare has paid out 478,500 claims on health services to doctors who died before they performed such services. Say that again? Yes, dead doctors are being paid tens of millions of dollars by Medicare! This business model is apparently even more lucrative than farmers who are paid money by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to NOT grow crops: One dead doctor raked in $479,000 in Medicare payments for services rendered in 2002 to 2007. Mysteriously, the doctor died in 1999. More

Millions of bank customers face a new threat to their money after it emerged yesterday that hackers had cracked PIN codes used in cash machines. Citibank machines in 7-Eleven convenience stores across America were the target of the biggest and most effective remote PIN code theft scam in US banking history between last autumn and this spring when at least $2 million (£1 million) was stolen. Details of the fraud have only now been made public, as the case makes its way through the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. More

news.sky.com
A computer hacker broke into government files in Chile and posted six million people’s personal details on the internet to highlight poor data security. The profiles - reportedly including that of a daughter of the president - were published on two popular website for several hours before being was taken down, the El Mercurio newspaper said.

They listed names, street and email addresses, telephone numbers, social and educational background. The data were taken from the websites belonging to the Education Ministry, Electoral Service and state-run telephone companies. Read more

Photo by Otis

The Pentagon has officially announced the establishment of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM). The institute will study the stem cell technology and the technology to recreate skin, muscle and bone tissue, the official website of the US Department of Defense says. The institute plans to reconstruct whole body parts in the future – fingers, noses, ears etc.The technology and methods of the institute will be used for US military men injured in battles or for those who returned from the service in Iraq and Afghanistan with amputated arms of legs.
Read more