Biophysical Society Bulletin | February 2019

Public Affairs

Around theWorld Hungarian Government MayWithhold Science Academy Funding According to a story in Nature , researchers in Hungary are concerned about how they will keep the lights on from Jan- uary, after the Ministry for Innovation and Technology said in December that it would withhold their running costs for at least three months. The Hungarian government passed a decree in July 2018 ordering a complete restricting of how academic research is organized and funded – changes mainly aimed at the 44 basic research institutes run by the Hungar- ian Academy of Sciences. However, the government has still not agreed on how to implement the decree and now Hungar- ian researchers are stuck in limbo. International Scientific Pressure Builds on Iran to Release Environmentalists More than 300 conservationists, including Jane Goodall, are appealing to Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to free a group of environmentalists who have been charged with spying after they used cameras to monitor an endangered cheetah. The group has been detained for over nine months. In Iran, the charge of spying carries a possible death penalty. Several of the detained environmentalists work for the Per- sian Wildlife Heritage Foundation and another, Iranian-Cana-

dian Seyed Emami , passed away while imprisoned. The Iranian regime is in a difficult predicament as it seeks to appease both its upper-middle classes – who support education and scientific research – and its religious leaders who are suspi- cious of scientific research. YellowVest Protests in France Cause Chaos, Force Government to Backpedal In early December, while world leaders were meeting in Argentina for the G-20 summit, protesters wearing yellow vests stormed the streets of Paris, causing the worst damage the city has seen since the 1960s. The ”Yellow Vest” protest- ers mobilized over rising gas prices mainly caused by a new tax on diesel fuel, which increased fuel prices by 16 percent in 2018. President Emmanuel Macron ’s government initially defended the tax, citing the environmental benefits of the policy, but on December 6, the government released a state- ment saying, “the President and the Prime Minister [ Edouard Philippe ] have expressed the wish that the increase in the carbon tax…be removed.”(Le Monde). It is too early to tell what the “Yellow Vests” may mean for the future of Macron’s government, but as of press time, the protests continue to rage on, showcasing France’s working class discontent over the direction of the country.

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February 2019

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