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WHAT'S NEW IN INES? |
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No. 12/1999 |
Dateline: 21 March 1999 |
WNII is an electronic information service of INES,
the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility
Editor: Tobias Damjanov, e-mail: < >
INES homepage: http://www.mindspring.com/~us016262/ines.html
INES International Office < >
INES Chair Prof. Armin Tenner < >
INES CONGRESS 2000 ''Challenges for Science and Engineering in the 21st Century'' Stockholm, 14-18 June 2000
Congress-related queries: mailto < >
CONTENTS
No new or changed email or web addresses in this issue. NOTE: All INES e-mail addresses and homepages are available upon request from: < >
MEMBER ORGANISATIONS' + PROJECT GROUPS' NEWS ^
"SEU TIMES" February 1999^
The February issue of the newsletter of the Socio-Ecological Union covers the following items:
To get on the SEU Times list, contact: Sviatoslav Zabelin, the SEU Council Co-Chair: < > or: Olga Berlova, SEU Center for Coordination and Information Press-secretary: < >
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ^
Global Sustainable Development Resolution ^
Soon to be introduced in the US House of Representatives, Representative Bernie Sanders has recently presented this very interesting draft. Because of its length it cannot be published here, but you can obtain the document either from the WNII editor <mailto:> or from the Campaign for Labor Rights <mailto:>
WHISTLEBLOWERS ^
US Congressional support grows for Mordechai Vanunu ^
On March 18, 35 members of the US House of Representatives supported the call on President Clinton to urge Israel to free Mordechai Vanunu on humanitarian grounds. The request was made by Rep. Lynn Rivers [D-MI]. Accompanying her at Capitol Hill news conference were a St. Paul, MN couple, Nicholas and Mary Eoloff, who have adopted Vanunu under a Minnesota law that permits adoption of adults by adults.
"We believe that Mordechai Vanunu has suffered enough for his crime of conscience," said Representative Rivers, quoting from a letter to Clinton signed by 35 House members, most of them fellow Democrats. "Mr.Vanunu stands for the ideal that every child has the right to live in a world that is free from nuclear destruction," the letter said.
Vanunu, after resigning from the Israeli nuclear weapons program, gave his story, without pay, to the London Sunday Times in 1986. While being interviewed by the paper, Israeli agents lured him from Britain and abducted him from Rome to Israel. There, he was convicted of espionage and treason at a closed-door trial. He spent 11 1/2 years in a 6' by 9' isolation cell. Last May he was denied parole after serving two-thirds of his term.
A worldwide campaign for Vanunu's release is supported by Amnesty International, the Federation of American Scientists, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, former President Jimmy Carter and parliamentarians from Israel, Britain, Canada, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. INES, too, has always supported the case.
The thirty-five Congressional co-signers of the Lynn Rivers letter almost tripled the number who signed a similar letter two years ago.
BRIEFINGS ^
US Senate Approves Missile Defense System ^
On March 17, the US Senate voted overwhelmingly (by 97 to 3) to commit the United States to deploy a national anti-missile defense system after President Clinton and most Democrats dropped their long-standing opposition to the measure in return for a renewed commitment to arms control.
The legislation calls for deployment of a nationwide defense against limited ballistic missile attack "as soon as technologically possible."
With Clinton's signature apparently assured, it asserts the country's determination to put the system -- a much scaled-back version of the "Star Wars" program advanced by President Ronald Reagan 16 years ago -- into operation sooner rather than later.
Subsequently, Russia and China criticized the Senate's approval of the U.S. anti-missile defense system, saying the move would threaten the globe's strategic balance. "That poses a serious threat to the whole process of nuclear arms control, as well as strategic stability, for which major international agreements have been worked out for decades,''
the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Russian officials have long expressed concern over the U.S. plan to develop anti-missile defenses that would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. They have resisted U.S. proposals about possibly amending the treaty to allow for limited missile defenses.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said the measure is counterproductive for arms control and disarmament and will "have an impact on global strategic balance.'' China fears the system could spark a costly arms race, would strengthen U.S. military alliances with Japan and South Korea and may be used to protect Taiwan, thereby obstructing reunification.
For more details, visit, for example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-03/18/002l-031899-idx.html http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/missile-defense.html http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/missile-clinton.html
Pay particular attention to: http://www.fas.org/rlg/990317-nmd.htm http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/032199missile-defense-review.html
Listserver "BalkanNews" http://www.refugees.net/en/daily/dps.html
This is a read-only listserver and it provides the "Daily Press Summary of Balkan Crisis News (Mo-Fr; 18:00 hours)." Subscription information: Subscribe: Email to , Body (not in the subject line): subscribe balkannews
CONFERENCES - MEETINGS - SEMINARS ^
NOTE: Events listed here are being published only once due to limited space. Changes, however, will be taken into account (marked with ''UPDATE'')
From the MAI to the Millennium Round; Setting a Different Agenda for Frameworks on Investment and Trade^
This International Conference will bring together people opposing further economic and financial deregulation and seeking alternatives, which ensure higher standards of living for the world's peoples. It will focus on the tentacles of the MAI, on the preparations of the WTO Millennium Round and on the reform of LomT [the Lomé Treaty], in order to elaborate alternative proposals.
For more details, mailto: (Gaby Kueppers, The Greens in the European Parliament)
================ end of No. 12/1999 what's new in ines ================ ^