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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 < >

!!! INESAP homepage: http://www.tu-darmstadt.de/ze/ianus/inesap/inesap.html

Dear friends,

ACRONYM Report 12 entitled 'Reviewing the Non-Proliferation Treaty: Problems and Processes' is now on our website at http://www.gn.apc.org/acronym

ACRONYM 12 is a report of the second PrepCom, held in Geneva from 27 April to 8 May. It consists of four parts which can be downloaded separately:

• Executive Summary;
• Part I, which analyses what happened and the reasons for the PrepCom's failure. It considers the future of the NPT review process and identifies some of the questions that will need to be addressed before the third PrepCom in April 1999 and the sixth Review Conference in April 2000;
• Part II, which provides a summary overview of the main issues raised during the general debate and informal plenaries or 'cluster' debates, including the NGO statements;
• Part III, which contains some key PrepCom statements including those on nuclear disarmament from the P-5, the NAM and South Africa, and the later (unadopted) version of the Chair's working paper.

Rebecca Johnson, The Acronym Institute,

[abridged; The Ed.]

Report from Rebecca Johnson

The Conference on Disarmament today held its final plenary of 1998 to adopt its report to the United Nations General Assembly. The CD works by consensus, so opposition from India and Pakistan blocked a paragraph mentioning that a special plenary had been called to discuss their nuclear tests, even though the paragraph merely stated the fact and did not contain any criticism. The group of delegations which had pushed for this issued a statement expressing their disappointment at the way in which the rule of consensus and arguments about 'precedent' had been used to prevent the mention of the tests, which had occupied a lot of CD time after May.

A long-hoped for decision for limited expansion of the CD to admit five new States (one from each region): Ireland, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Tunisia and Ecuador, was vetoed by Iran, reportedly because it wanted to punish Ireland for a human rights report criticising Iran. Right up until this morning it had been hoped that Iran would back down, and many are angry at what they consider an abusive link between the work of the CD and unrelated matters elsewhere in the UN system.

The CD also could not take the decision that the recently established fissile materials committee would be continued next year with Mark Moher as Chair. Therefore after only 2 meetings, his mandate is over. The lack of decision means that he cannot coordinate intersessional meetings or expert work and the convening of the committee may again be subjected to political fights at the beginning of next year.

Altogether not a particularly edifying spectacle.

The latest issue (No. 16) of ''The Sunflower'', the electronic monthly of NAPF, carries the following main articles:

• Russian-American Relations
• Russia: A Nuclear Nightmare?
• Washington's Next Subcritical Nuclear Test: "Bagpipe"
• Proliferation
• North Korea Increasingly Unpredictable
• Defecting Scientist Reveals Iraq's Nuclear Ambitions
• U.S. Government Delays Missile Defense System
• India Pledges No First Use, and Promises FMCT and CTBT Negotiations
• Fissban: The Next Step Toward Nuclear Disarmament
• Abolition 2000 News
• Civilian Leaders Call for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
• IFUW Calls for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
• Prominent Physicians Call On India and Pakistan
• Indian Admiral Visits Abolition 2000 Office in Santa Barbara
• Petition Signatures
• New Organizations in the A2000 Network
• New Haven - a Peace Messenger City
• Nuclear Energy and Waste
• Aleksandr Nikitin: Russia's Environmental Dissident
• U.S. Nuclear Power Plants on Alert
• Claims of Most Hanford Downwinders Dismissed
• Plant Operates for Ten Years Despite Major Defects
• Russia Plans to Build More Nuclear Reactors

For copies !!! mailto

This is the title of a publication issued by ''Charter '97'', a human rights organisation critical to the current regime in Belarus. The Brussels Liaison Office of this organisation shares its office with the INES Brussels Office - so it seems only fair to report on this.

If you are interested in ''News from Belarus'' you can get it via email
(no homepage available): !!! mailto

!!! Abolition 2000 homepage: http://www.napf.org/abolition2000/

Prof. Dietrich Fischer, Global Demilitarization, USA, likes to encourage you to send the following message to the heads of all nuclear states. If you are an officer of an organization, could you suggest to your members to do the same?

The letter reads as follows:

Dear Mr. President,

In June the "New Agenda Coalition" was launched by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the following eight nations: Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden.

Their Declaration states: "...the proposition that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity and never used -- accidentally or by decision -- defies credibility. The only complete defense is the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again."

"The international community must not enter the third millennium with the prospect that the maintenance of these weapons will be considered legitimate for the indefinite future, when the present juncture provides a unique opportunity to eradicate and prohibit them for all time".

The Foreign Minister of Ireland stated: "...[this] initiative is about securing that political will .... so that in a few short years we will have consigned nuclear weapons to history both to protect our future and that of our children in a nuclear weapons-free world".

I urge you to exercise this political will to call for a meeting soon of the nuclear weapons Heads of State and take a strong leadership position to disable all the nuclear weapons in the world during your term of office.

Sincerely yours,
[Your name, post address & country]

For further details !!! mailto Prof. Fischer

This recently formed organisation would appreciate support from scientists in other parts of the world. For contacts, I publish here email addresses of members of the Ad Hoc Committee:

• T. Jayaraman (IMSc, Chennai):
• Krishna Maddaly (IMSc, Chennai):
• G. Rajasekaran (IMSc, Chennai )
• S. Krishnaswamy ( Dept. of Bio-informatics , Madurai Kamaraj University):
• Jaikumar Radhakrishnan ( TIFR, Mumbai):
• Sourendu Gupta (TIFR, Mumbai):
• Alladi Sitaram (ISI, Bangalore):
• S. Chatterjee (IIAP, Bangalore):
• Palash Pal (SINP, Calcutta):
• Subhasis Mukherjee (Calcutta University, Calcutta):
• Ajit Srivastava (IOP, Bhubaneswar):
• Alok Kumar (IOP, Bhubaneswar):

The documents from the European Futures Congress and the meeting on a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in Central and Eastern Europe in Budapest last June are now available at: http://www.ippnw.de/efc/efc.htm.

Events listed here are being published only once due to limited space. Changes, however, will be taken into account (marked with ''UPDATE'')

• 29-31 October 1998
• Paris (Senate - Luxembourg Palace)
• Organised by AMFPGN (IPPNW France) and 22 other French organisations

For more details, !!! mailto

A full list of all INES e-mail addresses and homepages is available upon request.
!!! mailto < >

No new or changed email or web addresses.

================ end of No. 18/1998 what's new in ines ================ ^