This is a weekly electronic information service of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility

Editor: Tobias Damjanov, e-mail:   
INES homepage: http://inesglobal.org
INES International Office   
INES Chair: Prof. Armin Tenner   

CONTENTS of WNII No. 20/2000

• Member Organisations' and Project Groups' News:
  • New Zealand: Engineers for Social Responsibility (ESR) Newsletter July 2000
  • "Chemical Weapons Convention in Danger"
  • Peace Message by David Krieger
  • USA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), The Sunflower, No. 39, August 2000
• Nuclear Weapons:
  • New Resources
• Conferences, Meetings, Seminars:
  • The Hague Agenda in Europe
  • The Future of Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control, and Non-Proliferation
  • Regional Aspects of Sustainability and the Role of Universities
  • International Youth Parliament 2000
  • Building a World of Citizens One Year After Seattle
• INES Web- and Email Service
  • Visits to the INES homepage
  • CHANGE - Internet contacts Scientists' Initiative Responsibility for Peace and Sustainability (Germany)

MEMBER ORGANISATIONS' AND PROJECT GROUPS' NEWS

New Zealand: Engineers for Social Responsibility (ESR) Newsletter July 2000 (Vol. 16/No. 3) http://www.esr.org.nz 

The latest ESR Newsletter carries the following main articles:

• Transport Planning in Auckland: A Tactical Exercise Without Troops?
• Do we have a Sustainable Power Supply?
• Sun power electricity on tap

Newsletter Editor: Neil Mander < >

"Chemical Weapons Convention in Danger"

INES member Paul F. Walker, Legacy Program Director of Global Green USA, recently distributed information that the US Defense Appropriations Conference committee deleted the Administration's $35 million request last month to support Russian chemical weapons destruction under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR or "Nunn-Lugar") program. The House Armed Services Committee has also deleted the funds and ordered the program "closed out" (HR 4205, Sec. 1301). Fortunately, the Senate Armed Services Committee has supported the program under certain conditions (S 2549, Sec. 1208). If US support for Russian chemical weapons destruction stops, the Duma is likely to withdraw from the CWC, thereby endangering the entire CWC regime. Walker urged everyone to ask US Senators and Representatives to have the House recede to the Senate in the Defense Authorizing Conference next month, thereby allowing the program in the Russian Kurgan region to move forward.

Contact Paul F. Walker through: < >

Peace Message by David Krieger

Dr David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (USA), and Vice-Chair of INES, has recently published the following Peace Message - 

The world changed dramatically in the 20th century, a century of unprecedented violence.  We humans learned how to release the power of the atom, and this led quickly to the creation and use of nuclear weapons.At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this terrible new power was unleashed at the end of a bloody and costly war.  Tens of thousands of persons, including large numbers of women and children, were killed in the massive explosion and radiation release of these new tools of destruction.  A new icon was born: the mushroom cloud.  It represented mankind's murderous prowess.  In the years that followed, nuclear weapons multiplied in a mad arms race.  We achieved the possibility of creating a global Hiroshima and ending most life on Earth.

If, one hundred years from now, you read this message, humanity will probably have succeeded in freeing itself from the scourge of nuclear weapons.  That will be a great triumph.  It will mean that we have met the first great challenge to our survival as a species.  It will mean that we have learned and applied the lesson that the hibakusha, survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, worked so diligently to teach us, that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.

There is an alternative possibility, that of no civilization or human beings left alive one hundred years from now.  Such a future would mean that we failed completely as a species, that we could not put away our primitive and violent means of settling our differences.  Perhaps we would have simply stumbled by a combination of apathy and arrogance into an accidental nuclear conflagration.  It would mean that all the beauty and elegant and subtle thought of humans that developed over our existence on Earth would have vanished.  There would be no one left to appreciate what was or might have been.  No eyes would read this letter to the future. There would be no future and the past would be erased.  Meaning itself would be erased along with humanity.

We have a choice.  We can end the nuclear weapons era, or we can run the risk that nuclear weapons will end the human era.  The choice should not be difficult.In fact, the vast majority of humans would choose to eliminate nuclear weapons.  Today, a small number of individuals in a small number of countries are holding humanity hostage to a nuclear holocaust.  To change this situation and assure a future free of nuclear threat, people everywhere must exercise their rights to life and make their voices heard.  They must speak out and act before it is too late.  They must demand an end to the nuclear weapons era.

If this message reaches one hundred years into the future, it will mean that enough of my contemporaries and the generations that follow will have heard the messages of the hibakusha and will have chosen the paths of hope and peace.  Humanity will have conquered its most terrible tools of destruction.  If this is the case, I believe that your future will be bright.

David Krieger < >

USA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), The Sunflower, No. 39, August 2000
Back issues: http://www.wagingpeace.org/sf/index.html
Events for the year 2000 are now listed at: http://www.wagingpeace.org/calendar/events_current.html  

The August issue of The Sunflower covers the following:

• Hiroshima/Nagasaki: Fifty-fifth Anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Nuclear Matters:
  • Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity
  • Headed for History's Dust Bin (quoting General Colin Powell ret.)
  • President Putin Dismisses Six Generals
• Downside to Technology:
  • Scientists Conduct First 3D Nuclear Weapons Test
• Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems:
  • China and Russia Issue Joint Statement on Anti-Missile Systems
  • China Named "Real Reason" for Anti-Missile System
  • Israel Calls-Off Radar Deal with China Under US Pressure
• Action Alert:
  • -- Earth Action Issues "Call for a Safer World"; contact: < > http://www.earthaction.org
  • -- [US] Congress Voted to Open School of the Americas Clone; contact the School of the Americas (SOA) Watch at: http://www.soaw.org 
  • -- Washington Gathering to Free Vanunu (26-28 September 2000) contact the US Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu at: http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/ 
• Nuclear Insanity:
  • Quote from an interview with Robert A. McNamara (Los Angeles Times, 5 June 2000) on his rationale behind the theory of "mutually assured destruction," which he conceived in 1961

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Abolition 2000 homepage: http://www.abolition2000.org  Grassroots News: http://www.napf.org/abolition2000/news/  

New Resources (Source: The Sunflower, No. 39, August 2000)

• "The Responsibilities of World Citizenship" by Queen Noor al Hussein (published as a booklet by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation) (copy order through < > or: http://www.wagingpeace.org  )
• "Nuclear Missile Deception: Corruption and Conflicts of Interest in the National Missile Defense Program." Report on Star Wars by William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca: http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/nmdtitle.htm
• Report on Hanford fire and plutonium releases into the air: http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/hanf134.shtml
• "Time for a Missile Freeze" by Dr Juergen Scheffran (INESAP). The article explores and illuminates the idea of international missile control as an alternative to national missile defense. (copy order through < >)
• "Hiroshima's Shadow" is a collection of writings on the denial of history and the Smithsonian controversy, edited by Kai Bird and Lawrence Lifshultz (available from the Pamphleteer's Press: < >)
• "Hiroshima in Memoriam and Today," a collection of memoirs by Hiroshima survivors edited by Hitoshi Takayama (available from the Peace Resource Center: < >)
• "Managing the US Nuclear Weapons Stockpile: A Comparison of Five Strategies," a report by Dr. Robert Civiak, provides the first comprehensive review of alternatives to the US Dept. of Energy's controversial plans for long-term maintenance of the US nuclear weapons arsenal: http://www.igc.org/tvc
• "Statements by Foreign Leaders Opposing National Missile Defense". The US-based Council for a Livable World has compiled quotes by political leaders opposing the US National Missile Defense (NMD) program. Comments include present and former presidents and prime ministers in Europe, Australia, Canada, Russia, and the PRC: http://www.clw.org/ef/nmdleaders.html
• "Litany of Remembrance for the Nuclear Age," by Pamela S. Meidell, Director of the Atomic Mirror: http://www.abolition2000.org

CONFERENCES, MEETINGS, SEMINARS

The Hague Agenda in Europe

• Date: 8-9 September 2000
• Venue: Aachen, Germany
• Organized by The Hague Appeal for Peace and IALANA (International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms)
• Conference topics:
  • -- Peace Education (introduced by Cora Weiss)
  • -- Hague Appeal for Peace in Europe (introduced by Colin Archer)
  • -- Campaign Against Child Soldiers (introduced by Esther Mburu, Kenya)
  • -- Whistleblowing/Societal Verification (introduced by IALANA Germany)
  • -- Replacing the law of force by the force of law (introduced by Phon van den Biesen and Arne Hoppe)
  • -- Plenary discussion: Humanitarian intervention

For more details, mailto: 

The Future of Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control, and Non-Proliferation

• Date: 24-26 September 2000
• Venue: Berlin, Germany
• Organized by the Berlin Information Centre for Transatlantic Security (BITS), the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the Asia-Europe Dialogue Project

This international conference is aiming at analyzing regional security problems in Asia and Europe. It will discuss and develop possible political strategies for influencing the political agenda by asking what both governments and NGOs can do with regard to the conference subjects.

For more details, mailto:  

Regional Aspects of Sustainability and the Role of Universities http://www.natwiss.de/Kaliningrad.htm  

• Date: 29 September-1 October 2000
• Venue: Kaliningrad (State University, Geographical Faculty), Russia
• Organized by INES
• Keynote speakers:
  • -- Joachim Spangenberg (Germany): Basic Ideas of Sustainability
  • -- Prof. V. Ivtchenko: Economic and Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development of the First Special Economic Zone in Russia
  • -- Barbara Hemkes (National Trade Union Germany): The Social Dimension of Sustainability
  • -- Prof. A. Tenner (Netherlands) and Reiner Braun (Germany): Which Kind of Role do the Universities play?
  • -- Dr. L. S. Glushkova, Prof. S. I. Zotov: The University Center Role -  Agenda 21 in Ecological Education
  • -- Prof. V. N. Bryushinkin, Prof. Vladiar: Organisation of Research in the Framework of Classical Universities the Modern Russia
  • -- Prof. S. N. Sobolevsky: Scientific Ensuring of Kaliningrad Region Sustainable Development
  • -- Prof. Phil Smith (Netherlands)- Pugwash Conference: Economical Transformation and Sustainability
  • -- Peter Schaller (Germany, Mayor of Heidelberg): Local Municipal Experiences with the Agenda Process from German perspective
  • -- Prof. V. Bilchak, Prof. G. Fedorov: Kaliningrad as a Pilot Region and a Pole of International Cooperation
  • -- Prof. V. Sauskan: Tasks Priority in Providing Safety for the Population of Kaliningrad Region for the Period 2001 2005
  • -- Prof. E. V. Krasnov: On the Rational Usage of Natural Resources in The Baltic Sea Regions
  • -- Alexandra Koroleva, Galina Ragouzina (Ecodefence! Russia): Sustainable Development of the Regions of Nongovernmental Organizations

For more details, mailto:   

International Youth Parliament 2000

• Date: 19-28 October 2000
• Venue: Sydney, Australia
• Organized by Community Aid Abroad - Oxfam Australia

For more details, mailto:      http://www.caa.org.au/parliament 

Building a World of Citizens One Year After Seattle

• Date: 30 November-2 December 2000
• Venue: Paris, France

For more details, mailto:      http://www.postSeattle.org 

INES WEB AND E-MAIL SERVICE

  All INES e-mail addresses and homepages are available upon request from:  

Visits to the INES homepage

Tom Munsey, webmaster of the INES homepage reports: The inesglobal site receives an average of twelve hits per day, which is good for a site that is not trying to sell anything and contains no pornography.

CHANGE Internet contacts Scientists' Initiative Responsibility for Peace and Sustainability (Germany)

additional e-mail:      New website (so far, in German only): http://www.natwiss.de 

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