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WHAT'S NEW IN INES? |
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No.22/2000 |
Dateline: August 18, 2000 |
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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. 22/2000
MEMBER ORGANISATIONS' AND PROJECT GROUPS' NEWS
Next INES Executive Committee Meeting
The next INES Executive Committee Meeting will be convened at the Dortmund INES Office on 16 and 17 December this year. Agenda items suggested so far include:
For more, contact the INES Office at: < >
2001 INES Council Meeting
Scheduled for 24-27 May 2001, the next INES Council Meeting will be held at Berlin, Germany. (Hotel "Unter den Linden", Unter den Linden 14, D-10117 Berlin, Tel.: (49-30) 23811-0)
As it is already a welcomed tradition of INES, the Council again includes an international seminar on the first two days (24-25 May) on the subject "10 Years After Rio" (working title). Seminar outlines so far:
The preliminary agenda of the Council Meeting has the following topics:
NOTE: It would be most helpful to indicate your interest in participating or to register as early as possible!
For more, contact the INES Office at: < >
"INES Newsletter" No. 30 out now
The "INES Newsletter" No. 30/August 2000 has the following contents:
The "INES Newsletter" is edited by Armin Tenner, Buziaustraat 18, 1068 KN Amsterdam, The Netherlands Tel/Fax: , e-mail: A pure ASCII version is available for distribution by e-mail. Ask the "INES Newsletter" editor to put you on his distribution list.
The "INES Newsletter" is also available at: http://inesglobal.org
PLEASE NOTE the following message as of August 17, 2000:
Dear friends, Due to financial aspects, we are intending to send our future "INES Newsletter" only by email. In addition, it can be downloaded from our INES Homepage. If you want, nevertheless, to get the "INES Newsletter" by normal post, please let us know.
Reiner Braun Executive Director < >
USA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), "Waging Peace Worldwide" http://www.wagingpeace.org
The Summer 2000 issue (Vol. 10, No. 2) of NAPF's print magazine "Waging Peace Worldwide" is a Special Issue "Voices of Youth", and carries six features by, and two interviews with younger people on this main subject related, of course, to the matter of weapons of mass destruction. (Unusually though, here a comment by the WNII editor on the subject and contents of this Special Issue: For quite a long time, I haven't seen any regular anti-nuclear publication which gave room to the youth points of view so excellently as presented in the latest "Waging Peace Worldwide". I can only say: read it and take it as an example also regarding your INES-related work in general. Obviously, NAPF got the point in terms of involving younger people. Did you know, for example, that Carah Ong, the coordinator for the Abolition 2000 Network working with NAPF, and "doing a hell of a job", if I may say so, is only (?!) 21 years old? Think about it!)
Other items of the Summer 2000 issue are:
Abstracts for the INES Conference "Regional Aspects of Sustainability and the Role of Universities" (see also Conference announcement in WNII 20/2000 or visit: http://www.natwiss.de/Kaliningrad.htm )
The following abstracts for the INES Conference "Regional Aspects of Sustainability and the Role of Universities" (Kaliningrad, 29 September-1 October 2000) are now available as a print version from the Dortmund INES Office:
To obtain copies, contact: < >
Abolition 2000 homepage: http://www.abolition2000.org Grassroots News: http://www.napf.org/abolition2000/news/
New edition of "Disarmament Diplomacy"
The new edition of Disarmament Diplomacy (No. 48, July 2000) is now available at: http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd48.htm
The issue features three papers on nuclear disarmament issues. Rebecca Johnson analyses the action plan drawn up at the 2000 NPT Review Conference and invites readers to submit their views on the merits of the plan and the prospects for its success. Nikolai Sokov explores recent arguments within the Russian Defence Ministry over the future level and strategic relevance of nuclear forces. Nicola Butler summarizes the heated debate in the British Parliament over US national missile defence plans.
Non-nuclear issues are also spotlighted. Jenni Rissanen reports from Geneva on the latest, delicate efforts to draw up a BWC verification protocol. Laketch Dirasse focuses on the gender dimension of the search for durable and non-discriminatory peace in Africa, examining the rapidly developing role of women's peace groups in the region.
Developments and comment surrounding US missile defence plans feature prominently in both Documents and Sources and News Review, which also include material and coverage from G8 and ASEAN meetings, US-North Korea discussions on nuclear and missile issues, and the continued stalemate in UN-Iraq relations, with all its familiarly brutal humanitarian consequences.
Petition to the Chair and Member States of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development
The Paris-based organisation "Helios International" (Observatoire mondial de la viabilité énergétique / Sustainable Energy Watch) is asking to endorse the following petition:
Your Excellencies, We the undersigned NGOs active in development, environmental, disarmament and human rights issues express our deepest regret and extreme concern that nuclear energy seems to have been included in the draft agenda of CSD-9 and that this declining and unsustainable industry might be allocated space in the related exhibition.
We consider any focus on nuclear energy to be both against the spirit of Agenda 21 and the mandate of the U.N. CSD. Moreover it is contrary to the interests of developing countries which require sustainable, mostly decentralized, low-cost energy systems, adapted both to their needs and their endowments in capital, resources and labour.
Most countries are now committed to phasing out, or not developing nuclear energy. They also formally oppose the inclusion of nuclear energy into the projects of the Clean Development Mechanism to be established under the Kyoto Protocol.
At its last meeting, the G-8 stated its commitment to "encourage and facilitate investment in the development and use of sustainable energy, underpinned by enabling domestic environments, (which) will assist in mitigating the problems of climate change and air pollution. To this end, the increased use of renewable energy sources in particular will improve the quality of life, especially in developing countries."
Non-G8 countries are also taking similar stances. Turkey has just cancelled plans initiated in 1992 for a nuclear plant at Akkuyu. Prime Minister Bulent Evecit said in official public statement that, "the world is abandoning nuclear power". Worldwide, nuclear power has been plagued by high cost, erratic performance, endemic technical problems, the risk of catastrophic accidents, and environmental problems such as routine radiation releases, radioactive waste management and the high cost of decommissioning.
However, hardpressed nuclear vendors, mainly U.S., Canadian, French and German corporations, are eyeing the developing world as a 'last gasp' market for their products and are stepping up their lobbying efforts at U.N. conferences, including the Climate Change negotiations.
Therefore, we, the undersigned NGOs, urge you to preserve the integrity of the CSD process by ensuring that all non-sustainable energy technologies, particularly nuclear energy, are excluded from CSD9 debates, exhibitions and other activities. The CSD should focus on promoting clean, secure and sustainable forms of energy for the welfare of present and future generations as per the aim of Agenda 21.
Please mail your signature to: < > http://www.globenet.org/helio
NATO and Science
1] Under NATO's Cooperative Science and Technology Sub-Programme, 156 grants were awarded so far this year. 346 applications were considered for support.
In 1999, there were 1205* Science Fellowships awarded - 526 to Partner-country scientists and 679 to NATO-country scientists. It is anticipated that more Partner-country scientists will obtain fellowships in 2000, as the objective is to obtain an average of 75% "Partner fellowships" (i.e. fellowships for Partner-country scientists to study in NATO countries or vice-versa). "NATO-country" fellowships (i.e. fellowships for NATO-country scientists to study in other NATO countries) will be available principally for Greek and Turkish scientists, and scientists in the three new NATO countries, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
(* This figure does not include the new NATO countries, as their fellowships schemes were not yet operational.)
2] The NATO Science web site is offering a Research Partner Bulletin Board. About 700 researchers have already registered themselves on the bulletin board, giving a summary of their research interests. The Board can be accessed at http://www.nato.int/science/bb/search.htm .
Home pages of NATO Science and CCMS (Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society): http://www.nato.int/science and http://www.nato.int/ccms
[Source: NATO Science and Society Newsletter, Issue No. 54 - July 2000)
"Understanding Complexity"
This is the title of a special commemorative volume of this year's World Congress of Systems Sciences /ISSS2000 (*). It is edited by Jennifer Wilby and Gillian Ragsdell, and will include written summaries of the specially featured keynote, plenary and symposia presentations. (*) ISSS: International Society for the Systems Sciences
For orders, contact the London-based Plenum Publishing Company: Fax: (44-20) 7264 1919 (no email available)
"Trust & Verify" No. 92/July 2000
The latest issue of "Trust & Verify", published by the London-based "Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC)," focuses in particular on two studies published in April this year by the British government *). They deal with nuclear transparency and verification and were foreshadowed in the July 1998 Strategic Defence Review. In VERTIC's view, the two reports should lead to further steps by the British government and emulation by the other nuclear weapon possessors. *) see: http://www.mod.uk
Also in this issue:
plus the sections "Science & Technology Scan" and "News & Events"
"Trust & Verify" can be ordered from: < >
CONFERENCES, MEETINGS, SEMINARS
Eliminating Chemical and Biological Weapons in the 21st Century: What Needs To Be Done? (611th Wilton Park Conference)
I. Where are we now? An overview of developments in the 1990s (M. Moodie, President, Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, USA)
II. The CWC and OPWC: Assessing current work and identifying future opportunities
III. Controlling trade in dangerous chemicals: What more needs to be done? (A. Kelle, Peace Research Institute, Germany)
IV. The BWC: Outstanding issues and setting priorities (Prof. G. Pearson, Bradford University / T. Toth, UN Ambassador, Hungary)
V. Biosafety: The needs for an implementing protocol (P. van der Meer, Dutch Ministry of Environment)
VI. National export control programmes: Drawing on US Experience (V. van Diepen, US Department of State, Office of Chemical, Biological and Missile Nonproliferation)
VII. National export control programmes: Drawing on India's experience (S. Dutta, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis New Delhi, India)
VIII. Achieving the promise of the New Century: Eliminating CBW and dealing with non-compliance
For more details, mailto:
UPDATE: Global Citizens' Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
For more details, mailto:
No new or changed email or web addresses in this issue. All INES e-mail addresses and homepages are available upon request from:
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