INES NEWSLETTER 14 - DECEMBER 1995 - SUMMARY
NEXT STOP AMSTERDAM!
The program committee of the 1996 INES Conference met in Amsterdam, which also will be the site of the conference, during October 28-29. The meeting, chaired by Philip B. Smith and Armin Tenner, decided to go ahead with the conference, as committments to funding had reached a threshold level. The funds allocated so far cover only the plenary events with some support of the organizational tasks. Most of the workshops have to be self-supporting. Further fundraising activities are under way. The Amsterdam Congress will be the first large-scale meeting of the INES Network since the Berlin Congress of 1991. Let us all join in the efforts to make it a resounding success!
IMPORTANT REQUEST
All personal members and INES member organisations are asked to take an active role in announcing the Amsterdam Congress to colleagues and professional circles. We suggest three ways:
1. You can copy and distribute the Congress announcement on your own (preferred).
2. You can order Congress announcements and/or posters (A3 or A2) from the INES office and take care of the distribution.
3. You can distribute the Congress announcement via email. The email announcement is available from (A. Tenner).
THE CONGRESS ON INTERNET
The www home page of the Congress is athttp://www.frt.fy.chalmers.se/amsterdam . This site carries information about the Congress, and will allow on-line registration and hotel reservations. Abstracts can be submitted via the home page or directly by email to Various email lists will be set up, e.g. for workshop preparation. An up-to-date description of these is found on the home page of the Congress.
CALL FOR PAPERS AND VIDEO CONTRTIBUTIONS
The Program Committee will accept papers for presentation at a workshop meeting or at the poster session. The Committee will base its judgement on an abstract of not more than 500 words with full professional address, email and fax connection that must be submitted before 1 April 1996. Preferentially, submission should be by email in plain ascii to or as a www message, as described before. All accepted abstracts will be published in the abstract book, available at the time of the conference. The proceedings will contain all presentations of the plenary sessions, as well as summaries or selected papers of the workshop sessions.
Video tapes on practical examples relevant to sustainable development should be sent to Prof. Lars Rydén, Baltic University Program, P.O.Box 2109, 75002 Uppsala, Sweden, before 1 August 1996.
Registration, fees and accomodation
ROTBLAT AND PUGWASH RECEIVE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
It is universally agreed that this year's Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Confereneces on Science and World Affairs, honours some of the most important work done for peace in the fateful years of the Cold War when the world stood on the brink of nuclear disaster.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee quotes Rotblat's involvement in the Rusell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955 and the foundation of the Pugwash Movement in 1957. It further states: "The [Pugwash] Conferences are based on the recognition of the responsiblity of scientists for their inventions. They have underlined the catastrophic consequences of the use of the new weapons. They have brought together scientists and decisison-makers to collaborate across political divides on constructive proposals for reducing the nuclear threat."
Professor Joseph Rotblat was born in Warsaw, Poland, where he received his doctorate in physics in 1936. During the war he became a member of the British team of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. When it became clear that Germany would not develop a bomb, he resigned from the project at the end of 1944, the only senior scientist to do so. Thereafter, his scientific work focused on biomedical research, aiming at positive applications of science. He devoted much time and effort on countering the threat posed by nuclear weapons; e.g.he organized the Atom Train Exhibition in England to inform the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and, as mentioned, was instrumental in making the Pugwash Movement an important factor in defusing the threat of nuclear war.
Joseph Rotblat participated in the Challenges-Congress in Berlin in 1991, and he has been a member of the INES Council since then. He has also taken an active role in INESAP, by joining the Study Group "Beyond the NPT: A Nuclear Weapon-Free World". At the NPT Review and Extension Conference in New York, he publicly objected against the argument that an indefinite extension of the NPT should be the only rationale to be discussed there. He used the opportunity to push the idea of a nuclear weapon free world, a theme that was also taken up by the Pugwash Conference in Hiroshima in July this year.
ABOLITION 2000: A NEW NETWORK FOR THE ELIMINATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Profiting from the general interest raised by the start of the World Court hearings on the legality of nuclear weapons, the groups behind the Caucus and the World Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons convened a strategy meeting at The Hague on November 5th, 1995. Representatives of 50 national and international organisations from Europe, USA, Canada, Japan and the Pacific Area attended. The meeting resulted in the establishment of the "Abolition 2000 Network: A Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons".
The network consists at this stage of five elements:
- The endorsing organisations, who have signed the Abolition Caucus Statement.
- A number of working groups through which the organisations cooperate on joint projects.
- A Clearinghouse to collect and distribute information around the network and to service and support the working groups.
- A Committee to ensure the effective functioning of the Clearinghouse, in particular to raise funds for it.
- An email listserver, through which documentation may be obtained and distributed electronically. To subscribe to the listserver, send a message to with only the following in the body of the text: "subscribe abolition-caucus <your email address>".
The next international meeting of the new network is envisaged for February/ March 1996, when the International Court has announced its decision on the issue whether nuclear weapons are compatible with international law (the World Court Project).
For further information, contact: International Clearinghouse of the Abolition 2000 Network, c/o Western States Legal Foundation, attn. Jackie Cabasso, 1440 Broadway, Suite 500, Oakland CA 94612,
Electronic communication enthusiasts can reach the Pugwash Movement on their recently established home page: http://www.qmw.ac.uk/pugwash/home.html
The home page of Science for Peace, Canada, is at http://www.math.yorku.ca/sfp/
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