Newsworthy
David Suzuki has joined the board of Pollution Probe in Toronto.
The Bertrand Russell Peace Lectures were inaugurated Nov. 5 and 6 at McMaster University in Hamilton by E.P. Thompson (U.K.)who has been described; as the single most important figure in European Nuclear Disarmament. He spoke on “The Threat of War” and “The Healing of the Blocs”.
The University College (U of Toronto) Lectures in Peace .Studies heard Johan Galtung, founder of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, speak Nov. 28 on “World of Wounded Nations: The Politics of Trauma’: Galtung was in Canada to deliver the keynote address to the Canadian Conference on Economic Conversion.
Eric Fawcett, former president of Science for Peace, has been hard at work since summer attempting to establish an international network of scientists opposed to continuation of the arms race. He has established contact between a number of national groups of scientists and secured promises from the groups to exchange publications. Science for Peace endorsed the idea (Its acronym is SPIN)at its Nov. 6 board meeting. SANA – Australia and the Japan Scientists Association have already begun exchanging newsletters.
SPIN is not an organization itself, Fawcett claims. It has no constitution, no officers and no mandate, but it’s an idea whose time may come. He is currently supporting and seeking support for a meeting of scientists on the occasion of the possible 1986 UN Special Session on Disarmament.
From: Vice-President (Research) Subject: S.D.I. Research
“Any staff member of this University is free to accept support from this source, provided that the results of the work are freely publishable without undue delay in the scientific or scholarly literature. My own personal view with respect to this source, is that I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole because to do so would be to accord it more credence than it is worth. Anyone who thinks that S.D.I. can be taken seriously should read the article “Software aspects of strategic defense systems” by Professor D. L. Parnas (U. of Victoria) in the American Scientist,October 1985, vol. 73, 5, pp.432-440.”
– J. Gordin Kaplan University of Alberta
Anatol Rapoport will teach a course in McMaster University’s new peace studies program in 1986.
Two international conferences have been announced for April:
For Vancouver, a city centennial project directed toward the assembling of “ideas for constructive steps leading to disarmament” which will be incorporated into the “Vancouver Proposals”; a document to be delivered to all NATO and Warsaw Pact Countries. April 19-27.
And in Montreal, April 21-23, is a conference on the theme “Illusions and Realities in the Nuclear Age”. Scheduled to appear on the program are SfP board members and members Anatol Rapoport, George Ignatieff, Margaret Fulton, Robert Malcolmson, M.L. Banda, M.V. Naidu, Ernie Regehr.
Ursula Franklin helped narrate the CBC IDEAS program, THE NORTHERN FRONT, in October. Other members appearing on the three programs were Robert Reford, Ernie Regehr, Mel Watkins. A complete transcript of the three programs and a bibliography are now available from CBC Transcripts, P.O. Box 4039, Station “A”, Toronto NSW 2P6, 85. Address: IDEAS.
Chicago, Illinois
NEW YORK (AP). A group of banks led by First National of Chicago has agreed to lend the Soviet Union $400 million (US) at low interest rates to buy grain from Canada and the US.
“The Soviet Union has come to be regarded as one of the best credit risks around,” said Ed Hewitt, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
“The Geneva Summit,” he said, has improved things quite a bit. It has changed the atmosphere in a more positive direction.”
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