In an article first published in the Guardian, The Dollar Melts as Iraq Burns, James Galbraith ties the weakening of the dollar to the worsening security situation.

"The melting away of the dollar is like global warming: you can't say that any one heat wave proves the trend, and there might be a cold snap next week. Still, over time, evidence builds up. And so, as the greenback approaches two to the pound, old-timers will remember the fall of sterling, under similar conditions of deficits and imperial retreat, a generation back. We have to ask: is the American financial empire on the brink?"

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1204-33.htm

EPS at the ASSA (Allied Social Sciences Associations meetings)
We will be hosting two sessions at this year's meetings in Chicago:

• Friday, January 5 at 10:15am in the Columbus room. Out How: The Economics of Ending Wars, a roundtable discussion chaired by James Galbraith, with:
  • Thomas Schelling, University of Maryland
  • Linda Bilmes, Harvard University
  • Clark Abt, Abt Associates
  • Col. Douglas MacGregor, Center for Defense Information, Straus Military Reform Project
  • Michael Intriligator, University of California at Los Angeles, Milken Institute

• Saturday, January 6 at 2:30pm in the Skyway room. Women and War, a joint session with IAFFE, chaired by Lourdes Beneria, Cornell University, with:
  • Jennifer Rycenga, San Jose State University, How Institutional Religious Structures Impede or Enhance Women's Participation on Issues of Peace, Security, Equality and Creativity
  • Derya Demiler, Istanbul Bilgi University, Gender Dimensions of Internal Displacement in Turkey
  • Jennifer Olmsted, Drew University, Gender and Military Occupation in Iraq and Palestine
  • Robert Reinauer, University of Massachusetts - Amherst, Women and Post-conflict Economic Reconstruction in Guatemala
  • Marguerite Waller, University of California - Riverside, Is Post-conflict Forced Prostitution a War Crime?
  • Discussant: Elizabetta Addis, Universita degli Studi di Sassari

We will also hold our Annual Membership Meeting on Saturday, January 6 from 5:30pm to 6:30pm in the New Orleans room. The Annual Fellows Meeting will take place Sunday, January 7 from 10:00am to 12:30pm in the Burnham room.

Our Annual Dinner will honor William Baumol. The Host Committee is chaired by Alan Blinder, Princeton University, and includes: Elizabeth Bailey, University of Pennsylvania; Peter Dougherty, Princeton University Press; Ralph Gomory, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Boyan Jovanovic, New York University; Alvin Klevorick, Yale University; Burton Malkiel, Princeton University; Janusz Ordover, New York University; Richard Quandt, Princeton University; Andrew Schotter, New York University; Carl Schramm, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; Eytan Sheshinski, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Princeton University; Robert Strom, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; Robert Willig, Princeton University; Edward Wolff, New York University; and Michael Worls, Thomson South-Western Publishers.

The dinner is generously supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Thomson South-Western Publishers. It will take place Saturday, January 6 at 6:30pm in the Regency D room.

To request an invitation to the dinner, please contact Thea Harvey. theaharvey@epsusa.org

All events are in the Hyatt Regency, the main conference hotel.

Also this year in Chicago, EPS will have a booth in the exhibit hall, as we have at several past annual meetings. Our booth is all the way to the right as you enter the exhibit hall, right next to the coffee service.

We are looking for EPS members to volunteer to help staff the booth. If you can spare an hour during the conference, please contact theaharvey@epsusa.org

EPS will be hosting a session and booth in the exhibit hall at the Eastern Economic Association (EEA) meetings in New York City, February 23 - 25, 2007.

The session, entitled Economics of War and Peace, will be chaired by EPS Executive Director, Thea Harvey. The presenters are:

• David Gold, The New School, A Cost Benefit Analysis of the War on Terror
• Richard Kaufman , Bethesda Research Center, The Peace Dividend Revisited - Again
• Alanna Hartzok, Earth Rights Institute, The Law of Rent and the Economics of War and Peace

There will be no discussants. We will instead open the floor for questions and discussion.

More information on the conference can be found at: http://www.iona.edu/eea/conf2007/NYHome.html

The Economics of Peace and Security Journal (EPSJ) was launched in January 2006 by Economists for Peace and Security (UK). This publication raises and debates all issues related to the political economy of personal, communal, national, international, and global peace and security. The journal is aimed at specialist and non-specialist readers, including policy analysts, decision makers, members of the armed forces, non-governmental organizations, campaigning groups and others. Contributions are scholarly-based, but written in a general-interest style.

The first two editions of the journal are available free at the Journal's website, http://www.epsjournal.org.uk. The third edition (Vol. 2, No. 1) will be published in January 2007. This issue will include a symposium on the subject of The Organization of Violence in the Modern World, including conscription vs. volunteer armed forces, the privatization of violence, and terrorist financing. Other topics include the economics of terrorism, Russian military expenditure, war and economic growth, and Defense Economics: achievements and challenges. Authors include Herbert Wulf, Keith Hartley, Vasily Zatselim and Jurgen Brauer.

To produce, disseminate and expand a successful high-quality journal, and to better promote research and understanding of the economics of peace and security worldwide through EPS-UK, we will charge a small subscription fee, starting with the forthcoming issue. Subscriptions are for one year (at least two issues, although we are already exploring the possibility of going to 3 or 4 issues a year), and cost £22 standard rate, £16 for members of one of the worldwide EPS branches, £11 for unwaged and those from developing countries, and £55 for organizational subscriptions. Payment is also accepted in $US and Euros.

Online subscriptions can be made at http://www.epsjournal.org.uk/subscriptions.php. In comparison to other journals, this is an inexpensive sum for a year's worth of articles by some of the top researchers and practitioners in the fields of defense and peace economics, peace and conflict studies, and other related disciplines. (Book reviews will continue to be freely available at the EPS website. If you have already subscribed for 2006, your subscription will remain valid for 2007.)

We hope that you will subscribe to EPSJ, and thus to continue to have access to a valuable source of information and analysis for all researchers, campaigners, and practitioners in conflict-related issues. If you would like any further information regarding EPSJ, or are interested in submitting an article or book review, please do not hesitate to contact the editors at editors@epsjournal.org.uk.

Call for papers: The 11th Annual Conference on Economics & Security will take place July 12 - 14, 2007 in Bristol, UK. Offers of papers are invited for a conference sponsored by Economists for Peace and Security, the Arms Production and Trade Group, the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol. The conference will have a public lecture, plenary sessions with keynote speakers, plus specialist workshop streams.

Proposed topics include:

• European Security
• Economics of the RMA
• Globalization and the Restructuring of the MIC
• Militarism and Development
• Economics of Conflict and Post-conflict Reconstruction
• Economics of the Arms Trade
• Procurement and Offsets
• Arms Races, Offsets and Alliances
• Peace Science
• Conversion and Demilitarization
• Terrorism

Offers of papers on other related topics are also welcome.

For more information on the call for papers, please see: http://carecon.org.uk/Conferences/Conf2007/Call2007.pdf

Please send a title and abstract as soon as possible and before April 30, 2007 to

Professor J. Paul Dunne
School of Economics
Bristol Business School
University of the West of England
Bristol, BS16 1QY
UK

or John2.Dunne@uwe.ac.uk

To keep up with conference developments, visit: http://carecon.org.uk/Conferences/Conf2007/CONF2007.html

The HD Centre facilitates dialogue between parties to reach agreements that reduce the humanitarian consequences of underlying conflict, increase humanitarian security, and ultimately contribute to the conflict’s peaceful resolution. The Centre also carries out an expanding program of policy research and analysis.

In a recent article, Martin Griffiths writes that Mediation Matters in Conflict Prone Asia. "Internal conflicts continue to rage with tragic effect across Asia. In the period since the end of September more than 50 people fell, victim to conflict-related violence in Southern Thailand. In Sri Lanka, a ceasefire between the Sinhala majority and Tamil minority is in shreds and some 3,000 people have died in 10 months of fighting.

"The good news is that dialog as a way to resolve such conflicts is back in vogue. Around the world, the majority of internal conflicts end with settlements negotiated among the parties and facilitated by third party mediators. Decisive military victories are rare in a world where arms are easy to access and fighters easy to recruit. There is an emerging consensus at the multilateral level on the need for collective diplomatic action to resolve or prevent conflict and there are a growing number of homegrown mediators." http://www.hdcentre.org/Mediation%20matters%20in%20conflict%20prone%20Asia

EPS has recently been listed in the The Peace Registry, a project of The Peace Alliance Foundation. The Peace Registry is a continually growing database of organizations and individuals all over the world who promote and act in accordance with principles of peace, nonviolence, compassion, and inclusion, thus both demonstrating that a culture of peace already exists and providing awareness and networking opportunities to foster its expansion. As such, it serves as a resource for the media, researchers, government officials, and the general public.

The mission of The Peace Alliance Foundation is to inspire and empower civic engagement for a culture of peace. http://www.peacealliancefound.org/index.php

Delving further into the veterans' issues raised in the recent article by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, Conn Hallinan writes about Shafting the Vets for Foreign Policy in Focus.

"Modern battlefields are toxic nightmares, filled with depleted uranium ammunition, exotic explosives, and deadly cluster bomblets. The soldiers are shot up with experimental vaccines that can have dangerous side effects from additives like squalene. In short, soldiers are not only under fire, they are assaulted by their own weapons systems and medical procedures.

"Upwards of 20,000 Americans have been wounded in Iraq, some of those so grotesquely that medicine has invented a new term to describe them - polytrauma. An estimated 7,000 vets have severe brain and spinal injuries, and have required amputations. Calculating the cost of war is tricky, but Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz recently calculated that the price tag for the long-term health care for Iraq War vets will exceed $2 trillion.

"But the hell we bring home is only a pale reflection of the hell we leave behind."

http://www.fpif.org/pdf/gac/0611vets.pdf

Troop Withdrawal and Partition is Best Hope for Iraq US Army General John Abizaid told a Senate committee in November that sending more troops to Iraq would provoke more violence and that current troop levels were at just the right amount. Abizaid's testimony is a further indication that the administration's approach in Iraq won't change much, according Ivan Eland, director of the Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty. Unfortunately, "staying the course" would be a mistake, Eland argues, because the violence in Iraq will likely worsen whether the US "cuts and runs" or "stays and prays."

"Cutting our losses and withdrawing before many more young Americans are killed or wounded is the smartest course," Eland writes in his latest op-ed.

He continues: "But what about the Iraqis who are left to deal with the chaos that the US invasion and occupation has created? To give Iraqis the best chance of ending the violence and recovering from the war, a US timetable for withdrawal should be combined with a formal partition of the country. At this point, Iraq is already essentially partitioned--with militias providing local security in many areas.... Codifying the existing partition and decentralizing the Iraqi government would reduce the Shi'ite/Sunni violence, because each group fears that the other group would use the national government apparatus to oppress it.... Thus, the Democratic proposal for withdrawal, coupled with a partition, is the best hope for Iraq."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1854

The End Of Ingenuity, Thomas Homer-Dixon's article, originally published in the New York Times, turns an economists eye to the problem of dwindling supplies of cheap energy and global climate change.

"[T]he day-to-day price of oil isn’t a particularly good indicator of changes in energy’s underlying cost, because it’s influenced by everything from Middle East politics to fears of hurricanes. A better measure of the cost of oil, or any energy source, is the amount of energy required to produce it. Just as we evaluate a financial investment by comparing the size of the return with the size of the original expenditure, we can evaluate any project that generates energy by dividing the amount of energy the project produces by the amount it consumes. Economists and physicists call this quantity the 'energy return on investment' or E.R.O.I.

"As the price of energy rises and as the planet gets hotter, we need significantly higher investment in innovation throughout society, from governments and corporations to universities...[W]e really need to start thinking hard about how our societies — especially those that are already very rich — can maintain their social and political stability, and satisfy the aspirations of their citizens, when we can no longer count on endless economic growth." http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1129-20.htm

In an article which echoes many of the points made by David Colt in his recent article for the EPS Quarterly, Terrorism in Context, Jeffrey Kluger asks on the cover of Time Magazine Why We Worry About The Things We Shouldn't... ...And Ignore The Things We Should.

"Shadowed by peril as we are, you would think we'd get pretty good at distinguishing the risks likeliest to do us in from the ones that are statistical long shots. But you would be wrong. We agonize over avian flu, which to date has killed precisely no one in the US, but have to be cajoled into getting vaccinated for the common flu, which contributes to the deaths of 36,000 Americans each year...We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about mere possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades against perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones...

"Which risks get excessive attention and which get overlooked depends on a hierarchy of factors. Perhaps the most important is dread. For most creatures, all death is created pretty much equal. Whether you're eaten by a lion or drowned in a river, your time on the savanna is over. That's not the way humans see things. The more pain or suffering something causes, the more we tend to fear it; the cleaner or at least quicker the death, the less it troubles us...

"We also dread catastrophic risks, those that cause the deaths of a lot of people in a single stroke, as opposed to those that kill in a chronic, distributed way. "Terrorism lends itself to excessive reactions because it's vivid and there's an available incident," says Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago professor of law specializing in risk regulation. "Compare that to climate change, which is gradual and abstract."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1562978,00.html

http://www.id21.org/society/s2pm1g1.html

The latest recruitment brochure from the Central Intelligence Agency, which beckons the uninitiated to “be a part of a mission that's larger than all of us,” opens to reveal an image of the red-roofed entrance to Beijing's Forbidden City. From an oversized portrait on the ancient wall, Chairman Mao and his Mona Lisa smile behold the vast granite expanse of Tiananmen Square. The Cold War is over, and the Soviet Union is gone. The cloak-and-dagger games of Berlin and Prague have been replaced by business and tourism. But China—land of ancient secrets, autocratic leaders, and memories of suppressed uprisings—still holds out the promise of a world-historical struggle that can help the CIA meet its recruitment goals.

http://www.fpif.org/fpifzines/wb/3757

Call for Papers: Hiroshima University Partnership for Peacebuilding and Social Capacity (HiPeC) will host a conference on Indigenous Initiatives for Peacebuilding: Importance of Local Viewpoints and Expected Roles of Development Assistance in Hiroshima, Japan, March 7 - 10, 2007. The conference will pay for the attendance of presenters of accepted papers.

Proposed sessions include:

• Capacity Development for Peace Building in Post-conflict Societies
• Women in Peace Building
• Coordination in Peace Operation: Working with Local Actors
• Japan's Development Assistance in Peacebuilding
  

More information is available at http://home.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/hipec/en/research/template002.html Abstracts and CVs must be received by December 20, 2006.

Study peace and conflict resolution at the European University Center for Peace Studies (EPU), Stadtschlaining, Austria. More information at www.epu.ac.at, Email epu@epu.ac.at
Tel: +43-3355-2498-515.

Many progressives are drawn to Charlie Rangel's call for a draft, but a draft only inducts people. Class determines what job they will be assigned once they are in the military and, often, how happy they will be. There's a temptation among progressives and liberals to view the draft as a potentially positive force, both in bringing about an end to the war and in evening the playing field in terms of whose children actually have to fight. Unfortunately, to the extent that it ever was true, this simply isn't the case anymore. The draft will only pull more unfortunate men and women from the ranks of the underprivileged and underrepresented.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/44556/

EAEPE (The European Association of Evolutionary Political Economy) is accepting submissions for two prize competitions.
The K. William Kapp Prize (50 percent of which is funded by the William Kapp Foundation) awards Euro 2000 for the best article on a theme broadly in accord with the EAEPE Theoretical Perspectives (minimum 5000, maximum 12000 words). Submissions for the 2007 Kapp prize should be either unpublished, or published no earlier than January 1, 2005.

The Gunnar Myrdal Prize awards Euro 2000 (all funded by EAEPE) for the best monograph (i.e., a book and excluding multi-authored collections of essays) on a theme broadly in accord with the EAEPE Theoretical Perspectives. Submissions for the 2007 Myrdal prize should be either unpublished or published no earlier than January 1. 2005.

Entries for the Kapp and Myrdal prize must be received by the EAEPE Prize Competition Coordinator by the strict deadline of January 1, 2007. Submissions should be sent to:

Grainne Collins
17 Celtic Park Avenue
Beaumont Dublin 9
Ireland
Email: grainne.collins@oireachtas.ie

More information at http://eaepe.org/eaepe.php?q=node/view/9

The EAEPE website now includes a job listing page. Current offerings include:

Professor of Work, Employment and Development (submission deadline January 1, 2007) at the INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES, The Hague, The Netherlands.

Visit http://eaepe.org/eaepe.php?q=node/view/213 for more information.

The Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (incidentally, the alma mater of NewsNotes' editor) is actively recruiting for positions in open economy macroeconomics, econometrics, and labor economics. For further details, please see http://www.unc.edu/depts/econ/recruiting/index.htm

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) seeks an articulate, innovative and experienced manager with expertise in nuclear disarmament and related issues to join PSR as its Director for the Security Program. The Security Program asserts a strong medical voice for the prevention of nuclear war, against the development and use of nuclear weapons, and for a reduction in the role of armed force in US foreign and security policy, emphasizing alternative strategies for conflict resolution, including increased diplomacy and the rule of law.

The Director for the Security Program is responsible for the development and implementation of PSR’s Security Program. The Director conducts PSR lobbying and media efforts; conducts policy analysis, research and writing; and designs and implements programs and advocacy campaigns to involve PSR physicians, chapters and members in national security, nuclear disarmament, and related issues.

More information is available at http://www.psr.org/site/PageNavigator/about_employment

Palgrave Macmillan is a global publisher of academic books in economics. Book proposals are welcome; they are particularly interested in developing a library of monographs. Submissions should be sent to:

Aaron Javsicas
Editor
Palgrave Macmillan
175 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10010
aaron.javsicas@palgrave-usa.com

http://www.palgrave-usa.com

Are We Safer? Five Years After the September 11th Attacks: Assessing the US Security Situation and Alternatives for Moving Forward. An Anthology of National Security Essays - September, 2006

It's the question on everyone's mind - are we safer? Members of the Security Policy Working Group have published a series of nine essays that address some of the issues that can help answer this fundamental question.

• Do Our Forces Match the Strategy?
• Terrorism: Our Primary Threat?
• $600 Billion Security Toolbox: What Are We Buying?
• Permanent War: A Given?
• Homeland Security: Are We Prepared?
• Use of Force: When Is It Necessary?
• Diplomacy and Prevention: Instruments of Power?
• US Role in the World?

To request a hard copy of the booklet, email theaharvey@epsusa.org. Click on the links below to view individual essays:

Pyrrhus on the Potomac: How America's Post-9/11 Wars Have Undermined US National Security. Carl Conetta, Project on Defense Alternatives http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/Pyrrhus%20On%20The%20Potomac.pdf

Terrorism or All-Hazards? Broadening Homeland Security. Anita Dancs, National Priorities Project http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/Terrorism%20Or%20All-Hazards.pdf

America's Post 9/11 Military: Can Congress Reform Our Shrinking, Aging, Less Ready, More Expensive Forces? Winslow T. Wheeler, Center for Defense Information http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/Post%209-11%20Military.pdf

Funding for Defense, Military Operations, Homeland Security, and Related Activities Since 9/11. Steven Kosiak, Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/Funding%20For%20Defense,%20Military%20Operations.pdf

National Security Budgets to Make America Safer. Cindy Williams, MIT Security Studies Program http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/National%20Security%20Budgets%20To%20
Make%20America%20Safer.pdf

Fighting the "Good Fight”: An Alternative to Current Democratic Proposals For a New National Security Strategy. William D. Hartung, World Policy Institute, Arms Trade Resource Center http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/Fighting%20The%20Good%20Fight.pdf

Is the War on Terror “Worth it?” David Gold, New School University http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/Is%20The%20War%20On%20Terror%20Worth%20It.pdf

Special Threat: US Nuclear Weapons Policy under the Bush Doctrine. Michael D. Intriligator, Economists for Peace & Security http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/Special%20Threat.pdf

Terrorism in Context: Assessing Risks and Solutions. David Colt, Economists for Peace & Security http://www.proteusfund.org/spwg/pdfs/Terrorism%20In%20The%20Context
%20of%20Other%20Threats.pdf

The Mainstream Media Project is promoting the booklet, and arranging interviews for the authors of the essays. If you would like to read more about the compendium, see what the cover will look like, or book one of the authors for an interview, please visit: http://www.mainstream-media.net/alerts/current_alert.cfm?id=216

The journal is aimed at non-specialist readers, including policy analysts, policy and decision makers, national and international civil servants, members of the armed forces and of peacekeeping services, the business community, members of non-governmental organizations and religious institutions, and others. Contributions are scholarly-based, but written in a general-interest style.

Issues of the journal generally are theme-based and contributions are by invitation only; however, readers are invited to write to the editors (editors@epsjournal.org.uk) with proposals for a specific contribution or theme-based symposium (2 - 4 papers). Short letters of less than 500 words commenting on the published pieces are welcome.

The first issue is based on the ECAAR Review 2003, "Conflict or Development" (http://www.epsjournal.org.uk/Vol1/No1/issue.php). Volume 1, No. 2 is entitled "Peacemaking and Peacekeeping." These two issues are available free of charge as an introduction to the journal.

Annual subscription rates for future issues are as follows:

• Standard £22/$40/E€34;
• EPS members £16/$30/E€25;
• Unwaged/Developing countries £11/$20/E€17;
• Institutional £55/$100/E€85.
  

Fact Sheets: Periodically, we release these two-sided fact sheets designed to give an accessible, graphic look at one specific issue of concern to our members and constituency.

Global Arms Trade 2004 examines the world's supplies of conventional weapons and small arms. http://www.epsusa.org/publications/factsheets/globalarmstrade.pdf

Military vs. Social Spending: Warfare or Human Welfare compares US and global military spending with the costs of achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals. http://www.epsusa.org/publications/factsheets/milexMDG.pdf

The ECAAR Review 2003: Conflict or Development? This edition has a regional focus on Africa, the site of most of the world's current armed conflicts. In its pages some of the leading economists of the day analyze and reflect on the relationships among military spending, domestic and foreign policy, security, and human welfare. Features include country studies, sections on business and conflict, and “Trends in World Military Expenditure.” Written in clear English, with informative maps, tables, and graphs, the series is designed to inform the debate among policymakers, activists, journalists, academics, students, and citizens worldwide.

To order the Review, please email Thea Harvey (theaharvey@epsusa.org).

The Review can be a valuable tool in teaching economics, political science, and international relations courses. If you are interested in teaching this book, please contact Thea Harvey (theaharvey@epsusa.org) for a copy to review.

Data Resource webpage offers links to data sources for:

• International military expenditure and conflict indicators
• US military expenditure and capabilities
• Western Europe
• Russia

http://www.epsusa.org/network/data.htm. If you know of a data source that you feel should be added to our list, please contact our webmaster, Leilah Ward at leilahward@epsusa.org

Our annual alternative gifts suggestions:

Of course, we think one of the best gifts you can give to your colleagues and loved ones is a gift membership in EPS. Donations in any amount can be made easily and securely online at https://www.chi-cash-advance.com/sforms/appeal196/contribute.asp. We will send your recipient a beautiful card announcing the gift, as well as a year of EPS Quarterly and all the other benefits of membership.

Other ways to give a gift that gives back:

• Amnesty International and Unicef offer gift catalogs with proceeds going to their programs.
• Carbon offset companies offer little gift packages if you offset your recipient's tailpipe emissions for a year. A couple of the many organizations that offer carbon offset gift packages: http://www.nigelsecostore.com/acatalog/Carbon_gift_pack.html or http://www.carbon-clear.com/giftpack.php
• Through organizations like Oxfam or Heifer International you can give a cow, a garden or an emergency toilet to help people in developing countries establish sustainable economic systems.
• Or try visiting or even organizing an alternative gift fair. http://www.newdream.org/holiday/altgift.php

Complex 2030 Public Comment period. The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is responsible for maintaining the United States’ nuclear weapons arsenal, has outlined a plan to establish a smaller, more efficient nuclear weapons complex able to respond to future challenges. They call this plan Complex 2030, because its goal is to achieve "a world where a smaller, safer, more secure stockpile, with assured reliability over the long term, is backed by an industrial and design capability to respond to changing technical, geopolitical or military needs" by the year 2030.

Read the NNSA press release announcing the program: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/newsreleases/2006/PR_2006-10-19_NA-06-38.htm

The Department is required to engage in a period of public comment about the project. The Supplement to the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement—Complex 2030 public comment period runs from October 19, 2006 to January 17, 2007. Since EPS is registered with the Deptartment of Energy as an organization interested in nuclear weapons issues, we have been invited to participate in the process. If you would like to contribute comments through the formal PEIS process, please visit: http://www.complex2030peis.com/

There will also be a series of public hearings. For a schedule of the hearings, please see: http://www.ananuclear.org/Bombplex/CalendarOfHearings.doc

This plan indicates that the United States is preparing to produce new nuclear weapons, which is is illegal under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Article VI of the NPT, of which the United States is both a signatory and a chief architect, states that the United States is obligated to engage in effective multilateral efforts leading to nuclear disarmament. By defying international law and building a new generation of nuclear weapons, the United States is hindering international non-proliferation initiatives and crippling international nuclear disarmament efforts.

More explanation of the program is available at: http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=2159&issue_id=51

To contact your representatives in Congress and the Senate, and let them know what you think about building new nuclear weapons, please visit: http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/issues/alert/?alertid=9181121&queueid=967567181

Anyone who would be willing to put an EPS flyer up on a departmental bulletin board or similar venue, please contact Thea Harvey at theaharvey@epsusa.org.

February 2, 2007. The study group on the Economics of Security, co-sponsored by The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs, the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute, and the Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, presents Jack Snyder, Columbia University.

This session will be held at The New School, 66 West 12th Street, Room 510, New York, NY. Coffee and light snacks will be served at 1:30pm; discussion will begin promptly at 2:00pm and will end no later than 4:00pm.

February 23 - 25, 2007. Eastern Economics Association meetings. New York, NY. http://www.iona.edu/eea/ Please see above for EPS activities at the meetings.

February 24, 2007. The Henry George School of Social Science will celebrate its 75th Anniversary with a free buffet dinner during the Eastern Economics Association (EEA) meetings in New York, NY. EPS members are invited to attend. Contact Alanna Hartzok at earthrts@pa.net or (717) 264-0957 to register. More information about the school can be found at http://www.henrygeorgeschool.org/index.html

March 15 - 18, 2007. 63rd International Atlantic Economic Conference in Madrid, Spain. http://www.iaes.org/conferences/future/madrid_63/index.htm

July 12 - 14, 2007. The 11th Annual Conference on Economics & Security will take place in Bristol, UK, sponsored by Economists for Peace and Security, the Arms Production and Trade Group, the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol. The conference will have a public lecture, plenary sessions with keynote speakers, plus specialist workshop streams.

Call for papers: http://carecon.org.uk/Conferences/Conf2007/Call2007.pdf

To keep up with conference developments, visit: http://carecon.org.uk/Conferences/Conf2007/CONF2007.html

If you have enjoyed this issue of EPS NewsNotes, or if you wish to support our mission, please consider making a donation to EPS. You can do so securely online through our website or by sending a check to:

Economists for Peace and Security
at the Levy Economics Institute
Box 5000
Annandale on Hudson, NY 12504
USA

If you have any questions call (845) 758-0917, or email info@epsusa.org

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