The Cambridge Millenium Conference proceedings were finally published earlier in the year*. At the same time, final accounts for the conference have been drawn up, showing that, of a total cost to ourselves as hosts of some £130,000, over £110,000 was received as donations, with the balance being covered by the British Pugwash Trust. The Committee has expressed our gratitude to the 27 various sponsors and donors, all of whom have been sent copies of the Proceedings.

Two public meetings have been organized during the year. With the help of Sir Martin Rees, as their President, we were able to arrange a lunchtime Pugwash session during the annual British Association meeting, in Glasgow on 5th September, on the topic of British Nuclear Weapons: Where Next?. This was addressed by Sir Hugh Beach and Sir Joseph Rotblat, and chaired by Dr Bas Pease. It attracted some 45 participants and was felt to be a successful occasion, not least for widening the Pugwash audience.

The main annual public meeting -The Answer to Global Warming: A Plague of Windmills or Nuclear Proliferation?, on 17th December at the Royal Society, attracted over 100 participants (boosted by a substantial contingent from Student Pugwash) and gave rise to some very active discussion, ably chaired by Sir Eric Ash.

Our research study on Eliminating British Nuclear Weapons, has been proceeding well. A presentation of its findings will be given following this year's AGM and a final report is expected to be published, and widely distributed, later in the year. In the course of the study the Working Group made a very productive visit to AWE Aldermaston, and the group were particularly grateful to Dr John Rae, Chief Executive of AWE Management, and Messrs Tim Hare and Paul Roper, respectively Director of Nuclear Policy and Dirctor of Strategic Technology, MoD, for their hospitality and participation in the discussions.

At its meeting in the following week, the Committee considered its response to the events of the 11th September. It was felt that the most effective route for this would be through international Pugwash (as communicated in a letter from our Chairman to the Secretary General). Disappointingly, there has been no specific response to our proposal but a Council statement on The Dangers of Nuclear Terrorism has been widely distributed and is published on the Pugwash website. Earlier in the year the Chairman, at the Committees's request, had been in correspondence with MoD over our concern with developments in "Ballistic Missile Defence".

Particularly welcome has been the continued growth and activity of British Student Pugwash. One of their members, Carsten Rohr, has been co-opted as a liason member of our Committee, and their group organized a very successful two-day conference in Oxford, immediately prior to our December annual public meeting.

As foreshadowed in our last report, the British Group (and also the Student Group) now have websites - to be found as sections of www.pugwash.org.

Future Plans

Plans are being made to hold a single- or half-day meeting, provisionally in November, on What Future for Arms Control? Further details should be available shortly.

We have been asked to host an international Pugwash workshop on No First Use. This is planned to take place in London over the weekend 8th - 10th November and it is hoped, as usual on these occasions, that one of the sessions will be open for attendance by interested British Pugwash Group members. Again, further details will be announced nearer the time.

In view of the considerable and time-consuming hospitality extended by AWE Aldermaston to our British Nuclear Weapons study group, as mentioned above, we have felt that it would be unreasonable to press in the immediate future for a members' visit to the Threat Reduction Unit there, as had been envisaged earlier. We therefore shall try to arrange this at some time in the coming year.

On the international scene, the Pugwash Annual Conference that had been scheduled for November 2001, in India, was postponed to March 2002, at the request of some Americans in the aftermath of September 11th. The next Quinquennial Conference, open to all Pugwashites, has been arranged for 9th - 14th August in La Jolla, California. It will be the occasion, inter alia, for election of new President, Secretary General and Council

*Note: The Cambridge conference proceedings, comprising six sets of essays based on workshop themes, are published in Pugwash Occasional Papers, Vol. 2, No. 3, September 2001 (50th Pugwash Conference: Eliminating the Causes of War; Cambridge, UK, August 2000), and can also be found on the website (www.pugwash.org).

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