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Issues & Experts Archive > Earthquakes, great apes, and B.C. Rail — issues and experts
Earthquakes, great apes, and B.C. Rail — issues and experts
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November 26, 2003
Getting caught in the big one…Concern over the ability of their children’s schools to withstand a major earthquake has some White Rock parents shaken. Their concerns were raised recently when, by chance, school officials found that White Rock Elementary was so unprepared for an earthquake it had to be closed until it was seismically upgraded. SFU earthquake expert John Clague can comment on the pervasiveness of this problem in Lower Mainland schools and offer some thoughts on the urgency with which schools should be upgraded.
Saving the great apes…A meeting in Paris this week is expected to prompt the creation of a conservation project aimed at saving the world’s great apes, which are disappearing even from protected areas in Africa and Southeast Asia. United Nations agencies are expected to appeal for millions for the Great Apes Survival Project. SFU archaeology professor Birute Galdikas, a world authority on orangutans, says the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation helped prompt the latest effort to save the animals. She can talk about the crisis and how the project might help.
Pros and cons of privatizing BC Rail…No sooner had the provincial Liberals announced that it was letting CN Rail take over BC Rail’s freight operations than the NDP started railing against the sell off. New NDP leader Carole James warns the deal spells massive job losses. BC Rail, until now, was a government-owned railway, linking northern BC and the Cariboo with the Lower Mainland. SFU business professor Aidan Vining maintains BC Rail’s privatization, in the long run, will be a good move.
New leader for the NDP…For the second consecutive time a woman is holding down the top job in the provincial NDP. Carole James, the former head of the BC School Trustees Association, has succeeded Joy MacPhail as the leader of BC's NDP. SFU political scientist Patrick Smith, has been following the provincial NDP’s evolution since the fall of Glen Clark’s government, with particular interest in the outcome of the current leadership race. Smith can look at the potential political fortunes of the new leader.
Brinkman leads genome forum…SFU assistant professor of molecular biology Fiona Brinkman leads the next in a series of public forums connected to The Geee! In Genome exhibition currently on at Science World. The Gene Scene panel discussions feature renowned Canadian scientists, policy-makers and ethicists on aspects of 21st century life science related to genetics. Brinkman will talk about microbes as disease causing agents on December 3 at 7 p.m. Her talk will also deal with breakthroughs in conquering bacterial resistance to antibiotics. The public panel discussions continue until December 17, while the exhibition runs through January, 2004.
- John Clague, 604.291.4924; jclague@sfu.ca
Saving the great apes…A meeting in Paris this week is expected to prompt the creation of a conservation project aimed at saving the world’s great apes, which are disappearing even from protected areas in Africa and Southeast Asia. United Nations agencies are expected to appeal for millions for the Great Apes Survival Project. SFU archaeology professor Birute Galdikas, a world authority on orangutans, says the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation helped prompt the latest effort to save the animals. She can talk about the crisis and how the project might help.
- Birute Galdikas, 604.291.3225; 604.537.7022 (cell)
Pros and cons of privatizing BC Rail…No sooner had the provincial Liberals announced that it was letting CN Rail take over BC Rail’s freight operations than the NDP started railing against the sell off. New NDP leader Carole James warns the deal spells massive job losses. BC Rail, until now, was a government-owned railway, linking northern BC and the Cariboo with the Lower Mainland. SFU business professor Aidan Vining maintains BC Rail’s privatization, in the long run, will be a good move.
- Aidan Vining, vining@sfu.ca (more accessible by email), 604.291.5249
New leader for the NDP…For the second consecutive time a woman is holding down the top job in the provincial NDP. Carole James, the former head of the BC School Trustees Association, has succeeded Joy MacPhail as the leader of BC's NDP. SFU political scientist Patrick Smith, has been following the provincial NDP’s evolution since the fall of Glen Clark’s government, with particular interest in the outcome of the current leadership race. Smith can look at the potential political fortunes of the new leader.
- Patrick Smith, 604.291.3088, 604.291.1544, patrick_smith@sfu.ca
Brinkman leads genome forum…SFU assistant professor of molecular biology Fiona Brinkman leads the next in a series of public forums connected to The Geee! In Genome exhibition currently on at Science World. The Gene Scene panel discussions feature renowned Canadian scientists, policy-makers and ethicists on aspects of 21st century life science related to genetics. Brinkman will talk about microbes as disease causing agents on December 3 at 7 p.m. Her talk will also deal with breakthroughs in conquering bacterial resistance to antibiotics. The public panel discussions continue until December 17, while the exhibition runs through January, 2004.
- Fiona Brinkman, 604.291.5646, brinkman@sfu.ca