Civil war on horizon
SFU international security expert Andre Gerolymatos is watching the situation in Syria very closely as the country is slowly drifting towards a civil war. Government security forces continue to battle activists who want to oust Syrian Prime Minister Adel Safar. "Syria may be the spark that will ignite a new series of crises involving the U.S., Iran, Israel and Turkey,” says Gerolymatos.

Andre Gerolymatos, 604.728.2712 (cell), agerolym@sfu.ca

DFO science on the chopping block
Responding to a Department of Fisheries and Oceans report forecasting huge cuts at the science bench, SFU biologist Arne Mooers says: “We have been worried about reduced scientific capacity at DFO for years now…DFO is seen to wear both a science and a policy hat.” Moores questions which hat is dictating these cuts. “If a policy agenda interferes with what science is done and how it is reported, that science loses all credibility. The science that informs how we manage our resources has to be very clearly separated — ring-fenced, fire-walled — from how policy-makers use that information to do the actual managing.  For example, one can ignore scientific evidence if one thinks that is in the best interests of society at the appropriate time, but it needs to be clear that that is what is being done.” Mooers is also co-author of a new think-tank report on diseased salmon in B.C.

Arne Moores, 778.782.3979, 778.782.4649, amooers@sfu.ca