Index for Volume 7, Issue 3 October - December 1995

Preparing for the next evolutionary leap

Fourth International Dialogue on the Transition to a Global Society, meeting outside of Washington, D.C., considers how to smooth the path to a peaceful future.

Science, religion and the strategy for global development

PERSPECTIVE -- The tasks entailed in the development of a global society call for levels of capacity far beyond anything the human race has so far been able to muster. Reaching these levels will require an enormous expansion in access to knowledge, on the part of individuals and social organizations alike.

Reforesting a mountain desert on Bolivia's altiplano

In the Andes mountains just to the west of this central Bolivian city is the altiplano: a high, ruggged plataeu on which only the hardiest of peoples can survive. Graduates of the Dorothy Baker Environmental Studies Center from four communities in Tapacari Province have organized their friends and neighbors to help build more than 2,000 small check dams during 1994 and 1995 -- dams which promise to improve the harsh environment here.

New York seminar focuses on the role of an international force

NEW YORK -- At a special one-day seminar on restructuring the United Nations, representatives form select government missions, NGOs and UN agencies generally agreed that the upgrading of UN peacekeeping operations into a genuine international force will be required if the UN is to become more effective at containing war.

In Berlin, NGOs consider the possiblities for global governance

BERLIN -- Representatives from European non-governmental organizations (NGOs) called for a variety of mearsures to reform and restructure the United Nations and the international order at a special one-day forum on global governance, held here on 20 September 1995.

United Nations General Assembly again expresses concern over human rights in Iran

UNITED NATIONS -- Citing reports of high numbers of executions, the absence of due legal process, and the discriminatory treatment of religious minorities, the United Nations General Assembly has once again passed a resolution expressing concern over the human rights situation in Iran.

In San Francisco, the Association for Bahá'í Studies considers the prospects for "Uniting the Nations"

SAN FRANCISCO -- More than 800 people attended the 19th Annual Conference of the Association for Bahá'í Studies, held here in October in commemoration of the signing of the United Nations Charter in this Pacific coast city some 50 years ago.

Does good science require a leap of faith?

REVIEW -- In his new book, The Universe Within: An Exploration of the Human Spirit, Anjam Khursheed opens a penetrating exploration of the inherent harmonies between science and religion with a deceptively simple question: what is this thing called self-awareness?