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News from ICTP 83 - Monitor
Albanian President Assails "Cafetarians"
Like the other 100-plus scientists who came to the Centre in late November, Rexhep Meidani was here primarily to honour the memory of Abdus Salam. However, during his visit, he took time out to address some critical issues related to his new job as President of Albania. Meidani held a press conference at the ICTP's Main Building attended by about a dozen representatives from Italy's print and broadcast media. He lamented that his countrymen had fallen victim to a nationwide financial pyramid scheme. Many Albanians, he noted, had come to believe that "work was unnecessary." "My people," Meidani wryly observed, "had become 'cafetarians' deluded by the belief that they could become rich while sitting around all day drinking coffee."
In August, they orbited the Earth for more than a week, travelling some seven million kilometres in space. In November, they visited the ICTP as part of a week-long tour of Germany and Italy designed to thank scientists in both countries for their contributions to the success of Discovery's summer-time mission. On-board the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spaceship was an ultraviolet spectrograph telescope built jointly by the University of Trieste and University of Arizona. Discovery's crew, headed by Lt. Colonel Curtis L. Brown of the U.S. Air Force, consisted of five men and one woman. Among the questions asked by ICTP staff and scientists were these: What's it like to be in space and do you ever suffer from claustrophobia? The answers were "wow" and "no."
The ICTP once again participated in ERA, Esposizione di ricerca avanzata, a biennial scientific exhibition held in Trieste's conference centre. This marked the third ERA exhibition, which is designed to showcase the activities of scientific institutions in the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region and major Italian and European scientific organizations. The Centre's scientific staff also offered six public lectures, largely for high-school students attending the exhibition. In all, the two-week ERA exhibition attracted about 10,000 people. ERA events are organised by Globo Association for Science Popularisation in Trieste.
After serving eight years as the Centre's Senior Administrator, Gianfranco Guerriero has left the ICTP to rejoin his family in Rome. "For the past few years, I've been leaving for Rome on Friday evening and returning to the Centre on Monday morning. I just decided that I've had enough of the grind." On 4 December, one week before Guerriero left, the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific & Technological Research announced that it released an additional 12 billion lire (US $7 million) allocated to the Centre's 1996 and 1997 budget and that it would provide 26 billion lire (US $15 million) in 1998. The decision, which stabilizes the ICTP's annual budget, will allow for more careful planning of the Centre's activities. Miguel Virasoro, the ICTP Director, called the Italian government's announcement "the crowning achievement" of Guerriero's efforts and he extended Guerriero best wishes for the future on behalf of the ICTP.
Hilda Cerdeira, a scientist in the Condensed Matter Group who has been with the Centre since 1986, has agreed to assume responsibility for the ICTP-TWAS Donation Programme. Cerdeira is replacing Hassan Dalafi, a 30-year veteran of the ICTP who has left the Centre to work with UNESCO in Venice. The Donation Programme is designed to distribute books and journals to financially strapped libraries and research centres in the developing world.
Faheem Hussain, a physicist with the High Energy Group
and a coordinator of the Diploma Programme, has become the head
of the Office of External Activities. He is replacing Gallieno
Denardo who retired from the Centre in October (see page 7). Hussain
has been with the ICTP for 7 years. The Office of External Activities,
established in 1985, promotes scientific research in the developing
world through the sponsorship of affiliated centres, networks,
and meetings.
