Bangkok Post - Wednesday, December 01, 2004

The International Peace Foundation is holding its second series of 'Bridges _ Dialogues Towards a Culture of Peace' events to promote Thailand as a centre for dialogue and international understanding. The first series was held between November 2003 to April 2004 and featured more than 100 events with 10 Nobel Laureates as well as other keynote speakers and artists including Rev Jesse Jackson, Prof Marcia Haydee, Isamel Ivo, Dame Anita Roddick and Jessye Norman who came to Thailand to help promote the cause.

The second series will present an additional 150 lectures, seminars, discussions, workshops and performances, and be hosted in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Chon Buri, Kanchanaburi, Khon Kaen and Nakhon Ratchasima between December and April 2005.

For more information about the events visit www.peace-foundation.net

All are welcome and admission is free.

Here is the schedule for December:

- Keynote Speaker: Prof Clive Granger, the Nobel Laureate for Economics of 2003.

His methods are applied to the analysis of the relationships between wealth and consumption, exchange rates and price levels, and short and long-term interest rates. It is said that it's virtually impossible to do empirical work in time series economics without using his methods.

Topic : The Economics of Peace.

Date and Venue: December 7 at 2pm at Siam University; December 8 at 2pm at the Bangkok University and December 9 at 2pm at Chiang Mai University.

- Keynote Speaker: Prof Cohen-Tannoudji, the Nobel Laureate for Physics.

He developed methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. This may lead to applications such as more precise atomic clocks and atom lasers, which may be used for, for example, space navigation and in the developing field of quantum information.

Topic : Manipulating Atoms with Light.

Date and Venue: December 7 at Chiang Mai University at 2pm; December 8 at the Asian Institute of Technology at 10am and December 9 at 10:30am at the Asian University of Science and Technology.

- Keynote Speaker: Prof Kurt Wuthrich, the Nobel Laureate for Chemistry.

Discovering a way to use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) on proteins, giving researchers a method to reveal the structure of proteins in solution and obtain information about their function in cells. This method has revolutionised the development of new pharmaceuticals and may be used in the future in a variety of other applications. The possibility of analyzing proteins in detail has led to an increased understanding of the processes of life.

Topic :Structures of the Molecules of Life _ Impact on Modern Biomedical Research

Date and Venue: December 13 at 2pm at Mahidol University; December 14 at 2pm at Srinakharinwirot University, December 15 at 2pm at Chiang Mai University.

- Keynote Speaker :Prof Yuan T Lee, the Nobel Laureate for Chemistry.

His work led to a new field of research _ reaction dynamics _ and his newly developed methods have provided a much more detailed view of how chemical reactions take place. His most recent work investigates reaction dynamics, photochemical processes and molecular spectroscopy.

Topic: Science, Technology and Peace on Earth.

Date and Venue: December 16 at 2pm at Mahidol University, December 17 at 2pm at Suranaree University of Technology.

Stay tuned for details of upcoming programmes.