UNESCO Director-General Frederico Mayor will be coming for an official visit to Russia from May 13 to 16. Mr. Mayor is scheduled to participate in several UNESCO events in Moscow, including the opening of the symposium Science and the Citizen, the Bolshoi/UNESCO Project fund-raising campaign launch, a meeting of Mayors for Peace on the occasion of the International Forum For the Culture of Peace and Dialogue among Civilizations in the Third Millenium, a World Technological University conference, and a speaking engagement at the Institute of Youth.

Science and the Citizen symposium will bring together some 20 persons, including scientists, policy-makers and mayors and will provide recommendations and input for the forthcoming «World Science Conference.» «Science and the Citizen» is being organized jointly by UNESCO and International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), to take place in Budapest from June 26 to July 1 this year.

The Director-General will participate in an opening ceremony, launching the Bolshoi/UNESCO Project fund-raising campaign. The opening ceremony and special events are scheduled to take place on May 13. The calendar of events includes: a press conference following the opening ceremony, an afternoon reception and a gala performance of ‘La Boheme’, honouring Mr. Mayor. The goal of this fund-raising campaign launch is to raise awareness of the Bolshoi/UNESCO Project and to increase its visibility to potential donors and foundations, attracting both private and corporate patrons.

The ‘Mayors for Peace’ International Forum ‘For a Culture of Peace and Dialogue among Civilizations in the Third Millenium’ is to take place from 13 to 16 May with the participation of members of the Government of the Russian Federation and mayors of Russia’s largest cities.

The World Technological University operates under the aegis of UNESCO and was created to promote the international integration of systems of engineering, education and scientific research with a view to solving global problems of sustainable development. The purpose of the conference will be to further the development of the University and to forge new links between technology and scientific entities.

The Manifesto 2000 for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence, launched March 4 in Paris by UNESCO Director-General Frederico Mayor and Nobel Peace Prize laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Guatemala and Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina, is part of UNESCO’s preparations for the International Year of Peace in 2000. The movement and Manifesto promise to be another of the many successful efforts in promoting a global grass-roots movement for a culture of peace. The purpose of the Manifesto is to encourage personal commitment to values of peace, sharing and solidarity by collecting signatures worldwide. The six points of the Manifesto uphold the values of: respect for life and dignity of every person; practicing non-violence; sharing time and material resources in a spirit of generosity to put an end to exclusion, injustice and political and economic oppression; defending freedom of expression and cultural diversity; promoting responsible consumer behaviour; contributing to community development with the full participation of women and respect for democratic principles in order to create together new forms of solidarity.

The goal is of the Manifesto is to present 100 million signatures to the United Nations General Assembly meeting at the turn of the millenium in September 2000. The UNESCO Moscow Office has made the Manifesto and its six points an integral part of its Culture of Peace Programme activities. The Manifesto will soon appear in Russian, as well as other languages, on the worldwide web and UNESCO encourages its reproduction and distribution.

To read – and sign – the Manifesto, see on the Internet

www.unesco.org/manifesto2000.

www.culture.of.peace.ru

The UNESCO Moscow Office held a workshop on the Lake Baikal Law which was approved unanimously by the State Duma last March to discuss it from the point of view of its conformity to international standards and recommendations. The Lake Baikal, the largest, deepest and oldest fresh water lake on Earth was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996, provided that a law protecting the area would be adopted in the nearest future. Some leading figures of the Parliament Committee on Ecology, two international experts, Director of the Moscow Office, as well as representatives of the Government of the Irkutsk Region, took part in the event.

The discussions took place on the basis of the text of the revised Baikal Law and on the comments provided prior to the meeting by Mr. Gerd Winter, a legal expert of the University of Bremen, Mrs. Mirelle Jardin, a legal expert of the Divsion of Ecological Sciences, UNESCO, Paris, Dr. Lothar Gundling, a legal expert from Heidelberg, Germany, Mrs. Jennie Sutton from the Baikal Environment Wave and Mr. Roman Pukalov, the Russian section of Greenpeace International. The participants of the workshop came to the conclusion that despite the very general manner in which the goals and principles are framed in the revised text of the Law, it is liable to establish an effective and protective regime thanks to the introduction of concepts of the ecological zones of the Baikal natural territory as well as of the articles dealing with the activities banned or limited in the same territory, norms of maximum permissible noxious impacts on the ecological system of Lake Baikal and procedure of closure or reprofilling of environmentally dangerous enterprises.

After the final adoption of the Law by the Duma it will be submitted for approval to the Council of the Federation, Upper Chamber, and afterwards submitted to President Boris Yeltsin for his signature. The workshop recommended that UNESCO provide support for the Law and pointed out that its coming into force would be an important first step towards the establishing of a real protection system of Lake Baikal as a World Heritage Site.