Ploughshares staff.

On August 26-27 Sarah Estabrooks and Ernie Regehr participated in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) Consultations with CMI Society on Issues Relating to International Security, Nuclear and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Means of Delivery in Ottawa. They both also participated in Space Security Working Group discussions on August 28-29. The Space Security Working Group is coordinated by DFAIT and brings together Canadian government officials, academics, and NGOs in a program of research and information to promote a comprehensive approach to space security that preserves space for peaceful purposes.

Ken Epps met with representatives of Oxfam Great Britain and Saferworld in London, UK on September 5 to advance a joint project of the two British NGOs and Project Ploughshares. The project, funded by the UK Department for International Development, will review the impact of arms transfers on sustainable development in order to "operationalize" the relevant principle of the proposed international Arms Trade Treaty.

In September Ernie participated in a conference sponsored by the Africa Peace Forum in Mombassa, Kenya on peace and security in the Horn of Africa.

On September 22, Larissa Fast attended an Ottawa seminar on "Responsibility to Protect and Canadian Defence Policy" sponsored by the World Federalists of Canada and the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC) Peace Operations Working Group.

On September 30 Ernie and Sarah participated in a roundtable on ballistic missile defence (BMD) in Ottawa at which Ernie presented a paper. The roundtable was sponsored by The Simons Centre for Peace and Disarmament Studies, chaired by Lloyd Axworthy, and attended by international experts and Members of Parliament. Following the roundtable Ernie, Lloyd Axworthy, MP John Godfrey, and Aqqalak Lynge, an Inuit MP from Greenland, gave a press conference calling on Canada to reject participation in the US BMD system..

On October 15 Ernie participated in a panel on ballistic missile defence at the Ottawa meetings of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Canadian Council of Churches.

Ernie presented a paper on small arms demand issues on October 16 in New York at a roundtable held at the Canadian Mission to the United Nations, sponsored jointly by the Canadian Mission and the Quaker UN office and chaired by Amb. Paul Heinbecker.

On October 17 Emie presented a paper, jointly written with Sarah Estabrooks, on reporting requirements in the Non-Proliferation Treaty at a panel at UN Headquarters chaired by Canada's Ambassador for Disarmament, Paul Meyer.

Ken organized and participated in meetings on the proposed Arms Trade Treaty in Washington on October 19-21. Project Ploughshares is working with NGO partners, the Arias Foundation in Costa Rica, Viva Rio in Brazil, and the Women's Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) in Trinidad and Tobago, to promote Arms Trade Treaty-based common principles on small arms exports within the Organization of American States (OAS).

On October 22 Ernie gave a talk on directions for Canadian defence policy in the Perspectives Series at the Mississauga Campus of the University of Toronto.

On October 23 and 24, Larissa and Peter Whelan attended the Annual Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee Consultations in Ottawa. Following the consultations Larissa participated in a meeting in Ottawa with representatives from the US, Mexico, and Latin America related to the planning of an international NGO conference on conflict prevention in 2005.

On October 30 Ernie spoke on Canadian security policy to a meeting of the Canadian Religious Conference and Kairos in Toronto.

Ernie participated in meetings in New York hosted by the World Council of Churches for UN diplomats during the week of November 10. He moderated a panel on the responsibility to protect and presented an overview of current disarmament priorities for the international ecumenical movement.

As a first step in designing a study resource on intervention for churches, Larissa organized a consultation in Toronto on November 14 with staff from the churches that sponsor Project Ploughshares.

On November 15 Larissa presented seminars in Kitchener on The Responsibility to Protect, the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, for the annual Challenge for Change program of the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.

On November 24-25 Sarah participated in a meeting of the Space Security Working Group at the Eisenhower Institute in Washington, DC.

In mid-December Ernie participated in a series of meetings in Geneva. Project Ploughshares, with the support of its Anti-Nuclear-War Fund, co-sponsored a conference with the United Nations NGO Committee on Disarmament and the International Peace Bureau on the state of the Non-Proliferation Treaty regime. He also participated in a consultation on small arms and human security sponsored by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.