Hawking to lead anti-war protest on election day
Independent [UK]

10/31/04

Stephen Hawking, Britain's most eminent scientist, has become the latest prominent opponent of the Iraq war by agreeing to take the lead role in a ceremonial protest to coincide with the United States presidential election. Peace protesters will gather in Trafalgar Square at 5pm on Tuesday, where they will read out the names of 5,000 Iraqi men, women and children known to have died in the conflict. The full death toll was put last week as high as 100,000. ... The oldest protester in Trafalgar Square is likely to be a fellow scientist, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Sir Joseph Rotblat. In the 1940s, he resigned from his job developing the world's first atomic bomb on moral grounds. Sir Joseph, who will be 96 on Thursday, said: 'In this nuclear age, we simply cannot allow others to start military action unless everything else has ... been tried and has failed...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=577860


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp