Uniken

Creator
University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit
Call Number
Nf 378.944 UNI
Created/Published
Kensington, N.S.W. : University of New South Wales, [1975]-2015
Issue
1996, no. 18 (25 Oct., 1996)
Images
12
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Text

Uni ken  

UNSW  

No. 418 (No. 18 of 1996  

Fortnightly  

25 October 1996  

• The changing face  

of universities  

PAGE  

• UNSW vaccine project  

goes commercial  

PAGE  

• More to Olympics  

than just sport  

PAGE  

Nobel winner will help  

the mouse roar louder  

One of the catchcries of UNSW’s Di-  

plomacy Training Program when it  

was formed in 1989 was ‘Teaching  

mice to roar”. That roar may now take on  

deafening sound since the announcement  

that program founder, Visiting Professor to  

the Faculty of Law, Jose Ramos-Horta. has  

won the Nobel Peace Prize.  

The prize was jointly shared by two promi-  

nent opponents of Indonesian rule in East  

Timor, Professor Ramos-Horta and the is-  

land’s Catholic Bishop, Carlos Filipe  

Ximenes Carlos Belo. The former Portu-  

guese colony of East Timor was annexed  

by Indonesia in 1975. UNSW bestowed its  

own award on Jose after learning he had  

become Nobel laureate.  

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor John  

Niland, announced at special meeting  

with Jose at the university on 14 October  

that his title of Honorary Associate with the  

Faculty of Law would be elevated to Visit-  

ing Professor status.  

Professor Ramos-Horta, who holds Mas-  

ters degree in international relations, told  

Uniken that he was greatly honoured to  

have UNSW’s new title bestowed upon  

him and he fully intended to maintain his  

“happy association” with the Faculty of  

Law. He was founder and later Executive  

Director of the innovative Diplomacy Train-  

ing Program and is now board member of  

the program and continues to teach in its  

courses and work for it during his travels  

overseas.  

The program aims to teach indigenous peo-  

ples and national minorities how to “play  

the system” when trying to make their  

voices heard in the international arena.  

Hence, the early catchcry of teaching the  

mouse to roar.  

Participants in the month-long certificate  

courses have come from variety of coun-  

tries including Australia, Philippines,  

Tibet, West Papua, New Caledonia, Palau,  

East Timor, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Viet-  

nam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma and El  

Salvador. Some of the courses are run at  

UNSW and others are held off-shore.  

Professor Ramos-Horta will be one of the  

participants at the next course which is to  

be conducted in the Philippines in January  

1997. Those taking part will study interna-  

tional law, the laws of human rights, theory  

and practice of diplomacy, regional organi-  

sations, effective use of the media,  

negotiation, lobbying, the United Nations  

system and environmental laws.  

Towards the end of the courses, partici-  

pants will be involved in an all-day United  

Nations Security Council role-playing class.  

One of the founders of the program, Professor  

Garth Nettheim, of the Faculty of Law, said  

the program was intended to support United  

Nations ideals regarding human rights.  

The chairperson of the Diplomacy Training  

Program and Head of the School of Law,  

Ms Susan Armstrong, said the Nobel Peace  

Prize award to Jose was well deserved  

recognition for his fight for East Timorese  

freedom from Indonesia’s military rule and  

at the same time would provide great fil-  

lip for those involved with the training  

program.  

“It will really help put the spotlight on the  

work of the program and what we are try-  

ing to achieve,” Ms Armstrong said.  

The Faculty of Law celebrated the honour  

to Professor Ramos-Horta with special  

school lunch on 21 October.  

The self-proclaimed exiled foreign minister  

who has been fighting for self-determina-  

tion for the people of East Timor is finding  

that his calendar is quickly filling up with  

appointments. On 26 October he will meet  

Australia’s Foreign Minister, Alexander  

Downer.  

Professor Ramos-Horta is more than confi-  

dent that democracy will be put in place in  

East Timor by the turn of the century.  

“And, unlike the complex Middle East situ-  

ation, the island of East Timor is much more  

homogeneous,” Professor Ramos-Horta said.  

“There should be no difficulty putting the  

democratic processes into place.”  

Professor Ramos-Horta will receive the  

Nobel Peace Prize and his share of the  

$1.42 million prizemoney at ceremony in  

Oslo on 10 December, the 100th anniver-  

sary of the death of the Swedish inventor  

and prize creator, Alfred Nobel.  

He said he would not personally take any  

of the prizemoney and proposed to use  

half of the money in setting up an East  

Timor Foundation to assist East Timorese  

institutions abroad and the remainder to  

assist Timorese prisoners and also the  

Burmese people.  

Medical researchers given $1/2m spectrometers  

Sometimes the nicest things happen to  

mass spectrometrists. For those who  

run UNSW’s Biomedical Mass  

Spectrometry Unit, their happy event was  

the unconditional gift of over $500,000  

worth of state-of-the-art mass spectrometers.  

As result of restructuring of some re-  

search facilities at St Vincent’s Hospital,  

teaching hospital of UNSW, two mass  

spectrometers were transferred to the  

BMSU to complement the unit’s already  

extensive capability.  

The mass spectrometers had been donated  

to St Vincent’s by Mr Ray Williams, the  

Chief Executive of HIH Winterthur, one of  

Australia’s largest insurance companies,  

who was more than happy that they be  

moved to UNSW.  

But Mr Williams at the same time donated  

new Hewlett-Packard “Engine” mass  

spectrometer to the unit. This instrument,  

which cost over $300,000, brought the value  

of the three instruments he gave to UNSW  

to about $550,000 and added considerably  

to the research capacity of the BMSU.  

In particular, the instruments provided by  

Mr Williams have added the capacity for  

quantitative analysis of low-molecular-  

weight compounds, particularly those  

forming negative ions. This mode of opera-  

tion has been used to analyse nitrates and  

nitrites and complements the unit’s previ-  

ous capacity for investigating proteins,  

polymers and other large molecules.  

Associate Professor Mark Duncan, Director  

of the BMSU, and Dr George Smythe, the  

mass spectrometrist from St Vincent’s Hos-  

pital, who joined the BMSU in February,  

now claim that their unit is the best-  

equipped biomedical mass spectroscopy  

facility in Australia.  

Professor Duncan said Dr Smythe had  

brought wealth of experience to UNSW.  

“For just over 20 years Dr Smythe worked  

at St Vincent’s.  

During that time he published over 100 ref-  

ereed papers and he also formed strong  

working relationship with Mr Williams  

when Mr Williams began including St  

Vincent’s in the wide range of his philan-  

thropic interests,” Professor Duncan said.  

Continued on page  

Inside  

Snippets  

Diary  

Sport 12  

At function to mark the installation of the Hewlett-Packard Engine mass  

spectrometer, Mr Williams (centre of photo) was warmly thanked by (from left)  

Professor Darty Glover, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine; Associate Professor  

Duncan; Professor Tony Wicken, UNSW's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic  

Affairs); and (seated) Dr Smythe. Photo courtesy Medical Illustration Unit.  

The Dean of Law, Professor Paul Redmond, Ms Armstrong, Visiting Professor  

Ramos-Horta and the Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Niland met at UNSW on 14  

October after Professor Ramos-Horta was announced joint winner of the Nobel  

Peace Prize.  

Cite

Citation options:
Work identifier

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254111221

APA citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit & University of New South Wales, issuing body. (1975). Uniken Retrieved May 18, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254111221

MLA citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit and University of New South Wales, issuing body. Uniken Kensington, N.S.W: University of New South Wales, 1975. Web. 18 May 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254111221>

Harvard/Australian citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit & University of New South Wales, issuing body. 1975, Uniken University of New South Wales, Kensington, N.S.W viewed 18 May 2025 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254111221

Wikipedia citation

{{Citation
  | author1=University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit.
  | author2=University of New South Wales, issuing body.
  | title=Uniken.
  | year=1975
  | section=volumes : illustrations ; 30-43 cm.
  | issn=0312-7877
  | issue=1996, no. 18 (25 Oct., 1996)
  | location=Kensington, N.S.W
  | publisher=University of New South Wales
  | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254111221
  | id=nla.obj-254111221
  | access-date=18 May 2025
  | via=Trove
}}

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