The current issue of PLoS Computational Biology features a paper on how a science like computational biology can be promoted in a developing country like Cuba.
For details, see

Pons T, Montero LA, Febles JP (2007) Computational Biology in Cuba: An Opportunity to Promote Science in a Developing Country. PLoS Comput Biol 3(11): e227
doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030227 (Open Access).

Physics Today, June 2007
http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_6/36_1...

Issues and Events: Chemical society reinstates ousted Iranian members

June 2007, page 36
Last December the American Chemical Society rescinded the memberships of 36 scientists in Iran and 1 in Sudan, claiming the move was necessary to adhere to US law. In mid-April the society applied to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for a license to provide membership services to scientists in countries under trade sanctions. Then, in a turnaround, ACS sent a letter in mid-May to the ousted scientists welcoming them back as members.

In a widely circulated letter dated 30 April, ACS executive director and CEO Madeleine Jacobs explains that lawyers reviewed OFAC regulations and consulted with OFAC before advising ACS that providing membership services to sanctioned countries violates US law. Surprisingly, Jacobs says she learned about the expulsions from a 30 March report in Science. "We had a serious breakdown in communications," she writes.

Some ACS members and members of other professional societies were upset that the Iranians were expelled and that Jacobs did not immediately reverse the decision. "A lot of people are getting a lot of letters and e-mails about this, from people in the US and outside," Zafra Lerman, chair of ACS's subcommittee on scientific freedom and human rights, said before the reversal was announced. They are asking, she added, why, if the government did not come to ACS, is ACS taking and standing by this preemptive action? Indeed, OFAC spokesperson Molly Millerwise said, "There hasn't been a new restriction announced by OFAC . . . [but] guidance can be open to interpretation."

Hamid Javadi, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and president of the Iranian-American Physicists Network Group, said, "We are worried that the action by ACS may force other scientific organizations to follow suit." Expelling people "is wrong," he added. "It dismisses the most scientifically educated, independent, critical thinking, and open-minded members of Iran as US OFAC tries to contain the Iranian government."

Other scientific organizations kept an eye on the matter. But Cecelia Jankowski, managing director of regional activities for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers—which was at the center of an earlier publishing battle with OFAC (see PHYSICS TODAY, May 2004, page 28)—said, "We have not seen anything new from OFAC related to membership activities in the past couple of years." Added American Physical Society associate executive officer Alan Chodos, "APS is not planning to do anything similar to what ACS did." Both IEEE and APS have members in Iran.

In her 30 April letter, it seemed Jacobs was not changing the ACS's course of action. But on 11 May, ACS reinstated the 14 ousted Iranian scientists who had been paid-up members. "To express our regret over the disruption of your membership, we are reinstating your ACS membership, and your ACS membership dues for the next 12 months are being paid for you," the society wrote to the former members. The other 22, and the scientist in Sudan, can renew their memberships.

The letter—which ACS officials declined to share, but which was disclosed to PHYSICS TODAY by another source—goes on to say that the reinstatement follows additional contact with OFAC "and our own rigorous review of federal requirements." As for the license application ACS submitted to OFAC, it's still pending, says Jacobs. She adds that ACS "is planning to work with the National Academy of Sciences and other scientific societies to get OFAC to clarify what is and isn't allowed in terms of scientific membership services."

"I can't believe it took so long," Lerman says. "But what ACS did is the right thing. And I am very happy with the solution."

Toni Feder

Chronicle's coverage of the ACS incident is by far the most complete version of the story I know of. I expect it to have some inaccuracies though. read below:
http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/05/2007051403n.htm

American Chemical Society, in Reversal, Reinstates 36 Iranian Members

By BURTON BOLLAG

The American Chemical Society announced on Friday that it had reversed an earlier decision to expel its members in Iran and will allow all 36 scientists in that country to rejoin. The group had earlier said that having such members put the society in violation of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.

The decision to remove the Iranians drew protests from academics, especially from Iranians living in the United States.

But a statement placed on the society's Web site on Friday said that, after further reviewing its legal options and after consulting with the federal agency overseeing the trade sanctions, the society's Board of Directors had decided to reinstate the Iranians.

They will, however, be denied two benefits that other members receive: the group's career-development services, and reduced-price admission to the society's twice-yearly national meetings.

The society's one member in Sudan -- another country under U.S. trade sanctions -- had also been removed and was being invited back with the same restrictions. The society, which has 160,000 members and calls itself the world's biggest scientific association, would not disclose whether its members in Iran and Sudan work for academic institutions, government agencies, or industry.

The society's executive director, Madeleine Jacobs, said the original decision to remove the Iranians and the one Sudanese had been made by midlevel staff members without her knowledge or that of the society's board. She said no employee would be penalized for the action.

"We had a snafu, a breakdown of communications," Ms. Jacobs said in an interview. "We would not have rescinded membership if it had come to my attention." Although the expulsions were carried out in January, Ms. Jacobs said she and the society's other senior officials had learned of the move from an article in the journal Science only at the end of March.

Ms. Jacobs said the whole affair started almost a year ago, when the unidentified member in Sudan inquired about his or her eligibility for all membership benefits despite the U.S. trade laws barring American organizations from doing business with people in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Sudan, among other countries. The society's assistant general counsel, identified in the Science article as David T. Smorodin, conducted a review of U.S. government regulations and determined that the society was prohibited from having members in countries under trade sanctions.

The society then had an outside lawyer contact the agency overseeing the sanctions, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, and, without identifying the chemical society, inquire about restrictions on foreign membership. That inquiry appeared to confirm Mr. Smorodin's conclusion, Ms. Jacobs said, and the midlevel decision was made to rescind membership for the 36 Iranians and one Sudanese.

The decision harked back to a 2003 controversy in which the Treasury Department said it was illegal for American research journals to edit papers from scientists in countries under U.S. trade sanctions -- a policy that was latter rescinded. Since then, the chemical society appears to have been the only scientific group to drop members in those countries, Ms. Jacobs said. But another group, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, cut off nearly all services to its Iranian members to comply with the trade embargo in 2002, leading all but a few hundred of its 1,700 Iranian members to quit (The Chronicle, October 17, 2003). Acting under guidance from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the institute was later able to reinstate most of those services.

Ms. Jacobs said it was understandable that staff members at the society would be concerned about compliance with the law because her group offers a wider range of services than do most scientific societies.

Still, when the chemical society's senior officials and board members learned about the decision, at the end of March, Ms. Jacobs said, they immediately arranged to meet with representatives of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. From those contacts, they concluded that the Iranians and Sudanese could be members if they were denied the two membership benefits from which they are now excluded.

The society has now applied to the Treasury Department office for a license to extend full membership to scientists in countries under trade sanctions. "We want to obey U.S. law while promoting scientific cooperation," said Ms. Jacobs.

The society said it had joined other scientific associations in working with the National Academy of Sciences to try to get clarification from the U.S. government about "what is and what isn't allowed" in terms of academic cooperation with scientists in embargoed countries, said Ms. Jacobs.

As for the Iranians, 22 had simply not been sent membership-renewal notices this spring. But the other 14 Iranians, whose memberships were not up for renewal, had received notices of expulsion. As a gesture to make up for the "personal distress and hardship" that step may have caused, Ms. Jacobs said, the $136 annual membership fee and the $58 annual postage fee for the society's magazine were being paid by an anonymous donor for one year.

Ms. Jacobs said the Iranians and Sudanese were all invited to rejoin in an e-mail message sent on Friday.

Test Tube Zealots

The American Chemical Society Terminates the Membership of Chemists from Iran

By DAVID N. RAHNI

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has once again led the way, with its "zealot" interpretation of "embargo" by the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control, by terminating the membership of its long-standing members in Iran, many of whom are post Ph.D. Alumni of American Universities. Several years ago, the ACS undertook a similar unprecedented action, under the same law. Then, it unilaterally stopped accepting scholarly and research manuscripts from Iranian scientists for its three dozen periodicals in the publication division. However, later, under embarrassing pressure from the American scientific community and its membership, the ACS retracted its decision and agreed to take it up instead with the federal government. Paradoxically and notwithstanding rhetoric, such ill-conceived measures are against the current U.S. Administration policy of promoting people-to-people contact as enunciated by the Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burns at the March 29 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, in Science Magazine, reported that the ACS Assistant General Counsel, David Smorodin when "re-reading the embargo rules, made the recommendation to terminate Iranian membership(Science Magazine, Vol. 315, 30 March 2007). One can not help but speculate whether or not such decision is truly serving the interests of member-based ACS or enforcing the laws to the limit as he has served as a U.S. Assistant District Attorney before joining the ACS. Nonetheless, despite the abrupt termination of individual membership of Iranian chemical scientists with no due process, the ACS has stated that while they [Iranians] can continue to purchase journals and other "non-sensitive products at full-rate, the ACS might apply for a special license from the Treasury Department to reinstate their memberships. This has in the meantime deprived American chemists to learn about the scholarly contributions of their Iranian peers.

It should be noted that as in the past, the American Physical Society (APS), in contrast, stated, "We have NO plan to do anything similar, and continue to serve our members in Iran." Judy Franz, a director at the APS further stated that, "We would resist having to obtain a license to the extent we can."

When interviewed by Science Magazine, the official publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), David Rahni an Iranian-American chemistry professor in New York stated, "I, like most ACS members and peers in the scientific community, strongly question the ACS motive on this issue, and expect ACS,s leadership to refrain from allowing politics to taint the high stature the Organization has achieved." Rahni further stated that this has personally concerned him gravely since he has served the ACS with distinctions in the past thirty years, as typified by his positions as the chair of the ACS New York, the chair of the Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting, and the chair of Nichols Medal. 90% of the ACS projects, publications and activities are run by a huge cadre of volunteer professionals who, with no expectations, give their time, energy, money and intellects and talents to the advancement of the chemical sciences worldwide. It is painfully ironic to many, especially the ACS American members to witness the politicization of their disciplines through the ACS as they continue to register their grave concerns with the ACS lucratively remunerated executive directors. As a chemistry professor with having given fifty years of his life to the ACS and the profession so eloquently put it, "Never mind the Iranians as one may not give a darn about them and their plights, what, I am bewildered to speculate the ulterior motives of the ACS paid "professional leadership is to embarrass us as freethinking science. ACS is US and not its DC staff as they are required by our mandate to serve our interests and not create problems for us.

The consensus among the nearly one million Americans of Iranian ancestry is to reaffirm their yearning commitment to the attainment of justice, security, stability, equity, transparency and human rights through "home-grown", indigenous and democratic reforms in Iran, but not at the expense of isolating the scientific community in their motherland from their peers worldwide. They further deplore any possible unilateral military action against Iran, as they firmly believe this is counter-productive to the organic, slow, but steady evolution of Iran through educational benchmark, cultural reforms and communication with the rest of the world. They further consider military action and/or isolation counter-productive to the credibility of their American homeland which would inevitably lead, once again, to the priceless loss of human life and loss of credibility for our nation in the international scene.

Iran's chemist/chemical engineering professionals/scholars numbers tens of thousands. They are, by and large, members of the Iranian Chemical Society. However, many of them hold at least one overseas membership, mostly in the Royal Societies in the UK. There are currently 36 Iranian members in the American Chemical Society. The strong position of chemistry/chemical engineering in Iran is due to the oil and gas explorations by the petrochemical industry during the past 100 years, and due to some of Iran,s renowned past and contemporary chemists, scientists, and philosophers. The contributions of Americans of Iranian background to the chemistry and sciences, engineering and medicine, is unparalleled by other recent immigrant communities. There indeed exists an Iranian Chemists' Association of the ACS that since its inception in the 80, has reached out to over a thousand chemists of Iranian ancestry in the U.S. alone. It is well substantiated that as long as the diplomatic relations between the two nations remain at a hostile stalemate, a political cloud hovers over the personal and professional aspirations of Iranian-Americans. Specifically, senior and executive level professional opportunities for Iranian-Americans, particularly in government, higher education and the corporate world, remain chronically undermined.

Iran, a multiethnic country of 70 million, traces its heritage to a long and illustrious history, 10,000 years in the making, with 2500 years of a continuous form of government. There are two million students in her higher education system, 60% of whom, especially in the sciences, engineering and medicine, are women. Its literacy rate is 90%, unprecedented in that part of the world. Iran or Persia as it was formerly known by the outside world until 1935, has indeed contributed immensely toward the advancement of science, technology and society for millennia. Rhazes, Avicenna, Algorithm, Omer Khayam, Farabi, Biruni, Hayyan, and many others are some of the epics that come to a western scholar,s mind.

Despite the tremendous burden imposed on the Iranian students and scholars as they struggle to obtain a US visa (mostly denied) for doctoral studies, some of the brightest graduate students in Ivy League Universities (e.g., Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, and MIT) are Iranians. Increasingly, however, they opt to pursue their doctoral studies in Australia, Canada and Europe. Iranian high school students have continuously ranked among the top few of the nations in the International Chemistry and other Science Olympiads, and Robotics and Computing Competitions.

Isn't it ironic that when the ACS claims to be an international professional society, 130 years old, with a membership of 160,000, 10% of whom are from overseas, and an additional 20%, are naturalized Americans or permanent residents, that it forces the nationals of Iran out, deprives them from maintaining scientific communications with peers worldwide, and does not let them contribute toward the advancement of science worldwide?

Notwithstanding the rhetoric and provocations leading to a possible disastrous confrontation by governments, a true scientist, or a credible organization of scientists such as the ACS, which does not recognize the boundaries of the world, should be capable to transcend all political barriers for the advancement of science.

David N. Rahni, Ph.D. is a Professor of Chemistry at Pace University, in Pleasantville, New York and Adjunct Professor of Dermatology, New York Medical College. He is also an Adj. Prof. Envirnonmental Law at Pace U. He can be reached at: dnabirahni@pace.edu