Monthly Archives: October 2013

In a tentative victory for Demilitarize McGill and others, Quebec’s Commission d’accès à l’information has ruled against McGill’s request to give university administrators the authority to deny future access-to-information (ATI) requests at their discretion.

Outstanding ATI requests, including those concerning military research by the Shock Wave Physics Group and CFD Lab, remain in litigation, as McGill continues to use the court system to at least delay disclosure of the documents that detail its partnerships with militaries and defence contractors.

The McGill Daily: McGill’s request to limit access to information denied

The Telegraph newspaper reported yesterday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has dropped fuel-air explosives (FAEs) on a high school. The attack, which took place in the rebel-held city of Raqqa on 29 September, killed at least 14 civilians. Human Rights Watch  identified the bomb likely used as being a Russian ODAB-series fuel-air bomb.

Source: Reuters

FAEs are the predecessors to what are today termed ‘thermobaric’ explosives. McGill University, through the Shock Wave Physics Group (SWPG), has contributed to the development of both technologies in three major waves of research, beginning in the 1970s. In 2004, a committee of the U.S. National Research Council cited research by McGill Prof. David Frost as offering a needed tool for the development of more lethal thermobaric weapons. In 2013, the SWPG is receiving funding and other resources from the Canadian military for the same type of research.

Demilitarize McGill: Thermobaric Weapons

FAE Attack: Human Rights Watch Report

Backgrounder on Russian FAEs