Small nations prove their existence by way of scientific production... Why, then, is Lebanon asleep, asks our foremost woman scientist?

UNESCO organized in Paris, between September 9 and 20 last, an international conference on the use of radioactive ele-ments in scientific research. Taking part in the conference were 1,100 scientists belonging to 61 nations, among them Lebanon and Egypt; and although the two official languages were English and French, the papers could also be heard in Russian and German translation.

Lebanon was represented at the con-ference by Dr. Salwa Nassar, professor of physics at the American University of Beirut, who is rightly counted the foremost woman scientist not only in Lebanon but in the Arab world as well.

After her return to Beirut at the beginning of last October, Dr. Salwa Nassar submitted a report to the Ministry of Education setting out how Lebanon could profit from these scientific influences, apart from the personal benefit reaped by the individuals taking part in the conference.

And as a first and necessary step toward beginning the work, Dr. Nassar repeated the request she has been pressing for eleven years now — I mean the found-ing of a center for scientific research, to be nourished generously by the government materially, technically, and morally — for among the 61 nations taking part in the conference, Lebanon alone was without such a center!

Here Dr. Salwa Nassar keeps her promise and gives "The Woman's Voice"