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Cluster Munition Convention: "Disarmament as humanitarian action"
2008-05-30 15:34:00 Today, the new Cluster Munition Convention banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians was adopted by the Dublin Conference at around 10h10. There were no objections expressed from the floor.A great number of delegations spoke to welcome the new treaty, which will enter into force internationally six months after 30 states have ratified or acceded to it. Given the speed at which the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention entered into force internationally almost a decade ago and the energy and commitment expressed in the conference chamber today, this may not take long.The final version of the treaty in English, French and Spanish should be available on the Dublin Conference website shortly, in addition to the Conference's procedural report.A couple of points stood out from the plethora of closing statements. The Ambassador of France said the Dublin Conference had been the most successful diplomatic conference he had taken part of in his career. I suspect...
Cluster Munition Fact Sheet: A view from the field
2008-03-26 09:00:00 Last week, we posted on the blog a U.S. public document on ?Putting the impact of cluster munitions in context with the effects of all explosive remnants of war? issued on 15 February. In this blog post, Andy Smith offers a view from the field.It?s always good to know what the official U.S. Department of State attitude is on a given subject. That said, a recent "Fact sheet" or ?White Paper? seems to me, as a professional in demining, to present only one side of a polemic. The timing of its release seemed clearly intended to counter the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions.Having just updated the Database of Demining Accidents, I have found time to respond to several of the points in the U.S. ?Fact sheet??"...For example, there are practically no United States-produced landmines being found by de-miners anywhere in the world today."This is simply not true. U.S. mines are being cleared in large numbers today. For example, the minefield on the border between Syria and Jordan has ...
From Welly to Dublin: cluster munition conference a success
2008-02-22 05:30:00 This week, 122 states met as part of the Oslo Process in Wellington, New Zealand, for a conference on addressing the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions. The meeting, which concluded today, was widely hailed as a success. 72 countries present spoke up to explicitly endorse the Wellington Conference Declaration, with other states certain to follow in the weeks and months before Dublin.Wellington represents a crucial stage in the Oslo Process. Over the last year a 'core group' of countries (Austria, the Holy See, Mexico, Ireland New Zealand, Norway and Peru) has managed the process of developing a discussion text, which has become a "Draft Cluster Munitions Convention". That document was the focus of this week's talks. The hope was that, at the end of the meeting, states would associate themselves with the "Wellington Declaration", which a government must do if it wants to be admitted to formal negotiations in Ireland in the second half of May. Attached to the Declaration wou...
Cluster munition resources online
2008-02-07 10:39:00 2008 is shaping up to be the international year of the cluster munition. There are not one but two multilateral process underway to try to address the weapon's humanitarian effects. There is work to "negotiate a proposal" on cluster munitions in the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). And there is a free-standing "Oslo Process" that emerged early in 2007 following the Norwegian Foreign Minister's decision to host an international conference in Norway's capital to kick-start efforts to ban cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.Over the past year, Disarmament Insight has provided commentary on both processes, and will continue to do so in 2008. Many people have inquired with us about online resources on cluster munitions, and so we offer some suggestions below.To search our blog for commentary on cluster munitions, the easiest method is to use the search box at right, or click on a relevant word in the word cloud below it. Useful key words or...
Armeemunition
2007-06-11 19:32:00 Am 16.Dezember 2006 habe ich auf meinem anderen Blog schon über das Thema Armeewaffen und Suizid Berichtet. Hier klicken, um zu diesem Bericht zu gelangen. Vor einer Woche habe ich aus den Medien erfahren, dass sich der Bundesrat innert Kürze umentschieden hat und die Taschenmunition doch im Zeughaus lassen wil. Das finde ich absolut ...
California Ammunition Registration Bill Heading to Assembly Floor!
2007-06-01 17:17:00 On Thursday, May 31, Assembly Bill 362 was amended and voted out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. AB362 would require identification be presented for all mail order and face-to-face ammunition sales. Sellers of ammunition would be forced to keep detailed and accurate sales records of all ammunition sales. No retail seller of ...
By: Gun News
Cluster Munitions: The Road from Lima
2007-05-30 09:37:00 Disarmament Insight note ? although the world's biggest producers of cluster munitions - the United States, Russia and China - are still not among them, delegates from 68 countries met late last week in the Peruvian capital, Lima, to broaden support for a declaration agreed to in Norway in February calling for a ban on cluster bombs by 2008. More than a third joined the process for the first time, having missed the Oslo meeting. The post below from our guest blogger Jamie Stocker reports on the final day of the Lima Conference and offers some concluding thoughts.Many predicted issues about how to define key terms for an international humanitarian instrument on cluster munitions to be the most contentious for the Lima Conference. With these rescheduled from Friday morning to Thursday (see previous posts) and now out of the way, the final day of the Lima Conference was more relaxed in tone, with transparency, compliance and procedural issues scheduled for talks before the closing cer...
Lima: Defining cluster munitions and destroying stockpiles
2007-05-27 11:30:00 Disarmament Insight note ? although the world's biggest producers of the munitions - the United States, Russia and China - are still not among them, delegates from 68 countries met late last week in the Peruvian capital, Lima, to broaden support for a declaration agreed to in Norway in February calling for a ban on cluster bombs by 2008. More than a third joined the process for the first time, having missed the Oslo meeting. The post below from our guest blogger Jamie Stocker reports on the second day of this meeting: reporting on the Lima Conference?s final day will follow soon.The second day of the three-day Lima Conference began with talks about storage and stockpile destruction of cluster munitions. Though the majority of delegates expressed support for the destruction of banned weapons as soon as possible, others thought it necessary to allow more time, as well as renewal periods for states ?unable? to destroy their stockpiles within the set deadlines. Why the controversy ove...
Drawing a circle around cluster munitions
2007-05-22 10:59:00 Last Friday, in our last Disarmament Insight post, Patrick Mc Carthy noted the launch of a report by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Handicap International (HI) entitled ?Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities?. It follows Handicap International?s preliminary report about the socio-economic effects of cluster munitions, ?Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions,? released in early November 2006.To briefly recap, ?Fatal Footprint? identified 11,044 casualties (3,830 killed, 5,581 injured) directly related to cluster munition use in 23 countries and territories. 98% of these casualties were reportedly civilians. With 91% of such casualties occurring in countries with incomplete or zero data collection, it?s also highly likely that many casualties go unrecorded, HI noted.Authorities in only three of the 23 countries and territories in HI?s report collected data on casualties while in conflict. Moreover, many vic...
Hamas ammunition carriers blown to smithereens
2007-05-20 17:34:00 The IAF targeted a car carrying Hamas weapons:GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli warplanes fired missiles into a car carrying Hamas militants and a load of weapons Sunday, killing three people, and also demolished arms factories of two Palestinian militant groups, the army said....Channel 2 TV reported that Israel's Security Cabinet approved targeting Hamas militant leaders and sending Israeli commandos into Gaza to hit rocket squads. The Israeli government had no immediate comment....For the first time since the airstrikes began, Israel targeted weapons operations belonging to Islamic Jihad, a small militant group that has also been involved in rocket attacks on Israel. The army explained that it would go after all rocket operations, including those of Islamic Jihad.Unfortunately, there's also propaganda in this article:A Palestinian shopowner disputed Israel's account that it destroyed a weapons factory in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, saying his stereo and video ...
By: Tel-Chai Nation
Facing the facts on cluster munitions
2007-05-18 21:05:00 People who live and work in areas where cluster munitions have been used are only too familiar with the horrific humanitarian impact of this weapons system, both at the time of use and for long after the bombs have stopped falling. NGOs and UN bodies have been documenting this impact for years, in greater and greater disturbing detail. But on Wednesday (May 16), the NGO Handicap International sketched the most complete picture yet of the impact that cluster munitions have on the lives, limbs and livelihoods of the people unfortunate enough to live in their midst. Their report makes for sobering reading. Its key findings include:-- The available data shows that cluster munitions have nearly always been used in or near civilian populated areas against unknown or unspecified targets-- 400 million people currently live among unexploded cluster sub-munitions-- 98 percent of cluster sub-munition casualties are civilians, killed and injured while returning home in the aftermath of conf...
Cluster munitions: do not adjust your set?
2007-05-15 11:34:00 For the last couple of weeks, blog postings on this site have focused on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with help from our guest blogger, Patricia Lewis.A very different meeting is to take place in Lima, Peru, next week about addressing the hazards of cluster munitions for civilians as part of the ?Oslo Process?. It follows a groundbreaking conference of governments, as well as international organizations and civil society in Oslo, Norway, in February.The Oslo Declaration that emerged commits 46 governments to completing an international treaty by the end of 2008 to ?prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.? (A link to the text of the Oslo Declaration is below. See my blog posting from 24 April for more background.)More in coming postings about the Oslo Process. In the meantime, what does explosive submunition contamination actually look like in the field? We might imagine, for instance, th...
$500,000,000 Ammunition Sale (hurry the offer expires soon)
2007-05-05 23:48:00 Yes its true the sale is on, Man this guy is good, BUSH just announced that USA will sell $500 million dollar of ammunition to IRAQ to sustain peace. read more
By: BuzzVines
Addressing the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions
2007-04-24 22:37:00 Last week I went to the Eden Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland, to attend a Meeting of Experts organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to evaluate military, technical, legal and humanitarian aspects of the use of cluster munitions.What is a cluster munition, and what?s the problem? While there?s no universally accepted definition, it?s generally accepted that a cluster munition is a container or dispenser from which explosive submunitions (also called bomblets) are scattered. These submunitions are the dangerous parts of a cluster munition because they explode on impact or after time-delay and cause damage through blast and fragmentation ? cumulatively over a wide area.International concern about the humanitarian effects of cluster munitions has grown, especially following their use in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, Kosovo and, most recently, in the Lebanon conflict in summer 2006, both in terms of how responsibly these weapons are targeted (experience has...
ATK Precision Guided Mortar Munition Scores Direct Hit In Guided Flight Tes
2007-03-20 13:16:00 Alliant Techsystems has successfully demonstrated the robust design, mission effectiveness, and accuracy of its Precision Guided Mortar Munition (PGMM). In a guided flight test at the Yuma Proving Grounds, Yuma, Arizona, ATK scored a hit after firing PGMM from a standard 120mm mortar. The round flew approximately 2.5 miles to target and maneuvered to a ...
By: 1913 Intel
World War ammunition found in Bangladesh
2007-03-15 10:22:00 Dhaka, March 15: A huge cache of abandoned and unusable World War II era heavy artillery ammunition has been recovered in central Bangladesh, The Daily Star reported Thursday.
By: newkerala.com
Munitions explosion kills 13 in Kabul
2007-03-14 12:10:00 KABUL, Afghanistan, March 14: A massive explosion in a Kabul, Afghanistan, bazaar where guns and ammunition are sold killed at least 13 people and injured 15 others early Wednesday.
By: newkerala.com
A million rounds of ammunition
2007-03-06 06:53:02 I don’t know about anyone else, but I get concerned when I hear that anyone who doesn’t live in the State of Montana has a million rounds of ammunition stockpiled in a cute little bunker that he has built in his backyard. If you’re supplying a small army, that seems like a pretty reaonable number. But, if all this ammo is for “personal consumption”, it seems like overkill. By my calculations, even firing a rate of one round per second (allowing for re-loading time, etc.) buddy would have to shoot continuously, around the clock for about more than eleven days. Presuming that he didn’t have to stop when his trigger finger got blistered. I would think that by the time the first day was over, whoever he was shooting at would probably have backed off far enough that he didn’t represent much of a threat. A little counselling might be in order. Or a math lesson.
By: Bob's Odder Blog
Saturday Nights @ The Munitions - 7pm (slt) - until
2007-01-28 04:45:00 I'm partying over here at The Munitions! Ganesha Xi & Nitron Xi host a weekly rave true to the warehouse vibe. All the regular SL Electronic Music and Party heads make it out weekly!Jan27th I DJed a guest set at 8pm (slt).http://slurl.com/secondli-fe/Lythria/20/49/80/ |
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