Interesting article in New Scientist about engineers at a Sri Lankan university mating Robots and Mongeese to find landmines. You can read the introduction to the article here (access to the full article needs a subscription to New Scientist). Luckily there is a link to the research article http://people.seas.harvard.edu/~thrish/Books/Hedem_chap.pdf

Geneva, 3 April 2008 – The year 2008 will be critical in the struggle to free the world from antipersonnel mines, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said today, on the eve of the thirdUN International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action (4 April).

Under the Mine Ban Treaty, States Parties have 10 years to clear all their mined areas. The first deadlines – for 20 mine-affected states – will occur in 2009. States can ask for an extension of the deadline for up to 10 years, and consideration of these requests will take place at the 9th Meeting of the States Parties this November.

“Governments need to show that they are taking the Mine Ban Treaty’s clearance obligations seriously,” said Tamar Gabelnick, ICBL Treaty Implementation Director. “The credibility of the treaty’s mine clearance obligation will depend in large part on how extension requests are dealt with this year,” she added.

Mine action worldwide has saved countless lives and made thousands of square kilometres of land safe to work and walk on again. However, in a number of countries, progress has been slower than expected and in some cases unacceptable.

Alarmingly, more than three-quarters of the states with 2009 deadlines appear set to miss them, including: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chad, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Jordan, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Peru, Senegal, Thailand, United Kingdom (Falklands), Venezuela, Yemen and Zimbabwe. Many of these states are likely to request long extensions of their deadlines.

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Article 4 of the Mine Ban Treaty requires States Parties to destroy their stockpile of antipersonnel landmines as soon as possible but not later than four years after joining the treaty. It is one of the positive obligations of the treaty, along with the obligation to clear all mined areas and to provide assistance to landmine victims. There is no possibility for an extension of the four-year deadline.

The obligation to destroy all stockpiles serves both the treaty’s disarmament and humanitarian goals. First and foremost, destroying mines is a cornerstone of a treaty aiming to eliminate a class of weapons. Their destruction also ensures that the mines can never be laid in the ground and can therefore never claim a victim.

The good news:

• The stockpile destruction obligation of the Mine Ban Treaty is one of its most successful provisions
• 83 States Parties have finished destroying their stockpiles, destroying around 41.8 million antipersonnel mines total. 60 states declared no stockpiles; 5 states have not yet reported on stockpiles but are not believed to have any.
• Only four of those states missed their deadlines over the past nine years:
  • Cape Verde and Guinea, each of which only had very small stocks;
  • Turkmenistan, which mistakenly believed it could retain tens of thousands of mines for training purposes; and
  • Afghanistan, which had to convince a regional leader to hand over a stockpile of around 1,000 mines under his control.
• Both States Parties with 1 April 2008 deadlines met them just on time: Burundi destroyed its stockpile of 610 mines on 17 March, and Sudan finished destroying its last 6078 AP mines on 31 March.

The bad news:

• Three countries missed their 1 March 2008 deadline: Belarus (3.4 million remaining), Greece (1.6 million remaining), and Turkey (2.9 million remaining)
• None have predicted an end date for the destruction of these large stockpiles
• Belarus’ remaining mines are PFM mines, which contain a chemical explosive that is particularly difficult and expensive to destroy.
• Turkey presented has a new high-tech weapons disposal facility but is still incapable of predicting when it can finish the destruction of its stockpile. In 2006, Turkey destroyed 94,111 mines by open detonation.
• Greece has not informed other States Parties about its failure to comply with its deadline and apparently has not yet finalized a contract for their destruction. It has not destroyed any mines to date.
• No State Party has yet publicly reacted to these severe treaty infractions.
• Of the other States Parties with upcoming stockpile destruction deadlines:
  • Ethiopia (deadline of 1 June 2009) has not yet submitted its initial transparency report, due on 28 November 2005, that should have provided details about its stockpile among other critical information
  • Ukraine (deadline of 1 June 2010) has around 6 million PFM mines. In the spring of 2007 an EC-funded contract to destroy these mines was abruptly cancelled by the contractor. The contractor did not destroy any mines before leaving.

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Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall Tuesday 19 February 2008 6pm-7.30pm Light reception to follow RSVP is essential as space is limited

Nobel Peace Laureate Ms. Jody Williams will deliver this lecture to honour the legacy of long-time disarmament campaigner John Vernon Head. In her only public talk during her visit to the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions, Jody will talk about similarities and differences between the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and current efforts to establish an agreement to prohibit cluster munitions.

John Vernon Head April 1927 – February 2007.

John Head, QSM, died one year ago on 4 February 2007. W holeheartedly committed to building peace, John founded the New Zealand Campaign Against Landmines (CALM) in 1993. He played a key role in securing New Zealand’s support for the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and provided the ICBL’s Landmine Monitor research updates for New Zealand and the Pacific until 2006. John lobbied tirelessly for the mine ban to be universally accepted across the region. He also initiated CALM’s advocacy call for cluster munitions to be banned.

Jody Williams

In 1997, Jody Williams became the tenth woman in its almost 100-year history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, honored for her work to secure the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. In January 2006, Williams established the Nobel Women’s Initiative together with five of her sister Nobel Peace laureates. She is an eloquent and inspirational speaker who serves as the ICBL’s ambassador.

Please RSVP

RSVP no later than 15 February to CALM (Deborah Morris-Travers) Tel. (06) 364-5256 calmdeborah@yahoo.com

The New Zealand launch of Landmine Monitor Report 2007 took place today (12 November) at Rangitoto College in Auckland. Landmine Monitor’s Pacific researcher, Mary Wareham of Oxfam NZ, handed the report over to David Hodge, principal of the high school, at the conclusion of a day of activities on landmines and cluster bombs. Rangitoto College hosted the launch to mark the conclusion of a school term that had seen all 640 of the school’s Year 10 (Form 4) students learn about mines as part of a national curriculum piece on social action that drew on Wareham’s “Disarm” documentary film and other resources relating to landmines.

National television network TV 3 covered the report launch. Sincere thanks to Peter Harwood of Rangitoto for putting together the day’s events as well as for preparing the teaching unit on landmines.

Goal: To raise funds for 50 new legs for landmine survivors

Sunday 21 October 2007

START and FINISH:

Karori Pool – 7.30.a.m.

While Runners, walkers and cyclist – head North thru Ngaio, J’vlle and Glenside to Tawa, in whatever combinations chosen – ensure you turn around to back to be at the FINISH by 11.30.a.m.

Swimmers use Karori pool

12 noon. Free THAI BANQUET LUNCH

Compliments of Wellington Thai Restaurants and the Wellington Thai Community.

Sponsorship: We encourage each entrant to fund-raise $50 which will pay for the manufacture and fitting of one new prosthetic leg. (E.g. 10 friends at $5.00 each.)

Receipts for donations / sponsorship on request from
Brian Hayes, Treasurer, CALM,
P O Box 17-195, Karori, or Bank Direct to
Campaign Against Landmines NZ (CALM)
Westpac A/c 030502 0185340 00

Registration: Download the registration form

Organisor: Brian Hayes, Treasurer, Campaign Against Landmines
N.Z. (CALM) (ph 04 918 8331) Brian.hayes@justice.govt.nz
Or, Khun Nattaya (Leang) Payanon. Phone 04 476 8305 (evenings)

Momentum is growing in Geneva for new negotiations towards a new international law on cluster munitions. Support for this new cluster munition treaty has jumped from 6 to 18 states in the first week of the Conventional Weapons Review Conference and comes as a new accord will enter into force on Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) that does not sufficiently address the problem of cluster munitions.

The Cluster Munition Coalition welcomes the entry into force of Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) on Sunday 12 November which will oblige states to provide information on ERW and to clear up the weapons they leave littered around after conflicts should help prevent further human suffering from unexploded ordnance.

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Geneva (ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) today called for an immediate end to the use of inaccurate and unreliable cluster munitions and renewed its call for a prohibition on the use of all cluster munitions in populated areas. The announcement was made on the eve of the Third Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in Geneva (7-17 November 2006), where States are expected to discuss further steps to address this issue. The ICRC also offered to host an international meeting of experts in 2007 to discuss future rules of international humanitarian law that would better protect civilians from the effects of such weapons.

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Phil Goff squeezing tomato sauce from the CALM fundraising sauce sachet on to his fish and chips at the 2006 Landmine monitor launch.

The New Zealand Launch was held at the Beehive in Parliament Buildings at 0600 hrs GMT on 13 September 2006. We took the opportunity not only to launch LM 2006 but also to launch an Appeal for funds for the British Mine Action Group who are now clearing landmines and unexploded cluster munitions in Lebanon.

Speeches

The CALM Convenor, David Zwartz welcomed guests and in his speech talked about the Report and confirmed that the information in this report was exhaustively checked and referenced and this provided an outstanding example of how an NGO can provide verification for an international treaty. He drew the Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control, Hon Phil Goff’s attention to the drop in Mine Action funding by the New Zealand Government quoting from the LM page 81 and asked the Minister for an assurance that this drop in funding will be corrected. However he went on to say that he acknowledged with gratitude, the support every New Zealand Government has given to CALM and the work of the New Zealand Defence Force that has been supporting demining in many of the world’s worst-affected countries. David Zwartz concluded by noting The Government’s strong stand on controls for cluster munitions and said that as their effect was as damaging and distressing as anti-personnel mines, their use should be made “as unacceptable as the use of anti-personnel mines”.

The keynote speaker was the Minister, Hon Phil Goff, but before he began his prepared speech he said that the reported drop in funding of NZ$ 1.3 was because a number of demining operations had come to an end. This would be fully corrected in the coming year and that the Government fully supported not only the full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty but also the work of CALM and the ICBL.
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Phil Goff addressing the 2006 Landmine monitor launch.

Disarmament Minister Phil Goff paid tribute to the work of those dedicated to the eradication of landmines at the launch in Wellington tonight of the 2006 Landmine Monitor Report, produced by the Campaign Against Landmines. Mr Goff spoke of the scope and nature of the problem of unexploded landmines and detailed the New Zealand contribution to the fight against all unexploded munitions.

Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control
Hon Phil Goff

I am pleased to be here to launch this year’s edition of the Landmine Monitor.

This is the eighth edition of the report, which monitors the global ban on landmines, and tracks whether countries are implementing and complying with the Ottawa Convention.
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