cluster bombs

Cluster Bomb Trade Funded by World's Biggest Banks

The deadly trade in cluster bombs is funded by the world's biggest banks who have loaned or arranged finance worth $20bn (£12.5bn) to firms producing the controversial weapons, despite growing international efforts to ban them.

Posted in cluster bombs

Battle Zone's Lethal Harvest

I love the Obama family's White House garden. It's a great way to promote the value of fresh, homegrown food, and I hope many will follow the example that the president and first lady have set. But today I am urging President Obama to pick up a pen instead of a garden hoe, because hidden in the garden's onions and tomatoes is a connection to international humanitarian law that deserves his immediate attention.

Posted in cluster bombs

Remnants of Vietnam War Still Scarring Lives

It’s been nearly 35 years since bombs were dropped in the Vietnam War. Last month, Pham Quy Tuan became one of the latest casualties.

Tuan, 42, is married with two children. Few jobs are available in the poverty-stricken Quang Tri province, the war’s former demilitarized zone. To keep his family fed, Tuan resorts to collecting scrap metal for the local market.

On Aug. 1, he lost both his hands and suffered burns across his body when a bomb detonated. He was attempting to dismantle it for money.

Posted in cluster bombs, landmines, Vietnam

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 10, 2009
8:53 AM

CONTACT: Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Tel: +1-212-216-1832
Email: hrwpress@hrw.org

Germany Ratifies Cluster Munitions Treaty

BERLIN - July 10 - Germany’s ratification of the new treaty banning cluster munitions is an important step, Human Rights Watch said today. Germany deposited its instrument of ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the United Nations in New York, making it the 11th country to ratify the treaty.

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Posted in cluster bombs, Human Rights

Unmanned Drones Could Be Banned, Says Senior Judge

Lord Bingham, who retired last year as a senior law lord, said the aircraft could follow other weapons considered "so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance" in being consigned to the history books.

He likened drones, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza, to cluster bombs and landmines.

Lord Bingham made the comments to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in an interview which addressed the issue of the state being bound by the rule of law.

Posted in cluster bombs, drones, landmines, War/Empire, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 23, 2009
1:00 PM

CONTACT: Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Tel: +1-212-216-1832
Email: hrwpress@hrw.org

No Loophole in Cluster Munitions Ban

Nations Should Prohibit Assistance With the Use of the Weapons

WASHINGTON - June 23 - Countries that have signed the new treaty banning cluster munitions should not in any way facilitate the use of this weapon, even in joint military operations with allies that have not joined the treaty, Human Rights Watch said today in a new legal analysis. Some signatories, particularly military partners of the United States, have promoted a contrary interpretation that threatens to undermine the ban.

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Posted in cluster bombs

Countries Destroying Cluster Bomb Stockpiles: Report

GENEVA - Several of the 96 states that have so far signed a treaty to ban cluster bombs have started to destroy their stockpiles of the deadly weapons even before the treaty is ratified, an advocacy group said on Friday.

Supporters of the ban on the munitions that have killed or maimed tens of thousands of people said they hope the United States, which remains outside the pact along with Russia, China and other powers, will shortly sign up.

Posted in cluster bombs

Israel Hands Over Lebanon Cluster Bomb Maps - UN

BEIRUT - Israel handed over to U.N. peacekeepers on Tuesday maps of where it dropped cluster bombs in Lebanon during the 2006 war with Hezbollah guerrillas, the UNIFIL peacekeeping force said.

The United Nations and the Lebanese government have repeatedly called on Israel to hand over the maps of where it dropped the munitions, most of which were fired in the last 72 hours of the 34-day war.

Posted in cluster bombs, Israel/Palestine, lebanon

Cluster Munition Coalition Receives Major Peace Award

The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) has been awarded the 2008 Tipperary International Peace award in recognition of its campaign to outlaw cluster bombs.

The award is to be accepted on behalf of the CMC by Serbian demining activist Branislav Kapetanovic, who was severely injured by a cluster bomb during the Balkans conflict in 2002. He will be presented with the accolade by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin later today..

Posted in cluster bombs

Unexploded Bombs in the Land of a Million Elephants

I was one of those Sally Struthers' babies in the Christian Children's Fund brochures, a young child running around my village in Laos, barefoot and naked, playing in the rice paddies. One afternoon I was playing by a pond when I spotted a water snake swimming toward me hissing, as if delivering a message. Running away, heart thumping, I heard a distant buzzing sound from above. I saw an airplane and a small voice told me that one day I would ride that iron eagle to America--a place my sister Samountha had moved to some years before. I was probably 6 years old. Tha

Posted in cluster bombs, landmines, laos