"Every mine victim urges us to intensify our efforts in mine clearing and victim assistance. In Germany, in addition to these, we must also stop the production of mines. We must not lessen our efforts in either of these areas."

Prelate Norbert Herkenrath

Former Director of Misereor

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Pakistani mosque Monday, killing at least 20 people including a prominent local cleric in the lawless district of South Waziristan, officials said.

 

Kolkata: A Maoist squad member was arrested in West Bengal's West Midnapore district Thursday, police said. "Haren Pal was an active member of Communist Party of India-Maoists' (CPI-Maoist) area commandant Madan Mahato's squad. The squad was responsible for carrying out operations in Belpahari area of the district," Jhargram Police Superintendent Praveen Tripathi said.

 

A PERSHORE businessman is to play a major role in the battle against landmines.

 

Landmines can cause death, injury and disability in addition to many indirect public health consequences. This study aimed at understanding the trends, demography and other epidemiological characteristics of hospitalized landmine injured patients in Erbil governorate.

 

RUNCORN-based recruitment specialists are backing a drive to end the scourge of battle ravaged land. Executive search business RMG has joined forces with North West business leaders in the Mag-net network - an offshoot of the Mines Advisory Group (Mag), which clears current and former conflict zones of the unexploded remnants of war. These include landmines, rockets, missiles, mortars and grenades. It also deals with abandoned guns and ammunition.

 

Pope Benedict XVI praised the 108 nations that have adopted a treaty banning the stockpiling and use of cluster bombs and encouraged other nations to follow suit “for the defense of human dignity and human life.”

 

LUANDA - Landmines left behind by Angola's three-decade long civil war have killed 166 people and injured hundreds more in the last four years, a study showed on Monday. The war, which turned into one of the longest Cold War conflicts, resulted in half a million dead and hundreds of thousands of landmine injuries. Angola still has the largest number of landmines in the world after Afghanistan.

 

Vietnam-Era U.S. Bombs Still Kill, but U.S. Refuses to Join Ban That Took Effect This Month KHANGPHANIENA VILLAGE, Laos,

 

Luanda – The Angolan Government has disbursed Usd 8.0 million to assist landmine disabled people for the period 2010-2011, reads a paper distributed to Angop today by the National Inter-sectorial Commission for Demining and Humanitarian Assistance (CNIDAH).

 

BANGKOK - After being relegated to the shadows for decades by its more powerful neighbours, Laos is finally taking the lead role in a global campaign to ban the use of cluster bombs.

 

BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi government official says the country hopes to have the millions of unexploded cluster bombs and land mines leftover from wars in the last 20 years cleared by 2018, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq reports.

 

South Korean Army soldiers search for land mines near the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas. A deadly menace washed up on the shores of South Korea this weekend: land mines from North Korea, still packed with explosives.

 

The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. have banned lending and investment financing for the production of cluster bombs, the Mainichi has learned.

 

The Convention on Cluster Munitions goes into force Sunday, August 1, with 107 signatories agreeing to ban the use of cluster munitions.

 

The upcoming ban on cluster munitions, which will enter into force on 1 August, has not lessened the need for unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance to continue.

 

Am 1. August tritt das Abkommen über ein Verbot von Streumunition in Kraft. Die USA, Russland und China sperren sich dagegen Menschenrechtsorganisationen sehen dennoch Fortschritte, vor allem für die Opfer.

 

This week the New York Times cited Amnesty International’s allegations that the US used cluster munitions in a strike in Yemen in December 2009. The article also references a Yemeni parliamentary committee inquiry, which found that the strike, that claimed to target militants, killed over 40 civilians at the time. The inquiry claimed an additional 12 casualties (three killed, nine injured) were caused by unexploded ordnance after the strike. The Yemeni government has denied the allegations.

 

(ANGOLA) 12 July 2010 - The Italian ambassador to Angola, Giuseppe Mistreta expressed on Friday in Luanda his country's intention to continue supporting the demining programme in Angola with the offer in the coming days of 150.000 Euros.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 12 July 2010 - Roadside bombs ripped through two vehicles Monday in southern Afghanistan, killing eight civilians and wounding seven others, police said.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 12 July 2010 - The overwhelming majority of the bombs used to devastating effect by the Taliban in Afghanistan are made from a fertiliser that has been banned by the Kabul government, the defence ministry said Monday.

 

(PAKISTAN) 11 July 2010 - A soldier of the Frontier Corps (FC) was killed in an explosion caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency on Saturday, official sources said.

 

(IRAQ) 11 July 2010 - Text of report in English by privately-owned Aswat al-Iraq news agency website

 

(COLOMBIA) 11 July 2010 -Three soldiers were killed and one was wounded when they entered a FARC mine field near Puerto Rondon, a city in the Colombian province of Arauca, the army said.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 10 July 2010 - Taliban linked activities claimed the lives of five NATO soldiers in Afghanistan on Saturday, a statement released by the military alliance said.

 

(PAKISTAN) 9 July 2010 - A soldier sustained serious injuries in a roadside bomb blast in Chinari in Safi subdivision of Mohmand Agency on Thursday, official sources said.

 

(CAMBODIA) 9 July 2010 -Cambodia has destroyed more than 80,000 landmines and other unexploded ordinances (UXO) in six months period this year, a landmine authority official said Friday.

 

(SRI LANKA) 7 July 2010 - The Media Centre for National Security issued the following situation report:

 

(IRAQ) 7 July 2010 - One civilian was killed and two more were wounded Wednesday by an improvised explosive device blast in north of Baaquba, a police source said.

 

(PAKISTAN) 6 July 2010 - A volunteer of the pro-government peace committee (Lashkar) was killed and two soldiers sustained injuries in a landmine blast

 

(THAILAND) 6 July 2010 - A rubber tapper was killed by a landmine while working in a rubber plantation in Yala's Thanto district on Tuesday morning, police said.

 

(AZERBAIJAN) 6 July 2010 - During June 2010, an area of 2,245,923 square meters was cleared of mines and unexploded ordnance.

 

(AZERBAIJAN) 6 July 2010 - 2 245 923 square meters of territory was cleared of mines and explosives in Azerbaijan in June, 2010, press service of the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Actions (ANAMA) told APA.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 6 July 2010 - Another five soldiers with the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed in separate Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks in Afghanistan' s southern provinces and western region, bringing to six the number of military casualties in a single day on Monday, ISAF said in a press release on Tuesday.

 

(Paris) July 6, 2010 - France announced today that direct and indirect financing of the production or trade of cluster munitions is forbidden by French law. Amnesty International France and Handicap International, who have campaigned for several years on this issue, welcome this prohibition.

 

(PAKISTAN) 5 July 2010 - Three persons, including a minor, were killed and three others sustained injuries in a roadside blast in Jawakai area in the Frontier Region (FR) Kohat on Sunday, official and tribal sources said.

 

(PAKISTAN) 5 July 2010

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 5 July 2010 - Four ADF soldiers were injured when their vehicle struck an IED on Saturday with another two injured on Friday

 

(PAKISTAN) 4 July 2010 - Four security personnel were martyred and nine others sustained injuries when their convoy hit a landmine in Khyber Agency while 10 militants were killed in fresh clashes between the insurgents and security forces in Orakzai Agency on Saturday.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 4 July 2010 - Five people have been killed and five others injured in separate incidents. According to the details, five people were killed and five others injured in separate incidents in Ghowr, Kapisa, Nimroz and Herat provinces.

 

(SRI LANKA) 3 July 2010 - The Media Centre for National Security issued the following news release:

 

(PAKISTAN) 3 July 2010 - GHALANAI: One soldier was killed in a landmine explosion in Safi tehsil of Mohmand Agency while security forces shot dead a militant during a search operation in Matta area of Swat district.

 

(PAKISTAN) 2 July 2010 - A security force member was injured in a landmine blast near in Lakro in the suburbs of Safi tehsil on Thursday.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 2 July 2010 - An Australian soldier has been wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 2 July 2010 -The marines of Taunton's 40 Commando are fighting a war against a growing army of children being recruited to do the Taliban's dirty work.

 

(INDIA) 30 June 2010 - An army jawan was today injured in a landmine blast near the LoC in Mendhar area of Poonch district.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 30 June 2010 - Better known for defusing bombs in Iraq in the Oscar-winning film 'The Hurt Locker', actor Jeremy Renner has braved a live minefield in Afghanistan to draw attention to the tireless work of clearing mines that kill and maim long after being buried.

 

(PAKISTAN) 29 June 2010 - A labourer was seriously injured in landmine explosion in Danger Mela at Alizai area in Lower Kurram Agency on Monday.

 

(PAKISTAN) 28 June 2010 - At least two persons were killed when they hit a landmine in Pirkoh area of Dera Bugti on Sunday, police said.

 

(RUSSIA) 22 June 2010 - More than 120 antipersonnel mines were destroyed in Transbaikal. As ITAR-TASS learnt at the press service of the territorial Federal Security Service (FSB) Department, a resident of the village of Daurskoye found one of them when he was gathering scrap metal on the territory of former military depots.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 21 June 2010 - Text of report by Afghan independent Tolo TV

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 21 June 2010 - KABUL-Nine coalition soldiers died Monday in a spate of attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan and in a helicopter crash, in one of the deadliest days this month for allied forces.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 21 June 2010 - KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, - Sgt. James MacNeil of Glace Bay, N.S., was killed Monday morning while on a foot patrol in Nakhoney

 

(INDIA) 20 June 2010 - An army havaldar was killed in a landmine blast near the Line of Control (LoC) at Mendhar in Poonch in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

 

(IRAQ) 19 June 2010 - Six people, including two policemen, were wounded in two separate bombing attacks in central Mosul city on Saturday, according to a local security source in Ninewa

 

(UNITED STATES) 17 June 2010 - Physicists have assembled a low-cost yet high-tech mine detector.

 

(UNITED KINGDOM) 17 June 2010 - James Denselow: IEDs, which accounted for three-quarters of British deaths in Afghanistan last year, may make the war impossible to win Immortalised in popular culture by the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are the ideal metaphor for the American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

(SRI LANKA) 17 June 2010 - The Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence issued the following news release:

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 17 June 2010 - A homemade bomb killed a NATO soldier in the south of Afghanistan, the alliance announced Thursday, the third death in one day as the toll for foreign forces in the country continues to mount.

 

(PAKISTAN) 15 June 2010 -A man died in a landmine explosion in Jaffarabad district on Monday morning.

 

(YEMEN) 14 June 2010 - Two Yemeni soldiers were killed and three others were wounded on Sunday

 

(SOMALIA) 14 June 2010 - Text of report by privately-owned Somali Radio Simba website on 14 June

 

(PAKISTAN) 14 June 2010 - A man was killed in a landmine blast which occurred at Goth Jhani area of Jaffarabad, Monday.

 

(IRAQ) 14 June 2010 - LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln says a 23-year-old soldier from Batesville has been killed in Iraq.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 14 June 2010 - Members of New Zealand's provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan have destroyed more weapons caches from their most recent seizures.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 14 June 2010 - Text of report by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 14 June

 

(SANAA) June 14, 2010 — Two Yemeni soldiers were killed and three others were wounded on Sunday when defusing a landmine near a military camp in Yemen's southern province of al-Dhalee, security officials said.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 13 June 2010 KANDAHAR:

 

(ANKARA) June 12, 2010 - Three soldiers were injured on Saturday when a mine believed to have been planted by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) blew up in southeast Turkey. It happened near the town of Baskale, in Hakkari province, the Anadolu news agency reported.

 

(UNITED KINGDOM) 10 June 2010 - A LOW-COST laser that can detect hidden explosives and could lead to improved airport security has been developed, researchers said yesterday.

 

(IRAQ) 10 June 2010 - Three policemen were wounded on Thursday in a landmine explosion in al-Qaem in western Anbar, a police source said.

 

(INDIA) 10 June 2010 - A bomb squad constable was tonight injured when a landmine exploded while being defused at Nagayalanka police station of Krishna district.

 

(SRI LANKA) 9 June 2010 - Sri Lanka's main Tamil minority party Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on Wednesday called for sustained international attention on the plight of war displaced civilians who have just returned to their homes used to be battle zones.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 9 June 2010 - A Canadian soldier has been killed after an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated while he was on a foot patrol in Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 9 June 2010 - Ten servicemen with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan were killed in separate incidents on Monday, the alliance said.

 

The 'Italian Campaign Against Landmines' has presented a bill that stops banks from financing landmines and cluster bomb industries. This is being seen as a significant step to ensure that industries operating in the national territory of Italy would not produce explosive devices, munitions and cluster submunitions.

 

(Chile) June 9, 2010 - A global effort to ban cluster bombs has gained the signatures of 106 countries, but 70 more have yet to sign on with only weeks to go before the ban goes into effect on Aug. 1.

 

Amnesty International has today released images of a US-manufactured cruise missile that carried cluster munitions, apparently taken following an attack on an alleged al-Qa’ida training camp in Yemen that killed 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children.

 

(UNITED STATES) 8 June 2010 - Rep. Michael R. Turner, R-Ohio (3rd CD), issued the following news release: Congressman Mike Turner has successfully included language in the FY2011 National Defense Authorization Act which seeks improvements for international humanitarian demining initiatives.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 8 June 2010 - LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The Defence Force has named the two soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

 

(VIETNAM) 8 June 2010 - Washington and Hanoi will discuss details of the issues relating to AO/dioxin and war landmine clearance at a political meeting in Hanoi June 8, the Lao Dong newspaper reported Tuesday, citing Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew J. Shapiro.

 

(SUDAN) 8 June 2010 - CAMBODIA is set to send a new contingent of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers to Sudan later this month, the fifth group to assist in de-mining operations in the conflict-ridden country, officials said Sunday.

 

(N’DJAMENA) 8 June 2010 – BET, the acronym for the three northern regions of Chad – Borkou, Ennedi and Tibesti – comes up regularly in meetings of international aid agencies frustrated by the lack of information and difficulty of access to the remote territory.

 

(COLOMBIA )7 June 2010 - The Colombian Army found and destroyed 775 antipersonnel mines, which allegedly were placed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Meta department, the Army said on Monday.

 

(CAMBODIA) 7 June 2010 - The Cambodian Mine Action Centre, supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, began a two-week training course in Phnom Penh on Monday for 16 delegates from Colombia's leading demining organization.

 

States meet in Chile to develop concrete actions to implement new global treaty

 

A British humanitarian organization said on Monday that it has cleared the bulk of Nagorno-Karabakh’s war-affected territory of landmines and unexploded ordnance and will soon start demining Armenian-controlled areas outside the disputed region.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 7th June 2010 - The 1000th American serviceman killed in Afghanistan was born on the 4th of July, it has emerged. Marine Coroporal Jacob C. Leicht was killed when he stepped on a landmine in Helmand Province.

 

(MADRID) – Two Spanish soldiers were slightly wounded on Sunday when their reconnaissance patrol was attacked by insurgents in Ja-Fari, south of Sang Atesh, a town in western Afghanistan, the Defense Ministry said.

 

(EGYPT) 5 July 2010 - Along Egypt's white-sand Mediterranean coastline, an enormous metal advertising hoarding is being hauled into place by the roadside. "Blissful indulgence, natural splendour," it declares in huge letters above a picture of a child snorkelling in azure blue waters.

 

(PAKISTAN) 4 June 2010 - GHALANAI: A volunteer of Baizai peace committee suffered wounds in a landmine blast while seven locals were kidnapped and three houses torched in various areas of Mohmand tribal region on Thursday.

 

(LEBANON) 4 June 2010 - A Lebanese policeman died on Friday after he was critically wounded by a bomblet from a cluster bomb, one of millions dropped by Israel during a devastating 2006 war with Hezbollah, police said.

 

(AZERBAIJAN) 4 June 2010 - Some 2,358,191 sq. m. of area was cleared from mines and unexploded ordinances in April, the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) said.

 

(THAILAND) 3 June 2010 - While health and education services are provided inside the camps, some 300-500 Karen per day visit the Mae Tao health clinic near the Friendship Bridge.

 

(SRI LANKA) - 3 June 2010 - The Media Centre for National Security issued the following situation report:

 

(INDIA) 3 June 2010 - Text of unattributed report headlined "Solar missiles, nine APMs recovered" by Indian newspaper Daily Excelsior website on 3 June.

 

(Washington, DC) June 3, 2010 - Governments that join the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions should adopt strong national legislation to implement the ban agreement, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

 

(INDIA) 2 June 2010 - The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) is likely to discuss the option of drafting dedicated de-mining experts from the Army - popularly knows as Sappers - to clear Maoist-infested jungles of IEDs and landmines.

 

(YEMEN) 1 June 2010 - Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Affairs and Minister of Local Administration Rashad al-Alimi called on al-Houthi leadership to implement rest of six points to settle peace and stability in the province.

 

(SRI LANKA) 1 June 2010 - Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corp. issued the following news:

 

(PAKISTAN) 1 June 2010 - (…) GHALANAI: Two persons, including a child, were injured in two landmine blasts in the Mohmand Agency .

 

(JAPAN) 1 June 2010 - The government will offer Japanese nongovernmental organizations up to 1.5 billion yen to support their operations to rebuild conflict-ravaged Afghanistan in the first major joint initiative between the public and civic sectors, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Tuesday.

 

Cambodia’s troubled history is not a new theme for us. We covered it extensively after our visits there last year, particularly in relation to the still horrendous landmine legacy. Two reports out of Phnom Penh this week indicate the true bookends of this nation as it deals with its history and tries to turn it into a brighter future. Recently, the “Day of Anger” commemoration took place where thousands of Cambodians descend on the infamous Choeung Ek killing fields to reenact and grieve over the Khmer Rouge atrocities that took place there.

 

(SRI LANKA) 31 May 2010 - The Media Centre for National Security issued the following situation report:

 

(SRI LANKA) 31 May 2010 - Ministry of Defence, Public Security, Law & Order - Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka issued the following news release:

 

(INDIA) 31 May 2010 - Army may soon be pressed into service for clearing forests in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region of mines, which have proved to be a major bottleneck in effectively countering the Maoists in the state, a senior police officer said here on Sunday.

 

Athba Qasim al Sumaki, left, and Hana Qasim al Sumaki were injured in a landmine explosion that killed a third girl.

 

Amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center Rely on Each Other For Inspiration to Push Themselves to Walk Again

 

(PHILIPPINES) 30 May 2010 - A soldier was killed and seven others were wounded following a series of clashes between government troops and leftist rebels in this southern Philippine city on Saturday, the military said on Sunday.

 

Mao Sopheap was orphaned by a landmine. Then, when she was 16, she stepped on one herself — her left leg was blown apart and had to be amputated. During an interview she cried: “That mine has given me a future of tears until the end of my life.”

 

(IRAQ) 29 May 2010 - Two soldiers were killed and four others, including two policemen, wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off near a joint army-police patrol in northern Baghdad on Saturday, a security source said.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 29 May 2010 - The U.S. Marine Corps issued the following news release:

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 29 May 2010 - Text of report by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 29 May:

 

(UNITED KINGDOM) 28 May 2010 - The Ministry of Defence should develop better remote-controlled robots to reduce the "unacceptable level of fatalities" among bomb disposal experts in Afghanistan, a coroner said today.

 

(PHILIPPINES) 28 May 2010 - For lack of funds to buy high-tech, expensive bomb disposal gadgets, the Philippine National Police (PNP) has discovered the cheaper, equally effective use of bottled water by its bomb experts to dispose improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by local terrorist groups.

 

(ANGOLA) 28 May 2010 - At least sixty-six anti-personnel landmines, an anti-tank and 294 unexploded device were removed and destroyed in 2009 in northern Bengo province, Angop has learnt.

 

A global coalition of civil society groups intends to strip Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE) of over US$1 billion because of its manufacture of cluster weapons.

 

(PAKISTAN) 26 May 2010 - A landmine blast killed a Pakistani soldier and injured four others in South Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday, official sources in the region said.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 26 May 2010 - A bomb favoured by the Taliban has killed a foreign soldier in southern Afghanistan, NATO said Thursday, bringing the number of international troops killed in the country this year to 219.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 26 May 2010 - Trooper Larry Rudd "would have been a very senior soldier in the Queen's army," if his life had not been ended suddenly by a homemade landmine on Monday, was the soaring assessment of his commanding officer after a private memorial Tuesday.

 

(ISLAMABAD) May 26, 2010 — A landmine blast killed a Pakistani soldier and injured four others in South Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday, official sources in the region said.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 25 May 2010 -Trooper Larry Rudd of the Royal Canadian Dragoons -- described as "a gentle giant" -- on Monday became the 146th Canadian to die in Afghanistan and the fourth from Ontario to be killed here this month.

 

(COLOMBIA) 25 May 2010 - Police seized 1,053 landmines in Antioquia, a province in northwestern Colombia, that FARC guerrillas apparently planned to use in attacks in the run-up to next Sunday's presidential election, the National Police said.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 25 May 2010 - A soldier from Joint Base Lewis-McChord died Saturday of wounds suffered when his military vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in Durai, Afghanistan.

 

UNITED KINGDOM, 25 May 2010 - Dramatic increase in IEDs and shortage of specialists leads to change in tactics

 

UNITED KINGDOM, 25 May 2010 - Roadside bombs planted by the Taliban have been the lethal equaliser of the war in Afghanistan, claiming 92 per cent of the British and allied lives.

 

UNITED KINGDOM, 25 May 2010 -The Army's top bomb disposal officer has resigned amid fears that his men would be sent to Afghanistan with insufficient training.

 

Anbar, IRAQ, 24 May 2010 - One civilian was wounded by an improvised explosive device in eastern Falluja, a police source said on Monday.

 

(BURMA) 24 May 2010 -Text of report in English by Thailand-based Burmese publication Irrawaddy website on 21 May

 

BOGOTA - Police seized 1,053 landmines in Antioquia, a province in northwestern Colombia, that FARC guerrillas apparently planned to use in attacks in the run-up to next Sunday’s presidential election, the National Police said.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) May 23 - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported by 0800 GMT on Sunday:

 

Ghalanai, PAKISTAN, 23 May 2010 -Two soldiers were killed and three others injured in a landmine explosion in the Safi tehsil of the Mohmand Agency, officials said.

 

22 May 2010 Submitted by 8ak reader: As a child growing up in Cambodia, Mao Sopheap lost her parents to a landmine.

 

CANADA, 22 May 2010 -The Obama administration is on the verge of joining the Ottawa Treaty, a significant development for the decade-old initiative that aspires to rid the world of landmines.

 

AUSTRALIA, 22 May 2010 - THE PENTAGON HAS SPENT nearly $US17 billion trying to combat roadside bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq. But for all the exotic hardware thrown at the problem - robots, electronic signal-jammers, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy systems - one of the best defences is rather more low-tech and familiar: a wet nose.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 21 May 2010 -Italian soldiers on Friday defused two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) of the kind that claimed the lives of two of their comrades earlier this week.

 

With landmines reportedly planted under almost every culvert in the dense forests of Goaltore and Belpahari, and state agencies having zilch intelligence inputs on the same, CRPF jawans in Bengal have been left as sitting ducks.

 

(OTTAWA) May 21, 2010 -The Obama administration is on the verge of joining the Ottawa Treaty, a significant development for the decade-old initiative that aspires to rid the world of landmines.

 

The Knesset has been moved to begin clearing some of its 260,000 mines by a remarkable 11-year-old. Donald Macintyre meets him Friday, 21 May 2010

 

Mardan, PAKISTAN, 21 May 2010 - A militant was injured when an improvised explosive device he was planting at the shop of an ANP leader went off prematurely in Par Hoti here night.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 21 May 2010 - A British soldier was killed in an explosion while on foot patrol in southern Afghanistan on Friday, the Ministry of Defence said.

 

Kirkuk, IRAQ, 20 May 2010 - One Sahwa fighter was killed on Thursday by an improvised explosive device blast in the southwest of Kirkuk, a local police chief said.

 

(India) 20th May, 2010 - At least six people died including one civilian during the 48 hour-long shutdown forced by the Maoists.

 

(ZIGUINCHOR) 20 May 2010 - Hundreds of children and adults in volatile Casamance are not even aware of the mental trauma they suffer, let alone how to get help to banish sleepless nights, empty days and learning disabilities.

 

(SOMALIA) 20 May 2010 -Text of report by Somali independent Radio Gaalkacyo on 20 May

 

SENEGAL, 20 May 2010 - Hundreds of children and adults in volatile Casamance are not even aware of the mental trauma they suffer, let alone how to get help to banish sleepless nights, empty days and learning disabilities.

 

Doda, INDIA, 20 May 2010 -A major tragedy was averted following the detection of an improvised explosive device (IED) on the Doda-Batote Highway in Jammu and Kashmir.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 20 May 2010 -Text of report "Six Canadian soldiers killed in explosion in Kandahar" by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 20 May

 

(Kolkata,India) May 19 2010 -Train services on Kharagpur-Tata section in Kharagpur division of South Eastern Railway were affected due to a landmine explosion on the down line between Gidhni and Jhargram stations during the wee hours today

 

(Jhargram, West Bengal) May 19, 2010 -The engine of a goods train was damaged and the engine driver and his assistant were injured in a landmine blast set off by Maoists on rail tracks between Jhargram and Khatkura stations near the Bengal border.

 

(BOGOTA) 19.05.2010 – A landmine killed the commander of an army explosives disposal team that was clearing a mine field in an area in northwestern Colombia plagued by FARC guerrilla attacks on the power grid, 4th Brigade commander Gen. Alberto Jose Mejia said in a statement.

 

Davao City, PHILIPPINES, 19 May 2010 - Members of the 69th Infantry Battalion are new scouring the roads of Paquibato District, this city following the recovery of an improvised explosive device (IED) at Barangay Mapula 7 a.m. on Tuesday.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 19 May 2010 - Text of report by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 19 May

 

“The strong support these letters have received shows that Congress is firmly behind accession to the Mine Ban Treaty” - Zach Hudson, Coordinator, U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines

 

(Geneva) - Financial institutions from 15 countries provide at least 43 billion dollars worth of investments and services to seven producers of cluster bombs, aid groups said Wednesday.

 

May 17, 2010 -Thirty-five people were killed when their bus hit a landmine in Dantewada, in Central India.

 

24-year-old hit landmine during night patrol south of Kandahar City

 

(AFGHANISTAN) may 13, 2010- The defence ministry announced on Wednesday (May 12th) that a 13th Romanian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan

 

(AFGHANISTAN) May 11- Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported at 1000 GMT on Tuesday.

 

ANKARA, Turkey -- The army announced late on Friday (May 7th) that its forces crossed the southern border with Iraq in an operation against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), entering its neighbour's territory with gunships and unmanned drones.

 

NAIROBI, 11 May 2010 - The removal of landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) in Sudan will grind to a halt next month unless money is found to keep operations going, especially around Malakal in Upper Nile State and Kassala in the east, says an official.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) May 11- Four French soldiers were wounded at the weekend when their armoured vehicle hit a landmine near their base northeast of Afghan capital Kabul, a French military spokesman told AFP.

 

(Switzerland) May 11 - Munitions left in the Baltic Sea from World War II should be cleared from the Nord Stream pipeline route by the end of May, the pipeline consortium said.

 

(Jordan) 11 May 2010 - APA’s correspondent attending the exhibition reports that King Abdullah II also attended the opening of the exhibition. The exhibition was opened with the presentation of the counter terrorism scenarios of Jordan Special Operations Forces.

 

Nearly three months after a ceasefire took effect, thousands of displaced people either hesitate or are unable to return to their homes. The ICRC and the Yemen Red Crescent are striving to help them and to reach other people in need in conflict-affected areas.

 

10 May 2010 - Four top engineering teams have been selected as the finalists for Britain's biggest engineering prize - the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award.

 

(Vietnam) 10 May 2010 - Vietnamese cluster bomb survivor Phan Van Tu at work making fishhooks.

 

Tags: Central Reserve Police Force, IED, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bijapur

 

(India) May 09, 2010 - As many as eight security personnel were killed and ten injured in Indias central state of Chhattisgarh in a landmine blast planted by Maoists on Sunday morning, said TV reports reaching New Delhi.

 

(Washington, DC) May 8, 2010 – A letter from 68 Senators to President Barack Obama expressing strong support for a ban on antipersonnel mines should spur the administration to decide to join the Mine Ban Treaty this year, Human Rights Watch said. The letter, made public today, will be formally sent next week, along with an identical letter from members of the House of Representatives.

 

(UNITED STATES) May 8, 2010 - The Obama administration, under intense political pressure from Capitol Hill and elsewhere, is engaged in a vigorous debate over whether to reverse course and join an international treaty banning land mines, administration officials said this week.

 

(UNITED STATES) 8 May 2010 - More than two-thirds of the Senate is urging the Obama administration to consider signing an international treaty that bans land mines, reviving a dormant campaign from the 1990s that left the United States divided from its closest allies.Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said in an interview Friday that 68 senators had signed a letter to President Obama to support a "comprehensive review" of U.S. policy on land mines.

 

(IRAQ) 8 May 2010 -Text of report in English by privately-owned Aswat al-Iraq news agency website

 

(IRAQ) 7 May 2010 -Text of report in English by privately-owned Aswat al-Iraq news agency website

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 7 May 2010 -Text of report by private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 7 May 2010 -Text of report by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 7 May

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 7 May 2010 -Text of report by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 7 May.

 

May 6, 2010 - Grant Robertson said an example of ethical investing was to exclude cluster bomb manufacturers from Super Fund investments.

 

(ISRAEL) 6 May 2010 -Engineering forces will begin this week to work on removing landmines near the city of Eila as part of a mine clearance program to expand settlements in the Arava region.

 

(IRAQ) 6 May 2010 -Text of report in English by privately-owned Aswat al-Iraq news agency website

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 6 May 2010 - A YOUNG Scottish soldier was killed in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device concealed inside a storage hut for grapes, an inquest has heard.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 6 May 2010 - * IED incidents double year-on-year in April * Top killer of NATO forces, claim 99 lives so far in 2010

 

(PHILIPPINES), Manila,5 May 2010 -The Philippines led the meetings of the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), also known as the "Inhumane Weapons Convention," at the UN Headquarters in Geneva, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a news release Wednesday.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 5 May 2010 - Australian and other coalition forces operating in Afghanistan know their lives depend on keeping their eyes peeled for IEDs - the explosive devices that have claimed the lives and limbs of so many soldiers.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) Kandahar, 5 May 2010 - A Canadian sailor who was deployed for the first time to Afghanistan only a couple of weeks ago has been killed by the blast from a makeshift bomb, the very type of device he was in the country to defuse.

 

FIVE SOLDIERS were wounded when the truck they were riding hit a landmine along the President Roxas-Arakan road on Sunday.

 

Mogadishu - An explosion in a mosque in the southern Somali port city of Kismayu on Sunday killed at least one person and wounded about 10 worshippers, witnesses said "We were in the middle of prayer when something, we are guessing a hand grenade, hit the mosque," Ahmed Yusuf, who was inside at the time, told Reuters by phone.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 4 May 2010- A Canadian soldier, Petty Officer (second class) Douglas Craig Blake, 37, has been killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan.

 

UNITED STATES, 3 May 2010 - Civilian deaths in the last month jumped by one-third over the same period a year ago, the Afghan government said Sunday. The surge in noncombatant fatalities is considered particularly worrisome in advance of a major Western military offensive in Kandahar province this spring and summer.

 

Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA, 3 May 2010 - At least three people were killed and 10 others were injured in the explosion of an antitank mine in Cambodia's northwestern province of Pailin over the weekend, officials said Monday.

 

Sanaa, YEMEN, 3 May 2010 (IRIN) -The al-Sumeihi family fled their home in the Malaheed area of Saada Governorate, northern Yemen, in September 2009 to escape fighting between the army and Houthi-led rebels, and pitched a tent outside the al-Mazraq II camp for internally displaced persons in Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate.

 

Baghdad, IRAQ, 3 May 2010 (BBC Monitoring Middle East) -Text of report in English by privately-owned Aswat al-Iraq news agency website, ["IED Wounds 3 People in Baghdad" - Aswat al-Iraq]

 

May 3, 2010 9:34 a.m. EST Phnom Penh, Cambodia (AHN) - An anti-tank mine exploded over the weekend in Cambodia, killing five plantation workers and injuring nine others.

 

SANAA, 3 May 2010 (IRIN) - The al-Sumeihi family fled their home in the Malaheed area of Saada Governorate, northern Yemen, in September 2009 to escape fighting between the army and Houthi-led rebels, and pitched a tent outside the al-Mazraq II camp for internally displaced persons in Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate.

 

(INDIA) Jammu, 3 May 2010 -An army jawan was critically injured in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) explosion ahead of fence near Line of Control (LoC) in Mendhar tehsil of Poonch district today while two militant hideouts were busted in Reasi and Poonch districts.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 3 May 2010 -Text of report entitled: "Four tanks of American forces destroyed in Helmand" by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 3 May

 

(AFGHANISTAN) 3 May 2010 -Two soldiers from the same regiment were killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan today - as tributes were paid to a "true hero" killed in an explosion yesterday.

 

(AFGHANISTAN) Kabul,3 May 2010- NATO's International Security Assistance Force issued the following news release:

 

London, UNITED KINGDOM, 2 May 2010 - More than 100 British servicemen have had limbs amputated after being blown up by roadside bombs in Afghanistan, official figures showed yesterday.

 

Ninewa, IRAQ, 1 May 2010 -Text of report in English by privately-owned Aswat al-Iraq news agency website, ["IED Kills Officer in Mosul" - Aswat al-Iraq] April 30, 2010 -05:59:14

 

Anbar, IRAQ, 30 April 2010 -Text of report in English by privately-owned Aswat al-Iraq news agency website, ["IED Kills, Injures 7 Civilians in Falluja" - Aswat al-Iraq]

 

GERMANY, 30 April 2010 - On 30 April 1975 the last helicopter picked up American troops from the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon and headed for home. The South Vietnamese capital had fallen, the war was over. It was like any other day for Le Kien, twenty years ago.

 

UNITED KINGDOM, 30 April 2010 -Text of report by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 30 April: Infidels suffer heavy casualties in Helmand

 

CAMBODIA, 30 April 2010 (Phnom Penh Post) - Noun Sophan’s life was shattered when, as a young soldier, he fell victim to a landmine that left him unable to work and support his family. But after years of suffering, Noun Sophan now helps fellow victims recover their health and dignity by giving them the tools for self-sustainability Banteay Meanchey

 

CAMBODIA, 30 April 2010 (Phnom Penh Post) -Kheun Sokhun, a deminer with the Mines Advisory Group in Pailin province, digs in a patch of soil that may contain a hidden landmine.

 

Kabul, AFGHANISTAN, 30 April 2010 (Pajhwok Afghan News) -A NATO-led soldier has been killed in a roadside bomb attack in volatile southern Afghanistan, where militant-linked violence has sharply spiked in recent months, the alliance said on Friday.

 

GHAZNI CITY, AFGHANISTAN, 30 April 2010 (Pajhwok Afghan News) -Two Taliban insurgents have been killed by a landmine they were planting in the restive southern province of Ghazni, a police official said on Friday.

 

30 Apr 2010 - MAPA Celebrates International Mine Action Day

 

UNITED KINGDOM, 29 April 2010 - Two British soldiers were killed by a landmine in Afghanistan when their vehicle strayed from a proven track to keep an eye on trainee Afghan soldiers following behind, an inquest has heard.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 29 April 2010 - KABUL, April 28: A Taliban-style bomb has killed 12 civilians when their van struck the device in eastern Afghanistan.

 

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 29 -- NATO's International Security Assistance Force issued the following news release: ISAF bomb disposal experts from the Joint Force Counter Improvised Explosive Device (C-IED) Taskforce have cleared the road to the market town of Shahzad in southwest Helmand.

 

UNITED STATES, 29 April 2010 - ORONO - Maine is about as far away as can be from Mozambique, but a group of 27 University of Maine engineering students have learned this year the work on their senior-year projects could make a difference in the African country.

 

IRAQ, 29 April 2010 - An explosion in Kirkuk has killed a citizen, the website of privately-owned Awene weekly newspaper reported on 29 April 2010.

 

TWO British soldiers were killed by a landmine in Afghanistan when their vehicle strayed from a proven track to keep an eye on trainee Afghan soldiers following behind, an inquest heard yesterday.

 

(Samoa, 29 April 2010) – Samoa became the 31st country to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 28 April 2010, just 95 days before the treaty takes effect and becomes legally binding international law on 1 August.

 

IRAQ, 28 April 2010 - An American soldier was killed by a bomb northeast of Baghdad, the US military said in a brief statement on Wednesday.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 27 April 2010 - Text of report entitled: "Five Polish soldiers killed in explosion in Ghazni" by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 27 April

 

Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM, 25 April 2010 (Sunday Herald) - Royal Bank of Scotland is facing fresh allegations about its multi-million-pound investments in dirty and dangerous industries as campaigners prepare to protest at its AGM in Edinburgh this week.

 

Manila, Philippines, 24 April 2010 (Manila Standard) -The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has agreed to work with the Philippine government in clearing landmines and unexploded bombs left by decades of conflict in Mindanao.

 

Washington DC, USA, 24 April 2010 (Radio Free Asia) - The United States is spending millions of dollars to clean up unexploded ordinance it dropped on Laos during a secret bombing campaign during the Vietnam War, a senior U.S. official says, but legislators and advocates want it to do even more.

 

April 24th, 2010 -Campaigners worldwide are stepping up pressure on governments to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions in the final 100 days before it becomes binding international law, the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) said today as it launched a countdown to 1 August, when the treaty enters into force.

 

Manila, PHILIPPINES, 23 April 2010 (The Philippine Star) - The military is planning to file before international bodies a complaint against the communist insurgents who launched a landmine attack that killed four policemen in Antipolo City, Rizal last Tuesday.

 

Petra, JORDAN, 23 April 2010 (Jordan News Agency (Petra)) - Czech Ambassador here Ivana Holoubkova on Friday handed over a modern de-mining system "BOZENA 5" to Jordan Armed Forces (JAF).

 

Calgary, CANADA, 23 April 2010 (AFP / Calgary Herald) - A Bosnian demining officer was killed and another injured when a mine exploded as they were clearing a minefield left over from the country's 1992-95 war.

 

TURKEY, 21 April 2010 (Agence France Presse) - A Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded Wednesday in a landmine explosion close to the border with Iraq in the country's southeast, the Anatolia news agency reported.

 

THAILAND, 20 April 2010 (Thai News Service) - Section: General News - The family of Ho Van Nguyen, a farmer from Mai Lanh Village in the central province of Quang Tri, did not celebrate Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday this year.

 

Mach/Quetta, PAKISTAN, 20 April 2010 (The Baluchistan Times) -Two FC security personnel were killed while an other sustained serious injuries when a security vehicle hit a landmine near Bolan, Tuesday.

 

PAKISTAN, 20 April 2010 (The Statesman) - Media persons had just returned on Monday after the coverage of an oil tanker blaze near Jamrud in Khyber Agency when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off outside the main gate of the otherwise well-guarded Police Public School (PPS) thus further adding to the sense of fear, anxiety and exasperation in the vital triangle of parents, teachers and students.

 

H. E. Mr. Abderrahim Ould Hadrami Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Mauritania, signs the Convention on Cluster Munitions in New York.

 

UNITED KINGDOM, 19 April 2010 (BBC Monitoring Middle East) -Text of report in English by privately-owned Yemeni newspaper Yemen Observer website on 18 April [Report by Abdul-Aziz Oudah: "Mines a Major Danger"]

 

Colombo, SRI LANKA, 19 April 2010 (Sri Lankan Government News) -The Official Government News Portal of Sri Lanka issued the following news release: The Government continues the process of resettlement of IDPs.

 

CANADA, 19 April 2010 (Montreal Gazette) - A landmine blast in the Somali capital Mogadishu killed eight people, and mortar rounds fired by insurgents at the city airport killed six, eyewitnesses and medics said yesterday.

 

KATHMANDU: Speakers at a programme today urged the government to take necessary steps to make Nepal one of the State Parties to the Mine Ban Convention in a bid to support the vision world free of landmines

 

MURUGANDI, 7 April 2010 (IRIN) - Residents in conflict-affected northern Sri Lanka, still reeling from the effects of more than 25 years of war, are taking small but significant steps on the country’s long road to recovery.

 

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's message for the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, to be observed on 4 April: Landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to inflict a terrible toll. These indiscriminate weapons cause grievous injuries and death, hamper reconstruction in post-conflict zones, damage the environment, and are an obstacle to socio-economic and development activities long after conflicts have ended. They clog roads in Afghanistan, Sudan, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They block access to schools and to hospitals in Laos, Gaza and Nepal.

 

KATHMANDU, NEPAL — It was 8:30 a.m. on May 14, 2007 when Sunita Ghale, 21, and five friends went into the forest near their village to collect mushrooms for their families’ dinners. The search for mushrooms led the group into the middle of the forest. When they decided to return home, they realized they had lost their way. Ghale says she remembers wandering through the forest for more than three hours in search of the path back to her village in the Lamjung district of western Nepal. Finally, they saw a telephone tower in the distance. As they approached the tower, they realized they had stumbled across a military base.

 

25 Mar 2010 - A Bill banning the use, production and stockpiling of cluster munitions will come into immediate effect today. The step by the UK increases momentum for a global ban on cluster munitions. The Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Act received Royal Assent today. The Act implements in domestic law the Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibitions on the use, development, production and stockpiling of cluster munitions.

 

London, England (CNN) -- A law banning the use, production, and stockpiling of cluster munitions came into effect Thursday in Britain. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged other countries to enact similar legislation, saying a global ban is needed to fight such "cruel and indiscriminate weaponry."

 

March 25, 2010, Cluster bombs, or cluster munitions, are weapons which can be dropped from the air or fired from the ground. They release numerous explosive fragments – bomblets, or submunitions. Bomblets which fail to explode on impact pose the threat of death or injury long after conflict is over. Their presence means a lack of access to safe land, limiting agricultural development, the reconstruction of vital infrastructure, and the work of relief and development agencies.

 

SRI LANKA, 18 April 2010 (Agence France Presse) -Sri Lanka's leaders have hailed the end of the island's long civil war as the start of a new era, but for soldiers injured in battle, the future is far from rosy.

 

Tirinkot. AFGHANISTAN, 18 April 2010 (Pajhwok Afghan News) - A landmine explosion has killed two Dutch marines in the central province of Uruzgan, officials said on Sunday.

 

Sana'a, YEMEN, 17 April 2010, (Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies) - Yemen is exerting major efforts to raise awareness about landmines and their dangers on the people.

 

Ankara, TURKEY, 16 April 2010 (Today's Zaman) -Muteber Ögreten, Turkey rapporteur of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), has highlighted the possibility that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) has planted banned anti-personnel mines in many different locations in the Southeast following the discovery of documents indicating that the TSK had planted such mines in Sirnak last year.

 

April 16th, 2010 - Leading financial institutions worldwide continue to invest more than US$43 billion in producers of cluster munitions despite a comprehensive treaty banning the weapons set to become binding international law, according to new research presented by Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) members in Geneva today.

 

Friday, April 16, 2010 The Landmine Monitor - an initiative that reports on implementation of and compliance with the 1999 Mine Ban Treaty (MBT) - will be renamed the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor in recognition of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) coming into force.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 14 April 2010 (States News Service) -The following information was released by the International Committee of the Red Cross: Homemade bombs and improvised mines continue to pose a major threat to civilians in the south of Afghanistan.

 

Kabul, AFGHANISTAN, 14 April 2010 (Pajhwok Afghan News) - Canada has condemned attacks on a team working for the Demining Agency for Afghanistan in the restive southern province of Kandahar on April 11. Four deminers were killed and others 17 injured in the assaults.

 

SRI LANKA, 13 April 2010 (Colombo Times) -It's only 9am but already it's over 30 degrees in the 'Vanni', the rice-bowl region of northern Sri Lanka.

 

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 8:20 IST COLOMBO: Perhaps for the first time in the world, a Sri Lankan publisher is offering a reward to provide the ending to an unfinished novel. Author Nihal de Silva was working on his new novel Arathi when he was killed in a terrorist landmine explosion in Sri Lanka three years ago.

 

MANILA Philippines - Elements of Task Force Davao discovered Tuesday an improvised land mine at a highway used by government forces on Tibuloy village, Davao City. Initial reports said the six-kilo anti-tank mine had a blasting cap and wire that could be used to detoate the explosive remotely.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 12 April 2010 (Windsor Star) - One Canadian soldier was killed and another injured when a blast from an improvised explosive device hit their foot patrol Sunday morning southwest of Kandahar City.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 11 April 2010 (Agence France Presse) - A home-made bomb tore through a bus carrying a mine clearance team in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing four people and injuring more than a dozen others, officials said.

 

Pul-i-Alam, AFGHANISTAN, 11 April 2010 (Pajhwok Afghan News) - -Three members of a family were killed in an explosion in central Logar province, residents said on Sunday.

 

Beirut, LEBANON, 10 April 2010 (The Star) - Lebanon should sign the Ottawa Treaty banning the use of land mines, the UN's special coordinator said Friday.

 

Ninewa, IRAQ, 10 April 2010 (Aswat al-Iraq) - An Iraqi soldier and a child were killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off near them south of Mosul city on Saturday, a police source in Ninewa said.

 

Ninewa, IRAQ, 10 April 2010 (Aswat al-Iraq) -Two Iraqi policemen and one army soldier were killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off south of Mosul city on Saturday, a local security source in Ninewa said.

 

Ninewa, IRAQ, 10 April 2010 (Aswat al-Iraq) - One Iraqi policeman has died of the wounds he sustained in an explosive charge blast that hit his patrol near Talafar, an informed source said on Saturday.

 

AUSTRALIA, 10 April 2010 (Euclid Infotech - Banks and Financial Institutions News) - The Australian government will provide one million Australian dollars (JD655,300) to the National Committee for De-mining and Rehabilitation (NCDR) in 2010 for de-mining activities.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 10 April 2010 (The Times) - RAF firefighters help Army to clear Helmand road of IEDs When heavy floods caused problems for a Royal Welsh unit clearing a road in Helmand of IEDs recently, they turned to an RAF firefighting team to give them a hand.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 9 April 2010 (New Haven Register (MCT)) - Five soldiers from the New Haven-based 1st Battalion, 102nd Infantry Regiment were wounded Sunday when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device while on patrol in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Thursday.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 9 April 2010 (The Commercial Appeal) - The number of roadside bombs in Afghanistan has doubled in the past year, prompting U.S. officials to rush billions of dollars of new protective gear to troops and double the number of road-clearing teams.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 9 April 2010 (Metro) - Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are stealing metal detectors from British soldiers to make undetectable bombs, an inquest into a soldier's death heard.

 

Sukhumi, GEORGIA, 8 April 2010 (Interfax: Russia & CIS General Newswire) - Russian border guards have found a handmade landmine close to the Abkhaz-Georgian border, spokesman for the Russian Border Department in Abkhazia Vasily Malayev told Interfax.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 8 April 2010 (Agence France Presse) - The US military is poised to contain the scourge of homemade bombs in Afghanistan, despite a spike in casualties from the explosives last year among NATO-led troops, a US general said Thursday.

 

VIENNA - April 8 - Landmine and cluster munition survivors worldwide still lack access to services that would fulfill their most basic human rights, said the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) in a joint statement. A conference opens today in Vienna to examine how states will fulfill their promises to survivors and their communities. The event brings together governments, United Nations officials, victim assistance experts, survivors and civil society advocates.

 

THAILAND, 7 April 2010 (Thai News Service) - A summer day in 2000 and Ho Van Lai, aged 10, and three other friends were playing a game on a quiet sandy beach near their home in Cua Viet town in the central province of Quang Tri. But, a minute later a huge bang cut the children's game short.

 

Quetta, PAKISTAN, 7 April 2010 (Daily Times) - Two people were killed and four injured when their vehicle hit a landmine near Pir Koh in Dera Bugti on Tuesday.

 

BURMA, 7 April 2010 (BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific) - Text of report by Norway-based Burmese Democratic Voice of Burma website, on 5 April The National League for Democracy [NLD] issued a statement today calling for an end to the use of landmines in Burma. Democratic Voice of Burma [DVB] correspondent Ma Khin Hnin Htet filed this report. [Begin recording]

 

RUSSIA, 6 April 2010 (BBC Monitoring Caucasus) - Excerpt from report by Russian Kavkazskiy Uzel website, specializing in news from the Caucasus. A serviceman of the engineering and demining unit of the armed forces of the Russian Interior Ministry has been wounded as a result of the explosion of a pipe bomb in the republic's Shalinskiy District, in southeast Chechnya.

 

PAKISTAN, 6 April 2010 (The Nation) - At least two local tribesmen were killed and four others sustained injuries in a landmine blast in the restive district of Dera Bugti, some 400 km south-east of Quetta on Tuesday.

 

AFGHANISTAN, 5 April 2010 (BBC Monitoring South Asia) - Text of report entitled: "Seventeen soldiers killed and four captured in Khost" by Afghan Taleban Voice of Jihad website on 5 April [Note: This item has been processed from the Taleban's Voice of Jihad website; their Shahamat site is currently inaccessible.]

 

DUBAI, 4 April 2010 (IRIN) - Landmines and the explosive remnants of war kill or injure 15,000-20,000 people a year in at least 78 countries, according to the UN Mine Action Centre. While several international agreements exist to regulate or ban landmines, most notably the Mine Ban Treaty in 1999, momentum is gathering to do more to minimise these effects of armed conflict for humanitarian reasons.

 

Phon Sai Silavan remembers vividly the day he picked up a cluster bomb in the forest of Laos’ Xiang Quang province. It was the size and shape of a tennis bal—-- about the same size as the balls Laotian children use to play a game they call bou.

 

India has spent USD four million on demining operations in Sri Lanka's North and East to facilitate resettlement of Tamil civilians displaced during the ethnic conflict which ended in May last year following the defeat of the LTTE. The seven Indian demining teams in Sri Lanka are fully funded by New Delhi, an Indian High Commission release said on Tuesday (March 23). They have been deployed at a cost of Sri Lankan Rs 450 million (USD four million), it said.

 

A man in his 70s has died and a 13-year-old teenager injured when a landmine exploded in riot-shaken Dhale province in south Yemen. Police said that the explosion in the district of Juban took place when the man treaded on the landmine killing him immediately and injuring his son.

 

Washington, UNITED STATES, 22 March 2010 (The Wall Street Journal) - Militants in Afghanistan are building bigger and bigger roadside bombs, eschewing the kinds of sophisticated munitions that were used in Iraq in favor of mammoth explosives capable of destroying any U.S. armored vehicle.

 

The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States of America 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: In February last year, 67 national organizations asked you to begin a review of U.S. policy on landmines. In November, your administration announced it was conducting such a review and attended the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World. We applaud those steps and now call on your leadership to see that the United States joins the Mine Ban Treaty.

 

UNITED STATES, 21 March 2010 (The Desert Sun) - Cambodia is simultaneously magical and savage — a country populated by generous, warm people who live on land that can literally kill them. Bill Morse knows this well. The Palm Springs man, who moved to Cambodia last year, heads up Cambodian Self Help Demining, a non-governmental organization that is run for and by Cambodians.

 

AMRAN, 21 March 2010 (IRIN) - At al-Hamza Girls School in the northern Governorate of Amran, Afra Omar from the National Mine Action Programme (NMAP) teaches a class of 50 students about the risk of mines. She holds up photos of some of the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that were found in neighbouring Saada Governorate, where are a war between the army and Houthi-led rebels recently ended.

 

New Delhi, Nov 19: The historic disarmament Mine Ban Treaty entered its 10th year of entry into force in 2009. However even after ten years, India still has not signed this important treaty – with devastating consequences. According to the Landmine Monitor Report 2009, around 3000 Indians died due to landmines and over 2000 more were injured in the last 10 years. Most casualties occurred in Jammu and Kashmir followed by Manipur in the Northeast. The other states affected by landmines are Rajasthan, Punjab, Sikkim and Naxal affected areas in Eastern and Central India.

 

The battle of El Alamein was a turning point in World War II but the unexploded munitions it left behind continue to kill and maim the local population, as Christian Fraser reports from Egypt.

 

(JOHANNESBURG) 19 March 2010 - People who dared to think of a world free of anti-personnel mines used to be viewed as altruists and idle dreamers, at odds with the world's realities, in which the weapons were seen as necessary and intrinsically valuable items in any armoury.

 

Washington, UNITED STATES, 19 March 2010 (USA Today) - Attacks on U.S. and allied forces with makeshift bombs in Afghanistan are 50% more lethal than three years ago, reflecting insurgents' use of more powerful explosives and the increased vulnerability of troops who patrol more on foot than in the past.Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Defeat Organization, told a House subcommittee that the casualty rate was "disturbing" and half that of troops hit by IEDs in Iraq.

 

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 19 (IRIN) - The steep decline in anti-personnel landmine use in the past decade by governments is being mirrored by a similar trend among armed non-state actors (NSAs).

 

JOHANNESBURG, 19 March 2010 (IRIN) - People who dared to think of a world free of anti-personnel mines used to be viewed as altruists and idle dreamers, at odds with the world's realities, in which the weapons were seen as necessary and intrinsically valuable items in any armoury.

 

Manila, PHILIPPINES, 18 March 2010 (PNA (Philippines News Agency)) - The Armed Forces of the Philippine (AFP) disclosed an increasing number of landmine use by the NPAs in its indiscriminate attacks, a practice which has long been prohibited by the Ottawa and Geneva Conventions, and has been largely condemned by the public. Records from the AFP show that from 2002 to February 2010, 53 landmine incidents were perpetrated by the NPAs across the country, victimizing a total of 186 people, 34 of whom are civilians.

 

UNITED STATES, 18 March 2010 (Inside the Pentagon) - U.S. officials are in discussions with the Pakistani government to strictly regulate or even ban a chemical used extensively by one of Afghanistan's most lethal insurgent networks to attack coalition troops with improvised explosive devices, according to American defense officials.

 

Owerri, NIGERIA; 17 March 2010 (Vanguard/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) - Imo State Government has lamented that although the Nigeria/Biafra war ended 40 years ago, here are still vestiges of the war as exemplified by the landmines, unexploded ordinances and explosive remnants in several places in the South East and South-South.

 

CAMBODIA, 17 March 2010 (Phnom Penh Post) - Ten local artists will show their work at the UN headquarters in New York next month as part of an exhibit meant to draw global attention to the issue of landmines.

 

Instead of showing kids how to kill, a new video game instructs them on how to stay alive. A group of students and their professor at Michigan State University recently launched a video game that aims to teach children how to avoid unexploded land mines. The game, Landmine Lookout!, will be sent to Cambodia this month for testing, and hopefully will be implemented in other at-risk areas, too.

 

Nearly 30 years after Britain and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands, a pilot project has begun to rid the territory of some of the 20,000 landmines left behind and clean up land that has been off limits since the conflict, as the BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani reports.

 

Nearly 30 years after Britain and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands, a pilot project has begun to rid the territory of some of the 20,000 landmines left behind and clean up land that has been off limits since the conflict, as the BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani reports.

 

Key agreements to begin a Partnership for Peace Trust Fund project that will help Georgia safely dispose of explosive remnants of war (ERW) were signed on 12 March.The 12 Mar. 2010 - war remnants, which include unexploded ordnance, improvised explosive devices and landmine contamination, pose a deadly threat to local residents. The signatories to the agreements were the Permanent Representatives of the CzechRepublic, Estoniaand Lithuania, the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA) and Georgia.

 

Jaipur, INDIA, 12 March 2010 (Indo-Asian News Service) - - Amputees in Sri Lanka, who lost their limbs during the prolonged civil war in the country, will now be able to lead a near normal life with the help of the Jaipur foot - artificial legs made in Rajasthan that are known for being cosmetically and functionally close to the human limb.

 

VIETNAM, 10 March 2010 (Vietnam News Brief Service) - - Solidarity Service International (SODI), a German non-governmental organization, has pledged to help implement projects on bomb and mine clearance and resettlement in Vietnam’s central province of Quang Tri.

 

UNITED KINGDOM, 10 March 2010 (BBC Monitoring Central Asia) - A Tajik newspaper article says that mine blasts, which claim innocent lives, are not ceasing in Tajikistan's southern and northern borders with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan respectively. It says that Uzbekistan's position regarding the Ottawa Treaty on banning landmines remains unclear. The following is an excerpt from the article by Nematullo Mirsaidov entitled: "People continue to die from landmine explosions in Tajikistan," published by the Tretiy Vzglyad newspaper on 10 February; subheading inserted editorially:

 

Amman, JORDAN, 9 March 2010 (The Jordan Times) - - The Czech Republic will send equipment and experts to support landmine clearance in the Jordan Valley under a de-mining cooperation agreement signed with Jordan on Monday.

 

Eleven Years into the Antipersonnel Landmine Ban Time for United States to Join the Mine Ban Treaty

 

Cluster bombs have killed 12,000 people in the 37 years since they were dropped on Laos. As nations ratify a ban on the explosives, a team of women is taking on the responsibility of clearing them

 

Despite two decades of landmine clearance programs, Cambodia remains one of the most heavily-mined countries in the world. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the number of people falling victim to landmines and leftover bombs continues to drop each year.

 

As a signatory to the Ottawa Convention, the United Kingdom is required under International Humanitarian Law to remove and destroy all anti-personnel landmines on its sovereign territory. About 20,000 landmines remain within clearly fenced and marked off areas on the Falkland Islands as a result of the 1982 conflict; while not all of these are anti-personnel mines, the United Kingdom is obliged to clear all the mined areas across both East and West Falklands under the Ottawa Convention.

 

On 5 February, Thailand started deportation of about 3000 refugees from the country back to Burma. The Norwegian Burma Committee urges Norway to protest. "In Burma they will risk the slave labor and forced recruitment into the military," said Inger Lise Husøy, general manager of the Norwegian Burma Committee.

 

Between 1999 and 2008 Afghanistan had the highest number of landmine casualties (12,069) in the world, according to the Landmine Monitor Report 2009.

 

(Kashmir, 20.1.2010) A landmine explosion has injured six policemen in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said.

 

PAKISTAN, 19 January 2010 (Plus News Pakistan) - A statement issue to the media by the SLNC said: The newly formed Sri Lanka National Congress, in keeping with its commitment to humanitarian values, advocates that Sri Lanka sign the Ottawa Convention to ban land mines and other cruel weapons such as Cluster bombs.

 

Belgrade, Serbia, 19 January 2010 (BBC Monitoring European) - Text of report by Serbian private independent news agency FoNet - Some NATO countries are giving significant aid for the removal of explosive devices thrown at Serbia in 1999, but NATO command is no way sending all necessary information, which is aggravating the job.

 

Minsk, BELARUS, January 19 2010 (BelaPAN) - Belarus is expected to start destroying its stock of 3.5 million liquid-containing PFM-1 (Green Parrot by NATO`s classification) anti-personnel landmines this year, Aleh Voinaw, chief of the Armed Forces' engineer troops, told reporters in Minsk on January 19.The European Commission will help Belarus carry out the project, which was discussed during a visit of the Commission's experts to the country in June 2009.

 

(Peshawar/Pakistan, 19.1.2010) A roadside bomb on Wednesday injured a Pakistani provincial lawmaker and four others in the northwest city of Peshawar, a frequent target of attacks by Taliban militants, officials said.

 

(Ranchi, 15.1.2010) Six police personnel and a civilian were killed and one policeman went missing when Maoists blew up their vehicle in Jharkhand's Gumla District today.

 

(Kandahar Airfield, 16.1.2010) "A career soldier" and "family man" from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., has become the first Canadian killed in action in Afghanistan in 2010.

 

(Bangkok, 6.1.2010) Doubts about financial assistance to destroy left-over munitions have convinced Thailand against joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions, sources at non-governmental organizations covering the issue say.

 

(Bangkok, 6.1.2010) Doubts about financial assistance to destroy left-over munitions have convinced Thailand against joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions, sources at non-governmental organizations covering the issue say.

 

(Somalia, 15.12.2009) Reports of attacks and fighting have arrived over the past 24 hours from every corner of Somalia, from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in the north, to Mogadishu and the central Galgadud region, with an overall toll of at least 13 dead and an unspecified number wounded.

 

(Cartagena, Kolumbien, 4.12.2009) The Second Review Conference to the Ottawa-Kovenvention, the Mine Ban Treaty has been completed. A report is here available.

 

(Australia, 3.12.2009) The Australian Government today reaffirmed its strong commitment to mine action by presenting the Mine Action Strategy for the Australian aid program 2010-14 to the Summit on a Mine-Free World in Cartagena, Colombia. Under the new strategy Australia has pledged $100 million over the next five years to help developing countries affected by landmines, cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war.

 

(Cartagena, 2.12.2009) Rwanda has been declared free of landmines - the first country to achieve this status. The announcement was made at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World in Colombia. Hundreds of people have been killed and horrifically injured by landmines in Rwanda. Landmines were laid between 1990 and 1994 in Rwanda and over the past three years more than over 9,000 have been destroyed by Rwandan soldiers.

 

(Washington, 25.11.2009) The Obama administration said on Tuesday it would keep Bush-era policy on landmines, resisting pressure from campaigning groups to accede to a treaty to ban antipersonnel mines altogether.

 

KABUL, Nov 5 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Thursday it would temporarily evacuate hundreds of its international staff from Afghanistan due to deteriorating security, a sharp blow for Western efforts to stabilise the country. Security has worsened in Afghanistan since the Taliban insurgency re-grouped in 2005. Following are key facts about the security situation in Afghanistan: