Global use of landmines this year has been the highest for seven years, campaigners said yesterday, with Israel, Libya, Syria and longstanding offender Myanmar all recently laying the deadly explosives.
Launching a new report from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), editor Mary Wareham said multiple explosives put down by former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s government in the year of the Arab Spring were key to the rise.
“Thousands, if not tens of thousands were laid by the Qaddafi regime,” she told reporters in Bangkok.
Myanmar was the only country recorded as laying new landmines in last year’s report, but it has since been joined by Israel and Syria, as well as Libya.
As a result, “use of antipersonnel mines during 2011 has surpassed that of any year since 2004,” an ICBL statement said.
Despite the widespread use in Libya, she said the country’s new National Transitional Council has publicly committed to not using landmines and ICBL believes it has adhered to this.
In Myanmar, which has laid mines every year since the group began reporting in 1999, both the government and rebel groups continued to use the deadly explosives, despite ongoing political change, the report said.
“On the ground, there is not much change in how antipersonnel mines are used by the government or militias,” said Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, a Landmine Monitor researcher.
The start of talks this week between several armed groups and Myanmar state authorities is a welcome development and the group will lobby for a ban on landmines to be included in any ceasefire agreement, he added.
Only 12 manufacturers of antipersonnel mines were recorded — the same number as last year — with just three countries believed to be actively producing: India, Myanmar and Pakistan, the report said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese