Free Republic

More than two years after a precedent-setting move by the federal government cleared a path around environmental laws and legal challenges, the construction of a stretch of border fence across a deep canyon known as Smuggler's Gulch is set to begin next month. The project will require cutting earth from surrounding hills and filling in the canyon with more than 2 million cubic yards of dirt, an operation so large that critics fear disastrous environmental consequences. According to the latest plans from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the project will consist of constructing an earthen berm across the canyon...

But for those Mexicans unceremoniously returned home — those deported and dropped off by U.S. immigration in Mexican border towns such as Nogales, Tijuana and Juárez — there is no such welcome. "The poor undocumented guy who gets sent back is seen as a burden on the government," said Erica Dahl-Bredine, country manager for Catholic Relief Services' Mexico program in Tucson, Ariz. "Those who have documents are seen as the heroes." While the Mexican government is taking small steps in response to growing criticism that it ignores Mexicans deported from the U.S. — unveiling a test program in Tijuana last...

Landmine victims are to take part in a beauty contest in Angola, where tens of thousands have been injured by mines. The pageant has been organised by Angola's de-mining commission, and aims to restore the confidence of victims and raise awareness of their plight. Millions of mines were planted in Angola during a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. The "Miss Landmine Survivor" contest will be held on 2 April in a luxury hotel in the Angolan capital, Luanda. Eighteen women will take part, one from every province in the country. All of the contestants have been maimed by...

Our nation's greatest and most obvious vulnerability remains our pourous and unprotected southern land border. Yet every day, unknown numbers of human and drug smugglers, criminals and potential terrorists continue to illegally enter the United States. And yet the best and most effective way of preventing illegal foot and vehicle traffic from entering is border security fencing. Since construction of the San Diego border fence began in 1996, the smuggling of people and narcotics has dropped drastically; crime rates have been reduced by half, according to FBI statistics; vehicle drive-throughs have been eliminated. Recognizing this success, Congress passed and President...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has defended the use of landmines by weak countries countering aggression by stronger adversaries, and said the Ottawa treaty banning anti-personnel mines should be amended or scrapped. "Powerful countries do not need landmines to protect themselves. Mines are the means of self-defense of the weak countries," Gaddafi, whose country began a two-year term on the U.N. Security Council this month, said in a statement. Eighty percent of states have signed the 1997 convention banning antipersonnel mines. Libya, along with 37 other nations including the United States, China and Russia, has not signed the...

SASABE, Ariz., June 21 — If the effort to catch people illegally crossing the border here in the southern Arizona desert is a cat-and-mouse struggle, the Homeland Security Department says it has a smarter cat. It comes in the form of nine nearly 100-foot-tall towers with radar, high-definition cameras and other equipment rising from the mesquite and lava fields around this tiny town.Known as Project 28, for the 28 miles of border that the towers will scan, the so-called virtual fence forms the backbone of the Secure Border Initiative, known as SBInet, a multibillion-dollar mix of technology, manpower and...

One-Fifth of an AmericanHow much is an immigrant's life worth, exactly? How do you justify a border fence? Why is it OK to consign millions of unskilled Mexicans to lives of desperate poverty? I'm told it's because Americans should care more about their countrymen than about a bunch of foreigners. OK, but how much more? Surely there's some limit; virtually nobody thinks, for example, that Americans should be allowed to hunt Mexicans for sport. So, exactly how much are you willing to hurt a foreigner to help an American? Is a foreigner's well-being worth three-quarters as much as an American's,...

The reason comprehensive immigration reform remains in jeopardy, despite yesterday's partial resuscitation, is that it is a complex compromise with too many moving parts and too many competing interests. Employers want a guest worker program; unions want to kill it. Reformers want to introduce a point system that preferentially admits skilled and educated immigrants; immigrant groups naturally want to keep the existing family preference system. Liberals want legalization now; conservatives insist on enforcement "triggers" first. There is only one provision that has unanimous support: stronger border enforcement. I've seen senators stand up and object to the point system, to chain...

British Forces based in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, deployed as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), have launched a programme to raise awareness of the dangers posed by landmines. Having cleared Taliban forces from much of Helmand Province, British Forces have now begun the task of assisting the Afghan government in reconstruction and development programmes. It is hoped this will enable Afghanis to return to their villages and farmlands to begin a new life. Eliminating the threat of landmines is essential to the revival of the Afghan economy, and to safeguarding the lives of the Afghan men who...

A Taliban commander has told Sky News that the militants are for the first time plotting to attack Westerners in Britain and the rest of Europe. In a rare interview, the commander insisted the militants had stockpiles of weapons and would never give-up exacting revenge from what he called "the foreign invaders". He confirmed that Taliban fighters are taking refuge within neighbouring Pakistan and were being helped by locals sympathetic to their cause. Sky's Asia correspondent Alex Crawford and her cameraman Phil Hooper travelled to the dangerous Pakistani border region for an exclusive report. The commander, Mullah Mohammed Amin, an...

Former Army Corporal Publishes Controversial Video on His Website Highlighting European War Material in Iraq.

Texas Students Join Fight Against Landmines in CambodiaThu Feb 9, 10:56 AM ET To: State and Assignment Desks Contact: Kathi McGuire of People to People International, 972-359-8807 or ptpi-l.i.f.e@comcast.net; Web: http://www.ptpi.org Princess Diana wore a Halo Trust bulletproof jacket during a visit to a landmine field in Huambo, Angola, in January 1997. File photo by JOSE MANUAL RIBEIRO. ALLEN, Texas, Feb. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In a country slightly smaller than the state of Oklahoma, millions of citizens face a daily threat of death or serious injury from a weapon that is impossible to see. An average of 850 victims,...

Mexican Commission to Give Migrants Maps By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago A Mexican government commission said Tuesday it will distribute at least 70,000 maps showing highways, rescue beacons and water tanks in the Arizona desert to curb the death toll among illegal border crossers. The National Human Rights Commission, a government-funded agency with independent powers, denied the maps — similar to a comic-style guide booklet Mexico distributed to migrants last year — would encourage illegal immigration. Officials said the maps would help guide those in trouble find rescue beacons and areas with cell phone reception. The...

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 28 (OneWorld) - In 1994, the United States was the first nation to call for the elimination of landmines that killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of innocent people around the world. But that was then. Today, Washington not only stands in opposition to an international treaty that bans the use and production of antipersonnel landmines, but intends to make new ones too. In reversal of its earlier policy, the U.S. is reportedly planning to produce a new generation of landmines called "Spider" by March 2007, a move that has alarmed civil society groups campaigning for a...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is close to deciding whether to produce a new generation of land mines, but the system is drawing fire from critics who say the military is ignoring international sentiment against such weapons. Underscoring the unpopularity of the devices, defense officials working on the program, called Spider, declined to call the weapon a land mine. They opted instead for generic descriptions like ``networked munitions.'' The Spider has the same function as a field of land mines - to prevent anyone from crossing a piece of territory, either by killing them or scaring them away. But unlike...

The era of disposing landmines by detonation could be over after a high-tech device was unveiled today which neutralises mines with a remote-controlled gas flame. British inventor Paul Richards and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research unveiled the MineBurner, a remote controlled device which burns landmines without the need to move, touch or detonate them. "The unique feature of the MineBurner is that it does not contain any explosive components and is thus air transportable and low-cost. This will make it easier to transport to areas where it is needed for humanitarian demining operations," Richards said at Paardefontein, the...

A U.N. commercial depicts American girls playing in a soccer match. A girl steps on a landmine and there's a big explosion. Kids get blown apart. CNN and other networks don't want to air the ad. The explosion appears to kill and injure some girls, sparking panic and chaos among parents and other children. Shrieks of horror are heard through much of the spot, and a father is shown cradling his daughter's lifeless body, moments after celebrating a goal she had scored. It closes with a tag line reading: "If there were landmines here, would you stand for them anywhere?...

A new United Nations campaign designed to get the public involved in the global fight against landmines is apparently too explosive for American television, as it depicts children being blown apart on a soccer field. The 60-second public-service announcement titled "Kickoff" shows a match in progress before a buried mine on the playing field is detonated. (Editor's note: Click here to view the ad, some content is graphic.) The explosion appears to kill and injure some girls, sparking panic and chaos among parents and other children. Shrieks of horror are heard through much of the spot, and a father...

The U.N. PSA No One Will Air Marketer: United Nations Brand: U.N. Mine Action Service Title: "Kick Off" Agency: Brooklyn Brothers, New York Since December, Richard Kollodge of the United Nations Mine Action Service has been trying to get TV to run a PSA underscoring the dangers of land mines. CNN, Lifetime Television and ABC affiliates KGOT-TV and WJLA-TV have flatly refused, he said. Dozens of other broadcasters are ducking the issue. Each year nearly 20,000 people are killed or seriously injured by land mines in 80 countries. Mr. Kollodge's job is to do something about it.... (free registration required)...

THE Libyan dictator, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, wants Germany to pay millions of pounds in compensation for landmines left in the desert sands by Afrika Corps troops commanded by Rommel in the Second World War.Berlin, which only recently brokered compensation payments from Tripoli for the Libyan-backed terrorist blast at the La Belle disco in the city in 1986, is said to be shocked by the demand. The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, is in Libya now, trying to negotiate trade deals worth billions for his country. Officials say he has been "thrown" by the suggestion that Germany should compensate for a war...

As Antonio Cambanda dug into the dry, red dirt before him, he had the look of an unusually intense and wary gardener. He clipped weeds, softened the soil with water and then, with a short-handled shovel, delicately scraped his way forward.

Iraq: Deminers Clear 1 Million Mines, Bombs From North, But Daunting Task Remains By Charles Recknagel Deminers say they have cleared 1 million mines and pieces of unexploded ordnance in northern Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein a year ago. That is noteworthy progress toward removing a menace that today kills or injures at least 20 people a month in the area. But it also is a measure of how much still remains to be done. Prague, 26 March 2004 (RFE/RL) -- The largest international demining organization working in northern Iraq says it has cleared and destroyed 1 million...

It could only have happened at the height of cold war paranoia. To counter the threat of Soviet invasion, the UK planned to bury 10 huge nuclear landmines in Germany, declassified army documents from the 1950s reveal. The extraordinary weapon was designed to cause mass destruction and radioactive contamination over a wide area to prevent an occupation by Soviet forces. Each mine was expected to produce an explosive yield of 10 kilotons, about half that of the atom bomb the US dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945. The mines were to be left buried or submerged by...

KABUL: Thousands of landmines stockpiled by Afghanistan's defense ministry will be melted down and made into manhole covers, the country's NATO-led peacekeeping force said Wednesday. The metal casings of some 2,500 above-ground POMZ2 mines from the government's stockpile will be melted down and recycled, International Security Assistance Force spokesman Commander Chris Henderson said. Afghanistan is obliged to destroy all mine stockpiles within four years under the Ottawa Convention, to which it is a signatory.

Fact Sheet Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Washington, DC February 27, 2004 Landmine Policy White PaperOn Friday, February 27, 2004, the Administration announced a new United States policy on landmines. This policy is a significant departure from past approaches to landmines. It will ensure protection for both military forces and civilians alike, and will continue U.S. leadership in humanitarian mine action -- those activities that contribute most directly toward eliminating the landmine problem. Background -- The Humanitarian Landmine ProblemLandmines have been a major humanitarian problem around the world for two reasons: First, their persistence. Mines are the only conventional weapons which,...

US to Alter Land Mine Policy By Joshua Kucera, JDW Staff Reporter, Washington, DC The US announced on 27 February that it would continue to use some land mines indefinitely and would not sign an international treaty outlawing the weapons, reversing the position of the previous administration. The Bush administration said it would allow the military to continue to use 'smart' land mines, which can be deactivated when a conflict is over. It also said it would continue to use the more traditional persistent land mines until 2010 on the Korean peninsula, rather than 2006 as was the policy of...

The U.S. military will stop using always-armed, live landmines after 2010 under a new government policy announced by senior officials at a State Department news briefing today. The United States will become "the first major military power to adopt a policy ending use of all persistent landmines and maintaining the international standard of detect ability for landmines of any kind," said Lincoln Bloomfield, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. American military de-miners, as well as those from other nations, Bloomfield said, already are involved in marking, monitoring and clearing live minefields left at the end of hostilities in at...

With the new policy, de-mining troops should not be needed The Bush administration has announced a new policy on the use of landmines to minimise the risk to civilians. Assistant Secretary of State Lincoln Bloomfield said the US would make all its landmines detectable and scrap those not timed to self-destruct. But Mr Bloomfield confirmed that the US did not intend to sign the international treaty banning mines. The treaty has been signed by more than 150 nations. Landmines cause an estimated 10,000 casualties a year. There was a mixed reaction to the US announcement from anti-landmine campaigners. The...

America plans landmine agreement President George W Bush has agreed to a complete ban of certain landmines after 2010, but will allow the US military to use more sophisticated mines after that date. The plan abandons the complete ban on landmines that had been proposed by former President Bill Clinton. The new policy will allow the use of "smart" landmines which have timing devices to automatically defuse the explosives and pose little threat to civilians. The ban will apply only to those "dumb" mines which have no self-destruct features and can remain hidden long after conflicts have been resolved. A...

Bush Administration to End U.S. Use of Land Mines Not Set to Self-Destruct, Won't Join Treaty Feb 26, 2004 By Barry Schweid / The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration intends to end the U.S. military's use of land mines that are not timed to self-destruct but will not sign a 150-nation anti-land mine treaty, a senior administration official said Thursday. The new policy also will double, to $70 million, what the United States spends annually to locate and remove mines considered hazards to people and serving no deterrent purpose, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity....

Scientists have created a plant that can locate landmines by changing colour when it comes into contact with explosives, a breakthrough they hope will save thousands of lives. The plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, or green wall cress, is cheap to produce and can grow from seed in six to eight weeks. Molecular biologists from the Danish company Aresa modified the plant's genetic structure so its leaves change from green to red when its roots come into contact with nitrogen dioxide, a chemical discharged from explosives when they are buried in soil. The colour change will allow mines or explosive residue to...

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish biotech company has developed a genetically modified flower that could help detect land mines and it hopes to have a prototype ready for use within a few years. "We are really excited about this, even though it's early days. It has considerable potential," Simon Oestergaard, chief executive of developing company Aresa Biodetection, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. The genetically modified weed has been coded to change color when its roots come in contact with nitrogen-dioxide (NO2) evaporating from explosives buried in soil. Within three to six weeks from being sowed over land mine...

FReepers, a short time ago I posted an article about how lives are being saved by using Humvees with special armor. HERE IS THAT THREAD. Yes, lives have been saved in Afghanistan thanks to the use of these Humvees. But we have a problem that needs action. These Humvees are not yet in Iraq. I have verified from an impeccable source that SOME OF THESE VEHICLES ARE SITTING IN BOSNIA! They don't belong there. They belong in Iraq. Please start making the phone calls. Get this on talk radio. Post contact numbers on this thread, and let's get busy. Thanks.

T0 understand the case for banning land mines, listen to "John,'' a Bosnian refugee, talk about how he was maimed and changed for life. Trying to help spirit out villagers under siege by Serbs, "John'' and three buddies were trying to negotiate a field by dark when they stumbled upon one of many mines. Although the group escaped, "John'' and his friends weren't so lucky. Shrapnel tore into his body, and he lost several fingers. He underwent 26 surgeries in 29 days. Now resettled in San Jose, "John'' is afraid to divulge even his first name because he fears the...

Sun, September 14, 2003 Land mine lessons backfire By CP OTTAWA -- A Canadian-backed program to teach students in Angola to recognize and avoid land mines appears to have had the opposite effect, says a newly released study. "Children who had received the school program were ... more likely to say they had entered a mined area than were those in the same schools who did not have the program," says the report, obtained under the Access to Information Act. "Children who had received the program were consistently less likely to recognize high-risk mine sites depicted in the guidebook." The...

ALKHANLI, Azerbaijan -- Sheila has been in the de-mining business for nine years. She's worked in Cuba, Kosovo and Namibia and now she's come to Azerbaijan to spend her twilight years probing for mines near the cease-fire line with Armenia before she retires. She works much faster than the local men who have been trained to search for land mines by ANAMA, Azerbaijan's National Agency for Mine Action. Where a man can clear 11 to 15 square meters of mine field a day, Sheila can clear up to 1,000. But then Sheila is a dog. One of the cruelest legacies...

Source: BBC Subject: BBC Cameraman's Last Moments Time 04-06-2003 14:22 On Wednesday 2 April, BBC cameraman Kaveh Golestan was killed and producer Stuart Hughes injured by landmines near Kifri in northern Iraq. BBC correspondent Jim Muir, who was with them, sent this account of the incident. We arrived at Kifri at around 1500 local time. We had driven down from Sulaymaniyah, about three hours away to the north. It was a beautiful spring day and we could not resist stopping for a picnic lunch in the shade of some trees along the way, something we had not done before. It...

Iraqi forces have stored land mines in a mosque in Kadir Karam in the northern part of the country, placing them around the building before abandoning it, said the organization Human Rights Watch. The group says Saddam Hussein's regime has violated international humanitarian law by its action. The British demining organization Mines Advisory Group reported that it entered the mosque Wednesday and dismantled more than 150 mines. Iraq is not among the 132 countries that are party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty that outlaws any use, production, stockpiling or trade in antipersonnel mines, Human Rights Watch said. But the...

Iraqis face "horrendous" mine legacy By Michael Holden LONDON, April 3 (Reuters) - Iraqi soldiers are mining villages and water supplies as they retreat from areas in the north of the country, a de-mining organisation said on Thursday. The warning from the British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) came a day after it revealed that mines had been stored in a mosque. The MAG, which said it was the only de-mining organisation working in the country, found Iraq had stored nearly 700 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines in the mosque, a move human rights groups said violated international law. "There were loads...

RABAT, D.C., Morocco, March 24 (UPI) -- A Moroccan publication accused the government Monday of providing unusual assistance to U.S. troops fighting in Iraq by offering them 2,000 monkeys trained in detonating land mines. The weekly al-Usbu' al-Siyassi reported that Morocco offered the U.S. forces a large number of monkeys, some from Morocco's Atlas Mountains and others imported, to use them for detonating land mines planted by the Iraqis. The publication quoted a highly-informed source as saying, "that is not a scientific illusion but a well-known military tactic." Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International

Researchers in Montana say they have been training honeybees to sniff out landmines.They say bees have a very refined sense of smell, live in packs of thousands, are quicker than dogs and can learn within days.The method could provide an effective way of finding the estimated 110 million unexploded landmines around the world.Jerry Bromenshenk, from the University of Montana, has studied bees as pollution and environmental sensors for the past 30 years.He said: "We know bees can sense vapours at levels dogs can't get to, if they can smell it, they will be as good or better than dogs at...

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) - It's a bad day for U.S. soldiers David Paulk and Bryan Allen when they don't hit a land mine. "We're having so much fun when the mines are exploding," says Paulk, a 24-year-old National Guardsman from Vick, La., who operates a Hydrema 910 MCV, a massive armored truck with flailing chains designed to trigger mines, at Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan. "Days like these, when we ain't hitting a thing, it's like we're just driving a truck," adds Allen, 30, who monitors the Hydrema's computerized systems and helps Paulk steer a steady...