Syria plants mines along Lebanon border

The Daily Star Lebanon  June 13, 2012

BEIRUT: Syrian forces crossed 300 meters into Lebanon Wednesday and planted land mines along the eastern border area of Masharih al-Qaa, a security source told The Daily Star.

The source added that Syrian troops also planted mines around the house of Lebanese citizen Mohammad Aqeel.

The operation lasted 30 minutes.

S. Lebanon deminers discover bodies of 5 Syrian army soldiers

The Daily Star April 18, 2012

BEIRUT: The corpses of five Syrian army soldiers buried during the 1982 Israeli invasion of south Lebanon have been discovered by a demining team, security sources told The Daily Star.

Members of the demining team MAX, whose work involves clearing areas of cluster bombs, discovered the bodies in a plot of land near the Jezzine-Kfar Houneh main road in south Lebanon.

The bodies, security sources said, were buried in 1982, during the second invasion of south Lebanon by the Jewish state.

The soldiers are believed to have split off from their contingent, which at the time had been stationed in the area, as a result of Israeli aerial raids.

The relevant authorities have been notified of the discovery.

Italy donates 500,000 euros for Lebanon demining work

The Daily Star  March 20, 2012

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s efforts to recover from rampant land mines and cluster bombs in the south have received a new donation from Italy, it was announced Friday.

The Italian Foreign Ministry’s Development Cooperation Department has approved a financial contribution of 500,000 euros ($677,350) to the UNDP for the Lebanon Mine Action Program (LMAP), the ministry said in a statement. The initiative aims at empowering communities affected by cluster bombs, through a demining program to reduce the risk of death and injuries and alleviate the socio-economic impact of cluster bombs.

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LEBANON: Meeting bolsters cluster munitions convention

BEIRUT, 22 September 2011 (IRIN) –

Over 100 children have been killed or maimed by cluster munitions in Lebanon since 2006, a senior army officer told IRIN at a recent international meeting on cluster bombs in Beirut.

Since 2006, cluster munitions have killed or injured 408 Lebanese civilians, 115 of whom were children, Maj Pierre Bou Maroun, chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces Regional Mine Action Centre (RMAC) in Nabatiyeh, told IRIN on the sidelines of the second meeting of states parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions which ended on 16 September.

RMAC coordinates all demining operations in the country.

Speaking at the meeting, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman called cluster munitions a “despicable weapon” designed to “sustain programmed killing and handicapping” long into the future. He said the Lebanese state was “fully committed” to the Convention, “particularly when it comes to assisting victims of cluster munitions and ridding its territory” of the weapons.

The meeting brought together representatives from over 115 governments, the UN, civil society organizations and cluster munitions survivors to discuss how to advance the Convention’s key obligations.

“Governments need to demonstrate that they are acting with the urgency and comprehensiveness that they have promised in eliminating cluster munitions and addressing the effects these inhumane weapons have on civilians all over the world,” said Steve Goose, chair of the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) and director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch.

Lebanon and Tunisia are the only Arab states to have ratified the Convention. Iraq has signed but not yet ratified.

According to the CMC, Iraq and Lebanon are the worst-affected countries in the Middle East/North Africa region, but Libya is the most recently contaminated country, following use of cluster munitions by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi earlier this year.

The Beirut meeting heard that as a result of the Convention, around 50 percent of the world’s cluster munitions have been destroyed. In Lebanon, the CMC said, around 66 percent of contaminated land has been cleared and returned to residents.

Goose said that while the success was impressive, some 80 countries had still not signed the Convention, including some of the world’s biggest manufacturers, users or stockpilers of cluster munitions, such as Israel, the US, China, Russia, Pakistan and India

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Phillipine Gov’t retains OFW ban in 6 countries

MANILA, Philippines—The government is retaining the ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Nigeria, and Somalia, mainly because of the unstable and volatile security situation in these countries, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

Overseas Filipino workers (OFW) groups in Afghanistan and Iraq earlier appealed to the government to lift the labor deployment ban.

But an interagency committee which periodically reviews the policy recommended against the lifting of the ban because of the unstable security situation in these war-torn countries.

According to DFA spokesman J. Eduardo Malaya, adequate terms of employment and the overall safety and security of OFWs cannot be assured in these countries, as required by the Migrant Workers Act, or Republic Act 8042.

The law mandates that the government adhere to strict guidelines in allowing the deployment of OFWs to other countries. It also imposes heavy penalties on government officials who allow the deployment of migrant workers without the guarantees required by law.

The committee, led by the DFA, also includes the Department of Labor and Employment, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.

The DFA has yet to comment on reports that foreign civilian contractors in Afghanistan have started terminating Filipino workers in line with a September 17 order issued by the US Central Command (Centcom). Please read the entire story here

US donates $200,000 for demining operations in south Mine Clearer Killed, several wounded

The Daily Star Lebanon Wednesday October 27

BEIRUT: The Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs awarded $200,000 to Lebanon’s Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a US Embassy statement said Tuesday.

The donation was part of a two-to-one matching grant for sub-munitions clearance with the American Task Force for Lebanon (ATFL), which raised $100,000 in private donations in September.

Since August 2006, the United Nations reports that there have been 44 fatalities and 298 injuries from explosive remnants of Lebanon’s summer 2006 war with Israel.

“More than half of the land contaminated by explosive remnants of the 2006 summer war has already been cleared by MAG and other demining organizations, thanks to generous donors, including ATFL and the United States government,” the embassy statement said.

According to the statement, the grant provided by the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement and the funds raised by the ATFL supported battle area clearance operations by six MAG mine action teams for over one month, including mechanical clearance. These teams cleared more than 112,000 square meters of land.

One mine clearer was killed and several others wounded Monday when cluster bomb fragments exploded amid removal work in south Lebanon. – The Daily Star