Cluster bombs banned by over 100 countries

wilful — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:35:21 -0800

More than 100 nations have reached an agreement on a treaty which would ban current designs of cluster bombs. Naturally, the most militant nations (USA, Russia, China, India, Pakistan) have refused to negotiate (creating significant interoperability issues for allied nations such as the UK to the USA). The Cluster Munition Coalition is an excellent resource about the issue. The issue of interoperability (.pdf) ensured that Australia remained on the side of the USA in considering this issue. The Australian Democrats proposed the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill 2006, which was defeated in Committee by both major parties. Dissenting report here.

The Self-Healing Minefield

Armitage Shanks — Wed, 27 Nov 2002 14:33:45 -0800

The Self-Healing Minefield From the current Village Voice: "Utilizing commercial off-the-shelf computer chips and 'healing' software, the networked minefield detects rude attempts to clear it, deduces which parts of itself have been removed, and signals its remaining munitions to close the hole using best-fit mathematics."

Bonus ubertasteless Flash animation courtesy of DARPA here. Color me fascinated and repulsed in equal measure.

MetaFilter posts tagged with munitions

Cluster bombs banned by over 100 countries

The Self-Healing Minefield