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True cost of cluster bombs
News in perspective
SEAN SUTTON/MAG/PANOS
Upfront– TRUE COST OF CLUSTER BOMBS Cluster bombs are an effective weapon. Since entering widespread use in the 1960s they have caused 2000 military casualties. They have also killed or injured an estimated 98,000 civilians. The grim figures come from the first global assessment of the impact of cluster bombs, released on 2 November by the UK-based support group Handicap International (HI). It is timed to precede talks this week in which Sweden, supported by Austria, Mexico and New Zealand, will propose a ban on cluster weapons to members of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on Conventional Weapons. Cluster weapons are bombs or shells that contain dozens of “submunitions” designed to scatter over a wide area and then explode. An estimated 10 per cent
fail to detonate and remain lurking until someone stumbles across them, sometimes years after a conflict is over. One-third of the casualties are children. Campaigns to ban cluster weapons have been hindered till now by a lack of reliable figures. HI’s assessment reports 11,044 confirmed casualties in the 23 countries where cluster munitions have been used. “Today we can add another 800 to that number,” HI researcher Katleen Maes told New Scientist, as new reports have come in from Iraq. These figures are a gross underestimate, she says, as most countries do not separate submunitions casualties from those due to other “explosive remnants of war”. On this basis, HI puts the true number of killed and wounded at around 100,000.
Energy U-turn
with business-as-usual scenarios. This will require “strong policy action” by governments, the IEA says, otherwise energy demand and CO2 emissions could both increase by more than 50 per cent by 2030, threatening “severe and irreversible environmental damage”. To achieve this vision, governments need to invest heavily in improving the efficiency of vehicles, buildings, appliances and industrial motors, the IEA says. It also recommends a rapid expansion in the use of nuclear power and renewable energy sources, including biofuels for vehicles.
–Deadly, and indiscriminate–
THE day of judgement has finally been set for six Bulgarian health workers accused of deliberately infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV. They will hear their fate by 19 December, a Libyan court ruled last week. Human rights observers say the workers, who all face the death penalty, have been made scapegoats to cover up the real cause of the infections – poor hygiene at the Benghazi hospital where the children were treated in 1998. Fifty-two have since died. Libyan president Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi is now under intense international pressure to order a retrial or free the Bulgarians. Eminent scientists claim the Libyan courts have disallowed crucial scientific
“The Libyan courts have disallowed crucial scientific and circumstantial evidence” and circumstantial evidence pointing to the innocence of the Bulgarians, including a 2003 report by Luc Montagnier, the French scientist who co-discovered HIV. It blamed 6 | NewScientist | 11 November 2006
061111_p6_p7_Upfronts.indd 6
the reuse of syringes for the infections, which began before the Bulgarians arrived. Last week, 114 Nobel prizewinners appealed directly to Gaddafi for a fair trial in a letter online in the journal Nature. “I’m told that 19 December is the latest possible date for the verdict under Libyan law,” says Richard Roberts of New England Biolabs in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and lead author of the letter. “That gives the maximum time possible to negotiate a positive outcome. I believe there will be a lot of extrajudicial activity in the next few weeks.” A separate appeal was launched in Science on 25 October. MICHAEL PITTS/NATUREPL.COM
Verdict date is set
DIRTY, insecure and expensive. That’s the future of energy if the world does not shift towards climate-friendly policies. In the World Energy Outlook 2006 published on Tuesday, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) maps out a future in which global energy demand in 2030 will be 10 per cent less than it would be if current trends continue. This is a radical change from the IEA’s traditional stance of unrestrained growth. Under the IEA’s new scenario, global emissions of CO2 would be 16 per cent less by 2030 compared
Snappy surprise SALTWATER crocodiles are on the march, and unwitting tourists are in their way. Despite their name, Australia’s “salties” regularly travel up to 235 kilometres inland in freshwater streams, Mike Letnic of the University of Sydney has found during a survey of crocs in three rivers in the Northern Territory (Wildlife Research, vol 33, p 529). That should be a wake-up call to many tourist operators who still –Just when they thought it was safe– assume rivers are croc-free. www.newscientist.com
7/11/06 5:18:53 pm
SEAN SUTTON/MAG/PANOS
Upfront– TRUE COST OF CLUSTER BOMBS Cluster bombs are an effective weapon. Since entering widespread use in the 1960s they have caused 2000 military casualties. They have also killed or injured an estimated 98,000 civilians. The grim figures come from the first global assessment of the impact of cluster bombs, released on 2 November by the UK-based support group Handicap International (HI). It is timed to precede talks this week in which Sweden, supported by Austria, Mexico and New Zealand, will propose a ban on cluster weapons to members of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on Conventional Weapons. Cluster weapons are bombs or shells that contain dozens of “submunitions” designed to scatter over a wide area and then explode. An estimated 10 per cent
fail to detonate and remain lurking until someone stumbles across them, sometimes years after a conflict is over. One-third of the casualties are children. Campaigns to ban cluster weapons have been hindered till now by a lack of reliable figures. HI’s assessment reports 11,044 confirmed casualties in the 23 countries where cluster munitions have been used. “Today we can add another 800 to that number,” HI researcher Katleen Maes told New Scientist, as new reports have come in from Iraq. These figures are a gross underestimate, she says, as most countries do not separate submunitions casualties from those due to other “explosive remnants of war”. On this basis, HI puts the true number of killed and wounded at around 100,000.
Energy U-turn
with business-as-usual scenarios. This will require “strong policy action” by governments, the IEA says, otherwise energy demand and CO2 emissions could both increase by more than 50 per cent by 2030, threatening “severe and irreversible environmental damage”. To achieve this vision, governments need to invest heavily in improving the efficiency of vehicles, buildings, appliances and industrial motors, the IEA says. It also recommends a rapid expansion in the use of nuclear power and renewable energy sources, including biofuels for vehicles.
–Deadly, and indiscriminate–
THE day of judgement has finally been set for six Bulgarian health workers accused of deliberately infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV. They will hear their fate by 19 December, a Libyan court ruled last week. Human rights observers say the workers, who all face the death penalty, have been made scapegoats to cover up the real cause of the infections – poor hygiene at the Benghazi hospital where the children were treated in 1998. Fifty-two have since died. Libyan president Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi is now under intense international pressure to order a retrial or free the Bulgarians. Eminent scientists claim the Libyan courts have disallowed crucial scientific
“The Libyan courts have disallowed crucial scientific and circumstantial evidence” and circumstantial evidence pointing to the innocence of the Bulgarians, including a 2003 report by Luc Montagnier, the French scientist who co-discovered HIV. It blamed 6 | NewScientist | 11 November 2006
061111_p6_p7_Upfronts.indd 6
the reuse of syringes for the infections, which began before the Bulgarians arrived. Last week, 114 Nobel prizewinners appealed directly to Gaddafi for a fair trial in a letter online in the journal Nature. “I’m told that 19 December is the latest possible date for the verdict under Libyan law,” says Richard Roberts of New England Biolabs in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and lead author of the letter. “That gives the maximum time possible to negotiate a positive outcome. I believe there will be a lot of extrajudicial activity in the next few weeks.” A separate appeal was launched in Science on 25 October. MICHAEL PITTS/NATUREPL.COM
Verdict date is set
DIRTY, insecure and expensive. That’s the future of energy if the world does not shift towards climate-friendly policies. In the World Energy Outlook 2006 published on Tuesday, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) maps out a future in which global energy demand in 2030 will be 10 per cent less than it would be if current trends continue. This is a radical change from the IEA’s traditional stance of unrestrained growth. Under the IEA’s new scenario, global emissions of CO2 would be 16 per cent less by 2030 compared
Snappy surprise SALTWATER crocodiles are on the march, and unwitting tourists are in their way. Despite their name, Australia’s “salties” regularly travel up to 235 kilometres inland in freshwater streams, Mike Letnic of the University of Sydney has found during a survey of crocs in three rivers in the Northern Territory (Wildlife Research, vol 33, p 529). That should be a wake-up call to many tourist operators who still –Just when they thought it was safe– assume rivers are croc-free. www.newscientist.com
7/11/06 5:18:53 pm