快猫短视频

JAPAN is planning to spend 拢4 million developing a new generation of
landmines that can be detonated by remote control, to replace the conventional
mines that will soon to be outlawed by the Ottawa Convention. The convention
requires signatories to destroy all anti-personnel landmines within 10 years,
but Japanese officials say devices that soldiers can detonate by remote control
fall outside the scope of the agreement. 鈥淭hese new mines will be under human
control,鈥� says Tatsuhiko Fukui of Japan鈥檚 defence agency. 鈥淪o they are
acceptable under the Ottawa Convention.鈥�

With only a small army, Japan sees landmines as a crucial frontline defence
against invasion. Because of this, Japan was a reluctant signatory to the Ottawa
Convention last December. Japan鈥檚 Yomiuri newspaper says the new
landmine will sense human footfalls or movement above it and send a coded radio
signal to alert a soldier monitoring the mines. The soldier must then decide
whether to detonate the landmine by remote control. The new mines鈥� destructive
power would be similar to that of the conventional mines Japan possesses, which
scatter 1200 projectiles over an area 100 metres in diameter. Unlike
conventional mines, however, the new mines would be switched off after
hostilities had ceased鈥攂ut anti-landmine campaigners like Oxfam dispute
their ability to do this with 100 per cent reliability.

鈥淭he Ottawa Convention prohibits landmines but this is not a landmine,鈥� says
Fukui. 鈥淲e are not even calling it a landmine.鈥� In Japanese, the device is
called a shikousei sandan, or projectile-scattering device.

Says Oxfam spokesman Ian Bray: 鈥淭his is one of many attempts by military
strategists to get around the Ottawa Convention. What we really want to see is
that countries are committed to the spirit of the convention. We can no longer
afford to play with children鈥檚 lives and limbs.鈥�