"President won’t sign treaty to ban land mines
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has decided not to sign an international convention banning land mines.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said yesterday that the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-era policy. “We decided that our land mine policy remains in effect,’’ he said.
Yup, MORE "CHANGE!"
A LOOK OUT for those PILES of BROWN GOOP, too, readers!
More than 150 countries have agreed to the Mine Ban Treaty’s provisions to end the production, use, stockpiling, and trade in mines. Besides the United States, holdouts include China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Russia. Human rights groups had expressed hopes that the Obama administration would sign the treaty.
Stephen Goose, the director of Human Rights Watch’s arms division, said he was surprised by the announcement and called it disappointing. He said that his group had been pushing the administration to conduct a review of its policy but that the administration had given no indication that one was underway.... Kelly said that the United States would send an observer group of mine specialists to a review conference on the treaty in Cartegena, Colombia, next week. A report this month by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines found that mines remain planted in at least 70 countries and killed at least 1,266 people and wounded 3,891 last year.
--more--"They certainly stepped in something down there:
"White House backtracks on land mine policy
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is backtracking on an announcement that it had reviewed its policy allowing military use of land mines and decided to leave it in place.
On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the administration had completed a review and decided not sign a treaty banning land mines. But in a statement yesterday, Kelly said there had been only a partial review concerning who would be the US representative at next week’s conference in Colombia on the international Mine Ban Treaty, and the administration is still looking at its overall policy.
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