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	The horrific humanitarian impact of explosive weapons in civilian-populated areas by UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs   In conflicts the world over bombs and missiles routinely destroy people’s homes, killing and maiming the inhabitants and leaving the civilian population terrorised.   Three reports were launched on 21 September, the International Day of Peace, by OCHA and partners, including peace advocacy NGOs PAX and Action on Armed Violence (AOAV). The reports show the horrific humanitarian impact of explosive weapons in civilian-populated areas in Libya, Yemen and Ukraine. Collateral - The human cost of explosive violence in Ukraine, Shattered lives - Civilians suffer from the use of explosive weapons in Libya, and State of crisis: explosive weapons in Yemen call on States and armed groups to stop using explosive weapons — particularly weapons with wide-area effects — in towns and cities across the world.   The reports also reiterate the UN Secretary-General’s call for States to develop and adopt practical measures and guidance to reduce the humanitarian impact of explosive weapons in urban areas. A number of States, UN agencies and NGOs are currently gathered in Austria to discuss these recommendations and a way forward.   Explosive weapons vary widely in their design and delivery method. They may include bombs, rockets, mortars or improvised explosive devices, but each share the same aim: to fragment on detonation, and to kill, injure or destroy anything in the vicinity as effectively as possible.   While explosive weapons are not expressly prohibited under international humanitarian law (IHL), their use must comply with the general rules of IHL governing the conduct of hostilities, which contain clear provisions and principles aimed at protecting civilians. In many cases the use of explosive weapons in populated areas will violate the fundamental IHL principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution, which are designed to limit loss of civilian life.   When fighting parties detonate explosive weapons in populated areas, an astonishing 92 per cent of the people killed or injured are civilians, according to data collected in 2014 by AOAV. Its research also showed that during the fighting in Libya since 2011, civilians comprised 79 per cent of all reported deaths and injuries from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, 89 per cent in the heaviest periods of fighting in Ukraine and 95 per cent in the brutal conflict that is currently raging in Yemen. Due to the sheer intensity of explosive violence in Yemen, the country recorded more civilian deaths and injuries from explosive weapons during the first seven months of 2015 than in any other country. The vast majority of these deaths and injuries occurred in populated areas.   In Ukraine, an average of nine civilians were killed or injured per attack using explosive weapons. However, the number rose to 14 civilian deaths or injuries on average when multiple-launch rocket systems were used.   The trauma caused by these types of attacks is unfathomable. In Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, one resident, Mohammed Sarhan, described the moment an air strike hit a missile base at Faj Attan in his neighbourhood. “It was like the doors of hell opened, I felt the house lift up and fall,” he said. Another resident, Osamah al-Fakih, said that when speaking to his sister after the bomb attack, “I could hear my two-year-old nephew crying out in fear and screaming ‘Mama, Mama.’ His voice is still resonating in my head as each shell goes off.”   In Ukraine’s Donetsk province, the scene of heavy explosive-weapons use and high levels of civilian casualties, 145 health centres were shelled and 164 schools damaged. Natalia, 31, was seven-months pregnant when she fled her home. “It’s impossible to live here – the shelling is almost every day,” she said. “There’s no water, no gas, nothing – no conditions for life… The apartment is on the contact line so it’s right in the middle [of the conflict]. We were told ‘Please take all you can because this place will not exist’.”   The use of explosive weapons in civilian areas not only kills and injures civilian residents, but it also destroys their electricity grids and water and sanitation systems, forces schools and health clinics to shut down, decimates people’s livelihoods and causes mass displacement, effectively damaging lives for years to come. Even when conflicts finally end, these towns and cities will remain heavily contaminated with explosive remnants of war for years, depriving civilians of access to land, schools, water points, religious sites and other locations and putting children in particular at risk.   Mustafa Alshami, a father of three, lives in Misrata, Libya. He was running errands in May 2011 when a neighbour told him a missile had hit his home.   “There was a hole in the side of my house with a missile in the ground. There was a great deal of commotion, and someone had been holding my four-year-old daughter, Malak. Her legs were shredded. My two-year-old daughter, Rodaina, and my three-year-old son, Mohamed, were dead,” he said.   “If I could ask for something, I would tell the international community to please ban these weapons wherever people live. We are completely innocent. Why is it OK for soldiers to fight in safety from so far away, and for my children to die or live like this? This is not OK. We are not the ones who chose to fight. Please, this must be banned now.Four years have passed, but there is not an hour that we do not think of that day and what we lost.”   http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/%E2%80%9Cthere-not-hour-we-do-not-think-day-and-what-we-lost%E2%80%9D http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/results/taxonomy%3A43 Visit the related web page
	1,000 experts and leading robotics researchers warn of a military artificial intelligence arms race by Campaign to Stop Killer Robots   More than 1,000 experts and leading robotics researchers have signed an open letter warning of military artificial intelligence arms race.   Over 1,000 high-profile artificial intelligence experts and leading researchers have signed an open letter warning of a “military artificial intelligence arms race” and calling for a ban on “offensive autonomous weapons”.   The letter, presented at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was signed by Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis and professor Stephen Hawking along with 1,000 AI and robotics researchers.   The letter states: “AI technology has reached a point where the deployment of [autonomous weapons] is – practically if not legally – feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.”   The authors argue that AI can be used to make the battlefield a safer place for military personnel, but that offensive weapons that operate on their own would lower the threshold of going to battle and result in greater loss of human life.   Should one military power start developing systems capable of selecting targets and operating autonomously without direct human control, it would start an arms race similar to the one for the atom bomb, the authors argue.Unlike nuclear weapons, however, AI requires no specific hard-to-create materials and will be difficult to monitor.   “The endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting,” said the authors.   Toby Walsh, professor of AI at the University of New South Wales said: “We need to make a decision today that will shape our future and determine whether we follow a path of good. We support the call by a number of different humanitarian organisations for a UN ban on offensive autonomous weapons, similar to the recent ban on blinding lasers.”   Musk and Hawking have warned that AI is “our biggest existential threat” and that the development of full AI could “spell the end of the human race”.   http://futureoflife.org/AI/open_letter_autonomous_weapons http://www.hrw.org/report/2015/04/09/mind-gap/lack-accountability-killer-robots http://www.pwsinger.com/articles.html http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/ Visit the related web page
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