North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?
US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty
Anti-Empire >>
Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite
UCC has paid huge sums to a criminal professor
This story is not for republication. I bear responsibility for the things I write. I have read the guidelines and understand that I must not write anything untrue, and I won't.
This is a public interest story about a complete failure of governance and management at UCC.
Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent
Socratic Dialog Between ChatGPT-5 and Mind Agent Reveals Fatal and Deliberate 'Design by Construction' Flaw
This design flaw in ChatGPT-5's default epistemic mode subverts what the much touted ChatGPT-5 can do... so long as the flaw is not tickled, any usage should be fine---The epistemological question is: how would anyone in the public, includes you reading this (since no one is all knowing), in an unfamiliar domain know whether or not the flaw has been tickled when seeking information or understanding of a domain without prior knowledge of that domain???!
This analysis is a pretty unique and significant contribution to the space of empirical evaluation of LLMs that exist in AI public world... at least thus far, as far as I am aware! For what it's worth--as if anyone in the ChatGPT universe cares as they pile up on using the "PhD level scholar in your pocket".
According to GPT-5, and according to my tests, this flaw exists in all LLMs... What is revealing is the deduction GPT-5 made: Why ?design choice? starts looking like ?deliberate flaw?.
People are paying $200 a month to not just ChatGPT, but all major LLMs have similar Pro pricing! I bet they, like the normal user of free ChatGPT, stay in LLM's default mode where the flaw manifests itself. As it did in this evaluation.
AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent
Evaluating Semantic Reasoning Capability of AI Chatbot on Ontologically Deep Abstract (bias neutral) Thought
I have been evaluating AI Chatbot agents for their epistemic limits over the past two months, and have tested all major AI Agents, ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek, for their epistemic limits and their negative impact as information gate-keepers.... Today I decided to test for how AI could be the boon for humanity in other positive areas, such as in completely abstract realms, such as metaphysical thought. Meaning, I wanted to test the LLMs for Positives beyond what most researchers benchmark these for, or have expressed in the approx. 2500 Turing tests in Humanity?s Last Exam.. And I chose as my first candidate, Google DeepMind's Gemini as I had not evaluated it before on anything.
Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy
We have all known it for over 2 years that it is a genocide in Gaza
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has finally admitted what everyone else outside Israel has known for two years is that the Israeli state is carrying out a genocide in Gaza
Western governments like the USA are complicit in it as they have been supplying the huge bombs and missiles used by Israel and dropped on innocent civilians in Gaza. One phone call from the USA regime could have ended it at any point. However many other countries are complicity with their tacit approval and neighboring Arab countries have been pretty spinless too in their support
With the release of this report titled: Our Genocide -there is a good chance this will make it okay for more people within Israel itself to speak out and do something about it despite the fact that many there are actually in support of the Gaza
China?s CITY WIDE CASH SEIZURES Begin ? ATMs Frozen, Digital Yuan FORCED Overnight Wed Jul 30, 2025 21:40 | 1 of indy
This story is unverified but it is very instructive of what will happen when cash is removed
THIS STORY IS UNVERIFIED BUT PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT AS IT GIVES AN VERY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT A CASHLESS SOCIETY WILL LOOK LIKE. And it ain't pretty
A single video report has come out of China claiming China's biggest cities are now cashless, not by choice, but by force. The report goes on to claim ATMs have gone dark, vaults are being emptied. And overnight (July 20 into 21), the digital yuan is the only currency allowed.
The Saker >>
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony
Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony
Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony
Public Inquiry >>
Parse failure for http://humanrights.ie/feed/.
Last Retry Tuesday September 30, 2025 01:21
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report
Monday May 26, 2008 20:57
by Paula Geraghty
mspgeraghty at yahoo dot ie
printable version
Digg this
del.icio.us
Furl
Reddit
Technorati
Facebook
Gab
Twitter
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (12 of 12)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12All images (c)!
The argument put out by opponents to cluster bombs are that post-conflict large numbers of unexploded bomblets are left in the ground or on the surface waiting to explode and people get killed and wounded long after the conflict is over.
That is beyong dispute but the same if true of a host of other weapons.
During the Great War literally millions of shells were fired by both sides along hundreds of miles of front from the Channel coast to the Swiss border and from along the Eastern Front too. A large number of those shells did not explode and are still littering the battlefield.
Individual soldiers are armed with hand grenades and many of those did not explode either.
A British tactic during the war was to dig tunnels under the German trenches and pack them with vast quantities of explosives and blow chasms in the German lines. A number of these underground mines are still lying dormant.
Almost a century later these areas Belgium and France are still full of unexploded ordinance that is still lethally dangerous.
In the Second World War enormous quantities of bombs were dropped across the continent.
The modern centre of London which was built on the ruins of buildings destroyed in the Blitz and the centre of Berlin obiliterated by Allied bombs. Many of these bombs did not exploded and still lie undisturbed buried in the ground and are hazardous to civilians.
During the Cold War, the USSR manufactured hundreds of millions of AK-47 rifles.
After the end of the Cold War stand off, these surplus weapons were sold to Third World armies and rebel groups.
These weapons sells for only a few hundred dollars and an illiterate peasant can learn how to use them in a few minutes.
They are incredibly durable, require little maintanence and can endure punishing climatic and physical conditions.
An AK-47 rifle covered in mud or run over by a truck can still fire.
Modern small calibre military bullets are designed to injure rather than to kill because a wounded soldier requires four or more men to carrying him from the battlefield. This means that far more people who would otherwise have died on the battlefield linger in agony for decades with maimed limbs and bodies putting an enormous strain on their societies.
Would a moratorium on cluster bombs forbid their use?
Absolutely not.
In war the side with the greatest firepower usually wins.
A single pass by a low flying combat aircraft delivering cluster bombs onto a target could wipe out a company of infantry soldiers or a column of tanks which would otherwise require a pitched battle and high number of casualties by ones own infantry and loss of equipment to eliminate.
In peacetime countries have the luxury of banning these weapons but when wars start and there is no reason to assume that the political harmony between Western industrialised nations will continue for ever (oil and gas are running out) we would soon witness these weapons reappearance.
The use of cluster bombs on the battlefields against enemy forces have produced stunning victories for their practitioners.
Why would they give up that advantage?
Cluster bombs are merely one more evil weapon since the advent of cavemen wielding tree limbs and rocks.
There is certainly a lot of sense in the notion of banning bombs full stop rather than focusing on cluster bombs. But ultimately this is an issue of global justice and human nature.
rogy
An average of three children a day are still being killed in Viet-Nam from munitions in a war that was supposed to have finished almost 40 years ago. The problem with clustr bombs is that they are 'designed 'to do exactly what they do. Stay dormant for decades.
Jeff Hoon described cluster bombs as the best offenceive weapon in certain circumstances...I dont think he meant it the way that I took this statement.
In 2004, the fastest seller at the Arms Trade Fair held in London was cluster bombs. During the 'fair' the western world held a three minute silence in remberance of the 1st anniversary of the World Trade Centre collapse....the arms trading went on unhindered and unaware of any such commemoration.
As far as I know a computer software company in Galway actually make the triggers for these WMD cluster bombs.
When confronted by this fact on her electoral trail along with the fact that there are more than 300 military contracts active in Irelands neutral country, Mary Harney as minister of trade and 'enterprise' denied this and said...'they probably make kettles for all I know'.
She shows about as much concern for children being murdered in the Middle-East as minister for trade as she does for children in this country as now minister for health.
Well done to the marchers, diddnt even know it was on, id have been there.
Picures from last sunday demo..with some delay..sorry.
More photos..
I mistakenly uploaded copies of the same photos, sorry! the indy staff can certaily cancel them.
Seems like a load of cash was ploughed into this demo - official and expensive hoardings,trucks driving around town with the poster in giant print on the back and thousands of full coliur fliers.
Can the organisers elaborate a little more on what the aim of the demo was and if it was anti-war and anti-all bombs or just one type of bomb??
Confusing.
Really did seem to come out of nowhere.
Demo was pretty much an NGO effort.
Just got a text from a friend who is now a Dutch MP saying there was a victory at the conference last night.
I heard earlier the Aussies and others were going to be at the conference to water down the statement
on behalf of the absent U.S. (which stores cluster bombs in England and probabhly transports them through Shannon)
Does anyone know what kind of treaty is coming out of this conference.
Is it a strong statement or has it been watered down?
Heres what RTE is saying today anyhow..
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0530/cluster.html
The whole thing seems very hypocritical- cluster bombs - No! bombs that deploy in the tradiitonal way - ok??
Dont know how anything about this is hypocritical. Is it a good thing if clusterbombs get made illegal?? Yes.
I doubt that those campaigning to end the use of cluster bombs are supportive of the use of other bombs. Its was a campaign specifically about cluster bombs, and as such seemed to get somewhere. Not sure anyone doesn't expect that many signatory gov's and manufacturing companies will be seeking to either not implement this, or use 'creative' bomb design of circumnavigate the treaty respectively but doesnt suggest that the organisers are hypocritical. Thats a fairly ungenerous analysis of what happened IMHO
U.S. National Catholic Reporter podcast interview with Sister of Mercy Denise Coghlan -an Australian based in Cambodia - about the conference. She reflects on how the U.S. tried to influence the conference it did not attend. She also reflects on how cluster bombs dropped during the Vietnam War still kill and injure the people of Cambodia. She is interviewed following a demonstration at Dublin's U.S. Embassy...
The link is here: http://ncrcafe.org/node/1842