California: Former Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills-McCartney hosted Adopt-A-Minefield's fifth annual benefit gala in Los Angeles, California on Tuesday.
The McCartneys, who are goodwill ambassadors, successfully raised $1.4 million at last year's event and subsequently became involved more directly with the charity.
"It just happened by chance actually, we were at a event to support my sister-in-law and Heather and I started talking to Ambassador Bill Luers who started this thing with the UN," McCartney said.
"I think he was very interested to learn Heather's knowledge about the subject so he got us involved. That was a little while ago and we have been able to do some great work since and we are just going from strength to strength with people's support," McCartney added.
This year's gala will feature a silent auction on goods donated by various celebrities including Pamela Anderson.
"From what they have done from last year to this year is just a miracle," Anderson said.
McCartney will perform with special guest and singer Tony Bennett while Heather will present a movie showing the effects of land mines on people around the world.
The association honoured Grammy winner and Colombian rock star, Juanes for his commitment to the landmine issue. Juanes a goodwill ambassador for United for Colombia, works with a not-for-profit organization that seeks to raise awareness about the impact of landmines within his country.
Every nine hours there is a new landmine victim and one third of the victims are children.
Adopt-A-Minefield seeks to prevent new accidents through mine risk education and to help existing survivors by supporting organizations that are providing services to landmine survivors.
The United Nations Association of the USA launched the successful Adopt-A-Minefield program in March 1999. The United Nations Association of the USA and the Landmine Survivors Network are both US Department of State public-private partners in humanitarian de-mining.
"Just get a decent President who does not pull out of the Mine Ban Treaty that was already signed to ratify in 2006," Mills-McCartney said.
"The saddest thing is that the US is developing a new mine called the Spider mine which will be put into war zones," Mills-McCartney added.
The Pentagon is close to deciding whether to produce a new generation of land mines, but the system is drawing fire from critics who say the military is ignoring international sentiment against such weapons.
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