Cambodia anti-tank mine kills 14 on tractor

[struggle4progress]

Source: BBC

The explosion of an anti-tank mine left behind by civil war in Cambodia has killed 14 people.

The group, which included a one-year-old girl, was returning from work at a chilli farm when their tractor hit the mine.

Official figures just released showed that people die in incidents involving unexploded ordinance every week.

A conference just held in neighbouring Laos highlighted the problem of cluster bombs left behind by war ...

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11772122

[dipsydoodle]

1. Subject in general

1 August 2010 Last updated at 05:26

Global cluster bomb ban comes into force : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-10829976

Rec'd. Thanks for posting awful as the news is.

[LawnKorn]

2. Professional journalists at work

Official figures just released showed that people die in incidents involving unexploded ordinance every week.

A conference just held in neighbouring Laos highlighted the problem of cluster bombs left behind by war ...

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11772122

ordinance = an authoritative rule or law

ordnance = military weapons with their equipment, ammunition, etc.

[struggle4progress]

3. Maybe the organization downsized and replaced professional editors with

low-wage temps who are hired to use a word-processor spell-check

[enuegii]

5. Here's another example of journalistic excellence:

'chili' is the tomato and pepper based dish popular in the US and elsewhere.
'chile' refers to the pepper or the plant.
It is spelled 'chilli' referring to the peppers in the article-- wrong form of the word and misspelled.

On edit: 'chilli' may be an acceptable spelling in British English for the dish, but not the pepper or plant.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

4. Postcards From cambodia by Bruce Cockburn

Bruce had this to say about the song:
"A couple years ago, I went to Cambodia on a trip organized by Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation around the issue of land-mines. I've been working on that issue for some years and, with various Canadian organizations, and, on this occasion, I was invited to go on this trip to Southeast Asia. The imagery was rich as you can imagine. It took a long time how to figure out how to make it into a song, but eventually that happened and this is the result."

Beautiful (albeit sad song if you haven't heard it before)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suxYiyLUYps

Lyrics:

Abe Lincoln once turned to somebody and said,
"Do you ever find yourself talking with the dead?"

There are three tiny deaths heads carved out of mammoth tusk
on the ledge in my bathroom
They grin at me in the morning when I'm taking a leak,
but they say very little.

Outside Phnom Penh there's a tower, glass paneled,
maybe ten meters high
filled with skulls from the killing fields
Most of them lack the lower jaw
so they don't exactly grin
but they whisper, as if from a great distance,
of pain, and of pain left far behind

Eighteen thousand empty eyeholes peering out at the four directions

Electric fly buzz, green moist breeze
Bone-colored Brahma bull grazes wet-eyed,
hobbled in hollow of mass grave
In the neighboring field a small herd
of young boys plays soccer,
their laughter swallowed in expanding silence

This is too big for anger,
it’s too big for blame.
We stumble through history so
humanly lame
So I bow down my head
Say a prayer for us all
That we don’t fear the spirit
when it comes to call

The sun will soon slide down into the far end of the ancient reservoir.
Orange ball merging with its water-borne twin
below air-brushed edges of cloud.
But first, it spreads itself,

a golden scrim behind fractal sweep of swooping fly catchers.
Silhouetted dark green trees,
blue horizon

The rains are late this year.
The sky has no more tears to shed.
But from the air Cambodia remains
a disc of wet green, bordered by bright haze.
Water-filled bomb craters, sun streaked gleam
stitched in strings across patchwork land and
march west toward the far hills of Thailand.
Macro analog of Ankor Wat’s temple walls
intricate bas-relief of thousand-year-old battles
pitted with AK rounds

And under the sign of the seven headed cobra
the naga who sees in all directions
seven million landmines lie in terraced grass, in paddy, in bush
(Call it a minescape now)

Sally holds the beggar's hand and cries
at his scarred up face and absent eyes
and right leg gone from above the knee

Tears spot the dust on the worn stone causeway
whose sculpted guardians row on row
Half frown, half smile, mysterious, mute.

And this is too big for anger.
It’s too big for blame
We stumble through history so
humanly lame.
So I bow down my head,
say a prayer for us all.
That we don’t fear the spirit when it comes to call.