"An overwhelming majority of American voters, 73%, believe that a “dysfunctional family” is a better descriptor of America today than the “tight-knit family” painted by Obama." - Americans Disagree With Obama's Vision
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President Obama is making it clear he intends to press for a sweeping progressive agenda during his final two years in office. Yet according to a new poll from Fox News, American voters strongly disagree with Obama’s policy prescriptions. More telling, they have an almost existential disagreement with even Obama’s vision of the country.
An overwhelming majority of American voters, 73%, believe that a “dysfunctional family” is a better descriptor of America today than the “tight-knit family” painted by Obama. Only 15% of voters feel safer today than when President Obama first took office. More than a third believe we are less safe today.
Less than 20% of voters think their family is doing financially better than they were when Obama took office. Despite the fact that the economy officially recovered from recession soon after Obama entered the White House, almost one-third of Americans, 28%, say their family is in worse shape financially. This is a sobering statistic considering the economy is supposedly entering its 6th year of economic recovery.
President Obama has seen a slight improvement in his personal approval ratings since the Republican landslide in 2014. On the eve of that election, his net approval rating was -13 points, with 41% approving and 54% disapproving of his job performance. Today, his net approval has improved to -6 points.
Obama’s existential problem is that his proposed policies are much more unpopular than he is. More than half of voters, 54%, believe his policies in the Middle East have failed and a strong plurality believes Obama downplays the threat of radical Islam, for example.
Obama’s chief focus during his State of the Union address were policies he claimed would target assistance to the “middle-class.” Just 35% of voters, however, believe federal policies should specifically benefit the middle-class. More than 60% believe policies should be designed to benefit the entire economy, rather than segments of it.
Americans still disagree with the idea that taxes should be raised on the wealthy to fund benefits for other Americans. Interestingly, there has been no change in number of Americans who believe this throughout Obama’s entire time in office. This appears to be a “hard value,” immune to ceaseless echoes of the alternative view from the bully pulpit.
The voters fundamental disagreement with Obama’s policies ought not to surprise us, given the nation’s political history of the last six years. Obama won election twice, albeit against perhaps the worst Republican presidential campaigns in modern history. His reelection victory in 2012 was far narrower than is commonly remembered today.
Outside of those personal political victories, though, his tenure has been a disaster for the Democrat party and its left-wing policy vision. Twice, American voters have swept Democrats from office. The Republicans have gained a net 14 seats in the Senate since Obama first took office. In the House, the GOP has its largest majority in the modern era.
In statehouses across the country, Republicans hold political power not seen since before the Great Depression. In large swathes of the country, and even many states, the Democrat party simply doesn’t exist as a competitive political force.
President Obama is a singular politician, however. He has no capacity to adapt to changing events or circumstances. Most of the policies he continues to push today are exactly the same as the basket of items he first proposed when he took office. He has not grown, in any meaningful political way, in office.
Unfortunately for him and his legacy, the American public has.
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The inquiry into the killing of the Russian spy, held at the high court, has heard some extraordinary testimony
This week a public inquiry opened into the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko. He was a Russian intelligence officer who fled to Britain in 2000 and criticised Vladimir Putin in a series of articles and books.
Two Russians – Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun – have been charged with his murder. They are accused of slipping a rare radioactive isotope, polonium-210, into Litvinenko’s tea.
Continue reading...Infants create new knowledge while sleepingby The European Union Times
A new study shows that an infant’s brain reprocesses what it has learned and creates new knowledge even during sleep.
Babies from 9 to 16 months of age remember the names of objects better if they had a short nap, German researchers from the University of Tübingen and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in the city of Leipzig, both in Germany, said in a study.
The sleeping baby’s brain converts new experience into knowledge, the study noted.
When waking from a nap, infants can then transfer learned names to similar new objects.
Researchers believe that the brain retrieves recent experiences when asleep, thereby integrating new knowledge into the existing memory. This is done by strengthening, re-linking or even dismantling neuronal connections.
When the brain is largely cut off from outside influences, as in sleep, it organizes its experiences and forms new generalizations.
“In this way, sleep bridges the gap between specific objects and general categories, thus transferring experience into knowledge,” explained Manuela Friedrich of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.
Learning Session
The study was conducted on a group of babies who were repeatedly shown images of certain objects while hearing the fictitious names assigned to the objects.
One group of infants took a nap for up to two-hours while the other group remained awake.
The children who had stayed awake had forgotten the names of the individual objects. The group who took a nap remembered a series of object-word mappings.
Scientists also found radical differences in their abilities to categorize the objects.
“The infants who slept after the training session assigned new objects to the names of similar-looking objects… They were not able to do that before their nap, and nor were the ones who stayed awake able to do it. This means that the categories must have been formed during sleep,” Friederici concluded.
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SANAA (Reuters) - Schoolboy Mohammed Taeiman died this week on a remote Yemeni road, a casualty of a U.S. drone campaign against the local branch of al Qaeda that seems to be sliding into disarray.
 Daily Mail |
Taliban claim responsibility for insider attack that killed three American ...
Daily Mail The Taliban have claimed responsibility for an insider attack by an Afghan soldier that killed three American contractors at a Kabul airport. A spokesman for the insurgent group said that the attacker's name was Ehsanullah and that he was from Laghman ... and more » |
Russia might bailout Greece by The European Union Times
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.
Greece hasn’t outright asked Russia for a loan, but Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Moscow wouldn’t rule it out. His statement comes days after Greece openly opposed further economic sanctions against Russia.
“Well, we can imagine any situation, so if such [a] petition is submitted to the Russian government, we will definitely consider it, but we will take into account all the factors of our bilateral relationships between Russia and Greece, so that is all I can say. If it is submitted we will consider it,” Siluanov told CNBC in an interview in Moscow on Thursday.
The new left-wing Syriza government in Greece won a majority at last Sunday’s election on the promise to renegotiate the country’s €317 billion debt and end austerity.
Greece needs to negotiate with EU policymakers by February 28 in order to receive the next tranche of bailout funds. If Athens doesn’t get the money it will have difficulty servicing its debt. Two bailouts were paid in 2010 and 2014 totaling €240 billion.
The new government was quick to show support for Moscow, and has openly called for an end to Russian sanctions, and may veto any future sanctions.
Greece says EU should change policy towards Russia.
Siluanov applauded Greece’s stance on sanctions as “pragmatic” and “economically justified.”
On Thursday the European Commission decided to extend sanctions against Russia through September 2015, but did not add any broader economic measures. A spokesperson for the new PM Alexis Tsipras said Greece didn’t approve of any further restrictive measures.
Between announcing it doesn’t intend to pay off its €317 billion debt in full and blocking Russia sanctions, Greece has emerged as a wild card among the 29 countries of the EU.
Russia-Greece deals
Russia gave Greece a very valuable card to play in the EU when it announced its South Stream pipeline will be re-routed through Turkey, with a gas hub expected to be built on the border between Turkey and Greece.
Russian investors have been watching Greece closely since the economy went bust in the 2008 credit crisis, which sent it looking for financial assistance from the EU to pay its creditors.
The crisis, as well as the EU bailout policy, has sent the economy into a six-year recession, forcing the government to dismantle and privatize state assets to meet austerity targets under its EU bailout plan.
State-owned Russian Railways and Gazprom have been eyeing stakes in Greek assets. Russian Railways has held talks with TrainOSE, Greece’s state-owned passenger and cargo rail operator. In 2013, Gazprom made a €900 million bid for Greece’s state gas company DEPA, but backed out of negotiations at the last minute, citing concerns over the company’s financial stability.
Russian investment in Greek railways is estimated at up to $3 billion per year.
Traditionally, the two countries have very strong tourist ties, with more than 1 million Russians visiting Greece each year. This number has been trimmed since the ruble crisis and slowed growth have forced many Russian to forgo foreign travel.
Greece is home to a robust Russian diaspora – nearly 300,000 Russian nationals live 1,400 miles south of Moscow, largely a result of emigration.
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Former FBI Hostage Negotiator Chris Voss speaks to CNN Today about recent developments in the hostage negotiations with ISIS and why they aren't providing proof of life.
 Daily Mail |
Artillery fire kills at least 12 civilians in Donetsk
Daily Mail DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Artillery fire in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk killed at least 12 civilians on Friday afternoon, the city hall in the rebel stronghold said, as fighting intensifies between pro-Russia separatists and government troops. Five people were ... and more » |
An American citizen was shot and wounded in eastern Saudi Arabia, the police said in a statement carried by the state news agency.
 NDTV |
American Shot and Injured in Saudi Arabia
New York Times RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The official Saudi Press Agency says an American citizen was injured when his car came under fire in Saudi Arabia's eastern al-Ihsaa province. It said another American was in the car but he was not harmed and that the source of the ... US man shot and wounded in eastern Saudi Arabia: state mediaReuters American shot, injured while driving in Saudi ArabiaFox News Salman signals all changeHuffington Post KTUU.com -Economic Times -The Express Tribune all 188 news articles » |
KIEV, Ukraine — Artillery fire in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk has killed at least 12 civilians as the fighting between pro-Russia separatists and government troops intensifies.
Donetsk city hall says five people were killed early Friday afternoon as they were waiting for humanitarian aid outside a community center and two people were killed when a mortar shell landed near a bust stop. Five other people died Friday in sporadic artillery fire in the west of Donetsk.
Full-blown fighting between the rebels and government forces erupted anew earlier this month following a period of relative tranquility. Hostilities now seem to be focused around Debaltseve, a railway hub which could prove a crucial link between the rebels in Donetsk and in Luhansk northeast to it.
A 19-year-old man who stormed the Dutch state broadcaster was carrying a fake gun and said he had no ties to any terrorist organization, police said Friday.
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The Canadian economy contracted unexpectedly in November as manufacturing output fell sharply and mining and oil-and-gas extraction shrank.
Why we tell strangers our secrets by Oliver Burkeman
‘Sometimes we seek out non-intimates precisely because they’re non-intimate. For one thing, you’re not going to discuss your extramarital affair with your spouse’
Ask around and you’ll discover a mysterious truth about travelling on planes and trains: almost everyone can recall being stuck next to a stranger who wouldn’t stop boring on about his health, job or marriage, yet almost nobody will admit to being that seatmate themselves. Maybe there really is one guy who spends his life oversharing on public transport, and we’ve all bumped into him. But a more likely explanation, in light of studies by the Harvard sociologist Mario Luis Small, is that we confide in strangers more than we realise. Many scholars have long assumed our “core discussion network” to be those to whom we’re closest. The modern romantic ideal is to “marry your best friend”, someone who is lover, confidant, co-parent and drinking buddy in one. Yet when asked who they’d most recently confided in, almost half the respondents said it wasn’t someone important to them, but a bartender, hairdresser – or maybe you, trapped in the window seat on a six-hour flight.
You could take this as terrible news: in a lonely, atomised society, do we simply turn in desperation to whoever will listen? In a minority of cases, Small found, sheer availability was indeed the motive, but at least sometimes, he argues, we seek out non-intimates precisely because they’re non-intimate. For one thing, you’re not going to discuss your extramarital affair with your spouse, and you might not want one sibling gossiping to another about your money troubles. More subtly, we like indulging in “downward social comparison”, cheering ourselves with the thought that we’re doing better than others. And that’s harder to do with intimates, since if you think of your dearest friend as a loser, what does that say about you?
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New York Times |
US Economy Slowed in 4th Quarter, but Consumer Spending Boomed
New York Times Economic growth slowed at the end of 2014, but robust consumer spending during the final quarter of the year, which is expected to continue as Americans enjoy the benefits of lower energy prices, suggested that the economy was likely to pick up speed ... Economy grew 2.6% in the fourth quarterUSA TODAY US Economic Growth Slows to 2.6% in Final Months of 2014Wall Street Journal US economy cools in fourth quarter, but consumer spending shinesReuters Bloomberg -Los Angeles Times -U.S. News & World Report all 92 news articles » |
At least 20 people were killed on Friday when an explosion ripped through a packed Shia mosque in the Pakistani city of Shikarpur and left more than 50 others injured, officials said. No one has claimed the bombing and local police say it is not clear who is responsible. Recently sectarian violence has been on the rise with Sunni Islamist groups bombing mosques visited by Shia muslims Continue reading...
President Raúl Castro, emphasises the endurance of Cuba's sovereignty amid a new era of relations with the United States. Speaking at a Community of Latin American and Caribbean (CELAC) summit in Costa Rica, he says the US and Cuba must learn how to live peacefully side-by-side to contribute to solutions to world issues. Castro calls the blockade a violation of international law that must be overturned Continue reading...
In early 2015, a U.S.-based company got the green light to start producing what is perhaps the world's most recognizable assault rifle
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Rapists use social media to cover their tracks, police warnedby Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
Police and Crown Prosecution Service conference on rape hears attackers are increasingly creating false narratives online
Rapists are increasingly exploiting social media to cover their tracks and mislead investigators, a joint conference by police and prosecutors on rape was told on Wednesday .
At the police and the Crown Prosecution Service’s first joint initiative on rape, prosecutors said they had established an emerging pattern of behaviour where rapists constructed “false narratives” after the crime. One technique described involved rapists contacting victims the next day, sometimes by text or social media, thanking them for a sexual encounter. Defendants can try to rely on such messages should there be a trial.
Consent to sexual activity is not a grey area – in law it is clearly defined and must be given fully and freely
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Rise in number of older mothers a likely factor, with the proportion of births to women over 40 doubling since 1993
The number of babies being born by caesarean section increased to more than a quarter of all births last year.
Health organisations say a rise in the number of older mothers is the cause.
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 New York Daily News |
Michelle Obama's hairy problem in Saudi Arabia
New York Daily News Shame on Michelle Obama for reminding Saudi Arabia that it treats women like it's 1315, not 2015! And that pretty much sums up the reaction from some Twitter-happy Saudis and former Saudis after the First Lady showed up Tuesday to pay her respects to ... and more » |
The White House will be seeking $534 billion to run the Pentagon next year when it sends its 2016 budget request to Congress on Monday.
That would be—despite the cries we keep hearing from assorted generals—the largest Pentagon budget in history.
That’s because President Obama is ignoring the budget caps imposed by the legislative legerdemain known as sequestration: he will ask Congress (which, along with the President, imposed those caps in 2011) for $34 billion more than sequestration allows (there’s another $51 billion in the request, exempt from the caps, for waging ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria).
The Pentagon finds itself on the horns of a dilemma: a growing number of congressional Republicans have been more eager to tame spending than fund the military. If the military can’t succeed in loosening sequestration’s grip on the Pentagon’s coffers, across-the-board cuts in personnel, procurement and training are certain.
For four years, the Pentagon and its allies in Congress have fought the budget caps. Their inaction has kept the Defense Department from learning to live within them, and the retooling and reforms such an acknowledgement would require. Their fight continues, which is why the service chiefs trekked to Capitol Hill Wednesday for the umpteenth time to plead with the Senate Armed Services Committee to relax sequestration’s strictures.
The guys on the ground say they’re losing the edge. “The number one thing that keeps me up at night is that if we’re asked to respond to an unknown contingency, I will send soldiers to that contingency not properly trained and ready,” Army General Ray Odierno said. “We simply are not used to doing that.” His Marine counterpart concurred. “I think I probably speak for all the chiefs, none of us want to be part of, on our last tour on active duty, want to be a part of returning back to those days in the 1970s when we did have in fact a hollow force,” General Joseph Dunford said.
The guys on the water and in the sky—where technology pays its biggest dividends—warned the bad guys are catching up. “We’re slipping behind,” Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, said. “Our advantage is shrinking very fast.”
“We currently have 12 fleets of airplanes that qualify for antique license plates in the state of Virginia,” General Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, said. “The capability gap is closing…the people trying to catch up with us technologically…have momentum. If [they] get too close, we won’t be able to recover before they pass us.”
But the chiefs were preaching to the wrong audience: the armed services committee, packed with lawmakers with major defense installations or factories back home, has long been a bastion of pro-Pentagon lawmakers.
How draconian are sequestration’s budget cuts? It’s tough keeping track of how much the U.S. spends on its military, in part because there are several yardsticks to keep track. If you want to boost spending, you use one yardstick; if you want to cut it, you use another.
For example, simply using dollars (adjusted for inflation) shows U.S. military spending jumped by 61% from 1998 to 2010. U.S. defense spending in 2010 eclipsed the peak of the Reagan-era defense buildup, designed to defeat the Soviet Union. Military spending has fallen 12% from 2010’s crest. And when you fold in the added funding the Pentagon got to wage the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the drop is a steeper 21%.
This is a problem of the Pentagon’s own making. It routinely took defense dollars that were supposed to be used to fight the wars and used them to buy new hardware and for other, non-war-related expenses. Like any addict, it got used to this easy access to spending euphoria.
That makes withdrawal from such easy money all the tougher: if war funding had been only used for wars, ending the wars would end the need for that money. But seeing as much of the funding bought what should have been paid for by the Pentagon’s so-called “base” budget, weaning itself from its war-fattened budgets is proving painful.
Then there’s another way to measure Pentagon spending: what share of the national economy is dedicated to defense? Since World War II, the nation has spent about a nickel of every dollar created by the U.S. economy on its military, or 5%. It’s now down to about 3.5%. If sequestration remains the law, the Pentagon’s share of the national economic pie will fall to 2.5% by 2019, the smallest slice since the end of World War II.
Those who want to spend more on the Pentagon cite this decline as proof the nation is starving the military. That’s only true, of course, if one assumes the enemy is the Gross Domestic Product.
The challenge for the U.S. military is obvious. The lawmakers, obligated “to raise and support Armies” under the Constitution, are concerned with global instability and terrorism.
But the 13 years, nearly 7,000 American lives and three trillion American dollars spent in Afghanistan and Iraq weigh heavily on their minds. It’s obvious most of them don’t feel that more military money is the answer.
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ABC News |
Maryland Mansion Fire: Christmas Tree Blamed for Deadly Blaze
ABC News An electrical failure that set ablaze a 15-foot Christmas tree caused a mansion fire in Annapolis, Maryland earlier this month that killed six people, authorities announced today. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents also concluded that ... and more » |
Owner of Gun That Killed Argentine Prosecutor Emerges From Hiding by webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
The man who lent an Argentine prosecutor the gun that killed him the day before he was to testify in Congress about allegations against the president emerged from hiding on Wednesday, saying the investigator feared for his family's life. The prosecutor's employee, Diego Lagomarsino, is the only person to be charged with any offense so far in the case of Alberto Nisman, who was investigating the 1994 bombing of Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. "I asked him why he...
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- ‘If these problems aren’t resolved, rapprochement wouldn’t make sense’
- Cuban leader demands end to US propaganda broadcasts
Cuba’s President Raúl Castro has demanded that the United States return the US base at Guantánamo Bay, lift the half-century trade embargo on Cuba and compensate his country for damages before the two nations re-establish normal relations.
Castro told a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that Cuba and the US are working toward full diplomatic relations but “if these problems aren’t resolved, this diplomatic rapprochement wouldn’t make any sense”.
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CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan Socialist Party heavyweight Diosdado Cabello on Wednesday said a defector reportedly accusing him of running a drug ring was merely chasing money and had no proof.
Argentina to dissolve intelligence body after prosecutor deathby The European Union Times
The judicial investigation into the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman brought to light the shady links between the CIA and Israel’s Mossad spy agency with the Argentine Intelligence Services. Nisman had filed a criminal complaint against the Argentine president for obstructing the probe of the AMIA Jewish community center bombing which took place in 1994.
According to Wikileaks the prosecutor had secret ties with the US and the Israeli spy agencies. Following his death, President Cristina Kirchner disbanded the Intelligence Secretariat and announced a sweeping reform of the national intelligence system.
The former Intelligence Secretariat, also known as “SIDE”, had also been heavily scrutinized by human rights organizations and social movements for alleged hatching of political operations against the government and its allies abroad.
A brand new Federal Intelligence Agency will replace the former organization. Experts warned that totally new procedures and an overall staff reshuffle must be carried out to guarantee effective changes in the intelligence services.
The new intelligence agency to be created after Congress approval will focus on the prevention of international threats coming from terrorism, drug dealing, human trafficking and other crimes. President Kirchner also stressed that, first and foremost, its actions and procedures must be in accordance with the National Constitution and respect the Human Rights act.
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All-but-Forgotten Prisoner in Jordan Is Suddenly at Center of Swap Demand by ISISby By ROD NORDLAND and RANYA KADRI
The Islamic State has said that if a failed suicide bomber, Sajida al-Rishawi, is not released by Jordan, it will kill a Japanese and a Jordanian hostage.
An Azeri court on January 27 extended the pre-trial detention of independent journalist and RFE/RL contributor Khadija Ismayilova for an additional two months.
Study: Ebola Vaccine May Fall Shortby webdesk@voanews.com (Steve Baragona)
One of the Ebola vaccines about to enter testing in Liberia may not be as potent as researchers had hoped, according to a new study, raising questions about how well it will prevent infection. The vaccine, developed by GlaxoSmithKline, is one of two in a large-scale clinical trial expected to begin in the next two weeks. Merck produced the other vaccine. Earlier studies had found that one dose of the GSK vaccine would protect monkeys from Ebola. However, in the study published in...
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Scholars at Odds on Ukraine by By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
After members of an association supporting post-Soviet studies object to fellowships linked to a controversial Russia scholar, some academics accuse them of censorship.
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Controversial comedian Dieudonne goes on trial in Paris for inciting racial hatred, following comments about Jewish journalist Patrick Cohen. Duration: 00:43.
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The US first lady, Michelle Obama, appears with her head uncovered as she and President Barack Obama visit Saudi Arabia to pay their respects after the death of King Abdullah. The White House press secretary, Eric Schultz, explains her attire was consistent with that of other visiting female US dignitaries in the past Continue reading...
French lawyer Frank Samson, who will play Napoleon, said the Frenchman was the real winner, and branded the Duke of Wellington 'a frightful Englishman that no one has heard of'.
President Obama and the first lady, Michelle Obama, with the new Saudi leader, King Salman, during a visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday.
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The state of global freedom declined for the ninth consecutive year in 2014, according to global watchdog Freedom House's annual report released Wednesday. VOA's William Gallo has more.
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Cuban President Raúl Castro demanded that the U.S. return the base at Guantanamo Bay, lift the trade embargo and compensate his country for damages before the two nations re-establish normal relations.
UNITED NATIONS/ANKARA (Reuters) - Iran's newly appointed U.N. ambassador is set to receive a U.S. visa so he can take up that key post, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday, likely removing a major strain on Tehran's tense relations with Washington.
Los Alamos scientist Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni jailed for five years after also offering to build nuclear weapons for Venezuela
A disgruntled, former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist promised to build 40 nuclear weapons for Venezuela and design a bomb targeted for New York City in exchange for “money and power,” according to secret FBI recordings released Wednesday.
In the recordings, Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni tells an agent posing as a Venezuelan official that the bombs would prevent the United States from invading the oil-rich nation and brags to his wife that the passing of secrets would make him wealthy.
Continue reading...White House Expresses Displeasure Over Speech Planned by Netanyahu by By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
The Obama administration signaled anger with Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted Republican leaders’ invitation to address Congress on Iran without consulting the White House.
Laser inventor Charles Townes dies by Reuters in San Francisco
Scientist was sitting on a park bench in 1951 when he came up with Nobel prizewinning and world-changing idea for a pure beam of light
Charles Townes, who shared the 1964 Nobel prize in physics for inventing the laser – a feat that revolutionised science, medicine, telecommunications and entertainment – has died aged 99, the University of California at Berkeley has announced.
Townes, a native of South Carolina, recalled that the idea for how to create a pure beam of short-wavelength, high-frequency light first dawned on him as he sat on a Washington DC park bench among blooming azaleas in the spring of 1951.
Continue reading...Afghans live in peril among unexploded Nato bombs that litter countryside by Sune Engel Rasmussen in Khost
Ordnance left by parting international troops kills or injures about 40 people a month – the vast majority children
International troops pulling out of Afghanistan have left behind a lethal legacy of unexploded bombs and shells that are killing and maiming people at a rate of more than one a day. The vast majority are children.
Bombs dropped from the air coupled with munitions left behind in makeshift firing ranges in rural Afghanistan have made parts of the countryside perilous for locals who are used to working the land for subsistence and raw materials.
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