Author: Charles Dittmeier

Still a Problem

Cambodia is seeking $406 million to accomplish the demining projects it has planned through 2025.  The last mines were laid in the 1980s but we still average a casualty every five or six days from the estimated four to five million landmines thought to be still in the ground and from other ERW (Explosive Remnants of War) that is part of the landscape of much of the country.  Between 1992 and 2017, 1,000,000 anti-personnel mines were recovered along with 25,000 anti-tank mines, and more than 2,700,000 pieces of ERW.   There is still a lot of work to do.

Notable Quotes

 

 

Since 1970, more Americans have died of gun violence, including murders, suicides and accidents (1.4 million), than in all the wars in American history (1.3 million).

~ Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Opinion Columnist

A Mixture of Cultures

Cambodia is a mix of cultures in some ways.  Look at this street sign.  First of all, the modern-type of highway sign for controlled access roads contrasts mightily with the chaos of Phnom Penh streets with their thousands of motorbikes, cars, food carts, bicycles, and pedestrians, each going his own way and doing his own thing.  Then there is a mixture of languages on the sign: Khmer script and English language script.  And beyond the Charles de Gaulle Blvd name, there is the French spelling of “Tchecoslovaquie” for Czechoslovakia.   And then there is the KFC culture imposed over everything else.  The Kingdom of Wonder….