[CPEO-MEF] MUNITIONS, GLOBAL: "Equipment, funding hampers cluster bomb cleanup efforts in Laos"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[It seems like it's time for the U.S. to make available for global use the innovative technologies the Defense Department has developed for domestic munitions response. - LS]

Equipment, funding hampers cluster bomb cleanup efforts in Laos

Xinhua News Agency (China)
December 1, 2014 

VIENTIANE, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- Shortfalls in equipment and funding are the biggest challenges facing Laos as it struggles to remove the threat of unexploded ordnance (UXO) left from war decades past, state-run media Vientiane Times reported Monday.

The findings were among those released at the National Regulatory Authority for UXO (NRA) plenary meeting held here on Friday.

NRA Director Phoukieo Chanthasomboun identified other challenges as the exact location of contaminated areas within vast swathes of the country's rural and rugged mountainous interior.

UXO, consisting largely of highly-explosive cluster munitions that failed to detonate on or prior to impact, is spread over some 87,000 square km.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/141201/equipment-funding-hampers-cluster-bomb-cleanup-efforts-laos

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org




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