Subscribe to our RSS feed

Since sappers Monster Jam began searching for the ordnance

Written by: admin

Since sappers surveys monster jam trucks began searching monster truck examines for the ordnance in 1996, they have collected more than 800,000 items, everything from small bomblets to 3,000-pound bombs. Sayasenh has about 900 staffers in the field, with an annual budget of $4. 3 million But many of his teams are working with outdated equipment. And at the current rate, he said, it will be 50 to 100 more years before Laos is finally rid of ordnance from the Vietnam War. To was one of at least 76 casualties in the first half of this year, according to the Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Program Of the 76, at least 25 died. Forty percent of the casualties this year have been children. The number of fatalities is probably higher because many of those injured are in remote areas and so die of their wounds, unnoticed by the outside world, Sayasenh said. Last year's total of 16 dead and 33 injured was a sharp drop of 70% from 2005. But the number is climbing this year because poverty is forcing villagers to seek new farmland in areas that haven't been cleared of ordnance, Sayasenh said. U. S. B-52 bombers and other warplanes flew more than half a million missions over Laos and dropped between 2 million and 3 million tons of ordnance on a country that, at the time, had a population of 3 million people. The massive airstrikes blanketed parts of Laos with cluster bombs. The devices opened in midair to disperse bomblets the size of baseballs, litchi nuts or soda cans designed to scatter across a battlefield and maim or kill large numbers of troops. But one of every three bomblets failed to explode, and they still litter the Laotian countryside, where they lie camouflaged by decades of leaves, sticks and shifting soil, waiting to injure or kill anyone who happens by. Some Laotians see cluster bomblets, which they call "bombies," as useful. Villagers try to defuse them and create ashtrays, or add a wick and some kerosene to craft them into decorative lamps, Sayasenh said. The regions of southeastern and northern Laos that suffer most from the ordnance problem are among the country's poorest.

Farmers can make good money hunting for scrap metal in the jungle, where the biggest finds are often unexploded bombs, some twice as tall as the men scavenging for them. Some people even pool the little money they have to buy metal detectors to cash in as Asia's economic boom drives up scrap-metal prices monster jam truck . On a good day, when nothing explodes, they can make as much as $30. In another southern village, Makkheua, farmers can quote the latest market rates for salvaged aluminum, copper and steel as easily as the price of rice or peanuts monster trucks . The surrounding jungle is a lucrative, and often lethal, minefield monstertruck jam . There are plenty of walking wounded, and people with stories of relatives killed or maimed in blasts. Nong lost his 18-year-old wife, Mee, in 1986 when the couple gathered with other villagers around a fire one night to chat about the day's big news, an attack by a wild pig monstor jam . As they usually did for important gatherings, the women built a fire to warm a pot of rice wine. Problem was, one of the legs in the tripod was an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade, which blew up. As Nong, 50, recalled the day, several neighbors took seats on logs and stones in his dirt yard to show missing fingers, scarred legs and arms, and talk of the curse all around them. Khen, 33, pointed to the spot in his jaw where a piece of shrapnel as wide as two of his fingers has been lodged since May 2006, when a rocket he and a friend were trying to dig out of the ground blew up. But he can't blame America for the leftover piece of a long-ago war The rocket that got him was Russian. --paul. watson. For E3, it's game over as many gamers know it. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, the video game industry's annual trade show in Los Angeles that had morphed into a mecca for fanatics and a spectacle complete with "booth babes" and Lara Croft look-alikes, will be scaled down, a move that could hurt the city's tourism economy. Organizers announced Monday that the 2007 event would be held at hotels throughout Los Angeles, rather than in the downtown convention center. The news caught convention center officials by surprise.

E3, held here since 1995 except for two years when it was in Atlanta, is one of the largest events at the Los Angeles Convention Center, drawing 60,000 attendees, who inject $19 million into the local economy. The trade show, sponsored by the Entertainment Software Assn. , sprawled over more than 1 million square feet, with companies such as Electronic Arts Inc Monster Jam . pouring millions into attention-grabbing displays. This year's show featured extravagant after-hours parties that included Nintendo Co monter jam . renting out a Hollywood nightclub for a Black Eyed Peas concert and Sony Corp throwing an Incubus concert at Dodger Stadium monster truck show . Scantily clad women -- whose costumes included gun-slinging assassins and cheerleaders -- paraded around the show, despite efforts to crack down on provocative attire. "It's not good news," said Michael Collins, executive vice president of the city's convention and visitors bureau, on the show's move away from downtown monster truck shows . "There is no question that we are going to feel the loss of 36,000 room nights, certainly in '07 and '08. "Collins said he did not know the extent of the loss because the software association's plans for the 2007 event were still being developed. The news comes as the city is trying to lure convention and meeting planners who have long ignored Los Angeles because it lacked adequate hotel space. Plans for LA Live, the 27-acre entertainment-sports complex near Staples Center -- and the recent announcement of two new hotels there -- have injected optimism into the city's convention business. The news shocked hard-core video game fans, who lamented the change on Internet message boards. Entries on blogs and message boards Monday read like this: "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" and "Am I dreaming? . . . Someone tell me this is a cruel, late April Fool's Day joke. "E3 is meant to be a showcase for companies to launch their goods before the media, investors and retailers.

It is not open to the public, but joystick-hugging teenagers managed to finagle their way into the show, along with hundreds of gaming bloggers and video game fanatics. Entertainment Software Assn monster jam tickets . President Doug Lowenstein said the organization's board of directors -- consisting of chief executives and presidents of the major video game companies -- voted Wednesday to reformat the annual trade show grave digger monster truck . In addition to being scaled down, it will be held in July rather than May, closer to the fall release date of many products. "E3 had become an environment in which it was increasingly difficult to do business in a professional way -- the scale of it, the noise of it," said Lowenstein, who was in Los Angeles on Monday to meet with convention center officials bigfoot monster truck . "All these things conspired to make it more difficult for companies to get the critical business accomplished. "In recent years, company executives have been grumbling about the costs and staffing required for the show monster truck dvd . But Lowenstein attributed the changes to the maturing industry. The $11-billion video game business no longer struggles for visibility and attention and has cemented its place in mainstream culture. Video games are so popular now that they are spawning television shows and blockbuster movies. "The question becomes reaching the right audience in the most efficient way," Lowenstein said Monster Jam . Lowenstein said the format was still being worked out.

"We're not going about to create something that's boring and uninteresting that nobody wants to be a part of," he said. Next Generation, an Internet news site that tracks the video game industry, blamed the changes on large exhibitors who "jointly decided that the costs of the event do not justify the returns. " Several Internet sites suggested that big manufacturers and game publishers, including Electronic Arts, had pulled their support for E3. Redwood City, Calif. -based Electronic Arts, maker of bestselling games such as "Madden NFL" and "The Sims," said it supported the decision but denied rumors that it initiated the change. The company "will participate in any event they create for next summer," spokesman Jeff Brown said monster jams . Monster Jam tickets He said the issue wasn't that the size of E3 had grown out of control but that it was becoming increasingly difficult to finish sneak peeks of products in May that were not set for release until months later. "A demo that you might create in July is a lot more reflective of a holiday game than something they might have cobbled together in May," Brown said. Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, said the change to E3 made sense. "I think that E3 evolved from a show that was for the important decision-making constituents of the industry and became something that was for the fan," he said "As a business decision, it was an excellent one As a gamer, I would rather see E3 It's a fun spectacle. " bigfoot monster trucks . Ziff Davis Holdings Inc. , owner of PC magazine and Computer Gaming World, may sell itself in a transaction that analysts said might fetch more than $300 million. Evercore Partners and Lehman Bros Holdings Inc big foot monster truck . were hired to help explore alternatives, New York-based Ziff Davis said Monday. Principal owner Willis Stein & Partners in 2000 bought Ziff Davis for $780 million from Japan's Softbank Corp monsterjam tickets . The publishing company has shifted its focus toward websites and technology enthusiast events after the Internet stole readers and advertisers and lowered its value. "We've become experts at saying that we'll move online if print isn't working," said Samir Husni, who heads the journalism department at the University of Mississippi and publishes an annual guide to new magazines. "A common excuse is to move a publication online, but if it can't work both ways, forget about it. "A $10-million investment in 2005 aimed at boosting Ziff Davis' online presence will allow the owner to get back a greater part of its original investment, Ziff Davis Chief Financial Officer Mark Moyer said in an interview. Ziff Davis in the last year has closed at least two of its magazines, Sync and ExtremeTech It now owns 32 websites and seven publications. . PARIS — The Tuileries garden, usually cloaked in darkness, was ablaze with open flames this weekend like it hasn't been perhaps since extremists burned the palace to the ground in 1871. In the nave of the St Paul-St.

Louis Church in the Marais district, enthralled throngs looked up in apparent reverence at eight large white balloons suspended in the shape of a question mark. And hundreds of people choked two squares outside the Comedie-Francaise to get a glimpse of its famous troupe of actors doing slam poetry on the sidewalks. Paris pulled an all-nighter over the weekend, from dusk Saturday to dawn Sunday, for its annual Nuit Blanche, or White Night, a cultural extravaganza that attracted a record 2 million people this year monster jam world finals . Armed with cameras, cellphones and maps, people came from all over the city and suburbs to roam among 150 art exhibits, installations, "happenings" and performances. This idea of infusing the city with culture over one night was originated six years ago by Mayor Bertrand Delanoe and has spread to capitals across Europe -- and this year to the Middle East and the United States. Paris has long sent new ideas into the world -- about the rights of man, about proper hemlines, about new ideas moster jam . This new new idea is to hand the city over to contemporary artists, the more experimental the better, and allow them to unleash their creativity into the shadows of public spaces: in churches, on building facades, around courtyards of historic mansions, even inside telephone booths. Everything is free to spectators, and the cost to the city is relatively low, organizers say monster trucks pic . Paris spent about 1. 5 million euros (just over $2 million) this year -- less than one euro a person. "Even a cup of coffee costs more than a euro in Paris nowadays," said Christophe Girard, the Paris bureaucrat who with Delanoe dreamed up Nuit Blanche monster truck racing . In a memo to the populist mayor proposing the event, Girard described giving citizens an opportunity "to wonder and to dream and a chance for artists to show why they love the city. "It's unclear whether these sleepless artsy nights advance the grasp of culture, but mayors have eagerly adopted the idea from Rome to Riga, Latvia; Brussels to Bucharest, Romania; and across the Atlantic to Toronto. Istanbul, Turkey, inaugurated its first such all-nighter this weekend, and the idea is being rolled out in Miami Beach, Fla Monster Jam - monsterjamonline . , next month. Nuit Blanche also has been exported to cyberspace: Artists created a special 3-D exhibit for the Internet virtual world Second Life to coincide with the Paris event Monster Jam - monsterjamonline . And hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the garden of the French cultural center in the Gaza Strip this weekend for a rare evening of culture in the impoverished territory. By flickering candlelight people listened to concerts, watched movies on a big screen and exchanged exhibits with Parisians via videoconference. "On such nights we feel that we are still alive and we can connect with the world," said musician Abu Hmaid, who was among the performers.

"We live in a big prison and we want to show what is inside us, our culture and creations. "Organizers said they hoped to offer similar events in other Palestinian cities next October. And the cultural phenomenon is still spreading. Grainne Millar, who runs a cultural center in Dublin, Ireland, came here this weekend to check out the Paris model . City Hall held a seminar for future organizers such as Millar, who said she encountered people from Singapore, Japan and Austria. "It's really a brilliant idea because it's the one night a year the arts and culture completely transform a city and it's not, for once, done within the white walls of a museum or a gallery or a theater," said Millar, as she sat in a cafe watching a video light show projected onto a wall across the plaza. Just as she was finishing her croque-monsieur sandwich, a band of young men, their faces painted like the French flag, streamed past her "How perfect!" she exclaimed monster truck party . "Something for everybody tonight!"About 10:45 p. m. , Nuit Blanche bumped up against France's victory in the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals over top-ranked New Zealand monster truck videos . A literal roar rolled through the city on news of the 20 to 18 upset. Exuberant fans singing "La Marseillaise" spilled out of bars and collided with art-loving "bobos" (bourgeois bohemians) and their families, creating a Paris street theater of their own. "I'm not very sensitive to the arts," said Flora Kroub, a giggling twentysomething who had spent the better part of the evening watching the game in a bar but later happened upon a phone booth-turned-art installation titled "Decompression. "The piece, which involved listening to the sounds of the ocean in the telephone booth, was meant to block out the world, for all of six seconds . Kroub decided to give it a try, but as she got in, a crowd coursed up Sebastopol Boulevard screaming "Go France!""Well, at least I tried to get a little culture tonight," she said before slipping away with the revelers. In the Tuileries garden, however, the atmosphere created by 2,000 tiny open flames was unavoidably magical. "It's fire, it's fire," Antoine Arceanain, a 7-year-old Parisian sitting on his father's shoulders, squealed as candlewicks in flowerpots, arranged by the hundreds on giant metal sculptures, were simultaneously lighted. The only serious crime during a Nuit Blanche occurred during the first event, in 2002, when Delanoe, who is gay and a Socialist, was stabbed by a man who reportedly said he hated "politicians, the Socialist Party and homosexuals. " The wound was not life-threatening, and successive events have gone off with few security incidents. In fact, when the skies are absolutely cloudless and the temperatures mild, as they were in Paris this weekend, about the only disappointment is the sometimes sophomoric quality of the art. When asked by a literal-minded reporter the meaning of the immense question mark looming inside the 17th century church in the Marais, Julie Gauthron, a young graphic artist, rolled her eyes: "It's the big question. "Well, anyway, it's a big event, and it's growing. --geraldine. baumSpecial correspondents Hamada abu Qammar in Gaza and Julie Chazyn in Paris contributed to this report. . Thousands of people marched through Hong Kong's streets to demand the right to pick the territory's leader and legislature and to achieve full democracy by 2012. The demonstrators used yellow umbrellas to form "2012," and chanted, "One person, one vote -- the only way to go," as they marched to government headquarters. The former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but was promised a wide degree of autonomy under a "one country, two systems" formula. . On the heels of Mel Gibson's reported anti-Semitic tirade during his drunk driving arrest Friday, several prominent Hollywood figures broke the industry's silence Monday by publicly condemning the star. Meanwhile, Walt Disney Co. 's ABC television network said it had abandoned plans to make a miniseries on the Holocaust with Gibson's production company, although it stopped short of saying his behavior was the reason. Those who did admonish Gibson on Monday called his purported remarks reprehensible and particularly inappropriate while fighting rages in Israel and Lebanon. "It's incredibly disappointing that somebody of his stature would speak out that way, especially at this sensitive time," said Sony Pictures movie Chairwoman Amy Pascal, the only studio chief who spoke to The Times on the record. Hollywood was largely founded by, and the studios are still chiefly run by, Jewish executives such as Pascal.