Posts tagged Landmines

Education & Jobs Crucial As Cambodia Records Pro-Poor Growth

By Neena Bhandari

Siem Reap/Battambang (Cambodia), 30.03.2017 (IDN) – The once conflict ridden, impoverished country of Cambodia has made significant strides towards stability and progress, but it is still facing several socio-economic development challenges.

In 2016, it became a lower middle-income country after recording an annual average economic growth of seven percent over the past decade. “The country’s economy has trebled and the number of people living in poverty has halved in the last 15 years. We have to set development issues in the context of those successes,” says Nick Beresford, United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Cambodia Country Director.

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Grudging support for new cluster munitions treaty

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 20.02.2008 (IPS): Six-year-old Umarvek Pulodov was playing in the dining room of his home in Shul village, Tajikistan, when a cluster bomb pierced through the roof, instantly killing his brother, cousin and another relative and severely injuring him, his sister and two younger brothers.

“I lost my right eye and the bomblet tore a huge chunk of flesh from my hand and back. I can still recall that fateful day of Feb. 23, 1992, when in a fraction of a second our entire lives were changed forever,” Umarvek told IPS on the phone from New Zealand’s capital, Wellington.

More than 500 delegates from 120 countries are attending a conference in Wellington to draft an international treaty banning cluster bombs.

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