February 2010 Wallpaper
February 7th, 2010 | Blog, Lao, Wallpapers | 5 Comments »
Belated though it may be, here is the monthly wallpaper for February. Just a simple one this month. The green background is a verdant rice-field in Xiengkhouang Province, Laos. This province was one of the most heavily bombed during the Vietnam war, and you often see fences and houses made from bomb shells as well as many craters in the surrounding landscape. It is estimated that more than 1.3 million tonnes of ordnance was dropped on Laos between 1964 and 1973, making it the most bombed country in the world per capita. MAG (Mines Advisory Group) is one of the fantastic organisations working on UXO (unexploded ordnance) clearance in Laos. From their website:
“Up to 30 per cent of some types of ordnance did not detonate. Unexploded ordnance (UXO) still contaminates the ground, affecting a quarter of all villages. There were at least 50,000 UXO casualties between 1964 and mid-2008. Accident records for 2008 are not yet complete, but extrapolating the data already available indicates that there may have been a doubling of casualties from 2007, to about 600.
UXO contamination also keeps people poor by preventing them from using land. It is therefore one of the prime factors limiting long-term development in Lao PDR. It diminishes food security and denies access to basic services, resulting in widespread poverty amongst rural populations.”
- MAG Lao
Be sure to check out the MAG website to find out more about the lifesaving work MAG is doing in Laos and around the world.
As usual, the wallpaper is available in a few different sizes:
January Wallpaper: 1280 x 800 (or click on the image above)
January Wallpaper: 1440 x 900
January Wallpaper: 1920 x 1200
