Entries Tagged as 'Vietnam'

US starts landmark cleanup of Agent Orange in Vietnam

Associated Press
By Mike Ives
August 8, 2012

Fifty years after American planes first sprayed Vietnam’s thick jungles with Agent Orange to destroy enemy cover, the United States began for the first time cleaning up dioxin left from the chemical defoliant.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday at a former U.S. air base in Danang.

Dioxin, a chemical linked to cancer, birth defects and other disabilities, has seeped into Vietnam’s soils and watersheds, creating a war legacy that remains a thorny issue between the former foes nearly four decades after the Vietnam War ended.

Washington has been slow to respond. Since 2007 it has given about $60 million for environmental restoration and social services in Vietnam, but this is its first direct involvement in dioxin cleanup. …

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article

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Washington backs joint Agent Orange cleanup project in Vietnam

Stara and Stripes
By Andrew Headland Jr.
August 14, 2011

A joint U.S.-Vietnamese team is working to clean up approximately 62 acres near Da Nang airport, the site of a U.S. base during the Vietnam where drums of Agent Orange were stored, The Asahi Shimbum reported.

The highly toxic defoliant still torments the land and exceeds international safety standards by 400 percent nearly 50 years after the chemical was first used by the U.S., the newspaper reported.

The U.S. will provide about $32 million to finance the decontamination work, which both governments aim to complete by 2013, Asahi reported.

More than 84,000 Vietnam veterans afflicted with heart disease, Parkinson’s disease or B-cell leukemia can now draw disability compensation when the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this month expanded the list of ailments presumed caused by exposure to herbicides, including Agent Orange.

A joint U.S.-South Korea investigation team earlier this month found no evidence of Agent Orange at Camp Carroll in South Korea despite recent claims to the contrary by former soldiers.

www.stripes.com/news/washington-backs-joint-agent-orange-cleanup-project-in-vietnam-1.152146

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