Two Afghan children beheaded in separate incidents

That's a remarkably high quality photograph for the 1940s.... lol

 

The Taliban is so fractured at this point that there's no real telling who a given insurgent works for over there.

 

I believe there's still deformed babies born till this day in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the results of radiation, or so i was told. That picture might be just that.

 

It's bogus.

http://www.hindu.com/2001/09/06/stories/08060003.htm

Many believe in the myth that birth defects are more common among the children of the survivors of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In my interaction with general physicians and other professional groups the one topic, which elicits maximum queries, is " genetic effects of radiation". Radiation can cause mutations in genes. Mouse and in fruit flies exposed to radiation suffer genetic mutations. The changes may show up in the offspring as colour of the coat, shape of the wings, etc. But such markers are not available in the human species. We require very sophisticated laboratory methods to demonstrate subtle changes in exposed individuals.


Physicians appointed by ABCC examined 76,626 infants conceived and born in Hiroshima and Nagasaki over a period of six years starting from the late spring of 1948. The researchers did not see statistically demonstrable increase in major birth defects in these infants. While the survey started, certain dietary staples were rationed in Japan. Pregnant women had special provisions. Because of this, the surveyors of new-borns could identify 90 per cent of the pregnancies that persisted for at least 20 weeks of gestation.

Physical examination of the new born and autopsies on as many stillborn infants revealed that neither the frequency of major birth defects nor the frequency of the most common birth defects differ significantly with radiation exposure of parents. The researchers examined some 21,788 infants shortly after birth and re-examined them eight to ten months later. The study covered 65,431 registered pregnancy terminations and appropriate control populations.

Birth defects occurred somewhat after the bombings, but the window in which they occurred was only a few months.

There are no birth defects stemming from the bombings today, nor were there any even just 5 or 10 years later.

Now, cancer rates among both children and adults did go up for the first decade after the bombings. There's no statistically significant incidence of this in either region today that stems from the bombings, however.

 

Sure am glad to hear that.