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Major US Carriers Open Free Calls And Texts To Brussels (androidheadlines.com)
An anonymous reader quotes from a report on AndroidHeadlines: Following the attacks at Brussels International Airport and the Maelbeek Subway Station in Brussels, Belgium earlier this morning, all four major U.S. carriers have announced that they will be offering their customers the opportunity to make free calls to Brussels, as a means of letting customers keep in contact with friends and loved ones who live or are traveling within the city, a gesture which both Verizon and Sprint offered to customers last year following the attacks in Paris, France. As the city of Brussels begins and continues to mourn in the wake of the attacks, Sprint, T-Mobile, ATT, and Verizon Wireless will all offer free calls and texts to Brussels from the U.S., beginning today and lasting throughout the next few days to a week.
Cripes, when there is some attack in Europe, which kills dozens of people, it is big news in the media. When there is a car bomb in Baghdad, which kills just as many, there is barely a mention. There are not enough casualties in Brussels for me to care. Furthermore, this is slashdot, I shouldn't have heard about this bombing at all. I want an Oklahoma City, 2004 Madrid Train Bombing, or 1983 Beirut marine barrack sized bombing, before it appears on slashdot. And, I certainly don't want to see this fluff story here.
My wife is a high school teacher in Brussels, College Saint Pierre (Jette). Every yearI go to her classes once sobthe kids can hear a native English speaker. The exercise I do is to have the kids fill out a questionaire. Almost never do they know the country with the largest English speaking population (it's India, but the most popular answer is always England). Every year some cannot place the US on the map.
They are graduating students in their last year. I think Europeans like you overestimate the quality of your education system.