CHON BURI : A Thai rubber tapper allegedly killed his Cambodian co-worker with an axe after a drinking session in which they had a heated argument over the two countries' diplomatic spat.
The Cambodian worker was identified as Diang, aged about 40. Police found his body lying on the floor in a room of an apartment run by Sri Maha Racha Co, the men's employer.
Blood covered the floor of room No.2, where he lived. A cut about five centimetres deep was found on his left cheek and another on his left shoulder, which was almost severed. Several empty liquor bottles were found in the room along with a bloodstained axe.
Kraisorn Namnont, a rubber tapper who lived next to the Cambodian worker, alerted Si Racha police about the killing about half past midnight on Friday.
He said the murderer was Sinchai Namnont, 44, his younger brother. They were from the northeastern province of Maha Sarakham.
He said Mr Sinchai, who lived with him in room No.1, had been drinking with Diang in Diang's room. They started arguing about the Cambodian authorities' arrest of a Thai engineer for alleged spying. Earlier, Cambodia named convicted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as its economic adviser.
Mr Kraisorn said he remembered hearing Mr Sinchai say it was not right for Cambodia to act in the way it had and Diang replying, "So, what can you do with my government?"
Shortly after that, Mr Sinchai rushed back to room No.1 to grab some of his clothes, then hurried out without saying anything about what had happened next door, said Mr Kraisorn.
After hearing Diang crying for help in pain, Mr Kraisorn decided to go to check on him but found him dead.
Police, however, said they were not convinced by Mr Kraisorn's testimony and suspected him of being involved in the murder of Diang in some way.
As the Thai-Cambodian media skirmish continues, Thai executives are starting to fear their operations will suffer.
Gamblers are staying away from casinos in Koh Kong and Poipet, while tourist numbers are on the slide. Kasikorn Research Center said the escalating tensions could affect businesses and populations on both sides of the border.
The conflict between the Thai and Cambodian governments recently reached a new and alarming level when both countries withdrew their ambassadors after Cambodia named fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser and refused to extradite him when he visited the country.
But the Thai-Cambodian border remains open so the border trade, which accounts for as much as 80% of bilateral trade, continues as usual.
If the conflict is quickly resolved without either side resorting to force, trade will not be disrupted, said K-Research.
Even a temporary border closure, similar to that caused by the earlier Preah Vihear temple dispute, would only have a limited impact, the researchers said. But a prolonged closure would inevitably damage trade, causing Thai exporters to lose their share in Cambodia's market.
Thai exports to Cambodia last year were worth 67 billion baht, while imports from Cambodia were only 3 billion baht.
Thailand's trade surplus reflects Cambodia's inability to supply its market's demand, while Cambodian consumers are accustomed to imported Thai products such as sugar, beverages, cosmetics, soaps and related products. The Cambodian business sector also relies on imported processed oil and cement.
Thailand is currently the largest exporter to Cambodia, supplying 23% of its imports, followed by Vietnam with 17% and China with 15%.
Like Thailand, Vietnam benefits from close proximity with Cambodia, with significant border trade. Vietnam's exports to Cambodia have soared from US$178 million in 2002 to $1.43 billion last year. The country is now competing directly with Thailand in oil, sugar and cement.
Chinese goods, currently in third place, also have good opportunities for growth due to the strength of the Chinese economy and the development of the logistics system linking China and Asean.
But Cambodia would also face losses from this scenario. Materials and intermediate goods from other countries for its production sector would likely have higher prices due to the logistics costs. Similarly, Cambodian consumers would likely have higher living costs.
Hanoi ensures existence of political stability and cheap labour
Published: 21/11/2009
(Posted by CAAI news Media)
The Vietnamese economy poses no immediate threat to Thailand, which has healthy investments in that country, says the Thai ambassador in Hanoi.
Vietnam said it would put in a high-speed train, similar to the bullet train in Japan, running from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. The news excited Thai readers but most did not realise that work on the railway won’t start until 2036, or nearly 30 years into the future.
Pisanu Chanvitan says Thailand's economy is still far more advanced than Vietnam's.
However, the ambassador told Thai Rath newspaper, Vietnam has certain advantages including political stability, thanks to its one-party rule and cheap labour.
Last year, Vietnam's economy grew 3%.
Mr Pisanu said that medical advances in Vietnam lag far behind Thailand. For difficult cases, well-to-do patients still travel to Thailand for treatment because Vietnam's health care expertise is lacking.
Nor was Thailand's status as the world's top rice exporter under threat from Vietnam.
Mr Pisanu said Vietnam exported about 5 million tonnes of rice last year while Thailand exported 8-9 million tonnes.
Thai rice is more expensive because of its higher quality especially the world famous Hom Mali, while Vietnam exports cheaper varieties.
Vietnam can face typhoons several times a year, causing extensive damage to rice fields.
Vietnam's rice cultivation area is similar to Thailand's, but Vietnam has a growing population. As its population grows, Vietnam will probably export less rice.
Vietnam's rulers like to talk about their plans for the economy, but sometimes these projects can be many years off.
Vietnam said it would put in a high-speed train, similar to the bullet train in Japan, running from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City.
The news excited Thai readers but most did not realise that work on the railway won't start until 2036, or nearly 30 years into the future.
In 1990, Vietnam began to open the country to foreign direct investment, creating special industrial zones and expanding the economic zone in Ho Chi Minh City.
Thailand is ranked 9th among foreign investors in Vietnam. Investment is concentrated in agri-business, cement, real estate, and motorcycle parts.
Mr Pisanu said Thailand exported more than 10,000 tonnes of fruit to Vietnam last year, including longan, mangosteen, durian and mango.
Food processing including canned fish is another bright prospect for Thai exporters. Several Thai canneries have set up operations in Vietnam and are doing good business.
Engineer is a
'political victim'
Sivarak Chutipong, 31, the Thai engineer arrested in Cambodia on a spying charge, is being used as a pawn in the diplomatic dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, argues a Matichon newspaper writer.
Sivarak worked for Cambodia Air Traffic Services, a subsidiary of Thailand's Samart Telecom.
He was arrested last week on a spying charge, after he allegedly transmitted the flight schedule of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodia's premier Hun Sen to Thailand.
The newspaper argues the engineer was a victim of the conflicts between Thailand and Cambodia concerning Hun Sen's appointment of Thaksin as economic adviser.
If Sivarak is found guilty by a Cambodian court, he could be jailed for 7-10 years and/or fined 50,000-250,000 baht.
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said Thaksin's flight schedule was not secret information and Thailand already knew Thaksin's likely flight movements.
Suthep argued that Cambodian authorities may have misunderstood the intention of the government, which never intended to inflict any harm.
Yet the Matichon writer was not satisfied with explanations offered by the Thai Foreign Ministry and Samart Telecom in defence of Sivarak.
The government, the writer said, should protect Sivarak's honour and tell international observers that Cambodia's allegations are trumped up.
Miscellany
Cambodia has expelled all Thai staff from Cambodia Air Traffic Services after a Thai engineer on staff was charged with spying.
Phnom Penh has filed national security charges of stealing classified information against engineer Sivarak Chutipong.
Cambodia has now ordered all Thai nationals working for CATS to leave the company and prohibited them from re-entering until the legal proceedings against Mr Sivarak are completed, Samart Corporation Plc president Watchai Wilailuck said.
CATS, a fully owned subsidiary of Bangkok-based Samart, holds a concession to run air traffic control services in Cambodia.
The firm employs nine Thai officials at Cambodian airport, in management or senior engineering positions. About 200 other staff are Cambodians.
Mr Watchai was told Cambodian authorities would send their own people to run the company.
"We need to follow Cambodia's order and are asking the Thai government to negotiate with Cambodia.
'We have nothing to do with their diplomatic dispute, but it is affecting our business," Mr Watchai said.
Thailand and Cambodia are signatories to an investment protection agreement, to protect each other's private businesses.
Navy chief Kamthorn Pumhirun has warned the government to tread carefully with its plan to revoke a memorandum of understanding on the overlapping maritime boundary with Cambodia.
Adm Kamthorn said even though the cabinet has decided to scrap the MoU, the decision will not take effect until it is approved by parliament. The government is seeking parliamentary approval to annul the MoU.
Adm Kamthorn urged all parties concerned to weigh the pros and cons of terminating the MoU carefully.
However, he was confident the Foreign Ministry and three House committees responsible for deliberating the matter will handle it in a professional manner.
"I believe they are professionals and will put the country's interests first. They should know what the advantages and disadvantages are for the country," he said.
The government's move to scrap the MoU is in response to Cambodia's appointment of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as its economic adviser.
The document was signed in 2001 when Thaksin was prime minister. Its main goal is for the two countries to demarcate territorial waters and jointly explore natural gas and oil reserves in the overlapping area.
Adm Kamthorn said the navy has continued to look after Thai territorial waters and to make sure the disputed maritime area is not violated.
The navy chief said relations between the navies of the two countries have remained healthy. There had been no Cambodian military movements nor any Cambodian navy presence in the waterways, he said.
Defence Ministry spokesman Thanathip Sawangsaeng said the Thai-Cambodia General Border Committee (GBC) will hold its meeting to discuss border issues in Pattaya next Thursday and Friday.
Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon and his Cambodian counterpart Tea Banh will jointly chair the meeting.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he believed relations between Thailand and Cambodia will return to normal shortly. However, he said the government will not send Thai envoys to Phnom Penh until the Cambodian government reviews its position.
The prime minister said the government is stepping up its efforts to arrange for Simarak na Nakhon Phanom to visit her son Sivarak Chutipong, a Cambodia Air Traffic Services engineer who is being held in a Cambodian prison on charges of spying.
Deputy permanent secretary for justice Thawee Sodsong said he and Suvana Suwannajuta, the director-general of the Liberties and Rights Protection Department, will travel to Cambodia on Monday to visit Mr Sivarak.
Mr Thawee said he will arrange for Mr Sivarak's family members to visit him.
Acting government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said it will take 10 days for Cambodia to consider whether to grant him bail.
Meanwhile, Democrat Party deputy leader Kraisak Choonhavan has said executives of the English Premier League soccer club Manchester City are planning to expose the failings of Thaksin, its former owner.
Mr Kraisak said the football club had been unhappy with Thaksin's style of running the club, including superstitious practices he brought to the club and his efforts to meddle with the management of the football team. Thaksin bought City in July 2007, 10 months after he was ousted in a military coup. He sold the club to an investment group from the United Arab Emirates in September 2008.
The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) was invited to speak at a Hearing on Cambodia facilitated by Human Rights Without Frontiers at the European Parliament on 17 November 2009.
The Hearing was chaired by Niccolò Rinaldi (Vice President of ALDE group) and moderated by Edward McMillan-Scott (VP European Parliament) alongside Willy Fautre (Director of Human Rights Without Frontiers). The panels were composed of representatives from the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (Ms Maggie Murphy, Program Coordinator), Cambodian Government (H.E. Ambassador Mr. Rudi Veestraeten), the United Nations (Prof. Surya P. Subedi, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia), the European Commission (Mr. Seamus Gillespie, Head of Unit), the Center for Development Research and Cooperation (Dr. Prof. Tazeen Murshid), Amnesty International (Susi Dennison, Executive Director), International Trade Union Confederation (June Sorensen), The Cambodian Association for Human Rights (Mr. Thun Saray, President and former political prisoner) and Human Rights Watch (Brad Adams, Asia Director).
Forced evictions, labor rights, judiciary issues, the role of the EU in Cambodia, as well as political and institutional factors impacting on human rights in Cambodia were among the list of issues discussed during the hearing. Panelists shared valuable information on several topics to describe the current status of human rights in Cambodia.
Susi Dennison, Executive Officer of Amnesty International explained how the ongoing violence against women subsequently leading to forced evictions can be traced back to their lack of civil and political rights.
On the other hand, Mr Thun Saray, former political prisoner and President of the Cambodian Association for Human Rights raised deep concerns about the failure of Cambodia’s justice system to provide a political environment that would safeguard fundamental human rights of both Cambodians and its defenders in the country.
The international community is aware of Cambodia’s ratification of 7 out of 8 labour rights laws. However, June Sorensen of the International Trade Union Confederation stressed that the majority of Cambodia’s workforce remains completely unaware of labour rights making it difficult for trade unions to operate in Cambodia.
Mr. Seamus Gillespie, Head of Unit of the European Commission recognized that Cambodia has entered the process of recovery. However whilst the country has achieved some level of stability, as the elections in 2008 showcased, international standards on electoral processes have not been followed. Furthermore, not all violations against human rights in Cambodia are accurately reported especially those committed during the dictatorship. Mr Brad Adams, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, stressed this issue saying that crimes committed in the past should not be forgotten by simply concentrating on the recent ones.
Maggie Murphy, Program Coordinator of UNPO, spoke on four major issues of great concern to the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom and the Montagnards: land rights claims and subsequent forced relocation, religious persecution, violence and torture and forced repatriation.
Ms Murphy reiterated that these issues should be primarily addressed by acknowledging the indigenous status of both the Khmer Kampuchea Krom people and the Montagnards. The unfortunate fact is that Cambodia can sign and ratify all international declarations and agreements pertaining to indigenous peoples but unless the people of Khmer Krom and the Montagnards are acknowledged as such, every declaration is meaningless. Thus, the first step in effecting significant changes to the lives of the marginalized peoples of Khmer Krom and Montagnards is to give them the status of indigenous peoples and then ensure that constant international pressure is applied to Cambodian authorities to ensure that they abide by these international agreements.
UNPO suggests a more active role for EU in Cambodia
There are significant political and institutional factors that impede the forceful repatriation of Khmer and Montagnard refugees from Cambodia to Vietnam. UNPO hopes that the EU will put pressure on Cambodia to sign and ratify the ILO Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, with the aim of respecting the traditions of indigenous peoples in relation to the use of their ancestral lands.
Lack of Political Will
In contrast to the presentations by the majority of panelists, the Ambassador of Cambodia strongly affirmed that the concept of “freedom of expression in Cambodia is very strange” and further elaborated that “freedom of expression is in place”. He contended that this is especially true in the areas of civil and political rights. However, whilst sufficient mechanisms are in place to adequately guarantee the rights of minorities and indigenous groups, the implementation has been severely lacking. Issues addressed in the hearing can only be tackled if the Cambodian government demonstrates a strong sense of political will to ensure that the human rights of the aforementioned groups are safeguarded.
Ms Murphy concluded by explaining that many similar recommendations were made by states and NGOs as Vietnam recently underwent examination under the UPR process. On 24 September the review ended with Vietnam rejecting 45 of the Human Rights Council’s recommendations, which demonstrated a lack of commitment to securing fundamental human rights. UNPO hopes that Cambodia will be more receptive to the UPR process, and that they will facilitate it, rather than obstruct it through rejections and rebuttals. Political will is fundamental to guaranteeing the improvement of the human rights situation in Cambodia.
Puea Thai Party chairman Chavalit Yongchaiyudh will sell his 15-million-baht riverside condominium unit to finance a series of trips in the region, says a source close to him.
Chavalit: No financial deal with Thaksin
The source said Gen Chavalit was raising funds to finance trips to Burma, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam and China.
Gen Chavalit had said he would sell his unit at the River Line Place Condominium on Phibun Songkhram Road, in Nonthaburi, for 15 million baht, the source said.
Gen Chavalit, a former premier and former army chief, currently lives at the condominium.
He came under fire over his Oct 21 visit to Cambodia where he met with Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Diplomatic relations between Thailand and Cambodia have deteriorated since Hun Sen appointed convicted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser and refused to arrest and extradite him to Thailand when he recently visited Cambodia.
Gen Chavalit said he did not care who criticised him as he only wanted to solve national problems.
"But now the plans [for his trips] must be delayed because there is no money to fund them. They are costly and Gen Chavalit must pay all the expenses himself," the source said.
Since joining the Puea Thai Party, Gen Chavalit had tried to boost ties with neighbouring countries, the source said.
Besides his visit to Cambodia, the party chairman had also sent his emissaries to contact Malaysia and insurgent groups active in the deep South in an attempt to bring peace to the restive border provinces, the source said.
Gen Chavalit's activities were not funded by Thaksin, the source said.
"I confirm that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra did not give one baht to Gen Chavalit. He spent his own money and did not make any financial agreement with Mr Thaksin," the source said.
Sek O, 42, cries as she prays at her father's portrait during a visit to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Aug. 31, 2009. The museum is at the site of the most notorious prison in Democratic Kampuchea, code-named S-21. (Chor Sokunthea/Reuters)
A new TV show is rapidly extending the reach of the Khmer Rouge war crimes court to Cambodian households.
By Brendan Brady — Special to GlobalPost
Published: November 20, 2009
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — When the former Khmer Rouge prison chief, Kaing Ghek Eav, first took the stand eight months ago, most Cambodians had scarce knowledge of the tribunal that was trying him.
The notorious man — known best by his revolutionary name, Duch — stands accused of crimes against humanity for the medieval torture of 14,000 people at a secret prison code-named S-21 during the Khmer Rouge's reign from 1975 to 1979.
At first, 85 percent of Cambodians “had little or no knowledge” of the U.N.-backed trial that was 30 years in the making, according to a University of California at Berkeley’s Human Rights Center survey.
Outreach has stepped up considerably since the opening of testimony, though. Perhaps no development has been more effective in disseminating the often-baffling work of the tribunal than a new weekly television program. In a country of 14 million, where 85 percent of people live in rural areas, some 2 million Cambodians are tuning in to “Duch on Trial.”
Every Monday afternoon, along with fellow Cambodian journalist, Ung Chan Sophea, host Neth Pheaktra provides a sober summary and analysis of court testimony and the legal framework in which it is heard. Local analysts weigh in on the use of legal strategies by the lawyers and Duch.
“My relatives tell me, ‘You look so serious on TV,'” said Neth, whose program launched in April with British and U.S. funding. “We’re discussing the death of millions of compatriots, including many of my relatives, so it’s not a time to smile.”
The show plays clips of court testimony, including ghastly stories of men and women being bludgeoned, water-boarded and electrocuted before their execution, and of their babies being smashed against trees.
In total, an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died from overwork, starvation and murder under the Khmer Rouge’s maniacal vision to transform the country into an agrarian utopia. For the some 5 million Cambodians who survived Khmer Rouge rule, the regime’s brutality remains deeply entrenched in their psyche.
Today, not even half the country's more than 14 million people are over 20 years old, which means they never lived under the regime. Their ignorance of firsthand atrocities has been compounded by the fact that, until this year, Khmer Rouge history wasn’t taught in schools. Many current government officials are former Khmer Rouge cadres and the subject matter remains highly controversial.
Unlike some other international war crimes courts, the Khmer Rouge tribunal hasn't had community-based truth and reconciliation committees to extend its reach to the population.
The hosts of "Duch on Trial" explain how the court is run by Cambodian and international judges, lawyers and staff. How subordinates and prisoners who were under Duch’s control and are still alive today provided testimony, and how the maximum penalty for the five elderly former leaders in detention is to live out their few remaining years in prison.
For many viewers, such plain talk concentrated into engaging 24-minute episodes lets them grasp the court’s work for the first time.
“Part of the reason for the show’s popularity is that before there was a big lack of communication about the tribunal,” said Neth. “So we’re trying to help fix that.”
The challenge, said Matthew Robinson, the show’s British producer and head of Khmer Mekong Films, “is how to cram into less than half an hour the highlights of a week’s worth of the trial that a group of not legally-sophisticated people can relate to.”
Previously, the bulk of outreach for the tribunal had been shouldered by a handful of NGOs, such as the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), the leading custodian of primary documents on the Khmer Rouge.
Through this non-profit group, 10,000 rural Cambodians have been bussed into Phnom Penh to attend the tribunal and 300,000 textbooks about the Khmer Rouge have been distributed to high school classrooms across the country.
The group also makes regular trips to the countryside, assisting people in filling out paperwork to file evidence to the tribunal of crimes they witnessed under the regime’s rule and, perhaps more importantly, helping people simply gain closure by gathering details on the fate of loved ones.
For a man whose sister was tortured and executed at S-21, where Duch presided, DC-Cam recently tracked down the order of execution signed by Duch. The man’s reason for filing with the court: “So that she is remembered,” he wrote.
“The Khmer Rouge left the entire country shattered,” said DC-Cam director Youk Chhang. “We’re trying to help people connect the broken pieces, and without people’s involvement the court is meaningless.”
The court’s own outreach has also been reinvigorated. Since June, hearings that were previously attended by scant crowds of a couple dozen people began to see audiences numbering in the hundreds.
Reach Sambath, whose takeover of public affairs at the court coincided with this boom, attributed some part of the rising numbers to the nature of dialogue in the courtroom. The stories of real witnesses caught the attention of lay people, who found the early procedural hearings hard to follow.
“The testimony was very emotional,” said Reach. “Duch cried. Then the witnesses cried. Then the audience cried. And then I cried. Seeing this is part of the healing process.”
Reach also initiated announcements about the court on local radio stations — a move that had his office inundated with phone calls asking how to attend.
“Before it was difficult for people to have trust in the court,” he says. “But if seeing is believing, then coming to the court in person has people feeling that justice is being provided.”
While such emotionally charged moments provided the catharsis the tribunal wanted to stage, in a country where some 90 percent of the population regularly views television — despite enormous poverty — the tube has proven the most efficient channel for engaging people in the war crimes court.
“It’s easy and interesting to learn about the tribunal this way,” said 51-year-old No Min, who lives in a remote village in the province of Kampong Cham where road access is limited and newspapers are scarce. “I’ve learned more about the [court’s] process and it seems fair.”
“I tell the younger kids in the village to come watch the show with me so they can learn about an important part of history that is easy to want to forget.”
Vietnam officially assumed the presidency of the ASEAN Bankers Association (ABA) for the 2009-2011 term at the 39th meeting of the association in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on November 19-20.
At the event, Pham Huy Hung, Chairman of VietinBank and the President of the Vietnam Banks Association, affirmed that Vietnam will try its utmost to contribute to ABA’s sustainable development and push ABA and ASEAN activities harmoniously to meet the goal of building a successful ASEAN Community by 2015.
Mr. Hung pointed out that ABA always heightens the objective of seeking opportunities and creating conditions for all member banks to develop strongly and dynamically.
The meeting drew the participation of 10 members of association, representatives of finance organisations and senior officials of the Cambodian Government.
Established in 1976, ABA had only five members, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The association has developed strongly after admitting the last five ASEAN members: Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.
Poverty and the legacy of civil war has had a corrosive effect on family life in Cambodia, leaving many children homeless and vulnerable. But children's support projects offer hope of a better future
Cynara Vetch
The Guardian
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Cambodian children study in a classroom at one of the M’Lop Tapang organisation’s schools in Sihanoukville. Photography by: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP
Srey Mom recalls: "My father burnt the house down one evening, and after that me and my brother slept in the forest. I was so scared I couldn't sleep and he would cry all night because he was hungry." Srey Mom's father was a violent alcoholic, unable to pay the rent, and her mother, who was addicted to gambling, attempted suicide many times. With her family left homeless and hungry, Srey Mom joined almost 2,000 working children who spend their days and nights on the streets and beaches of Sihanoukville, Cambodia's growing resort town.
Over 36% of Cambodians live below the poverty line and families have been drawn to Sihanoukville by the economic promise of a growing tourist trade and work in the country's only deep-water port. In reality, the average income of a family of four living in the town's slums is $2 a day. With families who are unable or unwilling to support them, children work on the town's streets, beaches and slums both day and night, and are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse, and discrimination.
It was cases such as Srey Mom's that persuaded the director and co-founder of M'Lop Tapang, Eve Sao Sarin, to help set up the organisation with his partner Maggie Eno back in 2004. M'Lop Tapang is one of six small organisations in Asia partnered by the NGO International Childcare Trust.
"We believed we had to commit to these children, find them a safe place and learn their needs. We also wanted to resolve issues within their families. There are many problems in their homes due to poverty, domestic violence and drug abuse," Sarin explains.
M'Lop Tapang offers a chance for street children to get an education and to change behaviour such as drug abuse and crime, but without the support of their families this is very difficult. As a result the organisation collaborates with the children to deal with their issues at home, setting up services such as alcoholics' counselling and vocational training for their relatives.
Srey Mom has managed to rebuild her home and family with the help of M'Lop Tapang. Srey Mom's father is surprisingly candid. "I drank rice wine so I could forget," he says. "When I was drunk no one else mattered, that is why I could beat my wife and burn my home." He was introduced to an alcoholics' counselling course and is now a skilled builder, earning a stable wage. Similar efforts to build up communities through dedicated social work have been very successful, with every street-living or working child in the town using M'Lop Tapang's services, albeit to varying degrees.
Many of Sihanoukville's social problems can be attributed to Cambodia's recent history. From 1970 to 1975 Cambodia was immersed in a costly civil war, which displaced nearly half the population and killed more than 1 million people. In 1975 the communist movement, the Khmer Rouge, seized power and set about creating a peasant revolution. The majority of the population was forcibly moved to the countryside; healthcare and money were banned and those with an education were executed. In 1979 the regime was toppled, but the war continued and much of the population was displaced. Finally, democratic elections took place in 1993.
For Sarin, the community is "like the basket that breaks. No one trusts each other any more." Children under the age of 18 make up more than 50% of the country's population and Sarin believes that many are still affected by the past.
"Children suffer indirectly from the war, most of their parents lost beloveds, they are depressed and frightened, and Cambodian culture doesn't encourage any show of weakness. They deal with these problems with gambling, drinking and violence."
Vannthy is a social worker with M'Lop Tapang, co-ordinating a network of former street children, who now work in their communities. He is adamant that "young people are the ones that change things. They come up with solutions I would never have thought of." This network has built homes for evicted families, cleared the slums of rubbish and set up awareness programmes on issues such as drug abuse. Its members have also painted and repaired beds at the town hospital and volunteered to teach the English they have learnt at M'Lop Tapang. The Youth Volunteering Network also includes middle-class youth who attend community college and university. These youths volunteer their time at M'Lop Tapang, educate their families and peers on issues such as environment, poverty and social work and encourage social responsibility. The most dedicated volunteers are provided with the opportunity of employment at M'Lop Tapang.
While decades of violence and conflict have affected communities in Cambodia, they have also had an impact on the country's institutions and infrastructure. Andrew Mace is the British ambassador to Cambodia and he has seen weaknesses in the police force and other parts of the public sector. "It is a historical problem," he explains. "The whole of government was essentially destroyed. For example they lost the whole of the judiciary in that period and having lost them it takes a long time to get back that capacity." As a result a new structure of law enforcement was hurriedly created and in some cases recruits were given inadequate training.
Another problem is lack of funding. Social issues receive less attention from international donors than topical concerns such as health and education. Vou Savin, a welfare officer for the Ministry of Social Affairs, is the only government social worker responsible for over 130,000 people living in Sihanoukville and the surrounding countryside. He admits that there is a limit to what he can achieve "Our job is to help vulnerable people, but we have so little money in our department that we need to partner with other organisations."
People coming in from the outside exploit these vulnerabilities to prey on children. Paedophiles see the country as a "safe destination." However, the government is alert to these unwelcome visitors and has forged strong relationships with the NGO community. One such example is Action Pour Les Enfants, an investigation agency working against sex offenders in Cambodia, which has trained up the local police force in areas such as interrogation techniques and forensic evidence. Efforts have also been made to educate law enforcement officials on children's rights and protection against child abuse.
M'Lop Tapang is teaching the children themselves to be aware of the dangers on the streets and to protect one another. They have already trained 40 street children in how to recognise suspicious behaviour and what to do if they see cases of abuse or discrimination. This network then filters the information back to other children. They also act as a safety net for children who are new to the streets. M'Lop Tapang has established a ChildSafe network in Sihanoukville, training local restaurants, bars, hotels and taxi owners to recognise signs and cases of child abuse and report them to its 24-hour ChildSafe hotline.
For Srey Mom, street living is now a thing of the past. She sits calmly surrounded by her family in their small stilted house and although the torrential monsoon rain beats against the tin roof, they remain leak free. She has a stable income working as a manager at the local M'Lop Tapang shop and is a testament to what a street child in Cambodia can achieve.
A proposed breeding program for the critically endangered Siamese crocodile received a significant boost this month with the news that 35 crocodiles at a wildlife rescue center in Cambodia are purebred Siamese.
VOA News
Robert Carmichael
Phnom Penh 20 November 2009
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Photo: VOA - R. Carmichael
A close-up of a Siamese crocodile hatchling at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, Cambodia, 19 Nov 2009
A proposed breeding program for the critically endangered Siamese crocodile received a significant boost this month with the news that 35 crocodiles at a wildlife rescue center in Cambodia are purebred Siamese.
Siamese crocodiles have had a tough time. Twenty years ago they were declared extinct in the wild.
The crocodiles once ranged widely across Southeast Asia. But, coveted for their soft skin, Siamese crocodiles were poached to the very edge of existence.
However, in 2001 researchers discovered small populations of Siamese crocodiles in the wild in Cambodia. That meant the species went from being listed as extinct to critically endangered.
This month there was more good news. DNA tests on 69 crocodiles at a wildlife rescue center outside Phnom Penh found that 35 of them are purebred Siamese crocodiles.
Photo: VOA - R. Carmichael
Adam Scott, head of the crocodile project at Fauna and Flora International, holding a hatchling Siamese crocodile at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre
Adam Starr heads the crocodile conservation program at Fauna and Flora International, a conservation organization that works with the Cambodian government to protect Siamese crocodiles.
He says just 250 Siamese crocodiles exist in the wild in the world, most of them in Cambodia.
"How important is Cambodia? Very important. Siamese crocodiles used to exist throughout Southeast Asia. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, everywhere. Now they are reduced from about 99 percent of their original population range area. We can say Cambodia hosts between 95 and 99 percent of the remaining wild crocodiles which is about 250," he said.
The tests proved invaluable in allowing researchers to distinguish between purebred Siamese crocodiles and hybrid crocodiles - something that can not be done just by looking at them.
Knowing which animals are hybrid is essential because conservationists do not want hybrids colonizing the country's rivers.
Nhek Ratanapech is the director of the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center, where the purebred crocodiles live. He also heads the country's Crocodile Conservation Program.
He says the discovery of the purebreds could provide a critical lifeline for the preservation of Siamese crocodiles.
"Previously we have so many crocodiles but we didn't know which ones are pure Siamese crocodiles and which one is the hybrid one," he said. "Now we know exactly which one is pure and which is hybrid. We do hope that some potential donor help to support the activity to conserve or to stop this species being extinct from the world."
The problem of hybrids stems from crocodile farms, which bred Siamese crocodiles with other, faster-growing, larger, more aggressive crocodiles. The leather from the hybrid crocodile is still soft, and the hybrids provide more of it faster.
Nhek Ratanapech says the next step is to create a breeding program using the six mature purebreds at his center. The tests also showed that they are not related, which is vital for genetic diversity.
Their offspring will be kept for two years before being released into the wild, to maximize their chances of survival.
Nhek Ratanapech says the goal is to get Siamese crocodiles taken off the critically endangered list, which means reaching a target of 500 mature adults in the wild. As it takes 15 years for a Siamese crocodile to reach maturity, this is a long-term project.
But Cambodia is the Siamese crocodile's last chance. "So this population is on the verge of extinction and now Cambodia is the stronghold of this species," he said.
Adam Starr says many challenges remain. Human encroachment on the crocodile habitat is one problem; another is Cambodia's plans to build huge hydroelectric dams, which block rivers.
But those challenges are hardly new. And the DNA tests, which were carried out by a university in Thailand, have helped to move the project forward.
"What we're able to do now is work with a captive population that is of pure genetic stock and be able to start a breeding program and be able to reintroduce animals to areas where Siamese crocodiles once existed but have been eradicated due to poaching. So it's a very exciting phase we're about to embark upon," said Starr.
That sound is the call of a Siamese crocodile hatchling. It is a sound that Nhek Ratanapech and his colleagues hope will be heard across at least some of Cambodia's rivers in the coming years - as it was not long ago.
Posted on 20 November 2009
The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 639
(Posted by CAAI news Media)
“Phnom Penh: According to the Minister of Post and Telecommunication, Mr. So Khun, who spoke to journalists in the morning of 19 November 2009 at the Phnom Penh Hotel, where he presided over a workshop about the joint use of mobile phone relay and transmission towers, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication of the Kingdom of Cambodia will set equal phone service costs at the end of this month.
“The minister said that so far, the post and telecommunication sector has advanced dramatically, and it is a pride of the ministry as well as of the Cambodian government under the wise leadership of the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, Samdech Akkak Moha Senapadei Dekchor Hun Sen. However, together with this progress, the ministry noticed that mobile phone companies in Cambodia compete with each other over phone call costs. This is not yet considered as a conflict, but just as a sign of disagreements. Therefore, the ministry prepares to set a general cost system. The minister added that the cost that the ministry plans to set is not yet known, but the ministry is discussing to set a cost system that all mobile phone companies in Cambodia can accept.
“Regarding the workshop about the joint use of mobile phone relay and transmission towers, Mr. So Khun said that this is a good way to promote the telecommunications sector in Cambodia, because at present, this sector is being served by nine mobile phone companies and many ISP/VOIP systems. About 4,500 mobile phone towers have been set up both on the ground and on the roof of houses, in order to compete in attracting about 5.3 million clients, who need mobile phone towers so that they can use their mobile phones. ‘It is a great pride and we acknowledge that the telecommunications sector does grow, but meanwhile, we must think also about the environment, the stable health of citizens, and public order in the society and in the nation.’
“The general manager of the Tower Master Cambodia Co Ltd (TMCC), Mr. Ung Veasna said, the company had received concession rights to operate for 35 years to set up and to maintain mobile phone towers.”
BANGKOK, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Thai and Cambodian military leaders will meet next week amid growing tensions over Phnom Penh's appointment of a fugitive former Thai premier as an adviser.
The Thai-Cambodia Joint Border Committee will have a two-day meeting starting Nov. 27 at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Pattaya, according to a report in the Bangkok Post newspaper.
"It will be a ministerial level defense meeting to discuss border security and military cooperation," a Thai defense ministry spokesman said. Defense Minister Gen. Prawit Wongsuwon would use his ties with Cambodian military leaders to help ease the current tension between the two countries, the spokesman said.
The meeting is important because it could avoid spontaneous armed clashes by patrols in the Preah Vihear mountains, around 300 miles north of Bangkok. The two armies have been facing each other for months over a disputed area surrounding an 11th-century Hindu temple. The international court of justice ruled in 1962 that the temple was on Cambodian land. But the only access to the mountaintop building is on the Thai side, which Thai troops sealed off last summer.
A military clash is precisely what both countries, whose ambassadors were recalled this month over the Thaksin affair, are hoping to avoid.
But political tensions moved up a notch Thursday when Cambodian police and aviation experts took over the offices of the Thai-owned firm Cambodia Air Traffic Services. CATS is a subsidiary of Bangkok's Samart Corporation which has a 32-year contract to run air traffic control operations.
The Cambodian authorities now in charge of the services also banned the firm's nine Thai employees from entering the building.
The takeover comes after Cambodian police arrested a Thai national working at CATS on spy allegations. Siwarak Chotipong, 31, is being held in Prey Sar prison in Phnom Penh. He is alleged to have passed on the flight schedule of the former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra during his visit to Cambodia last week, according to a report in the newspaper Phnom Penh News.
The newspaper article quoted a representative for Cambodia's ruling Council of Ministers saying the takeover of CATS was "temporary" and done "to ensure national security and public safety." The financial operations of the company would not be affected.
Cambodia's appointment of Thaksin as an economic adviser was covered widely in the country's media this month, including a television interview with Prime Minister Hun Sen and Thaksin. Hun has called Thaksin a friend of Cambodia.
Thailand has formerly requested the extradition of Thaksin, 60, who was ousted from power in a military coup in 2006. He returned in 2007 and the following year received a two-year jail sentence for conflict of interest in high-level business dealings. He fled the country, leaving an estimated $2 billion in frozen assets. He has since lived mostly in the United Kingdom.
Cambodia has refused to hand him over because, they say, his trial was political and not criminal, meaning they are not bound to extradite him under any bilateral treaty.
Analysts are saying that the issue of his return is, in fact, more political than just a case of evading prison. Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, 45, is a member of the Democrat Party and heads a large coalition government that fears Thaksin could pose a credible election threat if he returns to the country. Thaksin, as a former police officer, could call in favors among senior policemen and also some military leaders in any election, possibly next year.
Many of Thaksin's supporters are in the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship Party that has demonstrated for Thaksin to receive a royal pardon from the ailing but much revered Thai king.
For his part, Thaksin has reportedly used his Twitter site to vent his anger at the Abhisit government and his opponents within Thailand, the Bangkok Post reported.
"Everything you guys do is right, but whatever we do is wrong. So how can we live together? How long can peace last?" He went on to say he did not believe how long it would be before his supporters' "patience will snap," the article stated.
The Bangkok Post has also reported that Thailand's Foreign Ministry has lodged a complaint with the ambassador of Dubai. Ministry officials said Thaksin is using Dubai as a base for political activities Thailand's government.
The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior has also this week ordered its officials to encrypt as much as possible government information and sensitive documents that it is sending over the Internet. The government fear is that more data, such as happened with Thaksin's fight details, could be siphoned off by spies, the Phnom Penh News report said.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – The Cambodian government on Friday confirmed its temporary takeover of management of the country's air traffic control company after one of its Thai employees was arrested last week on a spying charge.
The move complicates a diplomatic row between Thailand and Cambodia over Phnom Penh's recent welcome to former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a fugitive from Thai justice.
Tekreth Samrach, a deputy minister of the Council of Ministers, said the government took the action against Thai-owned Cambodia Traffic Air Services _ CATS _ for the sake of national security and flight safety. Nine Thai employees of the firm were also banned from the workplace, he added.
A CATS employee, Siwarak Chutipong, was arrested last week for allegedly passing secret information about Thaksin's flight schedule to the Thai Embassy. Thaksin is a fugitive on a Thai corruption charge.
Cambodia this month named Thaksin an adviser on economic affairs. The appointment, and a subsequent visit by Thaksin, set off a diplomatic imbroglio in which the two countries recalled their ambassadors. A Thai court last year sentenced Thaksin in absentia to two years in prison for violating a conflict of interest law, but he fled into exile before the verdict.
Relations were strained further when Cambodia rejected a formal request from Bangkok to extradite Thaksin. The situation worsened when Cambodia expelled a Thai diplomat and arrested Sirawak.
"We need to secure the national security of our country and our leaders' safety. This is a national security concern _ very important," Tekreth Samrach said at a press briefing, adding that the measures against CATS were only temporary.
He said the takeover was implemented about a week ago and legal experts are now studying how long it should last, or whether the government should end the concession for air traffic control held by the Thai company Samart.
The nine Thai employees have not been fired, he said, but only asked not to come into the CATS office.
Kao Sopha, a Cambodian lawyer for the detained Thai man, said separately that he would submit an application Monday to have his client released on bail.
He said that Siwarak was in good health when he went to see him Friday morning at Prey Sar prison, but that he strongly desires to be released.
It is not clear when Siwarak might face trial. Cambodian officials say he is still under investigation.
LtGeneral Kanit Saphithak, commander of Thailand’s First Army Area, left, wearing a beret, and General Sok Phiab, a deputy chief of Cambodia’s joint supreme command, right, wearing a cap, shake hands during a goodwill ceremony on the ThaiCambodia Friendsh
A sporting event between Thai and Cambodian military personnel scheduled over the weekend has been postponed indefinitely due to the growing tensions between the two countries.
The postponement was initiated by Cambodian authorities, without stating any reasons, said Prawat Ratthairom, a deputy provincial governor of Si Sa Ket, the venue of the event.
He said the provincial authorities were just informed of the postponement by the Thai military.
A series of sports competitions between Thailand's Second Army Area and Cambodia's Fourth Military Precinct, both of which are responsible for duties along each country's borders, were scheduled to be held today and tomorrow at Phumi Srol School in Cambodia's Kanthararak district.
Meanwhile, a Cambodian immigrant worker was axed to death by a Thai worker in a drunken brawl in Chon Buri's Sri Racha district over the detention of a Thai national by Cambodian authorities for alleged spying.
The victim, known only as Tiang, was allegedly attacked by Silchai Namnont, local police said, citing Kraisorn Namnont, the suspect's brother. The three men, all helpers in a local rubber plantation, were drinking late on Thursday and started quarrelling over the detention of the Thai in Cambodia and other diplomatic strains in ties between the two countries.
Nong Kham police said a hunt was on for Silchai but his brother, Kraisorn, was in custody. Police were still questioning him, as they were suspicious that he also took part in the murder.
In Sa Kaew, a goodwill ceremony was held by Thai and Cambodian military personnel in Aranyaprathet district yesterday. Highranking commanders of both sides met in the middle of the ThaiCambodia Friendship Bridge and exchanged souvenirs and handshakes in a photo opportunity.
LtGeneral Kanit Saphithak, commander of Thailand's First Army Area, and General Sok Phiab, a deputy chief of Cambodia's joint supreme command, were the highestranking officers from both sides participating in the ceremony. They met without prior appointment while making inspection visits at their local Army units, after local forces on both sides managed to get them to meet each other.
Aranyaprathet border checkpoint and Khlong Luek border town are still open to visits by Cambodians while Thai nationals still visit casinos across the border and Cambodian vendors still enter Thailand and do their businesses at Rong Klue market despite a drop in the number of Thai shoppers.
An enormous Giant Mekong Catfish was found dead in Kandal’s Kean Svay district near the Mekong Krom River bank on Tuesday.
The corpse of the giant fish was 162 kg, its length about 2.4 m, a local from Koh Reah in Kaki commune reported to the local authorities and Fishery Administration officials.
The giant fish was listed in the National Research Institute under control by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. It was numbered3532 after being hauled from the river.
Vice Fishery Administration Officer at Rokarkong of Kandal province Sok Sovutha told DAP News Cambodia that he had heard about a dead giant fish and decided to check it out.
The fish had originally been found seriously injured then died two days later. No-one has been blamed. The fish was taken by the FA member to a laboratory in Tourl Krasaing in Kandal province.
Former US President Jimmy Carter will arrive Cambodia this afternoon to spend time with a humanitarian project to help Cambodian citizens, said US Embassy officials in Phnom Penh.
According to the National Human Housing Organization press release, Carter’s visit is a part of house building project near the Mekong River.
The project helps thousands of citizens in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and in China over the past 3 years. In 2009, Jimmy Carter´s work project and his partners started in 5 countries as the same time including Cambodia.
Jimmy Carter and his family including nearly 300 volunteers around the world will build houses and repair 166 houses in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Laos.
Following this arrival on November 21, 2009, 21 houses will be built for 5 days by nearly 300 volunteers. Also, the 21 houses will be transferred to Udong District, Kompong Speu Province from Steung Meanchhey, Phnom Penh, the former site of a rubbish dump.
Mr. Putu Kamayana, ADB Country Director for Cambodia, smiled where he visited Cambodian mangroves in Preak Prasob in Koh Kong province on Thursday. In Koh Kong province alone there is more than 20,000 hectares of mangroves, which is protected by the government's sub decree, where a number of local families make their livings by selling food and souvenirs for tourists.
KOH KONG, Cambodia –Asian Development Bank (ADB) led delegations toured the Southern Coastal Corridor, which covered the southern part of Thailand through the Southwestern Cambodia to Southern Vietnam, aimed to promote the improvement of trades among the countries, said the Bank’s country director for Cambodia on Friday.
Putu Kamayana told DAP that “our efforts through this trip is to see what more potential there is and what more can be done.”
The group of 28 delegations including the US ambassador Carol Rodley to Cambodia, ADB country director for Vietnam, foreign diplomats as well as the representatives of the development partners from Australia and European Union and others.
The tour study began on Wednesday in Thailand in Chonburi province where they visited the country’s biggest seaport Laem Chabang Port and traveled through Trat province before arrived late in Cambodia’s province of Koh Kong.
The group was pleased with the brief made by the deputy governor, Dom Yuk Hean, that this coastal province of Koh Kong has made lots of progress of development over the last ten years in improving infrastructures, which is the key factor attracted tourists to visit the province.
Kamayana, of the ADB, was impressed with the authority’s contributions in protecting the forest of the Cardamom Mountain as well as the mangroves.
“We have been working with the community who depends on forest for their livelihoods, we work with them to protect the forest and at the same time we also helped to improve their livings,” he told the deputy governor after the dinner.
The delegates listened attentively on Thursday the presentation made by the Deputy Director General, Ma Sun Hout, of Sihanouk Ville Autonomous Port, about the constructions and the progress of the port operation.
Arrived late in Kampot from Sihanouk Ville province, the group spent overnight in Kep where they were warmly welcomed on Friday by the governor Has Sareth and his deputy before the beach in Kep under the shining morning and breeze from the Gulf of Thailand.
“We are seeking the private sector to develop the Kep beach... to attract more tourists,” the governor Has Sareth told the delegations before heading off for Vietnam.
Kamayana did not say how much money the ADB would finance to upgrade as well as expanding the routes which links Koh Kong to Sihanouk Ville to Kompot and Kep. But an expert, who wished not to be name, said that the project would cost an estimated $200 million.
“We not improving the whole section, we are improving the priority one at different region that we go through and we expect that the benefit will become incrementally,” said Kamayana.
He said ADB has been invested large amount of money in the Cambodia’s roads improvement, but more need to be done.
“ADB is promoting the improvement of the roads along this route in order to promote the economic development and cooperation between the countries... the connectivity among the countries through these roads,” he said.
The tour to end on late Friday (Nov. 20) in South Vietnam where they visited the industrial zone in Ha Tien City and Kien Long and Ca Mau province.
Kamayana said that the group shared views “the importance of promoting the cooperation between these countries and promoting the benefit of having economic growth along these transport corridors because they will benefit many people along these routes and to promote agricultural development and bring more jobs.”
“We think this will have the benefit for the Mekong countries to help them growth together to reduce poverty,” he told DAP before he set his foot on Vietnam’s border.
A Cambodian local business woman Keathos, 27, who owned a coffee shop at Prek Chak border checkpoint in Kampot province which borders with Vietnam, said “it is too early to say what I would benefit from the coming project”, when asked how much does she expect the Southern Economic Corridor benefit the locals.
(Reporting by Ek Madra who accompanied the delegations)
A farmer who broke his neck in a cycling accident is about to embark on a 280-mile ride across Vietnam and Cambodia.
Jonathan Pellow, from Albaston on the Cornwall/Devon border, has been confined to a wheelchair since he "went over the handlebars" of his bike 13 years ago.
The 42-year-old, who is paralysed from the waist down with limited hand and arm function, leaves the west country next week with his fiancée, Sarah White.
The pair plan to ride from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam to the finish line at Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia.
"Being in a wheelchair, keeping fit is really important - I've never been one to go to a gym, and cycling is a really enjoyable way to keep active," says Jonathan. "Sometimes you need a challenge like this to keep motivated.
"Sarah and I hope to raise £3,000 for Regain, the charity which helped me after my accident. They bought me my first hand-cycle, and they are the only charity which support tetraplegics so I wanted to raise some money for them."
The week-long trip will see the couple cover up to 50 miles a day in hot, humid conditions.
Jonathan has been training regularly since June, fitting in rides on his three-wheeled hand-powered bicycle, with his job running two holiday cottages at Todsworthy Farm which have been converted to cater especially for people with disabilities.
Senior officials from ASEAN nations' national and private banks gathered here on Friday to attend the 39th ASEAN banking council meeting.
The annual bankers' meeting focused on how to speed up the process of the integration of ASEAN financial services by 2015, and discussed on the cooperation in finance, investment, education and ASEAN inter-regional relations.
"The close cooperation among ASEAN banks will certainly help to speed up the process of the integration of ASEAN financial services by 2015," Neav Chanthana, deputy governor of the Central National Bank of Cambodia, said in her keynote address at the two-day meeting.
"Due to increasing regional integration, the banking industry and banking supervisors share a number of convergent priorities," She stressed, adding that "I am rather optimistic that rational dialog based on responsible and knowledgeable positions, between people acting professionally, is always a source of progress in the banking industry to support economic growth," she added.
As a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Cambodia enjoyed double digit economic growth over the past decade. In 2009, however, Cambodia is severely hit by the global financial crisis through the real sector, namely garments, construction, and tourism which had been the driving forces of Cambodian economy.
Neav Chanthana said that national bank of Cambodia will carefully follow the international developments and consider implementation in a progressive manner and in line with domestic market developments and priorities.
Phung Kheav Se, chairman of Association of Banks in Cambodia, said at the meeting that "Our close association with the ASEAN organization and with its member countries has been of enormous benefit to Cambodia in many respects economic, social and political."
According to a report from Association of Banks in Cambodia, Cambodia has six specialized banks and commercial banks and 20 microfinance institutions as its members.
Founded in 1967, the ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asia Nations) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
BANGKOK, Nov 20 (TNA) - Thailand will ask to post bail for the Thai engineer detained on spy charges in Cambodia within one or two days to free him on a temporary basis, according to the Thai Foreign Minister's Secretary Chawanon Intarakomalsut.
Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS) employee Siwarak Chutipong, 31, was arrested in Phnom Penh on spying charges last week when he was discovered releasing Thaksin Shinawatra’s flight schedule to a Thai embassy official in Phnom Penh.
Mr Chawanon said the Thai authorities had approached Kao Sopha, a Cambodian lawyer with experience in human rights protection, to be Siwarak's lawyer. Kao Sopha had met Mr Siwarak and is collecting information and evidence to write a request to provide bail for the engineer within one to two days to release him temporarily.
The representatives of Samart Corporation, CATS parent company, met Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya to give information which could be useful to support Thailand’s belief that Siwarak has done nothing illegal, he said.
CATS is wholly-owned by the Samart Corporation and received a concession from the Cambodian government to supply aeronautical radio and air traffic control services to Cambodia.
The Foreign Ministry legal experts were studying the two countries’ Investment Protection Agreement to find options to help Samart Corporation, he said, adding that Mr Kasit had affirmed that the ministry would extend full help as it did not want the problem to be escalated to affect other people and other Thai companies invested in Cambodia.
Thani Thongphakdi, deputy director-general of the Foreign Affairs Ministry's Department of Information, told reporters that the lawyer was preparing the document for seeking bail but the date to submit the request had not been set. However, it could be early next week, he said.
After submitting the request, Cambodia is expected to take 10 days to consider whether to allow the bail.
In a related development, Thai Defence Ministry spokesman Col Thanatip Sawangsaeng said Thailand would host the Thai-Cambodian General Border Committee (JBC) extraordinary session November 26-27 at Pattaya in the eastern province of Chonburi.
The Thai and Cambodian defence ministers would head their delegations to the meeting, he said.
It was expected that the meeting would discuss the border situation, and military cooperation, said the spokesman. (TNA)
HNOM PENH, Nov. 20, 2009 (Xinhua News Agency) -- Ten ecstasy laboratories operated by local drug cartels were destroyed Wednesday in one of Cambodia's most impenetrable and remote jungle areas in the country's southwest Cardamom Mountains, according to a statement released Friday by Wildlife Alliance.
The raid was carried out by an anti-drug task force led by Wildlife Alliance and in close cooperation with forest rangers from Cambodia's armed services and Ministry of Environment.
"At least 35 tons of safrole oil, a main ingredient used in the methamphetamine production of ecstasy, could have been used to make over five million ecstasy pills with a street value of over 100 million U.S. dollars," according to local officials.
Wildlife Alliance-sponsored ranger team from Cambodia's Ministry of Environment and managed by Fauna and Flora International, came across the ecstasy labs several months ago during a routine foot patrol through Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary, 200 miles northwest of Phnom Penh.
Wildlife Alliance Technical Advisor and former French Legionnaire, Eduard Lefter, who planned the complex and dangerous raid with Cambodian Forest Rangers, commented on the operation, saying "The mission was very difficult to organize and the conditions extremely tough. The mountain terrain and dense forest made a helicopter insertion virtually impossible, so we went in by foot."
According to Lefter, the team spent 12 days in the jungle battling leeches and the resulting wound infections, as well as skirting landmines which made forward progress extremely difficult. By the end of the mission much of Lefter's ranger teams were suffering from dehydration from dwindling water supplies.
The teams also carried explosive ordnance in the form of landmines, provided by the Cambodian Military, to destroy the ecstasy labs and safrole distillation equipment.
“According to a news source, at least three disabled veterans, poor citizens, were arrested between 14 to 16 November 2009, when they resisted armed forces and police of the Kompong Thom authorities, coming to enforce a notification to confiscate land, where the authorities claimed that those citizens live there illegally, in Banteay Rou Ngieng village, Kraya commune, Santuk district, Kompong Thom.
“The source of this information claimed that there is an association with more than 1,700 families of disabled veterans, living there since 2004, and that the association lives on more than 10,000 hectares of land, where each family was provided with 3 hectares by the head of that community, for housing and for growing different crops, since 2005. But on 14 and 16 November 2009, about 50 armed forces and other authorities came with machinery to remove their houses, and they arrested three people.
“The disabled veterans said that the authorities burnt their houses, shot at them, and even arrested some people and hit them with riffle handles, in order to evict them to seize the land for the Tan Bieng company [a Vietnamese company].
“Responding to the accusation that the authorities ordered armed forces to burn their houses, shoot at them, and arrest people, the Kompong Thom deputy police chief, who had gone himself to conduct the eviction, Mr. Nou Thany, told Deum Ampil on 18 November 2009, via phone, ‘The accusation is not true. And if there is anything true in it, the authorities used only their right to self protection, because those disabled people used knives, sticks, and gasoline bottles to burn the machinery of the authorities and to chase them away and to hurt them with knives.’ He added that the action was taken following a notification to confiscate the land for the Tan Bieng company, which had received the right from the Royal Government to make some investment on that land. For evictions, the municipality has a policy to offer each of them a plot of land in the nearby Thma Samlieng area, but only somewhat more than 100 of them agreed to register to take this offer of land at the new location. The rest protested, rejecting this policy and they used force against the authorities who went to enforce the eviction order.
“Mr. Nou Thany emphasized that the disabled veterans association does have the right to create an association at that area, but not the right to control the land. Therefore, there was a notification, ordering them to leave. Before they would have to leave, the municipality had set the deadline of 25 November 2009 for them to accept new land; however, they turned to resist strongly on 14 to 17 November 2009.”
The Thai-Cambodia Joint Border Committee (JBC) will meet on Nov 27 at 28 at the Dusit Thani hotel in Pattaya, defence ministry spokesman Col Thanathip Saengsawang said on Friday.
“It will be a ministerial level defence meeting to discuss border security and military cooperation,” Col Thanathip said.
Defence Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwon would use his ties with Cambodian military leaders to help ease the current tension between the two countries.
The spokesman said that military relations between the two countries remain intact despite the diplomatic row between Bangkok and Phnom Penh.
The Defence Ministry hopes to help settle the dispute between the two governments and at the same time to strengthen ties and trust on both sides, Col Thanathip said.
BANGKOK, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Thai-Cambodian relationship is currently stable and is not expected to deteriorate, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Friday.
Thailand and Cambodia have downgraded their diplomatic relations due to conflict over an appointment of Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic advisor to Cambodia's government and Prime Minister Hun Sen on Nov.4.
A day after the appointment of the ousted former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra, the Cambodian government announced recall of its ambassador to Thailand in a move to respond to the Thai government's recall of its ambassador to Cambodia.
"The Thai-Cambodian relationship is now stable," Thai News Agency quoted Abhisit as saying.
Also, both sides are ready to discuss as there will be a meeting of the Thai-Cambodian Joint Boundary Commission (JBC), said Abhisit.
The JBC meeting will be co-chaired by Thai Defense Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan and Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh, he said.
Thaksin was ousted by the military coup in September 2006, in accusation of corruption, and has been kept in exile since then.
He returned to Thailand in February 2008 to face corruption charges, but he later fled into exile again and was convicted in absentia.
PHNOM PENH, Nov. 19 — More than 100 people are gathering in Phnom Penh on Thursday to discuss the EU-funded projects on impact of climate change repercussions in rural Cambodia.
The statement released by the Delegation of the European Commission to Cambodia said the one-day forum is aimed at facilitating a debate on the current and potential future impact of the climate change in rural Cambodia.
The discussions touched around two themes: mitigation and adaptation.
The objective of the forum is to assess how the development activities funded by EU and its development partners could contribute to voluntary self-imposed mitigation and adaptation measures reducing the impact of the climate change on Cambodian rural poor.
This event is another initiative that the EU did in order to reach its commitment in assisting the most vulnerable countries, including Cambodia, to strengthen its capacity to be better prepared to the possible consequences of climate change, it added.
"The outcome of this workshop, will not only enable all the projects funded by the European Union and its partners to understand the important of climate change in the daily life of Cambodian men and women, but also to learn important tools to be part of the solution by mainstreaming climate change issues into their activities," said Rafael Dochao Moreno, Charg d' Affaires of Delegation of the European Commission to Cambodia.
As one of the world leaders in battling against climate change, the European Council on Oct. 30 committed the EU and Member States to contribute a fair share of the estimated 22-50 billion euro in additional international public finance that developing countries will need annually by 2020 under an ambitious agreement.
"It is encouraging to see that the EU is among the first ones to put a very tangible and meaningful proposal on the table to increase financial assistance to help developing countries combat climate change and to cut Green House Gas emissions," Mok Maret, environment minister said at the workshop.
"The Cambodian government is committed to fulfilling its mandate to address climate change," Mok said, adding that "I am very pleased to see that Cambodia has been selected to be a pilot country of the EU initiative "Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA)." (PNA/Xinhua)
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thuagsuban said Thaksin's role as an adviser has already jeopardise the mutual ties and now the Thai business in Cambodia.
"I'm not asking Khun Thaksin to resign. I believe he must resign to end all conflicts. Or Cambodia revokes his appointment. That will help end the mutual row," Suthep told reporters.
"The diplomatic ties will improve after Thaksin quits his advisory role," Suthep said.
He said he appreciated the gesture by Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh for stepping out to deny condoning the wire-tapping.
"I thank Tea Banh for clarifying the issue, otherwise the international community will remain suspicious of Cambodia," he said.
Tea Banh ruled out on Thursday the eavesdropping and the existence of the taped telephone conversation purported to implicate Thai engineer Siwarak Chotipong for spying in Phnom Penh.
Thai government linked Thaksin to the arrest of a Thai engineer of Cambodia Air Traffic Control Services (Cats) for allegedly spying flight plans of Thaksin and Cambodia's PM Hun Sen.
Cambodia has taken control of Cats, and ordered Thai staffs not to come to work.
Suthep insisted all the problems are the works of Thaksin and his men whose only intentions are to get Thaksin's money back and that Thaksin would not have to serve two-year jail term.
The Cambodian government has no secret audio recording of Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya ordering an official of Thai embassy in Phnom Penh to obtain the flight schedule of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as claimed by a Puea Thai MP, Cambodian deputy prime minister and defence minister Gen Tea Banh, asserted on Friday.
“I think the person who exposed this case has an ill-intention or a hidden agenda. The person might want to incite war between the two countries and then put the blame on Cambodia,” Gen Tea Banh said in an interview published in the Thai-language Kom Chad Luek newspaper
The Cambodian defence minister said that military relations between Thailand and Cambodia remain intact.
He refused to comment on the arrest of Sivarak Chutiphong, a Thai employed by Cambodia Air Traffic Services who has been charged with spying. He said the case is still being investigated according to Cambodian legal procedure.
Puea Thai MP Jatuporn Prompan on Wednesday claimed that the Cambodian government had a recording of Mr Kasit instructing the Thai first secretary at the embassy to obtain Thaksin's flight plan. He did not say how he knew this.
Mr Kasit yesterday denied he had given such an order and challenged Mr Jatuporn to produce the secret tape.
Dareth Ly and his wife, Thida, are Assembly of God missionaries to their native Cambodia. From left are Dareth, Thida, Sophie, 15, Sabrina, 11, and Saidah, 4. Dareth will speak at Crossroads Church Sunday, Nov. 22. Submitted Photo
Dareth Ly spent his childhood in Cambodia under the deadly 1975-1979 rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
By: Molly Miron, Bemidji Pioneer
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Dareth Ly spent his childhood in Cambodia under the deadly 1975-1979 rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
His father was among the 1.5 to 2.5 million people who died directly on the Killings Fields or from starvation and disease.
His mother survived, but they were separated when he was 7 in 1975. He was sent to a child labor camp, and she was sent to an adult labor camp.
When the Vietnamese army liberated the camps in 1979, he walked to Thailand and was put in a refugee camp.
“They didn’t know what to do with us, so they asked different countries to take us,” Ly said in a telephone interview from his Eagan, Minn., home.
He was sent to St. Paul when he was 11 and grew up in a foster home.
“I didn’t speak a word of English,” he said.
He said he had no idea where he was going at the time, but he knew it had to be better than where he was.
Now, with his wife, Thida, he is an Assembly of God missionary to Cambodia. Ly will be the featured speaker Sunday, Nov. 22, at Crossroads Church. Ly will share his story during both the morning worship service at 10:30 a.m. and the Missions Banquet at 5:30 p.m. The Missions Banquet will also feature a potluck, ethnic dinner and a question-and-answer time with Ly. Crossroads Pastor John Hubert and the congregation invite the public to attend.
Ly said he returned to Cambodia and found his mother in 1992. He said she is still living in her home country. He then returned to Cambodia as a missionary in 1996 and began working in an orphanage and starting churches and schools in rural Cambodia. He and his wife have built schools, provided school meals for students, as well as school supplies and uniforms.
“We basically go back and offer the people in that country – who have suffered so much – hope,” Ly said.
He said the Assembly of God as a denomination focuses on mission outreach and is a fast-growing church worldwide. He said he and his wife and daughters, Thida, Saidah and Sabrina, plan to return to Cambodia next summer. Meanwhile, he travels to churches to present the message of what God is doing and raise funds for the mission.
Bangkok - A Thai labourer allegedly killed a Cambodian co-worker with an axe early Friday after a heated and inebriated argument over the two countries' deteriorating diplomatic relations, police said.
Thai national Sinchai Namnon, 44, was the chief suspect in the slaying of Cambodian national Dieng, 40, who died shortly after midnight from a gash in the head and a nearly severed arm. Both injuries were inflicted with an axe.
The two men were employees at the Srimaharacha rubber processing company in Sri Racha, Chonburi province, 60 kilometres south-east of Bangkok.
'They were drinking together and got in an argument about the Thai engineer who was arrested on spying charges in Cambodia last week,' Police Lieutenant Colonel Praphan Wangkanom said.
Sinchai had fled the scene by the time police arrived.
'We are still investigating whether there were others involved in the attack,' Praphan told the German Press Agency dpa.
Thai engineer Sivarak Chutipong, an employee of the Cambodian Air Traffic Service (CATS), was arrested in in Phnom Penh on November 11.
The Cambodian government has accused Sivarak of passing on confidential information to the Thai embassy about the arrival of fugitive former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on November 10.
Sivarak's arrest was part of an escalating spat between the two neighbouring countries, triggered by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's decision to name Thaksin his personal adviser.
Thaksin, who was toppled in a 2006 coup, faces a two-year jail term in Thailand on an abuse-of-power charge and is the main political antagonist of the current Thai government.
Thailand recalled its ambassador from Phnom Penh following the official announcement of Thaksin's appointment and called for a review of all aid and economic agreements with Cambodia.
Cambodia also recalled its ambassador and expelled Thailand's second secretary on charges of recruiting Sivarak.
The spat is likely to harm both countries' economies.
Cambodia is a major market for Thai exports, while Thailand is a major source of employment for Cambodian labourers.
According to a report released Friday by the International Organization for Migration, some 148,420 Cambodians had obtained permission for 'temporary stay' in Thailand as labourers as of early September.
Another 6,130 Cambodians have been granted work permits, allowing them to work in the country year round.
Cambodians account for about 10 per cent of the one million-plus migrants working legally in Thailand. Thousands more work illegally in the kingdom.
Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya insisted on Thursday that everything must be in line with the law after the Cambodian Government banned Thai nationals from working at Cambodian Air Traffic Services (CATS), which is operated by Thailand’s Samart Corporation, according to the Bangkok Post.
However, the claims that the Cambodian Government has prohibited Thai nationals from working at CATS could not be confirmed with Cambodian Government officials.
Both Foreign Affairs and Work and Vocational Training Ministry officials said that this decision is not made by their ministries but rather by the Secretary of the Civil Air Agency.
Mao Has Vananal, secretary of state for the Civil Aviation, could not be reached on Thursday after DAP News Cambodia tried many times to contact him. The Bangkok Post’s report comes after a Thai man was arrested and charged with spying by stealing fugitive former Thai PM Thaksin Sinawatra´s flight schedules during his 4-day trip to Cambodia on November 10, 2009.
“As for Thailand, we’ll have to wait for reports from the Thai Embassy to Phnom Pehn. We hope that we’ll receive factual information from Cambodia and[Smart] company,” Bangkok Post quoted his saying. “If the orders do not follow the bilateral agreement of the two countries, we’ll have to find other ways to continue.”
Kasit said Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had promised Siwarak’s mother that he will visit her detained son. He said the Government had to wait for Cambodia’s confirmation on the time of the meeting with the engineer, but the ministry had also hired a lawyer to discuss this problem with the company.
“There are no problems in the Thai-Cambodian relations,” he added.
Thai Justice Ministry planned to send its senior officials to visit Sivarak Chutopong next week. However, Koy Kuong, a spokesman for the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, told DAP News Cambodia that so far his ministry has yet to receive any formal letter, saying only that “We also got this from the news from Bangkok.”
Cambodian Government officials have already stated that Cambodia will not release an alleged Thai spy, Sivarak Chutipong, 31, despite the Thai Government’s appeals. The Cambodian Government said the case is being investigated by the Phnom Penh Court. The man could have passed Thaksin’s flight schedule to the first secretary at Thai embassy in Phnom Penh and forwardedit to army and Thai Government.
A day after Sivarak Chutipong’s arrest,the Thai Embassy first secretary was
expelled from Cambodia by Foreign Affair Ministry.
There have been 50 new reported cases of A/H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, this week, bringing the total to 444 cases, but with only 4 deaths, a Health Ministry official said on Thursday.
“Cambodia on Thursday confirmed 444 cases of A/H1N1, but the number of deaths is still the same as before,” Ly Sovan, deputy director of the Anti-Communicable Disease Department, told DAP News Cambodia.
The Health Ministry confirmed the first case of the A/H1N1 virus in Cambodia on June 24 after an American student from a group, which arrived in Cambodia June 19, tested positive for the disease.
The Cambodian Ministry of Health, in cooperation with World Health Organization (WHO), is striving to control the A/H1N1 situation, working to curb the spread of the virus and keeping the
public well informed with updates. Mam Bunheng, the Health Minister, said that A/H1N1 vaccine will be in Cambodia at the end of this month or at the beginning of December.
Due to the Health official, 300,000 doses of A/H1N1 vaccine will be delivered to Cambodia.
“The priority people to be given for the vaccine are the government leaders, the ministry officials, children aged from 6 month to 2 years, and those who are containing with long term diseases,” Mam Bunheng told reporters on Thursday at Cambodiana Hotel. At least 6,071 people worldwide have been killed by the A/H1N1 influenza as infections continue to increase quickly in the northern hemisphere, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a latest update on Friday last week, according to Xinhua.
Of the deaths, 4,399 occurred in the Americas, 661 occurred in South-East Asia and 498 occurred in the West Pacific. The other three WHO regions, Europe, East Mediterranean and Africa reported 300,137 and 76 deaths respectively, Xinhua added.
Cambodia is sharing the experience about trade strategies with Bhutan partner as Cambodia, like Bhutan officially a least developed country (LDC), has already joined the WTO and with
Bhutan now a likely candidate for WTO membership, a Cambodian trade official said on Thursday.
"We told them about the benefit of the aid for development on trade unit and we also have got the aid from other partners to help private side and public in the purpose to strengthen our ability on trade and produce the goods for export to international markets," Pan Sorasak, secretary of state for Commerce Ministry told reporters at a meeting at the Cambodiana Hotel.
"We also got 'aid for trade'- that is very important for us and for you [Bhutan] to join to develop our country and help reduce poverty and seek jobs for local people, increased skills for people and produce more products for export," he noted. "Even though Bhutan and Cambodia is two kingdoms in Asia but we do not have large bilateral trade.
I do not know what kind of ways and trade that we could help to boost trade with each other but we could share experience for trade."
Government officials from the Ministry of Commerce, with support from UNDP, will host the workshop for the Bhutanese delegation to share information on Cambodia's experience in trade mainstreaming, and how Integrated Framework (IF) and EIF funds and technical support have been instrumental in pushing for the country's domestic reforms, a press release from the meeting said.
As an LDC, Bhutan is a candidate for accession to the World Trade Organization. Recently, Bhutan has applied to the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) fund, a multi-donor initiative aimed at supporting LDCs in mainstreaming trade development into their country's national development plans to support poverty reduction. Bhutan is now preparing to develop their DTIS.
The Government of Bhutan has turned to Cambodia to learn more about its successful EIF implementation, subsequent reforms, government commitment and ownership of Trade SWAp.
InCambodia, the Government is taking the lead in establishing and formulating the Trade SWAp, or Sector-Wide approach, as a framework to implement Cambodia's trade strategy in partnership with Development Partners and the private sector.
Cambodia has been at the forefront among other LDCs to secure funds from the IF program. Cambodia was one of the first LDCs to produce (in 2002) and update (in 2007) its Trade Development Strategy DTIS and to successfully gain access to EIF Tier 1 funding, which serves to address capacity and organizational needs to support mainstream trade development into their national development agenda.
Dei Ey village, in Mondulkiri Protected Forest, opened the doors of a new eco-resort on Thursday. The project, sponsored by the conservation group WWF, is the first of its kind in Cambodia, promoting ecotourism as a sustainable livelihood in fragile natural habitats.
Hundreds of Cham Muslims were left homeless on Thursday morning when a fire tore through a crowded neighbourhood in Phnom Penh, incinerating more than 200 homes and causing ammunition in a police station to explode. Despite the intensity of the inferno, no one was killed.
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:04 Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Kim Yuthana
IT was a scene of destruction Thursday morning as a raging fire set light to more than 200 homes in Russey Keo’s Chraing Chamres II commune and left even the local police station and commune hall destroyed.
The morning saw residents frantically trying to salvage what possessions they could from the roaring blaze.
“Help my home! Help my home!” Samrith Sary cried as fire trucks, sirens wailing, pulled into the street. She ran back and forth on the road, lugging plastic containers filled with water and throwing the liquid on the walls of her burning home.
As the fire continued to spread, loud explosions could be heard from inside the burning police station as bullets and ammunition ignited.
Elsewhere along National Road 5, parents called out to their children while police officers stopped trucks hauling canisters of oil and gas from driving past.
The village’s densely packed houses hindered police and fire crews, who were left with only one metre of manoeuvring room in some parts.
Photo by: Heng Chivoan
Neighbourhood residents wash the soot from their hair and faces after Thursday’s blaze.
Officials bulldozed some burning homes to allow fire trucks to enter, Phnom Penh Municipal Police Chief Touch Naruth said.
By Thursday evening, officials counted 229 homes torched by the fire.
No one was injured, commune Chief Vann Thorn said.
Officials said they did not know what started the blaze.
However, one eyewitness said she saw the first signs of smoke and fire coming from the home of the local medicine seller.
“There was a burning smell,” said Ly Mary, whose house was also ravaged by the blaze.
“I walked to the window. Suddenly, I saw the smoke and fire flow out from his house. After that, the fire spread to other houses,” Ly Mary said.
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:04 Cheang Sokha and James O’toole
THE government took control of the Thai-owned aviation firm Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS) on Thursday and banned its Thai employees from the offices after the arrest of one of their co-workers on suspicion of stealing the flight schedule of fugitive Thai former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra during his visit to Cambodia last week.
The move, which is likely to further damage diplomatic relations between the two countries, comes amid accusations by a Thai opposition leader that Thailand’s foreign minister ordered the theft.
CATS is a fully owned subsidiary of Bangkok-based Samart corporation, which has a 32-year air traffic control concession and employs nine Thai nationals in Cambodia.
It has been placed under the caretakership of a Cambodian government official, though representatives from the Civil Aviation Authority declined to comment on the official’s identity or the duration of the caretakership.
“The caretaker has prohibited the Thai expatriates from performing their duties,” Samart vice chairman Sirichai Rasameechan said in a letter to Thailand’s stock exchange, where the company is listed.
Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said Cambodia’s takeover of CATS was “temporary” but necessary “to ensure national security and public safety.” The financial operations of the company, he added, would not be affected.
The move follows last week’s arrest of CATS employee Siwarak Chotipong, a 31-year-old Thai accused of spying, who is currently being held in pretrial detention at Prey Sar prison.
Cambodian officials say that Siwarak was ordered to steal the flight schedule by Kamrob Palawatwichai, the first secretary of the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh. Kamrob was expelled last week, and Thailand responded by expelling the first secretary of the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok.
Both countries had already withdrawn their respective ambassadors in the row over Thaksin’s appointment as government economics adviser.
Siwarak is being charged under Article 19 of the 2005 Law on Archives, which covers offences related to matters of national defence, security or public order. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Kav Soupha, Siwarak’s defence attorney, said Thursday that he did not believe that the leaking of Thaksin’s flight schedule constituted a threat to Cambodia’s national security.
“Thaksin is not the prime minister of Cambodia – he is a convicted man who is being hunted by Thai authorities,” Kav Soupha said. “Even if [Siwarak] had reported to the Thai embassy, that would be according to his right and obligation as a Thai citizen to alert authorities about a fugitive.”
Kav Soupha added that he planned to request that Siwarak be released on bail.
Jatuporn Prompan, a parliamentarian from the opposition Puea Thai party, said Wednesday that he had an audio tape of Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya ordering the flight schedule theft of which Siwarak is accused, the Bangkok Post reported.
Thai Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Thani Thongphakdi, however, said officials in his ministry “do not believe in the existence of such a tape”.
Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said he had no knowledge of such evidence.
Kasit said Thailand would have to gather further information about the CATS takeover before formulating a response.
“The ministry is waiting for reports from the Thai embassy and we will also have to get clarification from the Cambodian government. If it violates bilateral agreements, then we will find ways to proceed from there,” the Bangkok Post quoted Kasit as saying.
Secrecy ordered
As tensions between Thailand and Cambodia simmered, the government released a directive on Wednesday in which the Ministry of Interior called on all government officials to encrypt their communications to “protect information related to national security”.
The statement, signed by Interior Minister Sar Kheng on October 15, touted, without specifically describing, newly acquired encryption technology that will “guarantee secrecy, so that government information will not be leaked”.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said such measures were necessary in Cambodia’s present diplomatic circumstances.
“If Thaksin would have been arrested because of [Siwarak] leaking information about him, that would prove we could not keep sensitive information a secret.”
A man lies on a mat in his makeshift home in Tuol Sambo earlier this year.
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:04 Robbie Corey-Boulet and Mom Kunthear
THE United Nations and other organisations expressed renewed concern about access to food for the 40 HIV-affected families living at a relocation site in Dangkor district, and some said they fear standard food packages will be cut off after a three-month commitment from the World Food Programme concludes in January.
“In the current absence of secure livelihoods and therefore of income flows, access to more than the minimum food package (rice, salt, oil) is crucial,” reads a UNAIDS summary of a November 9 visit to Tuol Sambo, a copy of which was obtained Thursday.
The WFP began distributing standard food packages containing 30 kilograms of rice, 1 litre of vegetable oil and 1.5 kilograms of iodised salt on October 20. To supplement that, the NGO Caritas Cambodia is scheduled to begin its own three-month programme of food packages including sugar, fish, fish sauce and instant noodles on December 1.
But the president of an NGO involved in food distribution at the site said Thursday he was worried that only “10 or 15” families would be in a position to receive food after the three-month WFP commitment ends, adding that he hopes the WFP will commit to another year of food packages.
“I am worried that the WFP will not continue its help, and then we will meet with a big problem because we do not have enough support to help those families with HIV/AIDS,” said Chea Sarith, president of the Women’s Organisation for Modern Economy and Nursing (WOMEN).
His fears were matched by Mey Sovannara, communications and advocacy officer for the HIV/AIDS NGO Khana, which has also been involved in food distribution.
“If the World Food Programme no longer provides support, Khana will not have money to allocate food to them,” Mey Sovannara said, though he added that the NGO might be able to assist “some vulnerable children in Tuol Sambo who face food insecurity”.
Officials at the WFP country office could not be reached Thursday. UNAIDS Country Director Tony Lisle said discussions were ongoing about extending the WFP commitment, and he expressed confidence that families unable to support themselves would continue to receive food.
“I categorically guarantee that we will make sure that there’s no discontinuity in food,” he said.
Residents and rights workers, meanwhile, said access to food was a chief concern.
“The most difficult problem we are facing is the lack of food,” said 41-year-old Tuol Sambo resident Soun Davy. “It was better for my family before we moved to live in Tuol Sambo, because I had a job there and could earn money to buy rice.”
The HIV-affected families were relocated to Tuol Sambo over the summer in a move that was roundly condemned by rights groups.
Am Sam Ath, technical superviser for the rights group Licadho, said many of the families he had interviewed were short on food, adding that their new location some 17 kilometres outside the capital afforded them fewer scavenging options.
“It’s not the same for them now like in the city, when they could collect rubbish and take the money to buy food,” he said.
Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Mann Chhoeun declined to answer questions Thursday about the food situation at Tuol Sambo.
Some progress made
The UNAIDS site report highlights some progress at Tuol Sambo, noting in particular that residents have “satisfactory access” to health services and antiretroviral therapy, and that “access to water was not considered an issue”. The report also refers to “commendable” efforts by Caritas to involve 39 families in “income-generation opportunities”, mainly in construction, sewing and tailoring.
Though the report states that subsidised electricy was shut off on November 6, residents said Thursday that it had been restored.
Plans are also in the works to upgrade the housing stock and to further integrate the HIV-affected families with families living in a nearby riverside community.
In addition, Lisle said Thursday that Tia Phalla, deputy director of the National AIDS Authority, had told Prasada Rao, Asia and Pacific regional director for UNAIDS, in a meeting this week that the eviction of Borei Keila families to Tuol Sambo had been “a mistake, and that this would not be the way they would proceed in the future”.
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:04 May Titthara and Tep Nimol
ABOUT 40 people who have fled to Phnom Penh to avoid arrest after recent land clashes in Oddar Meanchey province travelled to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s residence in Takhmao on Thursday to make a formal request for government intervention in their case.
Residents started fleeing to the city after authorities razed 214 homes in Oddar Meanchey’s Kounkriel commune in early October to clear 1,500 hectares of land for the construction of a sugar plantation by the Angkor Sugar Company, owned by CPP Senator Lee Yongphat.
“We sent a letter to the prime minister’s house because we want to ask him to provide us with a social land concession,” said villager Dit Saren, noting that the 30-metre-by-50-metre plots offered as compensation to villagers were too small to support their families.
Lim Leang Se, deputy chief of Hun Sen’s cabinet, said he had received a letter from the villagers and promised to forward it on to the National Authority for the Resolution of Land Disputes, promising that the issue would be investigated.
“We heard that the provincial authorities have settled their problems already, so they should accept compensation,” he said.
But Ton Nhorn, 72, said the 1-hectare plot was not enough to support the 10 members of his family, and that the government should reconsider its offers.
“If they don’t provide us with what we are suggesting, please give us about 3 hectares of farmland,” he said.
He said villagers had denied requests from Hun Sen’s cabinet to return to their home province, saying they fear arrest if they return.
San Siphan, 39, shows the facial injury he suffered during Monday’s clash with armed military police.
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:04 May Titthara
KAMPONG Thom villagers involved in a violent land dispute with a Vietnamese rubber company say they have been cut off from food and other supplies after an influx of police officers to the area.
“Today we are facing a shortage of food because our rice stores are nearly finished,” said villager Po Kin. “We cannot go out, and also the vendors cannot come in, so it is very difficult for us now.”
Santuk district police Chief Ek Mat Muoly vowed to ramp up the local police presence after an altercation Monday between villagers and armed officers stationed on the 8,000-hectare economic land concession, which was awarded to the company in 2007 in a move that has been criticised by the hundreds of families already living there.
Villagers burned four vehicles owned by the company before the officers turned on them with knives, hatchets and canes, rights workers said.
Prom Saroth, one of the nine men who were injured, also complained of a food shortage on Thursday, adding that villagers were reluctant to leave because they feared retaliatory harassment from the officers.
“This morning, the police came into the village and opened fire into the sky, and then they shot two of our chickens and took them back to their place,” he said. Ek Mat Muoly denied that the incident had taken place.
Po Kin said residents’ fears had been exacerbated by the arrest on Wednesday of three men accused of inciting villagers to burn the excavator trucks. “Nobody dares to go out because yesterday three villagers took a moto to go buy food, and they were arrested when they left the village,” he said.
“We don’t know why they have not been released yet, and we heard they had been sent to the provincial police department for questioning.”
Ek Mat Muoly said the provincial court had issued arrest warrants for the men, identified by villagers as Heng Han, 66, Toy Sokhorn, 50, and Nai Kep, 21.
“The situation now is still tense, and we must spread our police to protect the company’s property because they come from their country to invest in our country,” he said.
Kampong Thom Governor Chhun Chhorn said Wednesday that 20 warrants had been issued in connection to the altercation.
Chan Soveth, a monitor for the rights group Adhoc, said he had urged the authorities to grant the villagers freedom of movement.
“It is difficult for them when they can’t go outside and people can’t come inside, and they are facing a lack of food,” he said.
Ek Mat Muoly said police officers would “only arrest the leaders who encouraged people to burn company and military police property.... Normal people will not be arrested”.
Provincial prosecutor Pen Sarath said the three arrested men had not been sent to the court as of Thursday afternoon.
SEVERAL men have been questioned in connection with last week’s beating death of Swedish national Jan Ola Jordansson, police said Thursday, adding that authorities are now looking for more than one killer.
Jordansson, 45, disappeared from the Hotel Scandinavia last week and was found dead in Kandal province on Saturday.
A man who checked into the same hotel left a Nigerian passport when he skipped his bill.
“We’ve had some positive signs in the hunt for the killers but we cannot say yet who the suspects are,” said Mok Chito, head of the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Police Department, when asked whether police were looking for a Nigerian national.
“We cannot say yet whether the suspect is Nigerian.... All we have is video footage from the hotel,” Mok Chito said.
Akira, a former Khmer Rouge child soldier, prepares to defuse a mine using traditional – and risky – methods.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's a lot of work to do before it could be used in the field.
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(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:03 Jacob Gold
BIOENGINEERED bacteria that glow green in the presence of explosives could someday give Cambodia a safer, cheaper way to detect land mines, Scottish researchers say.
The bacterium was Edinburgh University’s entry in the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, which challenges students to develop living inventions using a set of standard genetic “parts” known as BioBricks.
Dr Alistair Elfick, who led the team, explained: “The device uses E coli engineered to produce a sensing molecule and a reporting mechanism. The explosives detector has a … membrane receptor which binds volatile TNT molecules and … produces light.”
The bacteria, which could be modified for use with other explosives, is harmless to people and animals. Environmental impact is minimised, Elfick said, by the fact that cells “die after a few hours, as they are not robust enough to survive in the wild.”
It will be a while before the bacteria are released on Cambodian soil, however – researchers have tested it only “on a very small scale and within the lab”.
“There’s a lot of work to do before it could be used in the field,” Elfick noted.
Were the team’s bio-invention able to make the leap from workshop to wilderness, its presence would be welcome in Cambodia, where massive aerial bombing by the US and decades of civil war littered the country with land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), particularly along its eastern and western borders.
Roath Kanith, director of the training and R&D department at the Cambodia Mine Action Centre (CMAC), said that the metal detector, still the technological backbone of the country’s demining efforts, performed with suboptimal speed and efficiency. “This is old technology; it picks up any metal,” Roath Kanith said. “Based on a recent CMAC analysis, out of 513 detections, only one will uncover an anti-personnel mine. We waste a lot of time on false alarms.”
Teams of 25 traditional deminers – using brush cutters, metal detectors and dogs, and protected only by masks, helmets and blast vests — can clear up to 2,000 square metres of mined area per day. According to Cambodia’s deadline-extension request to the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty (APMBT), 516 square kilometres of mines and UXO were cleared between 1992 and 2009. There are still 648.8 square kilometres to be cleared.
PRIME Minister Hun Sen is currently playing a “dangerous game” with the Cambodian nation by understating the threat posed by Vietnamese territorial encroachments, opposition leader Sam Rainsy said.
In a self-styled “message to the Cambodian people” released on Thursday, the Sam Rainsy Party president said the government is playing up the threat posed by Thailand but ignoring problems on its eastern border.
Sam Rainsy said the potential loss of 5 square kilometres of land in disputes with Thailand was dwarfed by the loss of “thousands” of square kilometres to Vietnamese incursions.
“This is an ongoing painful process that Mr Hun Sen does not want us to look at,” he said.
The message came just days after the National Assembly stripped Sam Rainsy of his parliamentary immunity over an October 25 incident in which he helped uproot six wooden posts marking the border with Vietnam in Svay Rieng province.
Phay Siphan, spokesman of the Council of Ministers, dismissed the allegations, saying Sam Rainsy was speaking from emotion rather than fact.
“To the east, we do not have any problems,” he said.
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:03 Mom Kunthear and Tep Nimol
BOAT DISASTER
The bodies of a father and his three children who drowned after a boat carrying seven people capsized in Kandal province’s Lvea Em district on Wednesday morning have all been recovered. “The bodies of the victims are now in their family home and will be cremated tonight,” said Lvea Em district Governor Bun Pheng. “We always tell local residents to be careful when using a boat. This incident happened because they were careless while in strong winds.” The accident took place while the man and his family were returning home on a motor boat after visiting relatives. After the boat capsized, the victim’s wife, niece and brother, who were also on the boat, were rescued by villagers. Police and villagers were only able to retrieve the body of the daughter in the immediate aftermath. Later in the evening, the body of one of the sons was recovered. The bodies of the man and his remaining son were found on Thursday morning. Kandal provincial Governor Chhun Sirun expressed his regret over the accident, saying such accidents had “never before occurred in our province”.
THE number of confirmed swine flu cases rose to 444 this week as the World Health Organisation announced Cambodia would receive 300,000 doses of (A)H1N1 flu vaccine by the end of November.
Ly Sovann, deputy director of the Communicable Diseases Control Department at the Ministry of Health, said that due to the limited amount of vaccines, they will be distributed to high-risk groups first.
He said priority will be given to health-care providers, followed by pregnant women and infants between the ages of 6 months and 2 years.
Health Minister Mam Bunheng explained Thursday that priority must be given to people who come into contact with the virus, commonly known as swine flu, on a daily basis.
“We are also concerned about others, but we have limited supplies, so we have to think about those who are high-risk first,” he said, acknowledging that 300,000 doses of vaccine were not enough for the entire country.
Individuals experiencing symptoms such as high fevers (above 38 C), coughing, headache, muscle ache, sore throat and nose congestion are advised to call the ministry’s swine flu hotline on 115, 012 488 981 or 089 669 567.
Domestic tourists take a closer look at Preah Vihear Temple at the end of September. The disputed site recorded a nearly fourfold rise in arrivals last month, according to official data.
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:02 May Kunmakara
Latest figures show Siem Reap – home of Angkor Wat – and Preah Vihear saw higher tourism numbers despite tensions
TOURIST numbers to Cambodia’s two main temple destinations – Angkor Wat and Preah Vihear – grew last month, figures showed, a further sign that the sector was in recovery despite ongoing tensions with Thailand, officials said.
Total tourists to the Kingdom’s primary attraction Siem Reap climbed 0.7 percent in October year on year, Chheuy Chhorn, deputy director of Siem Reap’s Tourism Department, said Thursday, as a 2 percent drop in international arrivals to the province was offset by a 3 percent rise in domestic visitors. Overall numbers climbed to 174,814 visitors last month from 173,515 in October 2008.
“Tourists during this month were a good sign for the sector,” said Chheuy Chhorn, adding that since the start of this month – the start of the high season – numbers had again noticeably improved.
He said it remained unclear whether Siem Reap tourism would be able to match 2008, but given the figures for the first 10 months, it seemed unlikely – for the year up to the end of October numbers were down 36.88 percent following a dismal beginning to 2009.
Preah Vihear received 5,422 visitors last month, a huge increase on the 1,374 that made the trip to the temple site in October 2008, when a cross-border skirmish prompted a downturn in tourist numbers.
“Tourists increased during last month from the … year before due to a previous problem with Thailand that led to the closing of the border gate,” Kong Vibol, director of the Preah Vihear Province Tourism Department, said Thursday. “But tourism has hugely increased this year because we have a good road to the temple – we’re not relying on Thailand.”
Still, overall official figures showed tourism numbers to Preah Vihear are down substantially on 2008. In the first 10 months of this year 56.63 fewer tourists visited the temple, from 121,894 over the same period last year down to 52,861.
“We, like other tourist destinations in our country, were affected by the global economic crisis,” said Kong Vibol. “However, in my province, especially at Preah Vihear temple, we have seen a more pronounced negative impact as we face the border confrontation with neighbouring Thailand.”
The recent troubles with Thailand had not affected tourism at Preah Vihear, he added.
Seaside tourism mixed
Meanwhile, Cambodia’s two leading seaside resorts enjoyed mixed fortunes last month as Kampot province saw an increase in foreign visitors but a slide overall, and Sihanoukville recorded a large overall rise.
Mok Sekano, deputy director of Kampot Province Tourism Department, said Thursday that foreign tourist numbers climbed more than 35 percent last month year on year to 484 but domestic visitors plummeted 24 percent to 8,383.
He attributed the spike in foreign visitors to relaxed opening procedures for Bokor Mountain, which is being redeveloped, and said flood damage to a cable bridge at Teuk Chhou district had likely caused the fall in domestic tourists.
Overall for the first 10 months numbers to Kampot province slid 36.12 percent year on year.
Preah Sihanouk province had seen numbers fall just 4.22 percent over the same period, according to official figures.
In October, 16,513 tourists visited the province, up nearly 9 percent compared to the same month last year, an increase that came mainly from domestic visitors, whose numbers climbed from 8,967 in October 2008 to 10,578 last month.
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:02 Tep Nimol and Khuon Leakhana
VILLAGERS in Kampong Speu and Kandal provinces have been attacked by a mysterious insect-borne skin condition that has stymied local health officials.
Ao Vanthen, director of the Kampong Speu Health Department, said Thursday that 70 families in Prey Kuy and Tuol Prich villages in the province’s Samraong district had broken out in strange spots and itches, originally assumed to be caused by insects.
“It is not a contagious disease. Spots come out and we become itchy immediately after we touch the insects,” he said.
Ly Svan, deputy director of the Ministry of Health’s Department of Infectious Diseases, said the ministry still did not know what kind of disease was assailing the villagers, but that authorities are investigating it.
He said that according to preliminary investigations, the disease was “not very serious”.
Ao Vanthen said recent swarms of flies might be behind the skin ailment, counseling villagers to wash and clean themselves often to avoid the rashes. He said health officials were in the process of treating those who have previously been affected by the unknown condition.
THE official opening of Preah Sihanouk International Airport has been delayed until next year at the request of the French embassy, State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) Secretary of State Mao Havannal said Thursday.
The sole airport in the coastal resort city, which has been upgraded by airport operator Societe Concessionnaire des Aeroports (SCA), was due to be opened Thursday.
But Mao Havannal said he now expected the official opening to be held in March, adding that the airport was already fully operational and ready to handle flights as soon as there was demand.
He said he expected some chartered flights to begin operating by the end of this year or early next year.
“Cambodia Angkor Air may also offer some flights this year or early 2010 depending on demand,” he said.
Soy Sokhan, the SSCA undersecretary of state in charge of CAA, said last month that the airline would initially fly only chartered flights from Sihanoukville, though it was examining establishing regular routes between the resort and both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.
Preah Sihanouk International Airport was a notable absentee when the SCA published its winter season flight schedules last month for Cambodia’s airports.
SCA Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Deviller told the Post in March that the official launch of the airport was a matter for the government, which expected “to have French government officials present”.
SCA operates Phnom Penh and Siem Reap airports, as well as Preah Sihanouk International Airport, which Deviller said is now fully operational.
Earlier this year a woman passes a banner calling for the release of Myanmar opposition icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past 20 years in detention at the behest of the country’s ruling military junta.
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:02 Robert Taylor
US engagement with the nation may have laid groundwork for improved diplomacy, but the generals are still firmly in control.
COMMENT
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ROBERT TAYLOR
THE two-hour summit meeting of US President Barrack Obama and the leaders of the 10 member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations held on Sunday, at the end of the APEC meeting in Singapore, stimulated much idle speculation about possible future political developments in Myanmar. This was because the hyped meeting was the first encounter between a senior Burmese government official, Prime Minister Thein Sein, and a US president since Lyndon Johnson welcomed General Ne Win to the White House in 1966. Then, in the midst of the Cold War, neutralist Burma was hailed as a cheap but effective bulwark against Chinese communist expansion into Southeast Asia. When the Cold War ended, and the containment of communism ceased to be the centre of American foreign policy, Myanmar soon became a favoured whipping boy for the Clinton and Bush administrations, ultimately obscuring larger issues at stake in US-Asian relations.
President Obama is taking a different tack. Whether the administration in Washington really expects the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military government in Naypyidaw to heed its insistent strictures regarding the release from house arrest of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other opponents of the regime, or reopen negotiations on the political future of the country prior to elections slated for next year, is unclear. They would be naive if they expected much from sending two top state department officials for two days of talks in Yangon and Naypyidaw or to dangle economic rewards in front of the generals who have governed Myanmar for the past 20 years, accepting no foreign advice and precious little foreign economic assistance. Whatever else the Americans are currently doing, in statements to the effect that they are establishing no conditions on a dialogue with the SPDC they are positioning themselves to be able to improve relations with Myanmar after elections in 2010 create a new government with a civilian face. The European Union member states will doubtless probably soon be playing catch-up.
The ASEAN-US summit provided President Obama an opportunity to reiterate his call for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. This call was made in his first speech on his initial Asian sojourn the day before. Having twice called for the end of her home detention, once in the hearing of Prime Minister Thein Sein, he fulfilled a political obligation to her supporters and his critics back in Washington. However, the American willingness to see the issuing of a summit final communique that made no mention of political prisoners but merely called for the 2010 elections to be fair and inclusive, demonstrated a degree of diplomatic flexibility that the former Bush administration was unable to display. The return of the Americans to the ASEAN meeting shows both a measure of respect for regional sensitivities and a realistic perception of what American power can and cannot achieve in Asia.
Back in Myanmar, the issuance of a letter from Suu Kyi to SPDC Chairman Senior General Than Shwe, written on November 11 to request a meeting to discuss cooperation in the future, with the background of the US flurry of interest, prompted even more speculation. Her presumption to approach the head of state as an equal, when all previous talks between her and senior government officials since 1988 have failed, suggests this effort will probably be ignored. Her unwillingness to address the conditions set down by the government for a meeting with the senior general in October 2007 – that she agree to renounce her policy of resisting all authority, her call for utter devastation and her previous requests that Western governments impose economic sanctions – will probably guarantee no response to her letter. The dead letter box will once more be opened.
The SPDC laid down its seven-step road map to the establishment of new political order in 2003. It has been following that plan slowly but steadily ever since, having achieved the ratification of a new constitution by a miraculous public referendum in May last year. The next step in the road map will be the holding of elections, followed by the convening of a legislature and the formation of a new government. Demands by the NLD and their supporters to reopen issues foreclosed by the ratification of the new constitution will continue to be ignored. The government is taking the final steps to prepare for the elections next year. The completion of the process of turning former insurgent armed foes into border security forces under the auspices of the national army is now under way. This is a crucial step to ensuring domestic peace and stability under the new order.
The issuance of a new election law, which will determine the conditions under which political parties can be organised and rules by which they will be allowed to campaign, is still awaited. Until that document is promulgated, most expected political life to be put on hold. Inside the country, people interested in politics are expectant of some modest change after the elections in 2010.
They do not expect a revolution, nor a sudden revision of the constitution to address those aspects of it to which democratic purists strongly object.
The Myanmar army has created for itself a constitutional order that will preserve peace and stability in such a way as it believes history has proved is essential. This may be a self-serving reading of history, but no less real for that.
The SPDC is not going to give up what it has planned for itself and its country for unknown and untried promises of cooperation with foes of 20 years’ standing, with whom previous attempts at dialogued proved to be fruitless.
Robert Taylor is a former research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and author of Burma: Political Economy under Military Rule.
A French man and his Cambodian wife filed a complaint to police after their neighbour’s dog attacked and killed their cat in Preah Sihanouk province’s Sihanoukville town on Tuesday. The cat’s owners said that the cat was purchased in France for US$700 and had only been in Cambodia for 20 days before it was killed. Police turned down the couple’s request for compensation.
KAMPUCHEA THMEY
AK-47S LEAD POLICE TO PROLIFIC ROBBER
A man was arrested after police found two AK-47 assault rifles at his home in Kandal province on Tuesday. The suspect, 51-year-old Leab Sokha, is a prolific robber who has operated across the country and was once imprisoned for five years for armed robbery, police said, adding that they were investigating his current activities when they searched his house and found the weapons. He will be sent to court in Kampong Chhnang province because he was involved in a robbery there.
KAMPUCHEA THMEY
HOODLUMS BEAT UP, ROB BLIND BEGGAR
Two men were arrested for beating up a blind beggar in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district on Monday. The victim, Uk Pisith, said he had collected 11,500 riels that day and was going to use it to buy food and drinks. The suspects, a 24-year-old and a 19-year old, approached the victim and started to kick him. A bystander who tried to intervene was injured in the head when the suspects threw a stone at him.
KAMPUCHEA THMEY
SUICIDE LINKED TO CONFUSION OVER OX
l A 27-year-old man hanged himself in Kampong Speu province on Sunday after it was revealed the ox his mother gave him was not a gift, as he had previously thought. The victim’s mother had given him an ox that he thought was a gift until she told him that he was only supposed to take care of it temporarily. Several days after his mother reclaimed the ox, he committed suicide in a ricefield. Police confirmed that it was a suicide and no foul play was involved.
KOH SANTEPHEAP
MALAYSIAN CITIZEN ARRESTED OVER DEBT
A Malaysian man who was trying to run away from a US$8,000 debt was arrested in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district on Sunday. His Cambodian business partner said the suspect had borrowed the money on April 5 to open a massage parlour and had agreed to pay it back on May 4 with $1,200 interest, which he failed to do. The suspect admitted to borrowing the money for his business ventures and was detained pending further investigations, police said.
MALAYSIAN firm Trans Resources Corporation (TRC) Synergy Berhad announced Wednesday the acquisition of a 26 percent stake in Cambodia’s Delta Garden Limited for US$1.95 million. The deal was facilitated through a subsidiary, TRC Land (Cambodia) Limited, formed on October 28 as an investment vehicle for the company in construction and property-development sectors in the Kingdom, a statement said. Delta Garden said it intends to construct 123 housing units along the Tonle Bassac river, south of Phnom Penh, but refused to comment on the present state of construction at the site.
First for bank meeting
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:02 Nguon Sovan
CAMBODIA hosted the ASEAN Banking Council Meeting of the ASEAN Bankers Association for the first time Thursday as the two-day event kicked off in Phnom Penh with discussions covering cooperation on finance, investment and trade, as well as education. “Cambodia has enjoyed political stability and rapid economic growth for the past decade and is now on the investment map of many businessmen,” Pung Kheav Se, chairman of the Association of Banks in Cambodia, said in a welcome message to delegates.
Mobile-phone antennas dominate parts of the Kingdom’s skyline, including that of Street 178 (above) close to Phnom Penh’s riverside.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We do not want to see too many antennas dotted along roads in the future.
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(Posted by CAAI news Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:01 CHUN SOPHAL AND JEREMY MULLINS
Telecoms Minister So Khun says measure would cut costs, but private sector remains concerned
MINISTER of Posts and Telecommunications So Khun called Thursday for Cambodia’s nine mobile-phone companies to share infrastructure, a measure that has already raised concerns within the private sector as to how exactly the requirement would be implemented following the future passage of a telecommunications law.
Speaking in Phnom Penh at a conference on the issue that included private-sector representatives, So Khun said the initiative would avoid duplication of infrastructure, thereby reducing the sector’s expenses and its potential impact on the Kingdom’s skyline.
“We do not want to see too many antennas dotted along roads in the future,” he said.
The government has given Tower Master Cambodia Co Ltd a 35-year licence to build shared mobile infrastructure across the country. The company is 80 percent owned by an unnamed Malaysian firm, with the remaining 20 percent taken by Ung Veasna, the president of the new firm.
“We hope that the participation and sharing of experiences in using these joint antennas will help boost growth of the economy and improve the country’s telecommunications service quality,” Ung Veasna said at Thursday’s meeting.
The first stage of the process would see the company invest US$20 million to build 100 joint antennas across the Kingdom.
In a bid to raise capacity from the current roughly 2.3 million mobile-phone users to 5.3 million, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPTC) plans to build a total of 4,500 antennas, according to documents presented Thursday.
How this plan will be achieved remains hugely controversial within the mobile-phone sector, given that some companies have operated in the Kingdom for years and spent tens of millions of dollars on infrastructure to gain a competitive advantage, whereas others have entered only recently.
A draft of a proposed telecoms law states in Article 50(b) that “a licensee shall share the facilities with other licensees”, a clause that has raised concern in some firms in the sector.
In its recommendations to the ministry in response to the draft, the private sector said at the end of September that it agreed that sharing infrastructure was beneficial in reducing costs and environmental impact, but that, within Cambodia, market forces had not been given sufficient time to work.
“Mandatory facilities sharing will reduce the incentive on operators to build such infrastructure,” said the recommendations, which were refined before submission to the ministry.
“This may result in less than the optimal number of towers being constructed such that when the operators commence infilling their networks to improve coverage and provide better service, they are unable to do so as all tower capacity has been filled.”
The nine-page feedback document adds: “This will result in a delay in improvements to the network while additional towers are built.”
Mobitel, the country’s first mobile-phone operator and largest by market share, this year announced a $350 million three-year rural expansion programme after the signing of a $100 million loan secured through the International Finance Corporation.
Viettel, the Vietnamese military-run operator under the brand name Metphone, confirmed similarly ambitious plans to extend its infrastructure at the end of last month.
Managing Director Nguyen Duy Tho said the firm would activate an additional 3,000 base receiver stations by the end of this month as it targets coverage of nearly 95 percent of Cambodia’s population.
Neither Mobitel nor Viettel were available for comment on the new MPTC recommendations Thursday.
Smart Mobile supported the initiative in principal, said spokesman Rattana Um, adding that the Cyprus-based firm was awaiting further direction from the ministry, but expressing some concern about how infrastructure-sharing would be implemented in practice.
General Manager Gregory Anderson accepts Le Meridien’s 2009 World Travel Award in London.
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:01 POST STAFF
Le Meridien Angkor was a winner at the World Travel Awards 2009, in the categories of Cambodia’s Leading Hotel and Cambodia’s Leading Spa Resort, for the third consecutive year.
The awards, based on over 170,000 industry professional votes worldwide for the very best travel, tourism and hospitality products and services, were announced at the 16th World Travel Awards Regional Ceremony in London on November 7.
Le Meridien Angkor seems to have a stranglehold on these awards and the hotel’s ebullient Australian general manager, Gregory Anderson, issued a press statement saying this achievement was a “superb testament” to the dedicated management team and associates.
Anderson embarked on two 13-hour flights in one weekend, to and from London, to collect the gong, an experience which left him “buggered’ but “well pleased”.
Anderson said the high level of guest satisfaction is what makes the hotel distinctive.
He said staff undergo intensive training so they can connect and empathise with guests, and last year high-end Japanese tour operator Jalpak listed the hotel as number one in terms of guest satisfaction.
Meanwhile, Siem Reap’s ultra-luxurious boutique hotel, The Sothea, managed by Sarah Moya, has been included in DestinAsian magazine’s Luxe List for 2009, and is the only resort listed for Cambodia.
Indonesia-based DestinAsian was established in 2001 and claims to be the “leading award-winning travel and lifestyle magazine in the Asia-Pacific region, with a print run of 41,250 copies and a readership of 123,750 per edition.”
It is distributed in Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
Virgilio Calaguian and Peter Oxley outside their Cockatoo Resort and Restaurant.
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:01 POST STAFF
Siem Reap’s odd couple, guesthouse proprietors Peter Oxley and Virgilio Calaguian, are still recovering after their Cockatoo Resort and Restaurant, which opened its doors in August, was badly affected by the September Siem Reap floods, with all the rooms knee-deep in water.
Guests at the resort had to be relocated to other hotels, and bookings had to be cancelled while the resort shut down for a month.
Meanwhile, in a second blow, Calaguian’s house in his home country, the Philippines, was also flooded and his treasured classic movie poster collection, as well as career memorabilia, “just vanished” when his library went under.
The duo had an eclectic mix of jobs before relocating to Siem Reap and reinventing themselves as resort proprietors.
Oxley, who lived in Tokyo for almost 20 years, acted in advertisements and once impersonated director George Lucas in an elaborate prank on a famous pop star for Fuji Television. He also worked as a commercial photographer, including a very brief stint as a paparazzo when David Beckham was in Tokyo.
Calaguian won prestigious awards in the advertising industry as creative director for Standard Advertising in Manila, which held accounts for Nissan Motors and Canon cameras among others, before becoming a travel and lifestyle writer for Lonely Planet and other publications.
The two are now on a steep learning curve to master their new career and are planning 40s and 50s classic film nights, wine-tasting evenings, and maybe live music and barbecues to attract guests and locals to their resort.
An operation during last year’s heart surgery mission at Angkor Hospital for Children.
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:01 POST STAFF
Another heart surgery mission at the Angkor Hospital for Children is gearing up, with procedures due to start on Monday, December 7.
This is the fourth such mission in two years, where American doctors and other medical personnel donate their vacation time to perform heart surgery on children suffering from patent ductus arterious, a leaky-heart condition that causes the lungs to fill with blood.
The professionals will arrive from the University of California and Rady Children’s Hospital, both in San Diego, as well as the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.
The endeavour is sponsored by Variety Children’s Lifeline in Solana Beach, California, and the simple, half-hour procedure can save children’s lives and allow them to leave the hospital, cured, after just two days.
In the last three heart surgery missions at Angkor Hospital for Children, the team has repaired 55 hearts.
Susan Grossfeld, mission coordinator, said, “We now have 20 children currently scheduled for life-saving heart surgery, ranging from infants to teens. During the week the team is at the hospital it is not uncommon for new diagnoses to appear daily, so we anticipate more than that number will be candidates for surgery.”
The missions are the brainchild of Peter Chhun, a US-based NBC TV director who is also president and founder of Hearts Without Boundaries.
Chhun told 7Days, “While our work is tremendously gratifying, it is only a drop in the bucket. Tragically, there are thousands of children in Cambodia who have congenital heart defects and require procedures and facilities that are not available in their country.”
An article in the Bangkok Post on November 10 stated that the conflict with Thailand over Thaksin could cost Cambodia 30 to 40 billion baht in lost tourism income.
And, according to Apichart Sangka-aree, an advisor to the Association of Thai Travel Agents, ‘’European tourists are now refraining from visiting Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and are instead visiting the north east of Thailand, which has a similar culture and tourist attractions.”
This was met with derision by most Bangkok Post readers who posted online comments, with several suggesting if there was going to be a loser, it would be Thailand.
For example, Frequentflier commented, “Having been to Angkor Wat three times in my life, there is nothing to match it anywhere on this planet. I don’t for one minute believe it will stop western tourists from visiting this wonder of the world.”
Ricefieldradio added, “If you are poor but your daughter is beautiful, while your neighbour is rich with an ugly girl, who will people line up to visit?”
Doctor, doctor
A singing and dancing doctor from the US provided entertainment at the Santepheap NGO’s first birthday celebration on Monday night.
Dr Daniel Susott, who performed a mix of Cambodian and Western songs, has a long connection to Cambodia. He worked in refugee camps 30 years ago on the Thai border and found homes for orphaned children.
One of the children he rescued accompanied him on this visit to Siem Reap in her first trip home since she left to live in America 19 years ago.
Santepheap has 32 children aged 10-18 years, and advisor David Biviano said the home’s first year of existence had been a great success.
“They are really thriving here. A lot of our students started at the bottom of the class and now many are in the top 10-15 percent – some even at the top,” he said.
NGO gets the book
Last week’s story about a Siem Reap NGO, This Life Cambodia, needing $600 of final funding to publish a book titled In This Life, detailing the stories and lives of 21 scholarship students, got a good result.
The Minister of Information, Kieu Kanharith, read the story and rode to the rescue, pledging over $200 of the required funding shortfall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The recent history of the angkor photo festival has been intriguing...
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(Posted by CAAI News Media)
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:01 Peter Olszewski
When is a festival not a festival? When it is the Angkor Photo Festival. Although the event is not being held this year, despite recent assurances from some organisers that it would, some vital components of it are still going to run.
This includes the Angkor Photo Workshops for young Asian photographers from November 22-28 at FCC Angkor. And now a substitute for the festival’s usual involvement with local cafes and galleries has emerged, in the guise of the Angkor Alternative exhibition.
This will launch at Eric de Vries’s 4Faces café and gallery on Saturday evening at 7pm, in response to the half-baked idea of dropping the festival.
“There is no festival this year and we cannot use the name,” de Vries said. “When I opened this café and gallery, I wanted to be a part of the festival because I have the space. So my thinking now is: Why not do something during that time? And Angkor Alternative means we’re running something beside just the workshops.”
The 4Faces exhibition is titled “Jean Francois Perigois vs Eric de Vries”. The work of both photographers will be exhibited side by side, and both will give unusual interpretations of the Angkor experience. Perigois’s photos will show black-and-white views of Angkor, with highlights in colour. De Vries, meanwhile, explains that his contribution will be some photos for his recent Hello Darling bar girl exhibition combined with photos of Angkor apsaras.
Also contributing to the festival feel will be the November 26 launch of John McDermott’s long-awaited book, Elegy: Reflections on Angkor. McDermott will play a part in the surviving remnant of the festival, the workshops, because, according to an October 4 posting on the Angkor Photo Workshops Blog, “John [McDermott] will spend some time with a number of students toward the end of the week, to talk and show what it takes to print images for exhibition and run a photo gallery”.
The recent history of the Angkor Photo Festival has been intriguing. In mid-June this year, energetic Paris-based festival coordinator Camille Plante announced she was leaving at the end of that month, following rumours that the festival had run out of sponsorship funds and could no longer pay her.
“I have to update the website and the transfer will be done,” she told the 7Days at the time. But on June 15 she informed the Asian Photography Blog: “There will be only free photo workshops next November in Siem Reap, no festival for this year unfortunately.”
Organisers continued to assure 7Days that the festival would go ahead. On September 11 7Days was privy to part of a meeting between a festival organiser, Bangkok-based photographer and publisher Roland Neveu, and FCC Angkor general manager Benoit Jancloes to cement a deal to make the FCC the hub of this year’s workshops and festival.
Following that meeting, 7Days reported in the September 18 issue: “The annual Angkor Photography Festival has been saved from oblivion at the eleventh hour, with organiser Roland Neveu last week scotching rumours that lack of sponsorship meant the end of the festival.
“But he admits it was a close call. Neveu ... said he found the term ‘scaled down’ offensive and much preferred the description of a festival with a ‘new focus’.”
Now the festival’s website carries this simple message: “Next Angkor Photo Festival in November 2010, with official support from the French Culture Ministry.”
HEM Thon, executive member of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia and general secretary of the Cambodian Amateur Swimming Federation (KASF) has announced that six national swimmers will be sent to the 25th SEA Games in Laos in December. Hem Thon Ponleu, Sao Sethroath and Yuri Chamroeun will compete in the males division while Hem Thon Vitiny, Seng Samphors and Yin Davin make up the female contingent.
Ponleu is the youngest son of Hem Thon and has won many medals from previous national championships. At the 2009 national championships, he took gold in nearly all the categories. Sao Sethroath came first in the 100 metres backstroke, and second over 200 metres. Yuri Chamroeun is currently in an U15s tournament in Indonesia, where his father is an official at the Cambodian embassy.
Vitiny is Hem Thon’s granddaughter. At the 2007 SEA Games in Thailand, she made the last eight, setting a new precident for Cambodia. At the 2009 national championships, she won first place in 100 metres breaststroke while Seng Samphors triumphed in the 200 metres backstroke. Yin Davin finished second in 200 metres breast stroke.
According to Hem Thon, KASF will present the six swimmers to the media during a press conference Tuesday. Before departing to Laos for the SEA Games, they will participate in the last of the domestic competitions this calendar year at the Olympic Stadium complex swimming pool from November 25-27.
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:00 Ek Chamroeun and Dan Riley
The 14th Tep Khunnah Memorial Cup begins today with its best-ever field
THE 14th annual Tep Khunnah Memorial Cup tennis tournament gets under way today at the Cambodian Country Club (CCC). The weeklong event organised by the Tennis Federation of Cambodia (TFC) culminates in grand finals on November 28.
According to a press release Thursday from the TFC, this year’s competition “boasts the strongest international competitors to ever play on Cambodian soil”.
The federation hope to showcase the top players in a special Super Singles competition featuring five internationals and three Cambodians players, namely Tan Nysan, Bun Kenny and Orn Sambath. The local lads will face the top three players in Vietnam; Bui Tri Nguyen, Hoang Than Trung and Do Minh Quan, as well as US player Nathan Thompson – currently ranked 350 on the ATP – and Timo Sivapruska from Thailand.
The Super Singles format, which starts Wednesday, is a two group round robin tournament, with the winner of each pool playing in the final at 4pm next Saturday. The TFC are keen to encourage spectators, who can view the highest level of tennis ever played in Cambodia free of charge at the CCC.
TFC General Secretary Tep Rithivit, for whose father the event commemorates, voiced his confidence in the Cambodian contingent, adding that the competition is the best way for the players to prepare for the upcoming SEA Games in Laos next month. “We are sure that our players will make a surprise at the SEA Games because they train regularly and have a good relationship with the coach,” he said during a press conference Thursday.
The TFC executive noted that the federation sent three players to the previous SEA Games in Thailand, but, due to the success of Tan Nysan obtaining a bronze medal, they had been allowed to send six delegates to this year’s tournament.
Aside from the main spectacle of the Super Singles, there are five other categories that around 70 tennis players will compete over: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, junior singles (under 18), and veteran’s singles (over 45).
MINURCAT peacekeeper with Sudanese children from the Oure Cassoni refugee camp in Bahaï, Eastern Chad
(Posted by CAAI News Media)
19 November 2009 – The United Nations mission set up to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian aid in Chad and Central African Republic (CAR) received a boost this week with the arrival of troops from Cambodia.
The 42 Cambodian soldiers will be assisting in the movement of UN personnel and logistic assets in eastern Chad, where humanitarian agencies are providing aid to some 250,000 refugees from neighbouring Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, as well as 160,000 displaced Chadians.
Northern CAR has also been affected by a spill-over from Darfur as well as by displacement from other armed groups.
In 2007, the Security Council established the mission, known as MINURCAT, which currently stands at only 53 per cent of its authorized strength, or 2,750 troops, due to difficulties faced by some contributing countries in acquiring and transporting equipment.
Last month Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Edmund Mulet told the Council that the UN is doing everything possible to expedite the deployment of all pledged contingents.
