If you want corruption, vote for Hun Sen ... if you want land-grabbing, illegal evictions, deforestation, vote for Hun Sen and if you want 1 Sarong, 1 bag of MSG, $5 and 10kg of rice vote for Hun Sen also .
Sunday, 16 March 2008
The Chinese sketch & Sacravatoons
The canal being dug on the Yellow River near K'ai Feng. This early nineteenth-century sketch indicates the traditional Chinese genuis for organazing very large numbers of workers in civil engineering.Friendly competition between gangs was stimulated by prizes such as food and clothing.CHINESE CIVILIZATION from the Ming Revival to Chairman Mao by Yong Yap & Arhtur Cotterel. 
Those canal buildings were dug in Cambodia during Khmer Rouge regime,19751979 .People had worked as the revolution's slaves of the tyranny regime......Masses of people worked on the site .
This illustration was published in the book :" The Murderous revolution " by Martin Stuart-Fox ,1986.
Courtesy of Sacravatoon : http://sacrava.blogspot.com/
Thailand's new PM scolds Western nations for picking on Myanmar's ruling junta
The Associated PressMarch 16, 2008
BANGKOK, Thailandz: Thailand's new prime minister said Sunday that Westerners are overly critical of Myanmar and he has newfound respect for the ruling junta after learning that they meditate like good Buddhists should.
"Westerners have a saying, 'Look at both sides of the coin,' but Westerners only look at one side," Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said in his weekly television talk show, two days after an official visit to Myanmar.
"Myanmar is a Buddhist country. Myanmar's leaders meditate. They say the country lives in peace," Samak said, noting that he has studied Myanmar for decades but just learned that the junta meditates. Both countries are predominantly Buddhist.
Myanmar's junta has come under global criticism for its deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters last year and its detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but Samak said he preferred to talk about bilateral trade not democracy during talks with junta chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
Many Western nations, including the United States and members of the European Union, maintain economic and political sanctions against the regime for its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.
But Thailand and most other Southeast Asian nations are less critical and encourage companies to do business there.
Samak said he discussed investment opportunities for Thai companies in Myanmar, especially in the area of production and exploitation of natural gas and hydropower projects.
"We want to do something about dams. Than Shwe told me, 'You can do it here and here and here. Find the investors and do it," said Samak, whose coalition government took office last month. "Myanmar only uses a small amount of electricity. Thailand needs electricity."
Blackouts and power cuts are common in Myanmar, where the military regime has distributed electricity under a rationing system for the past decade, barely keeping up with rising demand.
The power rationing does not affect so-called "VIP areas" where senior government and military officials reside.
Thai state-owned energy companies are the largest purchasers of gas from Myanmar, contributing almost US$2 billion (€1.3 billion) a year to the military regime.
"They found new gas resources. I negotiated with them so we can sign contracts," Samak said, adding that the junta wants to build a pipeline to its largest city, Yangon. "Myanmar doesn't have money to build the pipeline. Thai companies will do that for them."
He said Thailand's approach to dealing with Myanmar was in the spirit of good neighborly relations.
"We have three neighbors: Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar," he said. "We use their resources, all three of them. If we have this great relationship, why should we pick on them?"
Thailand also borders Malaysia.
Tibetans Clash With Chinese Police in Second City
Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Chinese military tightened security in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, on Saturday after days of clashes. Tibetans in the suburbs said officers were blocking people from entering the city center.
By JIM YARDLEY
Published: March 16, 2008
BEIJING — Thousands of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans clashed with the riot police in a second Chinese city on Saturday, while the authorities said they had regained control of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, a day after a rampaging mob ransacked shops and set fire to cars and storefronts in a deadly riot.
Conflicting reports emerged about the violence in Lhasa on Friday. The Chinese authorities denied that they had fired on protesters there, but Tibetan leaders in India told news agencies on Saturday that they had confirmed that 30 Tibetans had died and that they had unconfirmed reports that put the number at more than 100.
Demonstrations erupted for the second consecutive day in the city of Xiahe in Gansu Province, where an estimated 4,000 Tibetans gathered near the Labrang Monastery. Local monks had held a smaller protest on Friday, but the confrontation escalated Saturday afternoon, according to witnesses and Tibetans in India who spoke with protesters by telephone.
Residents in Xiahe, reached by telephone, heard loud noises similar to gunshots or explosions. A waitress described the scene as “chaos” and said many injured people had been sent to a local hospital. Large numbers of military police and security officers fired tear gas while Tibetans hurled rocks, according to the Tibetans in India.
“Their slogans were, ‘The Dalai Lama must return to Tibet’ and ‘Tibetans need to have human rights in Tibet,’ ” said Jamyang, a Tibetan in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, who spoke to protesters. By Sunday morning, unconfirmed reports from pro-Tibet groups described new protests in other Tibetan areas of Gansu Province, and possibly elsewhere in Tibet.
The violence in Lhasa and Xiahe has created a major political and public relations challenge for the ruling Communist Party as Beijing prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. The demonstrations are the largest in Tibet since 1989, when Chinese troops used lethal force to crush an uprising by thousands of Tibetan protesters.
China’s response to the week’s demonstrations is being watched carefully by the outside world. The European Union and the United States have both called on China to act with restraint. The White House called on China to “respect Tibetan culture” and issued a renewed call for dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.
The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, rejected calls for a boycott of the Games to protest the crackdown.
“We believe that the boycott doesn’t solve anything,” he said Saturday on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, The Associated Press reported. “On the contrary. It is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing.”
The tumult also undercuts a theme regularly promoted by China’s propaganda officials, that Tibetans are a happy minority group, smoothly integrated into the country’s broader ethnic fabric.
“What we see right now, what is happening in Tibet, blows the whole propaganda strategy in Tibet wide open,” said Lhadon Tethong, an official with the New York-based advocacy group Students for a Free Tibet.
On Saturday the Chinese authorities defended their response to the violence in Lhasa. “We fired no gunshots,” said Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government, according to state media.
But Tibetan advocacy groups and witnesses in Lhasa offered contradictory accounts. The Tibetan government in exile said at least 30 Tibetans had died in the protests, according to Agence France-Presse. Witnesses told Radio Free Asia, the nonprofit news agency financed by the United States government, that numerous Tibetans were dead. A 13-year-old Tibetan, reached by telephone, said he had watched the violence from his apartment and saw four or five Tibetans fall to the ground after military police officers fired upon them.
Foreign journalists are being restricted from traveling to Lhasa, and the precise death toll remains unknown. State media reported 10 deaths and characterized most of them as shopkeepers. The government’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported that the victims had been “burned to death.”
The demonstrations in Lhasa began Monday and continued through Wednesday as peaceful protests by Buddhist monks from three different monasteries. Some monks protested religious restrictions while others demanded an end to Chinese rule and even waved the Tibetan flag. The police arrested scores of monks and then reportedly prevented monks from leaving the three monasteries.
Initially, the protests were largely ignored in the Chinese news media, which were providing blanket coverage of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled national legislature.
But with growing international concern, and reports that Chinese security forces had attacked monks, Xinhua issued a short statement blaming rioters for the violence. By Saturday morning, China’s state television network, CCTV, was broadcasting video of Tibetans burning buildings as anchors read directly from a Xinhua report that blamed the Dalai Lama for the violence. By Saturday night, Xinhua had released a vivid, on-the-scene report that described the violence as “planned sabotage.”
Chinese officials demanded the surrender of the “lawbreakers” in Lhasa and offered leniency to people who turned themselves into the authorities by midnight Monday. Senior officials described the unrest as “sabotage” orchestrated by the Dalai Lama and credited the military police for rescuing 580 people from banks, schools and hospitals that were set afire by rioters.
Gen. Yang Deqing of the People’s Liberation Army said Chinese soldiers would not be deployed and the protests were being handled by local police officers and the country’s paramilitary force, the People’s Armed Police.
“We’ll let the police and the military police handle the disturbance,” General Yang said at the National People’s Congress, where he was a delegate. “We won’t be involved.”
Witnesses in Lhasa on Saturday reported seeing large numbers of military police officers and other officers in riot gear, as well as armored vehicles. Other witnesses reached by telephone described the periodic sound of gunshots. Armed military police officers were reportedly searching neighborhood by neighborhood.
Several residents, reached by telephone, said that an uneasy calm had settled over the city.
Tibetans living in the suburbs said officers were blocking people from entering the city center.
Local television broadcast instructions. Power and telephone service, suspended in some neighborhoods on Friday, was being restored on Saturday. Traffic was light on city streets as most shops were closed.
It is still uncertain what set off Friday’s unrest. Tibetan advocates say ordinary Tibetans began rioting after military police officers attacked monks trying to protest outside a monastery in the center of the city.
The extent of the violence was evident in photographs and video shown on the Internet: fires raging from rooftops and from charred vehicles, shattered storefronts and huge crowds trolling city streets.
News agencies reported that foreign tourists were being prohibited from entering Tibet. The United States Embassy in Beijing issued a new warning on Saturday advising American citizens about danger in Lhasa and other regions.
Published: March 16, 2008
BEIJING — Thousands of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans clashed with the riot police in a second Chinese city on Saturday, while the authorities said they had regained control of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, a day after a rampaging mob ransacked shops and set fire to cars and storefronts in a deadly riot.
Conflicting reports emerged about the violence in Lhasa on Friday. The Chinese authorities denied that they had fired on protesters there, but Tibetan leaders in India told news agencies on Saturday that they had confirmed that 30 Tibetans had died and that they had unconfirmed reports that put the number at more than 100.
Demonstrations erupted for the second consecutive day in the city of Xiahe in Gansu Province, where an estimated 4,000 Tibetans gathered near the Labrang Monastery. Local monks had held a smaller protest on Friday, but the confrontation escalated Saturday afternoon, according to witnesses and Tibetans in India who spoke with protesters by telephone.
Residents in Xiahe, reached by telephone, heard loud noises similar to gunshots or explosions. A waitress described the scene as “chaos” and said many injured people had been sent to a local hospital. Large numbers of military police and security officers fired tear gas while Tibetans hurled rocks, according to the Tibetans in India.
“Their slogans were, ‘The Dalai Lama must return to Tibet’ and ‘Tibetans need to have human rights in Tibet,’ ” said Jamyang, a Tibetan in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, who spoke to protesters. By Sunday morning, unconfirmed reports from pro-Tibet groups described new protests in other Tibetan areas of Gansu Province, and possibly elsewhere in Tibet.
The violence in Lhasa and Xiahe has created a major political and public relations challenge for the ruling Communist Party as Beijing prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. The demonstrations are the largest in Tibet since 1989, when Chinese troops used lethal force to crush an uprising by thousands of Tibetan protesters.
China’s response to the week’s demonstrations is being watched carefully by the outside world. The European Union and the United States have both called on China to act with restraint. The White House called on China to “respect Tibetan culture” and issued a renewed call for dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.
The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, rejected calls for a boycott of the Games to protest the crackdown.
“We believe that the boycott doesn’t solve anything,” he said Saturday on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, The Associated Press reported. “On the contrary. It is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing.”
The tumult also undercuts a theme regularly promoted by China’s propaganda officials, that Tibetans are a happy minority group, smoothly integrated into the country’s broader ethnic fabric.
“What we see right now, what is happening in Tibet, blows the whole propaganda strategy in Tibet wide open,” said Lhadon Tethong, an official with the New York-based advocacy group Students for a Free Tibet.
On Saturday the Chinese authorities defended their response to the violence in Lhasa. “We fired no gunshots,” said Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government, according to state media.
But Tibetan advocacy groups and witnesses in Lhasa offered contradictory accounts. The Tibetan government in exile said at least 30 Tibetans had died in the protests, according to Agence France-Presse. Witnesses told Radio Free Asia, the nonprofit news agency financed by the United States government, that numerous Tibetans were dead. A 13-year-old Tibetan, reached by telephone, said he had watched the violence from his apartment and saw four or five Tibetans fall to the ground after military police officers fired upon them.
Foreign journalists are being restricted from traveling to Lhasa, and the precise death toll remains unknown. State media reported 10 deaths and characterized most of them as shopkeepers. The government’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported that the victims had been “burned to death.”
The demonstrations in Lhasa began Monday and continued through Wednesday as peaceful protests by Buddhist monks from three different monasteries. Some monks protested religious restrictions while others demanded an end to Chinese rule and even waved the Tibetan flag. The police arrested scores of monks and then reportedly prevented monks from leaving the three monasteries.
Initially, the protests were largely ignored in the Chinese news media, which were providing blanket coverage of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled national legislature.
But with growing international concern, and reports that Chinese security forces had attacked monks, Xinhua issued a short statement blaming rioters for the violence. By Saturday morning, China’s state television network, CCTV, was broadcasting video of Tibetans burning buildings as anchors read directly from a Xinhua report that blamed the Dalai Lama for the violence. By Saturday night, Xinhua had released a vivid, on-the-scene report that described the violence as “planned sabotage.”
Chinese officials demanded the surrender of the “lawbreakers” in Lhasa and offered leniency to people who turned themselves into the authorities by midnight Monday. Senior officials described the unrest as “sabotage” orchestrated by the Dalai Lama and credited the military police for rescuing 580 people from banks, schools and hospitals that were set afire by rioters.
Gen. Yang Deqing of the People’s Liberation Army said Chinese soldiers would not be deployed and the protests were being handled by local police officers and the country’s paramilitary force, the People’s Armed Police.
“We’ll let the police and the military police handle the disturbance,” General Yang said at the National People’s Congress, where he was a delegate. “We won’t be involved.”
Witnesses in Lhasa on Saturday reported seeing large numbers of military police officers and other officers in riot gear, as well as armored vehicles. Other witnesses reached by telephone described the periodic sound of gunshots. Armed military police officers were reportedly searching neighborhood by neighborhood.
Several residents, reached by telephone, said that an uneasy calm had settled over the city.
Tibetans living in the suburbs said officers were blocking people from entering the city center.
Local television broadcast instructions. Power and telephone service, suspended in some neighborhoods on Friday, was being restored on Saturday. Traffic was light on city streets as most shops were closed.
It is still uncertain what set off Friday’s unrest. Tibetan advocates say ordinary Tibetans began rioting after military police officers attacked monks trying to protest outside a monastery in the center of the city.
The extent of the violence was evident in photographs and video shown on the Internet: fires raging from rooftops and from charred vehicles, shattered storefronts and huge crowds trolling city streets.
News agencies reported that foreign tourists were being prohibited from entering Tibet. The United States Embassy in Beijing issued a new warning on Saturday advising American citizens about danger in Lhasa and other regions.
Cambodian property boom enriches, divides
Construction workers build a new apartment complex earlier this year in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. AP/HENG SINITHMarket caters to elite -- and poor are sidelined
By KER MUNTHIT, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, March 16, 2008
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- An old hospital was razed to make way for Phnom Penh's tallest building -- a 42-story twin condominium tower. A garbage-strewn slum became prime real estate after police evicted its dwellers to a parched rice field outside the capital.
Cambodia is experiencing a construction boom fueled by foreign investment, particularly by South Koreans, and buying and selling among the country's few nouveaux riche -- while leaving the poor majority behind.
Shopping malls and tall apartment buildings are sprouting up, transforming the capital's landscape that once bore the charm of colonial French-styled villas but resembled a ghost town at the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime nearly 30 years ago.
Political stability and robust economic growth of nearly 10 percent have lured investors to the real estate market that has seen prices surge over the last few years -- though they are still lower than in neighboring Vietnam or Thailand.
"Cambodia was sleeping for many years and now it's waking up," said Claire Brown, managing director of Britain-based Claire Brown Realty, who began buying and selling property in Phnom Penh two years ago.
"Everybody wants to get a piece of the action," she said by phone. "The time to get in is now because soon it's going to be too late."
Prime city land prices have tripled over the last two years to $3,000 per square meter, which has drawn rich and middle-class Cambodians, as well as those living abroad.
"In buying and selling land, they could get profit 100 or 200 percent a year, if they make the right bet on the right location," said Dith Channa, the sale manager of CPL Cambodia Properties Ltd., a Phnom Penh-based real estate agency.
But the soaring real estate market is also widening the gap between the rich and the poor.
"Phnom Penh city is getting modern every day -- of course for the wealthy," said Chhorn Et, a former slum dweller now living with hundreds of others in a village in the middle of rice field about 12 miles from the capital.
"The government swept us away because they regarded us as very unpleasant for their eyes," said the 34-year-old woman who scavenges for discarded cans and bottles to sell for a living.
The flourishing property market is also happening in the shadow of problems of land rights disputes that, in recent years, have often pitted the poor against wealthy developers with link to the Cambodian political establishment.
"We're moving toward possibly about 10 percent of the population owning 90 percent of the land in Cambodia," said Naly Pilorge, director of the nonprofit human rights group Licadho.
By KER MUNTHIT, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, March 16, 2008
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- An old hospital was razed to make way for Phnom Penh's tallest building -- a 42-story twin condominium tower. A garbage-strewn slum became prime real estate after police evicted its dwellers to a parched rice field outside the capital.
Cambodia is experiencing a construction boom fueled by foreign investment, particularly by South Koreans, and buying and selling among the country's few nouveaux riche -- while leaving the poor majority behind.
Shopping malls and tall apartment buildings are sprouting up, transforming the capital's landscape that once bore the charm of colonial French-styled villas but resembled a ghost town at the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime nearly 30 years ago.
Political stability and robust economic growth of nearly 10 percent have lured investors to the real estate market that has seen prices surge over the last few years -- though they are still lower than in neighboring Vietnam or Thailand.
"Cambodia was sleeping for many years and now it's waking up," said Claire Brown, managing director of Britain-based Claire Brown Realty, who began buying and selling property in Phnom Penh two years ago.
"Everybody wants to get a piece of the action," she said by phone. "The time to get in is now because soon it's going to be too late."
Prime city land prices have tripled over the last two years to $3,000 per square meter, which has drawn rich and middle-class Cambodians, as well as those living abroad.
"In buying and selling land, they could get profit 100 or 200 percent a year, if they make the right bet on the right location," said Dith Channa, the sale manager of CPL Cambodia Properties Ltd., a Phnom Penh-based real estate agency.
But the soaring real estate market is also widening the gap between the rich and the poor.
"Phnom Penh city is getting modern every day -- of course for the wealthy," said Chhorn Et, a former slum dweller now living with hundreds of others in a village in the middle of rice field about 12 miles from the capital.
"The government swept us away because they regarded us as very unpleasant for their eyes," said the 34-year-old woman who scavenges for discarded cans and bottles to sell for a living.
The flourishing property market is also happening in the shadow of problems of land rights disputes that, in recent years, have often pitted the poor against wealthy developers with link to the Cambodian political establishment.
"We're moving toward possibly about 10 percent of the population owning 90 percent of the land in Cambodia," said Naly Pilorge, director of the nonprofit human rights group Licadho.
CAMBODIA: INDITEX Driving Change In Global Garment Industry
BharatTextile.com
Sun Mar 16
More than 1100 workers dismissed for trade union membership or activity have been reinstated, conflicts resolved in countries in every continent, trade unions recognized in ten enterprises and industrial relations management systems negotiated and adopted in five major garment manufacturing companies as a result of the partnership between Inditex, the Spanish-based retailer, and the ITGLWF, the textiles global union federation, a partnership cemented late last year by the signing of their International Framework Agreement, the first covering the supply chain of a global retailer.
Outlining these achievements in a presentation in Phnom Penh before Her Majesty, Queen Sophie of Spain during her current visit to Cambodia, Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the Brussels-based International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation said that though there was much still to be done, Inditex and the ITGLWF, through their partnership and International Framework Agreement, had made a positive beginning in promoting the sea change needed in management and trade union thinking to promote decent work in the global textile and clothing industry.
Significantly, the presentation was made immediately after the formal signing of two company-level agreements between Inditex suppliers River Rich Textile Limited and Gold Fame Enterprises and the Cambodian trade union, C.CAWDU and which provided for the recognition of the union accompanied by the introduction of industrial relations management systems including clear company rules and grievances and disciplinary procedures alongside a protocol for management/union relations.
In addition, as part of the agreements a comprehensive manager/worker training programme over a two to three year period was put in place aimed at building the capacity of management at all levels and the trade unions to grow sustainable decent work on the back of continuous improvements in productivity, quality, profitability and international competitivity.
Said Mr. Kearney, “In the trail-blazing International Framework Agreement, signed late last year, Inditex recognizes the ITGLWF as its global partner in the pursuit of decent work throughout its supply chain.
“The agreement provides for the right of all workers to unionize and bargain collectively as the cornerstone of decent work. It outlaws child labour, forced labour and discrimination, provides for the payment of a living wage, puts restrictions on working hours, insists on safe and healthy workplaces and promotes job security free of abusive treatment.
“In the agreement Inditex and the ITGLWF pledge to work together to ensure the full application of these standards by engaging with suppliers and representatives of the workforces to eliminate abuse, build mutual respect and avoid conflict.
“It is an approach based on the employment relationship where the supplier, as employer, takes responsibility for those employed and where the exercise of that responsibility is regulated by a mature system of industrial relations at workplace level involving management and trade union representatives.
“Irregular policing of workplaces through snapshot audits is replaced by constant internal factory monitoring by those who know the enterprise best – management and workers – aided by the commitment of Inditex to build a totally socially compliant supply chain through support and training rather than sanction.”
Mr. Kearney outlined how an unfortunate garment factory disaster in Bangladesh in mid-2005 brought the ITGLWF’s first direct contact with Inditex. “From a low key beginning when we combined our efforts to bring relief to the families of the dead and the injured at the Spectrum factory in Bangladesh we proceeded jointly to deal with conflicts elsewhere in the Inditex supply chain and to recognize the shortfalls in action and capacity at local and national levels around the world.
“It was obvious that the near absence of industrial relations management systems in factories and the inadequacy of supervisor and manager training on labour issues combined with limited trade union organization was creating growing supply chain problems.
“Inditex and the ITGLWF soon concluded that global problems required global solutions, implemented locally, and we began to pool our energies to build the partnerships we knew were needed to achieve decent work in the sector.
“So was born the first international framework agreement on labour issues in a supply chain between a global trade union and a global retailer.
“Such a framework for a joint retailer/trade union partnership was urgently needed to tackle worker abuse in the global textile and garment industry where production is today carried out in 160 countries for export to markets in only about 30 nations making the sector one of the most globalised and most competitive.
“With most production costs fixed, labour bears the brunt of this competition. Globally, the industry is characterized by low wages, excessive working hours, health and safety risks, child labour, discrimination, abusive treatment and job insecurity.
“Abuses are driven by the general inability or unwillingness of governments to protect rights at work and compounded by the fact that most of the workers are women.
“During the 1990s maltreatment of workers, including the use of child labour, disgusted consumers who turned their anger on the brands and retailers who had come to dominate the industry.
“For nearly 200 years, trade unions had defended and advanced workers interests at local and later at national levels. Globalization greatly weakened that defense and retarded advance.
“In the mid 1990s national trade unions began to recognize that the globalization of union efforts was needed to harness economic globalization.
“In the textile and clothing sector the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation which traces its roots back to the 1860s had long been promoting cross-frontier trade union co-operation. With 220 affiliated unions and more than 10 million members in 120 countries it was one of the first global unions to recognize the need for a global drive to promote corporate accountability, in sectors such as textiles and garments, based on social dialogue between employers and workforce representatives.
“Largely unregulated globalization needed to be molded to serve wider interests and the ITGLWF realized that change could best be driven by building partnerships between the industry’s key players, including the brands and retailers as buyers, manufacturers as suppliers and workers and their trade unions as producers.
“The Inditex/ITGLWF partnership is beginning to drive that change for the benefit of workers, their families and communities, the manufacturers and the exporting country involved. As the managing director of Gold Fame Enterprises earlier told Queen Sophie, ‘This approach has enhanced the image of our factory, brought about significant benefits through improved labour relations and a better understanding with our buyers enabling us to greatly increase our turnover forecasts for 2008’”, concluded Mr. Kearney.
Sun Mar 16
More than 1100 workers dismissed for trade union membership or activity have been reinstated, conflicts resolved in countries in every continent, trade unions recognized in ten enterprises and industrial relations management systems negotiated and adopted in five major garment manufacturing companies as a result of the partnership between Inditex, the Spanish-based retailer, and the ITGLWF, the textiles global union federation, a partnership cemented late last year by the signing of their International Framework Agreement, the first covering the supply chain of a global retailer.
Outlining these achievements in a presentation in Phnom Penh before Her Majesty, Queen Sophie of Spain during her current visit to Cambodia, Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the Brussels-based International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation said that though there was much still to be done, Inditex and the ITGLWF, through their partnership and International Framework Agreement, had made a positive beginning in promoting the sea change needed in management and trade union thinking to promote decent work in the global textile and clothing industry.
Significantly, the presentation was made immediately after the formal signing of two company-level agreements between Inditex suppliers River Rich Textile Limited and Gold Fame Enterprises and the Cambodian trade union, C.CAWDU and which provided for the recognition of the union accompanied by the introduction of industrial relations management systems including clear company rules and grievances and disciplinary procedures alongside a protocol for management/union relations.
In addition, as part of the agreements a comprehensive manager/worker training programme over a two to three year period was put in place aimed at building the capacity of management at all levels and the trade unions to grow sustainable decent work on the back of continuous improvements in productivity, quality, profitability and international competitivity.
Said Mr. Kearney, “In the trail-blazing International Framework Agreement, signed late last year, Inditex recognizes the ITGLWF as its global partner in the pursuit of decent work throughout its supply chain.
“The agreement provides for the right of all workers to unionize and bargain collectively as the cornerstone of decent work. It outlaws child labour, forced labour and discrimination, provides for the payment of a living wage, puts restrictions on working hours, insists on safe and healthy workplaces and promotes job security free of abusive treatment.
“In the agreement Inditex and the ITGLWF pledge to work together to ensure the full application of these standards by engaging with suppliers and representatives of the workforces to eliminate abuse, build mutual respect and avoid conflict.
“It is an approach based on the employment relationship where the supplier, as employer, takes responsibility for those employed and where the exercise of that responsibility is regulated by a mature system of industrial relations at workplace level involving management and trade union representatives.
“Irregular policing of workplaces through snapshot audits is replaced by constant internal factory monitoring by those who know the enterprise best – management and workers – aided by the commitment of Inditex to build a totally socially compliant supply chain through support and training rather than sanction.”
Mr. Kearney outlined how an unfortunate garment factory disaster in Bangladesh in mid-2005 brought the ITGLWF’s first direct contact with Inditex. “From a low key beginning when we combined our efforts to bring relief to the families of the dead and the injured at the Spectrum factory in Bangladesh we proceeded jointly to deal with conflicts elsewhere in the Inditex supply chain and to recognize the shortfalls in action and capacity at local and national levels around the world.
“It was obvious that the near absence of industrial relations management systems in factories and the inadequacy of supervisor and manager training on labour issues combined with limited trade union organization was creating growing supply chain problems.
“Inditex and the ITGLWF soon concluded that global problems required global solutions, implemented locally, and we began to pool our energies to build the partnerships we knew were needed to achieve decent work in the sector.
“So was born the first international framework agreement on labour issues in a supply chain between a global trade union and a global retailer.
“Such a framework for a joint retailer/trade union partnership was urgently needed to tackle worker abuse in the global textile and garment industry where production is today carried out in 160 countries for export to markets in only about 30 nations making the sector one of the most globalised and most competitive.
“With most production costs fixed, labour bears the brunt of this competition. Globally, the industry is characterized by low wages, excessive working hours, health and safety risks, child labour, discrimination, abusive treatment and job insecurity.
“Abuses are driven by the general inability or unwillingness of governments to protect rights at work and compounded by the fact that most of the workers are women.
“During the 1990s maltreatment of workers, including the use of child labour, disgusted consumers who turned their anger on the brands and retailers who had come to dominate the industry.
“For nearly 200 years, trade unions had defended and advanced workers interests at local and later at national levels. Globalization greatly weakened that defense and retarded advance.
“In the mid 1990s national trade unions began to recognize that the globalization of union efforts was needed to harness economic globalization.
“In the textile and clothing sector the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation which traces its roots back to the 1860s had long been promoting cross-frontier trade union co-operation. With 220 affiliated unions and more than 10 million members in 120 countries it was one of the first global unions to recognize the need for a global drive to promote corporate accountability, in sectors such as textiles and garments, based on social dialogue between employers and workforce representatives.
“Largely unregulated globalization needed to be molded to serve wider interests and the ITGLWF realized that change could best be driven by building partnerships between the industry’s key players, including the brands and retailers as buyers, manufacturers as suppliers and workers and their trade unions as producers.
“The Inditex/ITGLWF partnership is beginning to drive that change for the benefit of workers, their families and communities, the manufacturers and the exporting country involved. As the managing director of Gold Fame Enterprises earlier told Queen Sophie, ‘This approach has enhanced the image of our factory, brought about significant benefits through improved labour relations and a better understanding with our buyers enabling us to greatly increase our turnover forecasts for 2008’”, concluded Mr. Kearney.
Cambodia - FOREIGN EXPERTS AND MYOPIA KHMER
By AhmekKhmer
From 1976 on, the murderous-powerful shadowy Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon openly ordered to "Young Mysterious Murderous Group of Disguised Khmer Rouge" had started to clean up all Kampuchea Krom people who spoke broken both Khmer and Vietnamese were unfairly accused of being all Yuon spies/ secret agents. Why did the murderous Angkar Leur/Cap Tren order the "Young Mysterious Murderous Group of Disguised Khmer Rouge" to murder Kampuchea Krom people who were unfairly accused of being Yuon spies/secret agents? Why didn't the murderous Angkar Leur/Cap Tren order "The Young Mysterious Group of Disguised Khmer Rouge" to kill all Vietnamese nationals living in Cambodia when they first took full control of Phnom Penh in 1975? Vietnamese leaders know too well that Kampuchea Krom people would not go back home to Kampuchea Krom where they were born, because once they went there again, they would have no land and no house to live in. They would rather be mercilessly killed by "The Young Mysterious Murderous Group of Disguised Khmer Rouge", who were accused of being Yuon spies/secret agents. The murderous-powerful shadowy Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon who were secretly hiding in the jungles everywhere in Cambodia to give Genocidal Orders to super-illiterate-ignorant Khmer Rouge yotheas and former cruel bandits to kill all Khmer Krom and all Khmer people who were unfairly accused of being all Yuon secret agents.
Hanoi leaders thought that they are so cunning to have hidden their dirty-secret-pogrom plans against the Cambodian Victims. Hanoi leaders really wanted to eliminate both Kampuchea Kandal and Kampuchea Krom people so that it would make them easy to take control of Cambodia for their hungry Vietnamese who need more land, endlessly! Yuon Hanoi leaders who also know too well the difference between Khmer Krom and Yuon citizens. Why...? Since 18th century the murderous Ming Mang Emperor who brutally forced all Khmer Krom to use all Yuon names in order to assimilate all Khmer Krom into one Yuon nation as it has been happening from the past few centuries up until now is still in Khmer Krom. No word of English to comment on These Endless Past and Present Unforgettable Painful Suffering Tragedies of Khmer Krom people. We all Khmer Victims of the murderous-powerful shadowy Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon have only tears dropping from our eyes to signal to the people in the outside world that all killing fields are secretly created in both Khmer Krom and Khmer Kandal are all but Yuon-Dracula Leaders who are the worst violators of human rights on earth.
There was also a new directive, in the middle of 1977, kill off a new category of enemy-people of Vietnamese ancestry. By this time, Sycophant had learned to hide her Kampuchea Krom family history. "They started killing people with any Vietnamese blood, even Kampuchea Krom. At first we did not know why." The people in the outside world already know that Khmer Rouge really hate Yuons. In fact, the Khmer Rouge didn't hate Yuons, but Yuon Angkar Leur/Cap Tren hate Khmers who were unfairly accused of being all Yuon secret agents. By accusing all Khmers of being all Yuon secret agents, Yuon Angkar Leur/Cap Tren sped up their killing Khmers faster than ever so madly.
Between late 1976 and 1978, there was no a single Khmer Preah Trapeang left in Pursat and Battambang who were brutally and unfairly being accused of Vietnamese secret agents by the murderous-powerful shadowy Angkar Leur, in Viet "Cap Tren". Yuon were just an ordinary people like Cambodian. Why didn't the "Mysterious Anonymous higher Organization" order to kill all Vietnamese citizens living in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge first took over Phnom Penh in 1975? Why now they started killing innocent Khmer Krom people and many other Cambodian people who were accused of being Vietnamese secret agents just like that? Why did they do that to us-Khmer innocence? Hanoi Leaders' well planned was to eliminate all Kampuchea Krom people who were living in their motherland-Cambodia, escaped from their Kampuchea Krom, were the most important eyewitness to the Kampuchea Krom land, which Vietnamese have stolen from Cambodia for more than 50 years. If Kampuchea Krom people are all still alive, who are hard to be ruled will claim back their lost land from Vietnamese through UN's and International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon really indoctrinated, brainwashed and instigated us Khmer children to hate Yuon so why Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon sent its Khmer Rouge soldiers to capture only Kampuchea Krom people being brought back to be brutally slaughtered in Cambodia like that? Why didn't Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon of the super-illiterate-ignorant Khmer Rouge yotheas and former cruel bandits kill these Kampuchea Krom people straightaway? There are two tricky reasons for Yuon secret agents who were behind Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon in Cambodia:
1. Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon used its Khmer Rouge's hands to make Kampuchea Krom people to hate their fellow Khmer Kandal in order to pave the way for Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon in Hanoi was to send its troops to take control Cambodia easily in the future by receiving some strong support from Kampuchea Krom people who wanted to take revenge against the Khmer Rouge. Because Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon also tried to deliberately mislead all Kampuchea Krom people that Khmer Rouge soldiers were so brutal massacring their own Kampuchea Krom people too.
2. Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon already arranged all Yuon citizens who at the time were living in Kampuchea Krom/South Vietnam being evacuated from Cambodia-Yuon border by leaving only Kampuchea Krom people to be caught in cross-fire between Yuon/Vietcong who had secretly impersonated themselves as the leaders of super-illiterate-ignorant Khmer Rouge yotheas and former cruel bandits and Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon in Hanoi was to terribly misled all the people in the outside world and UN that Khmer Rouge killed too many Yuon citizens only. In fact, not a single foreign writer/author/scholar who claims themselves very expert on Cambodian History could write about dirty demonic plans of Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon massacring only Kampuchea Krom innocent people at all. As my readers can see the dirty demonic tricky plans of Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon who only let the Kampuchea Krom people being brought back to be brutally murdered in the name of Khmer Rouge was well-known to the outside world, but there was no a single Yuon people who were brought back to be slaughtered in Cambodia. This is a really weird story, which didn't take place by chance at all. It was really well-planned not being made by God but it was secretly man-made-disaster by Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon in Hanoi. The people in the outside world/UN and Cambodians who were really in a dark place to condemn only Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge soldiers who were naively accused of killing all Yuon citizens in Cambodia. In fact, Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon tried not only to kill Kampuchea Krom in Cambodia but went far beyond into Kampuchea Krom/South Vietnam to capture so many uncountable Kampuchea Krom victims who were brought back...:
On 30 April 1977, for example, the Khmer attacked and occupied the Vietnamese town of Chau Doc. Thousands of civilians were slaughtered while a large number of Khmer Krom - Vietnamese of Cambodian origin - were deported back into Cambodia. By 14 April 1978 they opened a new front in the Ba Thuc area, deploying two divisions. Both units were withdrawn back into Cambodia within a week, but only after deporting 20,000 Khmer Krom civilians and slaughtering 2,500 others.
The following bullshit-artist writer Ben Kiernan who dived into the dark bottom of South China Sea is to have found only too far many types of rubbish when he came up from the sea. And then he illogically announced in his book to the world that he uses his fingers counting on the total death tolls in DK. Did he really see the killing fields that were brutally and secretly committed by Krom Khiet Kar Aat Kambang/ Mysterious Group of Murderers/KKKAK with his own eyes? Did he live with us Khmer victims from 1975-1979? He didn't live with us Khmer victims, I am for sure. So, how dare he jump into his thoughtless and illogic conclusion like that? Thousands of thousands of Khmer Krom people who had escaped from the brutal genocide of both Vietminh and Vietcong to live only around Pursat province when they first transferred from Koh Keo village of Lvea Em province to live in Phum 13 in late 1975. But evil-bullshit-artist writer Ben Kiernan wrote only 2,000 Khmer Krom people being killed during the Vietnamese Hidden faces behind Killing Fields in his bull-shit research on Cambodian History.
All citizens had to be proper Khmer, as defined by the revolution. Part of the Khmer Rouge mission was to revive the glory and honour of Cambodia and to ensure the potentiality of the Khmer race, as Pol Pot himself said.
Historically, Cambodia's people and rulers have been quite accepting of the country's Chinese minority community. However, under French colonial administration and since independence, the Chinese have experienced significant discrimination. This report examines evidence of human rights violations against the Chinese under Democratic Kampuchea (DK). Because they lived in urban areas and were often business people, the Chinese were viewed as examples of Western oppression and branded as internal enemies. Nearly 225,000 of Cambodia's Chinese population of 400,000 died under DK rule. However, there seems to be no one reason that fully accounts for their persecution and killing. Ethnicity, social and geographic conditions all seem to have affected their circumstances. These differences are evident in interviewees accounts some felt targeted as Chinese, while others did not. Significantly, most believe there was no central policy against them, but that their treatment was contingent on a range of factors including individual racial hatred and personal revenge, which differed according to region and time. The paper argues that these disparities are indicative of the Khmer Rouge government, which was continually attempting to control all aspects of people's lives, but had little control of itself as an organization.
Due to the fact that, the Khmer Krom has the same background as our brothers and sisters in Cambodia, I am pretty sure that, there was quite a large number of Khmer Krom also perished in the horrific killing fields. Those victims could belong to one the following 3 categories:
1. Khmer Kampuchea Krom who lived in Cambodia before Khmer Rouge took over in April 1975, and had been killed.
2. The Khmer Krom who escaped the Yuon's execution in Kampuchea Krom between 1975-1979 to Cambodia, and had been killed.
3. Khmer Kampuchea Krom had been killed in Toul Sleng prison [Some of such cases appeared to be the victim of the cooperation between the Vietnamese communist and the Khmer Rouge in early days 1975-1976. The Khmer Krom victims were turned to Khmer Rouge by the Yuon] and had been killed.
The Khmer Kampuchea Krom are ethnic Khmer living in the former southern territories of the Angkor Empire, which are now part of Vietnam. While this group has striven to retain its ethnic and national identity, it does not appear to have succeeded, and has arguably been disowned and victimized by both the successive Cambodian and Vietnamese governments. Although many books have been written about Kampuchea Krom and her people, this study will be unique in that it will relate the Khmer Kampuchea Krom to the Khmer Rouge regime.
Prior to 1975, there were approximately 4,000 Khmer Krom families residing in Rumlech sub-district. By 1979, only about 40 people remained. Those who did survive generally escaped to other villages. The rest had been taken away and killed by the Khmer Rouge militia during 1975-1979.
About 200,000 Vietnamese citizens were noiselessly shipped back to Srok Yuon in 1975. But there are so many foreign experts on Cambodian History by claiming they know nearly every angle of Cambodian jungles who have been trying to find a needle that the murderous-powerful shadowy Angkar Leur/Cap Tren Yuon throw into the bottom of South China Sea. Yet, no one has found that needle in the bottom of South China Sea so far so worse. In fact, those foreign writers only scratch their itchy skins in their offices by claiming they are so expert on Khmer History. In fact, all their articles are full of craps. Why...? Because they sit in their offices to collect information from Yuon leaders. For example, David Chandler, Ben Kiernan, John Pilger and many more because they all think that nearly all Khmers can't read English more than 20 years ago so they also bullshit to the world like Yuon leaders. I know they have got their Master Degree of Uni, but in fact, they only sit in their office to scratch their balls to make them feel so good. Many other foreign writers who still claim that they are so expert on Cambodian history are terribly misled.
Cambodia severed diplomatic relations with Vietnam and ordered Vietnamese diplomats in Phnom Penh to leave before Jan. 7, 1978. Hanoi earlier had withdrawn its ambassador from Phnom Penh, an action described by the DK Foreign Ministry as "unfriendly."
As then-DK Foreign Ministry, Ieng Sary, who clearly told us Khmer children "Vietnamese are unfriendly."
Killing field had been started so madly everywhere in Cambodia, why did Yuon Communist-dictatorial leaders send (as above-mentioned) Cambodian victims back to be brutally killed by the murderous Angkar Leur just like that? Because Yuon Hanoi crocodile leaders knew that the murderous-powerful shadowy Angkar Leur/Cap Tren was very bloodthirsty for Cambodian victims' blood.
Andy Brouwer Visits Wat Nokor
Saturday, March 15, 2008
While this blog may seem obsessed with Thailand, it's only because Thailand seems to consistently produce the most interesting and varied stories within Southeast Asia. Surprisingly, Cambodia is now in the second place, the country that inspires the most offbeat, culturally attractive, and socially challenging stories I find on the net. Indonesia should be second on this list, but it's not really generating stories I feel would be of great interest to the readers of the blog, and that's a pity.
Check the blogrolls on the right and you'll see that Thailand has an overwhelming number of blogs or websites that I think are worth visiting or putting in your RSS reader. Not much for Cambodia, but that deficit is made up for by the excellent and consistent posts from Andy Brouwer, who works in the travel industry in Phnom Penh, and so has good reason to wander around the country visiting the more remote locations. He's interested in architecture and old temples (same as me) and speaks enough Khmer to ask the old monks to unlock doors to photograph rarely seen interiors. And his photography is surprisingly good, especially with his flash shots that aren't terribly washed out...something that has always been a problem with my photography.
And so, today, I salute Andy Brouwer and his great site about all things Cambodia.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Wat Nokor's Preah Noreay
The impressive Preah Noreay statue at Wat Nokor's eastern entrance
In concluding my look at the Wat Nokor complex near Kompong Cham, the 13th century temple has a wealth of carvings as well as statues for the visitor to admire. This eight-arm statue represents Preah Noreay, a Hindu goddess who is said to bestow fertility on childless women, and can be found at the eastern entrance to the temple. The statue is a mix of original sandstone and concrete additions, with the eight hands each holding an item of special significance. Its a cross between Shiva and Lokeshvara and is similar to a statue that used to reside at Tonle Bati before it was moved to the National Museum. Below is a closer look at the chest of the statue containing numerous smaller versions of Buddha.
Andy Brouwer
While this blog may seem obsessed with Thailand, it's only because Thailand seems to consistently produce the most interesting and varied stories within Southeast Asia. Surprisingly, Cambodia is now in the second place, the country that inspires the most offbeat, culturally attractive, and socially challenging stories I find on the net. Indonesia should be second on this list, but it's not really generating stories I feel would be of great interest to the readers of the blog, and that's a pity.
Check the blogrolls on the right and you'll see that Thailand has an overwhelming number of blogs or websites that I think are worth visiting or putting in your RSS reader. Not much for Cambodia, but that deficit is made up for by the excellent and consistent posts from Andy Brouwer, who works in the travel industry in Phnom Penh, and so has good reason to wander around the country visiting the more remote locations. He's interested in architecture and old temples (same as me) and speaks enough Khmer to ask the old monks to unlock doors to photograph rarely seen interiors. And his photography is surprisingly good, especially with his flash shots that aren't terribly washed out...something that has always been a problem with my photography.
And so, today, I salute Andy Brouwer and his great site about all things Cambodia.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Wat Nokor's Preah Noreay
The impressive Preah Noreay statue at Wat Nokor's eastern entrance
In concluding my look at the Wat Nokor complex near Kompong Cham, the 13th century temple has a wealth of carvings as well as statues for the visitor to admire. This eight-arm statue represents Preah Noreay, a Hindu goddess who is said to bestow fertility on childless women, and can be found at the eastern entrance to the temple. The statue is a mix of original sandstone and concrete additions, with the eight hands each holding an item of special significance. Its a cross between Shiva and Lokeshvara and is similar to a statue that used to reside at Tonle Bati before it was moved to the National Museum. Below is a closer look at the chest of the statue containing numerous smaller versions of Buddha.
Andy Brouwer
Smart pupils raise hope for Cambodian orphans
Fancy fund-raisers: Wearing their Sunday best clothes to help gather cash for Cambodian orphans are pupils, from left, Lucy Nock, Emily Lane and Leo Hopley. kidderminstershuttle.co.uk
March 15, 2008
By Paul Whittaker
FUND-raising youngsters at a Bewdley school have put on their best clothes for class to help improve lives in one of the poorest parts of the world.
The efforts of pupils, aged between four and 10, at St Anne's CE First have resulted in £1,400 being sent to Cambodia to give orphans a better chance in life.
A charity week was held at the Wyre Hill school to boost the coffers of the Cambodian Dump Children's Committee, which helps youngsters forced to pick rubbish on landfill sites in the capital city, Phnom Penh.
The money gathered from last month's events will be used to concrete and tile a play area at the Centre for Children's Happiness, formed in 2002, so the orphans can play outside during the rainy season.
It will also buy a tuk-tuk, a powered rickshaw type vehicle, to train teenagers so they can find employment as hire-drivers in the city.
The decision to support the project with a host of activities, which included a quiz, a toy bring-and-buy sale, along with the opportunity for pupils to wear their Sunday best for lessons, came from acting headteacher, Linda Withey.
She visited Cambodia last Easter and had the chance to see the work the facility does for the poor it takes away from the Steung Meanchey Municipal Waste Dump.
Mrs Withey said: "The amount we raised has both delighted and shocked us in equal measure. It is simply stunning. Everyone has done fantastically well.
"It is a nice feeling and because of the links we will actually be able to see the work our money has paid for when it is completed through pictures that are being sent over in a few weeks.
"All the things we tried to do during the week were geared towards making the children understand what life is like for children over there. It went really well."
For more information about the Children's Happiness Centre in Cambodia, visit its website at www.cchcambodia.org
March 15, 2008
By Paul Whittaker
FUND-raising youngsters at a Bewdley school have put on their best clothes for class to help improve lives in one of the poorest parts of the world.
The efforts of pupils, aged between four and 10, at St Anne's CE First have resulted in £1,400 being sent to Cambodia to give orphans a better chance in life.
A charity week was held at the Wyre Hill school to boost the coffers of the Cambodian Dump Children's Committee, which helps youngsters forced to pick rubbish on landfill sites in the capital city, Phnom Penh.
The money gathered from last month's events will be used to concrete and tile a play area at the Centre for Children's Happiness, formed in 2002, so the orphans can play outside during the rainy season.
It will also buy a tuk-tuk, a powered rickshaw type vehicle, to train teenagers so they can find employment as hire-drivers in the city.
The decision to support the project with a host of activities, which included a quiz, a toy bring-and-buy sale, along with the opportunity for pupils to wear their Sunday best for lessons, came from acting headteacher, Linda Withey.
She visited Cambodia last Easter and had the chance to see the work the facility does for the poor it takes away from the Steung Meanchey Municipal Waste Dump.
Mrs Withey said: "The amount we raised has both delighted and shocked us in equal measure. It is simply stunning. Everyone has done fantastically well.
"It is a nice feeling and because of the links we will actually be able to see the work our money has paid for when it is completed through pictures that are being sent over in a few weeks.
"All the things we tried to do during the week were geared towards making the children understand what life is like for children over there. It went really well."
For more information about the Children's Happiness Centre in Cambodia, visit its website at www.cchcambodia.org
sacravatoons : " The Crow & the 2 Foxes "
It's a new version & adapted from the famous French Poet & Writer of Fables, Jean de Fontaine.1621-1695.The original : " The Crow and the Fox ", Fontaine Fables.
FEATURE-Small skirmishes mark Asia battle to save elephants
A member of a village guard group lights an anti-elephant flare to protect crops from wild elephants as he patrols Prey Proseth village, in southwest Cambodia, January 8, 2008. Loud, explosive flares which scare elephants away are a key defence against attacks by destructive crop-raiders, along with electric fences and ropes smeared with chillies.(Gillian Murdoch/Reuters) Sat Mar 15, 2008
By Gillian Murdoch
KOMPONG SPEU, Cambodia, March 16 (Reuters) - From nightfall until 3 a.m. the villagers of Trang Troyeung commune, in Cambodia's southwest Kompong Speu province, battled to protect their banana grove from attacks by elephants.
Camped in a field that backs onto Kirirom National Park, where some of Cambodia's last 250 wild elephants roam, they repelled the animals' by banging pots and patrolling frontlines. But not for long.
"We fell asleep because we were tired and the elephants came back and ate the bananas at 4 a.m." said human-elephant conflict expert Tuy Sereivathana of the fateful night about a year ago. "We stayed up all night. We slept in the field. But we lost".
Such small turf wars have plagued countless agricultural communities for thousands of years. But rapid forest clearances and dwindling elephant numbers have raised the stakes, both for humans and Asia's 40,000-50,000 endangered elephants.
The continent's fragmenting forests and high population densities mean more human lives are lost every year to rampaging elephants than in Africa, which is home to ten times more elephants.
And with less than 300 Asian elephants left in six of the 13 Asian countries in which they range, experts fear skirmishes over banana groves and rice fields have become a deadly threat that could edge vulnerable populations to extinction.
SMALL SKIRMISHES
From the tea plantations of Sri Lanka to the rice fields of Vietnam, villagers who cannot afford to lose their crops turn on destructive elephants, hunting and killing them.
With elephants restricted to ever-smaller habitat blocks, violence flares more often now, said Simon Hedges, co-chair of the World Conservation Union's Asian elephant specialist group.
"As they aspire to a better quality of life people become less tolerant of human-wildlife conflict," Hedges said.
Rodents, birds, or primates, can cause greater damage to crops, but elephants inspire more animosity because they often injure or kill people during raids.India, home to 60 percent of Asia's wild elephants, holds the world record for annual human deaths from elephant conflict.
Between 200 and 250 people die in such confrontations every year, said Bangalore-based Raman Sukumar, one of the world's leading authorities on Asian elephants.
This is far more than the 50 people killed annually in the second top flashpoint, Sri Lanka, where hundreds of crop raiding elephants have been shot with ancient shotguns, had acid thrown at them, and been sickened by pumpkins injected with poison.
While large populations such as India's 30,000 elephants weather such losses relatively well, others are dangerously low.
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Nepal and Vietnam may have less than 300 individuals left, experts fear.
In Vietnam, where 80 elephants live in small groups by the border with Cambodia and Laos, the continent is facing its first recent elephant extinction because of habitat loss and hunting.
"The elephant habitats are in very sensitive areas where very poor people who needed to develop economically live," said Ha Bich Nguyen, of conservation group Fauna & Flora International (FFI)'s Vietnam office.
"The conflict was whether people or the elephants survive," she said, adding that humans appear to have won as the ratio of male to female elephants is now inviable.
"With all our efforts and doing our best, we cannot help save them from extinction".
FIGHTING BACK
Reducing such conflicts to help elephants, and humans, is possible with careful management; but totally stamping out attacks is a tall order, Sukumar said.
"It's a double-edged sword. You can put part of the blame on humans who have fragmented elephants' habitat," he said.
"(But) once elephants have tasted crops, they develop a taste for it. They're just going to come out and seek them, because they are far more attractive to them than wild forest food".
Cambodian expert Sereivathana believes it is possible to reverse negative attitudes to the beasts whose revered image adorns Cambodian cigarette packets and Thai beer bottles, but who also trash crops, destroy houses, and smash fishermen's boats.
Blazing into remote villages with armed police to tell locals to leave elephants alone does not get results, he said.
Instead, in Kompong Speu and half a dozen other villages, FFI has built wooden watch towers, strung up anti-elephant electric fences, and started guarding groups to frighten off marauders.
"Three things go together -- law enforcement, education, and livelihood programs," Sereivathana said.
"We need to think about livelihoods, how people can find a new job ... Education is also very important, so people understand.
"His group also gives seed money to villagers to encourage them to swap frontline crops such as sugarcane, watermelon, bananas and rice, which elephants love, to unpalatable ones they won't touch, such as aubergines and chillies.
For some farmers, however, the logic of changing crops to avoid conflict with elephants does not soften the economic loss.
"I'm still thinking about growing sugarcane... It gets more money and it's more popular than aubergine," said villager Siep Nait, 50, as she picked piles of the purple-black vegetables in a quiet field that was once regularly raided by elephants.
"(But) If I grow sugarcane I'm scared that the elephants will come and I'll get none," she said.(For a blog related to this article, click on: here)
(Editing by Megan Goldin)
By Gillian Murdoch
KOMPONG SPEU, Cambodia, March 16 (Reuters) - From nightfall until 3 a.m. the villagers of Trang Troyeung commune, in Cambodia's southwest Kompong Speu province, battled to protect their banana grove from attacks by elephants.
Camped in a field that backs onto Kirirom National Park, where some of Cambodia's last 250 wild elephants roam, they repelled the animals' by banging pots and patrolling frontlines. But not for long.
"We fell asleep because we were tired and the elephants came back and ate the bananas at 4 a.m." said human-elephant conflict expert Tuy Sereivathana of the fateful night about a year ago. "We stayed up all night. We slept in the field. But we lost".
Such small turf wars have plagued countless agricultural communities for thousands of years. But rapid forest clearances and dwindling elephant numbers have raised the stakes, both for humans and Asia's 40,000-50,000 endangered elephants.
The continent's fragmenting forests and high population densities mean more human lives are lost every year to rampaging elephants than in Africa, which is home to ten times more elephants.
And with less than 300 Asian elephants left in six of the 13 Asian countries in which they range, experts fear skirmishes over banana groves and rice fields have become a deadly threat that could edge vulnerable populations to extinction.
SMALL SKIRMISHES
From the tea plantations of Sri Lanka to the rice fields of Vietnam, villagers who cannot afford to lose their crops turn on destructive elephants, hunting and killing them.
With elephants restricted to ever-smaller habitat blocks, violence flares more often now, said Simon Hedges, co-chair of the World Conservation Union's Asian elephant specialist group.
"As they aspire to a better quality of life people become less tolerant of human-wildlife conflict," Hedges said.
Rodents, birds, or primates, can cause greater damage to crops, but elephants inspire more animosity because they often injure or kill people during raids.India, home to 60 percent of Asia's wild elephants, holds the world record for annual human deaths from elephant conflict.
Between 200 and 250 people die in such confrontations every year, said Bangalore-based Raman Sukumar, one of the world's leading authorities on Asian elephants.
This is far more than the 50 people killed annually in the second top flashpoint, Sri Lanka, where hundreds of crop raiding elephants have been shot with ancient shotguns, had acid thrown at them, and been sickened by pumpkins injected with poison.
While large populations such as India's 30,000 elephants weather such losses relatively well, others are dangerously low.
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Nepal and Vietnam may have less than 300 individuals left, experts fear.
In Vietnam, where 80 elephants live in small groups by the border with Cambodia and Laos, the continent is facing its first recent elephant extinction because of habitat loss and hunting.
"The elephant habitats are in very sensitive areas where very poor people who needed to develop economically live," said Ha Bich Nguyen, of conservation group Fauna & Flora International (FFI)'s Vietnam office.
"The conflict was whether people or the elephants survive," she said, adding that humans appear to have won as the ratio of male to female elephants is now inviable.
"With all our efforts and doing our best, we cannot help save them from extinction".
FIGHTING BACK
Reducing such conflicts to help elephants, and humans, is possible with careful management; but totally stamping out attacks is a tall order, Sukumar said.
"It's a double-edged sword. You can put part of the blame on humans who have fragmented elephants' habitat," he said.
"(But) once elephants have tasted crops, they develop a taste for it. They're just going to come out and seek them, because they are far more attractive to them than wild forest food".
Cambodian expert Sereivathana believes it is possible to reverse negative attitudes to the beasts whose revered image adorns Cambodian cigarette packets and Thai beer bottles, but who also trash crops, destroy houses, and smash fishermen's boats.
Blazing into remote villages with armed police to tell locals to leave elephants alone does not get results, he said.
Instead, in Kompong Speu and half a dozen other villages, FFI has built wooden watch towers, strung up anti-elephant electric fences, and started guarding groups to frighten off marauders.
"Three things go together -- law enforcement, education, and livelihood programs," Sereivathana said.
"We need to think about livelihoods, how people can find a new job ... Education is also very important, so people understand.
"His group also gives seed money to villagers to encourage them to swap frontline crops such as sugarcane, watermelon, bananas and rice, which elephants love, to unpalatable ones they won't touch, such as aubergines and chillies.
For some farmers, however, the logic of changing crops to avoid conflict with elephants does not soften the economic loss.
"I'm still thinking about growing sugarcane... It gets more money and it's more popular than aubergine," said villager Siep Nait, 50, as she picked piles of the purple-black vegetables in a quiet field that was once regularly raided by elephants.
"(But) If I grow sugarcane I'm scared that the elephants will come and I'll get none," she said.(For a blog related to this article, click on: here)
(Editing by Megan Goldin)
FACTBOX:Where are Asia's endangered wild elephants?
Sat Mar 15, 2008
March 15 (Reuters) -- Asia's elephants once roamed across nine million square kilometres of forests from the Iranian coast to the Indian subcontinent, Java, Sumatra and Borneo, and China. Now extinct in west Asia, Java and most of China, about 40,000 to 50,000 remain in pockets of forest in 13 states.
About 15,000 Asian elephants live in captivity as work animals, mostly in India, Myanmar and Thailand. By contrast, there are only about 500 captive African elephants, mostly in western zoos, and a wild population of 400,000-660,000 animals.
Here are some facts about Asia's wild elephants and the threats facing them, listed by estimated population size:
* INDIA: 23,900-32,900. Home to 60 percent of Asia's elephants, India has the highest death rate from human-elephant conflict, with 200-250 people and 100 elephants killed annually. Habitat fragmentation, poaching of tusked males, and patchy forest law enforcement are problems, but numbers are rebounding.
* MYANMAR: 3,000-4,000. Most large herds live in forested hills by the borders with Bangladesh, India, China, and Thailand. Wild capture was banned in 1994, but captives are still taken to join 4,500 working elephants in logging camps.
* THAILAND: 3,000-3,700. Numbers dropped sharply with human population growth and forest clearances. Legal ivory sales from captive elephants allegedly lets dealers 'launder' illegal ivory.
* SRI LANKA: 2,100-3,000. The stars of many local festivals, herds have been pushed to the southwest of the island due to intense conflict over crops, and blown up by landmines.* INDONESIA: 1,180-1,557 Sumatra. No Borneo estimate. Rapid forest conversions has hit Sumatran and Bornean elephants hard. From 1985, hundreds were taken to Sumatran 'Elephant Training Centres' to stop conflict. Many died. Intense conflict remains.
* MALAYSIA: 1,250-1,466 Peninsula and 1,100-1,600 Borneo. Hundreds have been removed to national parks since the 1970s, to stop raids on plantations as jungles were cleared. Translocation has ensured healthy elephant populations.
* LAOS: 780-1,200. Known as the Land of a Million Elephants, herds suffer hunting and habitat loss from logging, agriculture and hydroelectric projects. Lack of funds hampers conservation.* BHUTAN: 400-600. Confined to southern plains and foothills elephants are mostly seasonal migrants, crossing to Bhutan to escape India's monsoons, and migrating back to India in summer.
* CAMBODIA: 250-600. Elephants helped build ancient Angkor Wat, but also hunted for ivory and meat, blown up by land mines in the civil war and killed for raiding crops. Relatively good habitat makes them better placed than others for a recovery.
* CHINA: 200-250. Small but viable herds live in southern Yunnan province. Numbers are rising, thanks to reproduction and immigration of Laos herds. China is also a large illegal manufacturer and trader of ivory, mostly from African elephants.
* BANGLADESH: 196-227. The human population explosion sparked intense competition for land and conflicts with elephants, which now live only in isolated areas. A lack of active conservation projects makes Bangladesh's elephants highly threatened.
* NEPAL: 100-170. Many roam between India and Nepal, where rapidly rising human populations devastated lowland forest herds. Small herds have stabilised in protected reserves.
* VIETNAM: 76-94. Hunting, forest clearances and warfare that saw forests bombed and poisoned with Agent Orange and other defoliants, made elephants functionally extinct. Conservationists hope inviable herds will cross to Cambodia and Laos.
Sources: Reuters, Interview with Professor Raman Sukumar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, EleAid Web Site (http://www.eleaid.com) (For related feature see CAMBODIA-ELEPHANT/ or [ID:nSP217448])
(Writing by Gillian Murdoch; Singapore Editorial Reference Unit)
March 15 (Reuters) -- Asia's elephants once roamed across nine million square kilometres of forests from the Iranian coast to the Indian subcontinent, Java, Sumatra and Borneo, and China. Now extinct in west Asia, Java and most of China, about 40,000 to 50,000 remain in pockets of forest in 13 states.
About 15,000 Asian elephants live in captivity as work animals, mostly in India, Myanmar and Thailand. By contrast, there are only about 500 captive African elephants, mostly in western zoos, and a wild population of 400,000-660,000 animals.
Here are some facts about Asia's wild elephants and the threats facing them, listed by estimated population size:
* INDIA: 23,900-32,900. Home to 60 percent of Asia's elephants, India has the highest death rate from human-elephant conflict, with 200-250 people and 100 elephants killed annually. Habitat fragmentation, poaching of tusked males, and patchy forest law enforcement are problems, but numbers are rebounding.
* MYANMAR: 3,000-4,000. Most large herds live in forested hills by the borders with Bangladesh, India, China, and Thailand. Wild capture was banned in 1994, but captives are still taken to join 4,500 working elephants in logging camps.
* THAILAND: 3,000-3,700. Numbers dropped sharply with human population growth and forest clearances. Legal ivory sales from captive elephants allegedly lets dealers 'launder' illegal ivory.
* SRI LANKA: 2,100-3,000. The stars of many local festivals, herds have been pushed to the southwest of the island due to intense conflict over crops, and blown up by landmines.* INDONESIA: 1,180-1,557 Sumatra. No Borneo estimate. Rapid forest conversions has hit Sumatran and Bornean elephants hard. From 1985, hundreds were taken to Sumatran 'Elephant Training Centres' to stop conflict. Many died. Intense conflict remains.
* MALAYSIA: 1,250-1,466 Peninsula and 1,100-1,600 Borneo. Hundreds have been removed to national parks since the 1970s, to stop raids on plantations as jungles were cleared. Translocation has ensured healthy elephant populations.
* LAOS: 780-1,200. Known as the Land of a Million Elephants, herds suffer hunting and habitat loss from logging, agriculture and hydroelectric projects. Lack of funds hampers conservation.* BHUTAN: 400-600. Confined to southern plains and foothills elephants are mostly seasonal migrants, crossing to Bhutan to escape India's monsoons, and migrating back to India in summer.
* CAMBODIA: 250-600. Elephants helped build ancient Angkor Wat, but also hunted for ivory and meat, blown up by land mines in the civil war and killed for raiding crops. Relatively good habitat makes them better placed than others for a recovery.
* CHINA: 200-250. Small but viable herds live in southern Yunnan province. Numbers are rising, thanks to reproduction and immigration of Laos herds. China is also a large illegal manufacturer and trader of ivory, mostly from African elephants.
* BANGLADESH: 196-227. The human population explosion sparked intense competition for land and conflicts with elephants, which now live only in isolated areas. A lack of active conservation projects makes Bangladesh's elephants highly threatened.
* NEPAL: 100-170. Many roam between India and Nepal, where rapidly rising human populations devastated lowland forest herds. Small herds have stabilised in protected reserves.
* VIETNAM: 76-94. Hunting, forest clearances and warfare that saw forests bombed and poisoned with Agent Orange and other defoliants, made elephants functionally extinct. Conservationists hope inviable herds will cross to Cambodia and Laos.
Sources: Reuters, Interview with Professor Raman Sukumar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, EleAid Web Site (http://www.eleaid.com) (For related feature see CAMBODIA-ELEPHANT/ or [ID:nSP217448])
(Writing by Gillian Murdoch; Singapore Editorial Reference Unit)
Defense program no threat to others
Senior military experts from China and ASEAN member countries discuss a point at the "Military Modernization and Mutual Trust Building" dialogue in Beijing March 12, 2008. The talks were held to boost mutual understanding and trust. [China Daily] The modernization of China's armed forces is neither targeted at nor capable of altering East Asia's strategic balance, Chinese experts said yesterday.
"China's military equipment is far too weak compared to that of the US-Japan alliance and hence, cannot change the region's military balance," a researcher with China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies, Zhang Tuosheng, said on the sidelines of a dialogue between Chinese and ASEAN senior defense experts.
His remarks were in response to the Pentagon's annual report on China's military power, which says: "China's expanding and improving military capabilities are changing East Asian military balances".
China has taken pains to clarify the purpose of its rising military budget by issuing white papers, and through Defense Ministry spokesmen, frequent joint military drills, visits by Chinese warships to foreign ports and military dialogues at various levels, including the ongoing one with ASEAN, he said.
The China-ASEAN dialogue on "Military Modernization and Mutual Trust Building" has drawn 25 senior military experts.
The dialogue that began on Tuesday will continue till Saturday and focus on mainly four topics, including the purpose of China's military modernization and defensive strategy.
Colonel Yao Yunzhu, an expert in Asia-Pacific military studies with the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS), said secessionist activities in Taiwan is the greatest concern for China and the main reason behind its military programs.
China is also trying to raise the living conditions of its troops and tackle non-traditional threats such as terrorism, epidemics and natural disasters, Yao said.
AMS President Lt-Gen Liu Chengjun reiterated, "China's military modernization conforms to the State policy of pursuing the road of peaceful development and building a harmonious world".
The Philippines' military attach to China Arthur Ang found China's military modernization "understandable" after listening to yesterday's presentations.
"One good thing is that China is open and willing to build mutual confidence through such dialogues that can help us understand how and why it is modernizing its armed forces."
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2008
"China's military equipment is far too weak compared to that of the US-Japan alliance and hence, cannot change the region's military balance," a researcher with China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies, Zhang Tuosheng, said on the sidelines of a dialogue between Chinese and ASEAN senior defense experts.
His remarks were in response to the Pentagon's annual report on China's military power, which says: "China's expanding and improving military capabilities are changing East Asian military balances".
China has taken pains to clarify the purpose of its rising military budget by issuing white papers, and through Defense Ministry spokesmen, frequent joint military drills, visits by Chinese warships to foreign ports and military dialogues at various levels, including the ongoing one with ASEAN, he said.
The China-ASEAN dialogue on "Military Modernization and Mutual Trust Building" has drawn 25 senior military experts.
The dialogue that began on Tuesday will continue till Saturday and focus on mainly four topics, including the purpose of China's military modernization and defensive strategy.
Colonel Yao Yunzhu, an expert in Asia-Pacific military studies with the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS), said secessionist activities in Taiwan is the greatest concern for China and the main reason behind its military programs.
China is also trying to raise the living conditions of its troops and tackle non-traditional threats such as terrorism, epidemics and natural disasters, Yao said.
AMS President Lt-Gen Liu Chengjun reiterated, "China's military modernization conforms to the State policy of pursuing the road of peaceful development and building a harmonious world".
The Philippines' military attach to China Arthur Ang found China's military modernization "understandable" after listening to yesterday's presentations.
"One good thing is that China is open and willing to build mutual confidence through such dialogues that can help us understand how and why it is modernizing its armed forces."
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2008
Trades Between Cambodia And Thailand Increased
Mr. Cham Prasidh (left) with wife, Mrs. Tep Bopha. 15th March 2008
By Sary Rath
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer to English by Khmerization
By Sary Rath
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer to English by Khmerization
Courtesy of Khmerization : http://khmerization.blogspot.com/
Minister of Commerce, Mr. Cham Prasidh, has said on Friday that the volumes of trades between Cambodia and Thailand had increased 10.56% in 2007, which worth $US1,404 million in total.
During a launch of the Trade Expo of Thailand in Phnom Penh, which will run from 14th to 18th March, Mr. Cham Prasidh said that Cambodia exported goods to Thailand worth $US49 million per year.
The minister said that Cambodia is making great efforts to improve trades between the two countries.He further said that Cambodia had provided an investment opportunity to Thai industries to set up shops and produce goods in Cambodia for exporting to countries that provide preferential treatments to Cambodian products.
Minister of Commerce, Mr. Cham Prasidh, has said on Friday that the volumes of trades between Cambodia and Thailand had increased 10.56% in 2007, which worth $US1,404 million in total.
During a launch of the Trade Expo of Thailand in Phnom Penh, which will run from 14th to 18th March, Mr. Cham Prasidh said that Cambodia exported goods to Thailand worth $US49 million per year.
The minister said that Cambodia is making great efforts to improve trades between the two countries.He further said that Cambodia had provided an investment opportunity to Thai industries to set up shops and produce goods in Cambodia for exporting to countries that provide preferential treatments to Cambodian products.
Sam Rainsy Requests National Election Committee to Forbid All TV Stations From Using their Airtime to Campaign for the Cambodian People’s Party
15 March 2008.The Mirror, Vol. 12, No. 551
“The Sam Rainsy Party [SRP] leader Mr. Sam Rainsy said he would request the National Election Committee [NEC] to inform all TV stations not to use their airtime to campaign for the Cambodian People’s Party [CPP], as this is a biased activity. Therefore, the election would not be considered fair.
“Recently, Mr. Kith Meng’s CTN station has constantly used its airtime to attack the opposition parties and to boast the CPP. Using TV to propagandize before the official campaign period is not fair. The CPP seems to use all radio and TV stations for their political interests. This does not yet satisfy their ambition; they keep creating other shows to directly attack their opponents.
“The SRP Secretary-General Mr. Eng Chhay Eang said the CPP is fully campaigning for the whole period of five years in each mandate. Taking such an advantage over others to launch an early campaign does not lead to fair elections. Mr. Eng Chhay Eang said people know who are bad leaders and who are good leaders.
“Observers understand the same, that the CPP is using the media to attack other parties before the official campaign. This is an illegal act. Observers said that Apsara TV and Bayon TV can strongly attack other parties without having any problems, because these stations belong to the CPP and are controlled by Tuol Krasaing [headquarters of the prime minister]. However, the state-run TVK should not be a tool for the CPP to attack other parties.
“Observers notice that CTN is attacking Mr. Sam Rainsy more strongly than Bayon TV and Apsara TV, even though these two stations belong to the CPP.
“Observers said CTN is creating many shows based on the power of money, generated from different business operations, to attack the SRP. This station hires some people to criticize the SRP all the time.
“An official from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, who asked not be named, said that broadcasting equipment and construction materials are imported into Cambodia without paying tax. This is why CTN became a slave of the CPP. Observers said this is against the election law.
Hun Sen keeps claiming that Cambodia follows the principles of democracy, but actually it should be called anarchy. The government creates events or forums and hires some people to criticize other parties without letting those parties respond face to face. This is not democracy, because they let one side criticize the other, but then shut the door preventing others to explain anything. The campaign period has not come yet, but Kith Meng has already hired some people to criticize the SRP.
“Mr. Sam Rainsy said some shows in CTN are seriously attacking the SRP. Mr. Sam Rainsy said this is the reason why he would like to request the NEC to inform all TV stations, especially CTN, that they must stop to use their airtime to attack the SRP.
“Mr. Im Suosdey, the head of the NEC, said when it is close to elections, there are always some violations. Any party is the same. He said these are not serious mistakes. They are not really campaigning. Otherwise, the NEC would take action against them. However, Mr. Eng Chhay Eang said that the CPP has the whole five years campaigned, but the NEC has never taken any action.
“Observers also said that Hun Sen recently used his title as prime minister to campaign for ballots, and the NEC always fails to take action. A senior official from the Ministry of Interior said the NEC is under the influence of the CPP and, therefore, how could it take action against the CPP? The CPP is the one who empowers this institution, and if it would turn to take action, its officials would surely lose their positions.
“Western diplomats said CTN is the one TV station that campaign the strongest. Those diplomats also believe that Kith Meng, who is an ambitious businessman, may want to be like Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand. Now Kith Meng seems to be playing a political game in Cambodia. He does not only want to have businesspersons to be under his influence, but he wants other official to fall down in front of him, because he is related to Tuol Krasaing.”
Moneaksekar Khmer, Vol.15, #3413, 15.3.2008
Kampuchea Thmey, Vol.7, #1593, 15.3.2008 Samdech Euv [the former King] Thanks Samdech Dekchor Hun Sen 100 Percent [through a message from Beijing, dated 13 March, the former king praises the prime minister as a real hero and national reconciler, making Cambodia to become a prosperous and developed country.
Oknha Try Heng and His Working Group Held a Ceremony of Giving Food to 107 Monks to Inaugurate Elder Hun Neang Buddhist Center [on 12-14 March – Phnom Penh – Mr. Hun Neang is the father of the prime minister Hun Sen.
Phnom Penh: A Cultural and Literary History
Saturday March 15, 2008
The Guardian
by Milton Osborne
The name Phnom Penh doesn't whisper and scream in literature as does that of Saigon, for all that the Cambodian capital has a darker recent history.
Graham Greene didn't stay there, Norman Lewis did (but failed to have the same feeling for Cambodia as for Thailand), while Pierre Loti, Somerset Maugham and other languid fellow travellers were only in transit en route to Angkor Wat.
André Malraux wrote a sneer about a "land of decay", but then he had been detained after his attempt to smuggle out chunks of temple sculptures for sale in New York. And yet, as described by Milton Osborne, who has known it for 50 years, it does so deserve first-rank writing.
Besides the Khmer Rouge evacuation of the metropolis in 1975 (a dystopian fiction made murderously real), there had been Sihanouk time, mid-50s to 1970, when, in response to Peter O'Toole publicly dissing him after location shooting upriver for the film of Lord Jim, the prince directed movies starring his circle and their Cadillacs. And the only place to stay, the Grand Hotel de Madame Duguet, surely demands a novel of sustained deliquescence.
The Guardian
by Milton Osborne
The name Phnom Penh doesn't whisper and scream in literature as does that of Saigon, for all that the Cambodian capital has a darker recent history.
Graham Greene didn't stay there, Norman Lewis did (but failed to have the same feeling for Cambodia as for Thailand), while Pierre Loti, Somerset Maugham and other languid fellow travellers were only in transit en route to Angkor Wat.
André Malraux wrote a sneer about a "land of decay", but then he had been detained after his attempt to smuggle out chunks of temple sculptures for sale in New York. And yet, as described by Milton Osborne, who has known it for 50 years, it does so deserve first-rank writing.
Besides the Khmer Rouge evacuation of the metropolis in 1975 (a dystopian fiction made murderously real), there had been Sihanouk time, mid-50s to 1970, when, in response to Peter O'Toole publicly dissing him after location shooting upriver for the film of Lord Jim, the prince directed movies starring his circle and their Cadillacs. And the only place to stay, the Grand Hotel de Madame Duguet, surely demands a novel of sustained deliquescence.
Film festival begins in Cambodian
chinaview.cn
2008-03-15
PHNOM PENH, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The fifth Cine Mekong Film Festival was launched here on Saturday, bringing some famous films to Cambodians without charge.
The Cine Mekong Film Festival, which is presented by the French Cultural Center (FCC), will be held in Phnom Penh until March 21.
FCC director Alain Arnaudet said the festival is being presented to show the culture, customs and traditions of all the Mekong River countries.
The festival will allow Cambodians to see various types of newly produced films from France and other Asian countries, Arnaudet said.
The films at the festival, which attracted large audiences in 2007, include five Cambodian films, seven French films, and Thai and Vietnamese documentaries, he said.
This event is supported by the French embassy, Phnom Penh Municipality, Apsara TV and some companies.
Editor: An Lu
2008-03-15
PHNOM PENH, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The fifth Cine Mekong Film Festival was launched here on Saturday, bringing some famous films to Cambodians without charge.
The Cine Mekong Film Festival, which is presented by the French Cultural Center (FCC), will be held in Phnom Penh until March 21.
FCC director Alain Arnaudet said the festival is being presented to show the culture, customs and traditions of all the Mekong River countries.
The festival will allow Cambodians to see various types of newly produced films from France and other Asian countries, Arnaudet said.
The films at the festival, which attracted large audiences in 2007, include five Cambodian films, seven French films, and Thai and Vietnamese documentaries, he said.
This event is supported by the French embassy, Phnom Penh Municipality, Apsara TV and some companies.
Editor: An Lu
Cambodia teachers say thanks with an art class
That’s the way to do it: Soum Thavy and Nhok Nimul from Cambodia, right, give lessons in the art of batik painting to Luke Laland, Adam Finch, Zack Temperton, Lauren Lambert and Kastie Goodwin at Trinity Academythestar.co.uk
15 March 2008
By Staff Copy
TEACHERS from Cambodia visited a Doncaster school to say thank you for the support they have received over the last three years.
Students at Trinity Academy have raised thousands of pounds for SAO Cambodia, a Bawtry-based group that supports projects in Cambodia.
Teachers from the Pajana Association Cambodia Art and Craft visited the Academy on their first trip to Europe.Nhok Nimul and Soum Thavy taught Year 9 students the art of batik or silk painting, one of the crafts done at the project.
Student Lauren Lambert said: "It was good to learn about mixing the colours in different patterns.
"I didn't know much about Cambodia before so it's been good to find out more.
"Trinity Academy teacher John Bunce added: "The students have been raising money over the last few years for SAO Cambodia so it's important for them to hear about the projects they are supporting.
The visit has helped raise awareness and exposed our students to a very different culture."
15 March 2008
By Staff Copy
TEACHERS from Cambodia visited a Doncaster school to say thank you for the support they have received over the last three years.
Students at Trinity Academy have raised thousands of pounds for SAO Cambodia, a Bawtry-based group that supports projects in Cambodia.
Teachers from the Pajana Association Cambodia Art and Craft visited the Academy on their first trip to Europe.Nhok Nimul and Soum Thavy taught Year 9 students the art of batik or silk painting, one of the crafts done at the project.
Student Lauren Lambert said: "It was good to learn about mixing the colours in different patterns.
"I didn't know much about Cambodia before so it's been good to find out more.
"Trinity Academy teacher John Bunce added: "The students have been raising money over the last few years for SAO Cambodia so it's important for them to hear about the projects they are supporting.
The visit has helped raise awareness and exposed our students to a very different culture."
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