Increase in Cambodia's vultures gives hope to imperiled scavengers

http://www.physorg.com/

via Khmer NZ

September 3, 2010

This “venue” of vultures (a group of vultures can also be called a “committee” or a “wake”) in this image includes slender billed (left), white-rumped (m), and red-headed vultures (right), all of which have persisted in Cambodia while other vulture populations in Asia have all but vanished. Credit: Hugh Wright

While vultures across Asia teeter on the brink of extinction, the vultures of Cambodia are increasing in number, providing a beacon of hope for these threatened scavengers, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other members of the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project.

Researchers report that record numbers of vultures have been counted in Cambodia's annual vulture census, with 296 birds of three species found at multiple sites across the Northern and Eastern Plains of Cambodia by the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project, a partnership of conservationists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The record count means that Cambodia is home to the only increasing population of vultures in Asia. Specifically, the census indicates that the country's population of white-rumped vultures is increasing; populations of red-headed and slender billed vultures were found to be stable. All three of Cambodia's vulture species are listed as "Critically Endangered" by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

Vulture populations in Southeast Asia are primarily threatened by the declining number of large herbivores in the region, but have been largely unaffected by a far greater threat to Asia's vultures: the veterinary drug diclofenac. Widely used as an anti-inflammatory drug for cattle in South Asia, diclofenac is toxic to vultures, causing death through renal failure and visceral gout to birds that feed on the cattle carcasses and has led to global population declines higher than 99 percent in some vulture species.

The census success follows a record breeding season for vultures in Cambodia. This year, a total of 36 vulture chicks fledged from colonies across the north and east of the country, an increase from last year's total of 19 chicks.

Vulture conservation efforts in Cambodia are the result of a number of activities promoted by the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project. For instance, vulture nests are protected by local community members who are paid a small fee for their support. This ensures that vulture nesting success is greatly improved and also benefits local community members who often have few other sources of income during the dry season, which coincides with the vulture breeding season. Vulture food sources are supplemented by 'vulture restaurants,' feeding stations that also give visitors the opportunity to see these huge birds up close.

"By protecting nests and supplementing food supplies, we are saving some of the world's largest and most charismatic birds," stated Dr. Hugo Rainey, WCS technical advisor to the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project. "Nowhere else in Asia do vultures have such a promising future."

While conservationists can point to recent successes in the conservation of Cambodia's vultures, they also warn of the rising threat of agricultural pesticides to the birds. Since December 2008, more than 20 vultures are known to have died from consuming domestic animals that had been poisoned accidentally by the inappropriate use of pesticides. This practice may also present a risk to human health.

Song Chansocheat, Ministry of Environment and WCS Vulture Project Manager, commented that "Cambodia is the only Asian country where diclofenac is rarely used and vulture populations are managed. We have been monitoring vultures since 2004 and there have been increasing numbers of poisoned birds recently. Educating people about the risk to wildlife and people from incorrect use of poisons is important."

"Cambodia has become a critical source site for vultures, one that we need to protect as a means of saving these ecologically valuable birds," said Joe Walston, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Asia Program.

Provided by Wildlife Conservation Society

កម្មករ​រាប់រយ​នាក់​ផ្អាក​ការ​តវ៉ា ; Hundreds of Cambodian Worker Suspened Their Protest

Rumours about my sickness are lies : Thaksin

http://news.asiaone.com/

via Khmer NZ

Fri, Sep 03, 2010

The Nation/Asia News Network

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has told a Thai newspaper that he is not sick and has been doing business in Africa.

Thaksin gave a phone-interview to a Thai Rath Online reporter after his lawyer Noppadon Pattama distributed media pictures of Thaksin to disprove rumours he is sick or in critical condition, as some rumours said.

He did not elaborate which country he is in at the moment, saying he travels constantly.

"People lied about me all the time. If you believe those lies, you have to ask yourself if there's something wrong with you," Thaksin replied when asked to comment on speculation about his health.

"Now you hear my voice. Do you think I'm sick?" he asked the reporter.

Asked why he had stopped posting messages on his Twitter page, Thaksin said "I want reconciliation to happen."

He said he had quit his advisory posts with the Cambodian government and the Cambodian prime minister out of annoyance.

In an interview with Thai Rath, Thaksin said he found the two posts "Annoying. People always accused me of this and that."

"In order not to be annoyed any more, I asked Hun Sen if I should quit. I don't want to be annoyed so I can be free. Moreover, I really don't have time for that. I had a position but couldn't do anything for them. I rarely have time to go to Cambodia. So I'd rather quit."

Asked if he would accept the posts again if the Cambodian government wanted to reappoint him, Thaksin replied: "No more. Let me do something else. I'd better do something for myself. They robbed me of half of my wealth, so I had to do it to feed my kids," he said.

Commenting on Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya asking Montenegro to arrest him, Thaksin said he never cared for Kasit.

On his plan to come back to be Thai prime minister, Thaksin said, "I don't have a future in politics. My political future is just being a people's man. That's all and nothing else."

Asked about when he wished to come back to Thailand, Thaksin admitted he wanted to return home "but it's not as important as the country becoming peaceful and its people reconciled".

"I wish people would stop bullying, especially the weak. That's bad. It will cause and reinforce rage in people's minds. I wish people would stop seeing the weak as if they were not Thai people. That's dangerous for the country."

Thaksin denied his pictures taken with Nelson Mandela were faked.

"I can guarantee they were taken last Friday around 2pm," Thaksin said, adding that at 4pm he went on to meet and take pictures with Winnie Mandela at the house where she welcomed Nelson Mandela after 27 years in jail.

Associated Press said the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg confirmed the visit took place last Friday.

"It was not a meeting, it was a courtesy call," spokesman Sello Hatang said. He said he did not know what they discussed.

Thai Rath Online said it would today publish the second part of the interview in which Thaksin speaks his mind about what happened behind the September 19, 2006 coup.

Novartis Malaria Drug May Yield First New Treatment in 30 Years

via Khmer NZ

By Simeon Bennett - Sep 3, 2010

A rapid malaria test is performed with a blood sample at a hospital in Pailin, Cambodia. Photographer: Udo Weitz/Bloomberg

An experimental Novartis AG medicine that killed drug-resistant malaria in laboratory studies may become the first new class of treatment against the disease in 30 years, researchers said.

The drug cured mice at lower doses than existing medicines and killed drug-resistant strains taken from patients in Thailand, researchers said in the journal Science yesterday. Human trials of the drug are planned for this year.

The left panel shows a red blood cell adjacent to four individual human malaria parasites (Plasmodium falciparum) capable of invading the human cell and initiating disease. The right panel shows a parasite developing inside an infected cell. Source: Science/AAAS via Bloomberg

“I would be extremely shocked if someone comes back and tells me that we’re not hitting the bug in humans,” said Thierry Diagana, who led the research at the Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases in Singapore. “When I see the type of potency that we’re getting, I’m very excited and very optimistic,” Diagana said in an interview.

Researchers are hunting for new treatments against malaria after a study last year showed drugs derived from artemisinin, the basis of the most effective medicines, were losing power in Cambodia, jeopardizing global efforts to curb the spread of the malady. The Novartis drug would be the first to work in a new way since the first artemisinin-based drugs were developed in the 1970s, according to Diagana.

Malaria infects about 250 million people each year and kills more than 880,000, mostly children under 5 in Africa, according to the World Health Organization. It’s the world’s third-deadliest infectious disease behind AIDS and tuberculosis.

Ancient Chinese Remedy

Artemisinin is an ancient Chinese remedy derived from the leaves of the sweet wormwood tree. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year showed drugs derived from artemisinin took almost twice as long to clear the parasites that cause the disease in patients in western Cambodia as in patients in northwestern Thailand.

While Cambodia accounts for only about 0.4 percent of the world’s malaria cases, it’s a breeding ground for drug-resistant strains. Since the 1970s, at least three once-potent malaria treatments have failed there before becoming useless elsewhere in the world, according to the WHO.

New drugs developed over the past 30 years have been variations on previous treatments, leaving them vulnerable to the same weaknesses as their predecessors, Diagana said. Novartis’s medicine targets the parasite in a way it hasn’t seen before and isn’t resistant to.

Daily Pill

The drug is the result of more than three years of work by almost 30 scientists in five countries. Researchers at a Novartis lab in San Diego sifted through 12,000 chemical compounds starting in 2006, finding 275 that had an impact on the deadliest species of the parasite that causes malaria, according to the study.

They then discarded those that didn’t work against resistant strains or were considered too toxic, whittling the contenders down to 17. Among those, they identified one family of chemicals, called spiroindolones, as the most promising.

Chemists at Diagana’s lab in Singapore then developed about 200 variations of the compound, eventually settling on one called NITD609 that could be mass-produced as a daily pill.

Diagana and colleagues tested it at three doses against four approved malaria drugs in infected mice. At the highest dose NITD609 cleared the parasite from all the animals treated with it. None of the mice tested with the same dose of other drugs was cured.

It also worked against strains of the disease taken from patients on the Thai-Myanmar border, where resistance to chloroquine, an older treatment, has been observed. The researchers plan to test the drug against artemisinin-resistant strains as soon as samples become available, Diagana said.

‘Exciting Work’

The study is “very exciting work,” said Nick White, a professor of tropical medicine at the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok who studies drug-resistant malaria. “These could be a promising new class of antimalarials,” he said in an e-mail.

The research was funded by Novartis, the Wellcome Trust, the Medicines for Malaria Venture, and the U.S. and Singapore governments.

“Can NITD609 replace artemisinin? Unfortunately, as in most drug development, the answer is ‘wait and see’,” Timothy Wells, chief scientific officer at the Geneva-based Medicines for Malaria Venture, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study. “The speed at which NITD609 has moved from a hit to a preclinical drug candidate, however, suggests that we may not have to wait too long.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net

Vulture numbers take flight in Cambodia: group

Cambodia's vulture population now numbers 296 birds, from 260 in 2009

via Khmer NZ

PHNOM PENH — Cambodia's critically endangered vulture population has become the only one in Asia on the rise this year, helped by nest protection and a chain of "restaurants", a wildlife group said Friday.

The country's three species of vulture -- white-rumped, red-headed, and slender billed -- now number 296 birds, from 260 in 2009 and just 166 in 2004, a census by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) found.

WCS said vulture numbers have been dwindling throughout Asia for years, driven in part by deaths caused when the birds eat cattle carcasses laced with an anti-inflammatory drug -- dicloflenac -- which is fatal to them.

The group said Cambodia is the only Asian nation where the drug is rarely used, while the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project, a partnership led by WCS, has introduced a number of innovations to help the birds avoid threats.

Communities have been paid to protect nests, while diclofenac-free food has been supplied at seven "vulture restaurants" -- feeding stations across eastern and northern Cambodia that also allow tourists to see the huge birds up close.

"By protecting nests and supplementing food supplies, we are saving some of the world?s largest and most charismatic birds," Dr Hugo Rainey, WCS technical adviser to the project said in a statement on the group's website.

"Nowhere else in Asia do vultures have such a promising future."

WCS said its census indicated that numbers of white-rumped vultures are increasing, while populations of red-headed and slender billed vultures are stable, though all three are still officially listed as critically endangered.

The group said 36 vulture chicks hatched from colonies across the north and east of the country, almost twice the number in the previous season.

But WCS warned rising pesticide use in agriculture posed a new threat to the vultures, causing more than 20 deaths since 2008.

EU urged to probe Cambodian farmers' rights violations

via Khmer NZ

03 Sep 2010

Source: Reuters

By Prak Chan Thul

PHNOM PENH, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Cambodian rights groups urged the European Union on Friday to investigate what they said were human rights violations by local firms exporting sugar to European countries under a free trade scheme.

"We are calling on the EU to investigate the gross human rights abuses that have been perpetrated in connection with the production of sugar that is being exported to Europe free of tariffs under the Everything but Arms agreement," David Pred, executive director of land rights group Bridges Across Borders Cambodia, told Reuters.

The "Everything But Arms" initiative lets developing countries export certain products tariff-free to the EU.

Pred said the initiative had not benefited poor Cambodian farmers, who had been forced off their land by the authorities and companies wanting to develop sugar production.

"We are simply asking the EU to implement its regulations, which require the European Commission to take precautionary measures to bring Cambodia into compliance with its international obligations," he said.

"If those measures are not successful, the preferential treatment of Cambodian sugar should be suspended in accordance with EC rules," Pred said.

According to local rights group Licadho, at least 1,214 families are involved in land disputes with a sugar plantation operator and senator, Ly Yong Phat, in three provinces. Ly Yong Phat declined to discuss the allegation when contacted on Friday.

Rafael Dochao Moreno, charge d' affaires of the EU delegation to Cambodia, said it was unjustified to blame the EBA initiative for violations of human rights or land rights.

"EBA is a trade preferential scheme that supports the economic and social development of Cambodia," Moreno said.

"We believe that questions related to forced evictions need to be dealt with by the Cambodian government and we encourage an open and inclusive process to address those concerns," he added.

In a bid to attract foreign investment, Cambodia has awarded big land concessions to companies, mainly from China, Vietnam and South Korea, to run mines, power plants and lately sugar plantations.

At the start of 2010, Cambodia launched its first sugar factory in 40 years in the southern province of Koh Kong.

The $90.6 million plant is a joint venture between Cambodia's Koh Kong Sugar Industry Company Limited, Thailand's Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Pcl and Taiwan's Vewong Corp.

Cambodia's Mong Reththy Group is planning to build the country's second-biggest sugar factory, worth $100 million. (Editing by Alan Raybould)

Cambodia’s Blind-Eye

via Khmer NZ

September 3, 2010

Image credit: Davidlohr Bueso

It isn’t the likeliest place to house Asia’s tallest building, but Cambodia has officially made it known that it plans to build a skyscraper that stands 1,820 feet (555 metres) high in its capital city of Phnom Penh. The slightly ‘off’ nature of this news hasn’t gone unnoticed by many. The Associated Press, for instance, states (with a hint of irony?) that the new structure will stand in ‘a dusty city of colonial villas (and) slums,’ while Reuters points out that ‘real estate companies questioned whether there was much demand for a building half a kilometre high in the capital of one of Asia's poorest countries.’

Indeed, it seems ironic that the impoverished nation, which has lately also been garnering international criticism on human rights issues, would be investing such a large sum of public funds into a building that seems to be no more than a status symbol for the government and the few well-to-do. Construction of the proposed tower, as publicly announced this week by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, doesn’t have a scheduled start date yet, but it will cost about $200 million to build.

Meanwhile, there's also talk of another large infrastructure change brewing in the small country—the construction of a titanium mine in Koh Kong Province that's slated to begin next year. This project, which would be the largest mine ever built in Cambodia, has drawn protests locally and from around the world, as it threatens to destroy ‘144,000 hectares of protected forest in the district, as well as ecotourism projects that support 150 families in Chi Pat commune.’

I visited the unforgettable Chi Pat village last year, and spoke to members of the Wildlife Alliance conservation organization there who told me that this area is also an important elephant corridor (the Southwest Elephant Corridor), and that ecotourism (not titanium mines) offers hope for the majestic creatures’ future survival.

Non-profit organization Care2 lays the facts out eloquently on their website, describing the area threatened by the proposed mine, the Cardamom Mountains, as a home also to species including Malayan sun bears, pileated gibbons, Siamese crocodiles and half of Cambodia's bird species—as well as being inhabited by the 100 wild Asian elephants, the country's largest population of the animals.

Care 2 also has said the project will likely damage to rivers key to fisheries, agriculture and drinking water for local populations and wildlife and spoil ecotourism programs in the region that ‘bring revenues and jobs to poor rural people while preserving the natural environment.’

It seems that the Cardamom Mountains are very close to being recognized globally as being a prime example of the conservation movement and an ideal model for community-based and sustainable economic development. But, according to the organization, ‘if the government allows mining, for the sake of a few years of mineral extraction, Southwestern Cambodia would lose forever the forest, the elephant corridor, and the chance for a sustainable future for local communities. All that would be left would be a massive hole in the ground and surrounding ecological devastation.’

One can only hope that the government of this vibrant and resilient nation will come to put its people’s long-term well-being first when making such major decisions that for now seem entirely about short-term economic gains.

Ong-art: Hun Sen ready for talks

via Khmer NZ

Published: 3/09/2010

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is ready for talks with Thai counterpart Abhisit Vejjajiva during the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month, Prime Minister's Office Minister Ong-art Klampaiboon said on Friday on returning from Cambodia.

During his visit to Cambodia, Mr Ong-art met the minister of information and paid a courtesy call on Hun Sen.

Mr Ong-art said Hun Sen was of the opinion that he and Mr Abhisit could meet while attending the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 24.

"He said it is not necessary to wait until the Asem summit. He said they can hold a close-door meeting during the general assembly in October and talk over various issues, including trade, investment or even about Preah Vihear," Mr Ong-art said.

Hun Sen denied having said he did not want to talk with Mr Abhisit, he added.

Earlier, Asean secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said he expected Mr Abhisit and Hun Sen to meet and discuss the Preah Vihear dispute during the Asean-Europe leaders summit in Brussels in October.

The Asem summit, to be attended by leaders from 47 countries from Europe, Asean and other countries in Asia, will be held on Oct 4 and 5.

To strengthen relations between the two countries, Mr Ong-art, who oversees the Public Relations Department, said that an agreement he made with the minister of information allows a team of Cambodian news reporters to be stationed in Thailand.

The Cambodian reporters would monitor news in Thailand, and qoluld have access to various Thai leaders.

Mr Ong-art said he had coordinated with the Foreign Ministry concerning this matter and the ministry had agreed to cooperate.

The news team was expected to arrive in Thailand this month.

A hotline would be set up, probably for a direct contact with the information minister of Cambodia, in case there was a misunderstanding between the two countries.

Arrangements would be made for Thai artists to perform concerts in Cambodia and for Cambodian artists to come to Thailand under an exchange programme.

Mr Ong-art said he explained to Cambodia that the Foreign Affairs Ministry is still in the process of surveying the people's opinions regarding the demarcation of the Thai-Cambodian border under the framework agreed by the Joint Border Committee (JBC). It would also take some time for the Thai government to go through various procedures, including approval from parliament.

He and Hun Sen did not talk about former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Mr Ong-art said.

Torture persists in Cambodia

via Khmer NZ

Friday, September 3, 2010

"The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now." — Rep. Christopher J. Dodd, D-2nd District, March 12, 1975

For his role in the genocide of 2 million of his countrymen after U.S. military aid to his Southeast Asian nation ended in 1975, Kaing Guek Eav, aka Duch, has become the first Khmer Rouge figure to be convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a U.N.-backed tribunal.

From 1976 to 1979, Duch was commandant of S-21, one of the most notorious prisons and interrogation centers in communist dictator Pol Pot's network of torture/death camps. On Duch's orders, 17,000 people, maybe more, were tortured to death for crimes they didn't commit. Their bodies were buried in the mass graves in what came famous as the Cambodian Killing Fields. His camp had only 12 known survivors.

Normally quick to fire off news releases touting his role in shaping foreign relations and international history, Sen. Dodd has been silent about the Duch case. Understandably, the survivors of the Cambodian Holocaust have been more forthcoming. Said a man who survived 12 days of torture at S-21: "I am not satisfied! We are victims two times, once in the Khmer Rouge time and now once again. (Duch's) prison is comfortable, with air-conditioning, food three times a day, fans and everything, I sat on the floor with filth and excrement all around." But this is what can happen when innocent people are left to the mercies of genocidal maniacs so a wet-behind-the-ears U.S. congressman half a world away can score political points with the anti-war left.

For his peacenikery, Mr. Dodd got 35 years in Congress. For exterminating 17,000 people, Duch got 35 years in prison — "11 hours per life," as another S-21 survivor put it — but the sentence was reduced to 19 years to reflect time served and his five years of "illegal detention" in a military prison. Justice is served, said the United Nations.

Gerald Warner of The Daily Telegraph of London offered a different perspective: "The derisory sentence imposed upon a monster testifies to the institutionalized impotence of liberal-controlled societies confronted by evil. The only penalty that could remotely have matched his crimes was death. In so-called 'democratic' countries, however, under the aegis of the EU and U.N. bien-pensant doctrines of clemency, capital punishment is deemed 'barbaric.' That is why Western pseudo-civilization is doomed to extinction at the hands of more ruthless elements. Sparing the life of a creature like Duch is not civilized, it is effete. It does not testify to our regard for the sanctity of human life, but to our rulers' contempt for it.

"A society that hangs a man for stealing a loaf of bread, as ours used to do, has disregard for the sanctity of human life; but a system that does not punish murder with death displays even more indifference to the rights of innocent life, giving sententious liberal cant precedence over the duty to testify to the value of life by insisting that murderers forfeit their own continued existence. Nor, as the inane liberal mantra intones, would it reduce us to the same level as murderers: that is claptrap."

The trial of Steven Hayes, charged with three counts of murder in the 2007 Cheshire home invasion, begins Sept. 13. His lawyer demanded Superior Court Judge Jon Blue abolish Connecticut's death penalty by judicial fiat. Thankfully, Judge Blue does not share the defense's contempt for the sanctity of human life.

Vultures rebound in Cambodia; only Asian country with rising population

via Khmer NZ

mongabay.com

September 02, 2010

The number of threatened vultures in Cambodia is on the rise according to a new survey by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other members of the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project.

The annual census found 296 birds among the country's three vulture species: the white-rumped, red-headed, and slender billed. The population of the latter two species were flat since the 2009 tally, but the white-rumped vulture population rose. All three vulture species are listed as “Critically Endangered” by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

Cambodia is now the only country in Asia where vulture populations are increasing. WCS explains:

Vulture populations in Southeast Asia are primarily threatened by the declining number of large herbivores in the region, but have been largely unaffected by a far greater threat to Asia’s vultures: the veterinary drug diclofenac. Widely used as an anti-inflammatory drug for cattle in South Asia, diclofenac is toxic to vultures, causing death through renal failure and visceral gout to birds that feed on the cattle carcasses and has led to global population declines higher than 99 percent in some vulture species.

This 'venue' of vultures (a group of vultures can also be called a 'committee' or a 'wake') in this image includes slender billed (l), white-rumped (m), and red-headed vultures (r), all of which have persisted in Cambodia while other vulture populations in Asia have all but vanished. Photo credit: Hugh Wright. Caption: WCS

WCS says the vulture population in Cambodia is rebounding as a the result of several programs organized by the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project. Localy commmunities are paid to protect vulture nests, while vulture food sources are supplemented by ‘vulture restaurants,’ feeding stations that also provide an opportunity to see the birds.

“By protecting nests and supplementing food supplies, we are saving some of the world’s largest and most charismatic birds,” stated Dr. Hugo Rainey, WCS technical advisor to the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project. “Nowhere else in Asia do vultures have such a promising future.”

Still the conservation group is cautious. It says rising pesticide use for agriculture, which is shifting from small-holder to industrial operations, is a new threat.

"There have been increasing numbers of poisoned birds recently," said Song Chansocheat, Ministry of Environment and WCS Vulture Project Manager, in a statement. "Educating people about the risk to wildlife and people from incorrect use of poisons is important."

AKP - Agent Kampuchea Press

via Khmer NZ

PM Hun Sen To Meet His Thai Counterpart in Late September

Phnom Penh, September 3, 2010 AKP -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen will meet with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Sept. 24 during the ASEAN-U.S. Meeting to be held in the U.S.

Cambodian Information Minister H.E. Khieu Kanharith told this to reporters on Sept. 2 after a meeting between Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen and visiting Thai Minister to the Thai prime minister’s Office H.E. Ongart Klampaiboon.

Samdech Techo Hun Sen and Abhisit Vejjajiva could meet four times this year – in New York, Brussels, Hanoi and Phnom Penh, said H.E. Khieu Kanharith, adding that the meetings will not only focus on the border issue.

In the meeting, Samdech Techo Hun Sen asked both sides to do their best to minimize their dispute and maximize their cooperation, he said.

For his part, visiting Ongart Klampaiboon said Samdech Hun Sen expressed his goodwill to improve the relationship and promote the cooperation with Thailand, H.E. Khieu Kanharith said.

After the meeting, Mr. Ongart Klampaiboon praised the Cambodian premier Techo Hun Sen for his kindness and goodwill to strengthen the relations between the two countries. --AKP

(By LIM Nary)

-------------------

Cambodia, Thailand Agree to Establish Mechanism to Avoid Misinformation

Phnom Penh, September 3, 2010 AKP -- Cambodia and Thailand agreed to establish a mechanism to avoid confusion and misinformation, following the meeting here yesterday between Cambodian Minister of Information H.E. Khieu Kanharith and Minister to the Thai prime minister’s Office H.E. Ongart Klampaiboon.

The mechanism includes direct communications between the two ministers, close contact between Cambodian Secretary of State at the Information Ministry Nou Sovathero and the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh, and creation of Cambodian-Thai technical commission on information, H.E. Khieu Kanharith told a press conference upon the meeting.

H.E. Ongart Klampaiboon pledged to discuss with Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Phiromya about the visit exchanges between the Cambodian and Thai journalists, and he hoped that the relationship between the two Information ministers would contribute to improve the relationship between the two countries, said H.E. Khieu Kanharith.

Both sides also discussed about the exchange of art performances between Phnom Penh and Bangkok, he said.

The Cambodian information minister further quoted Premier Techo Hun Sen as saying that when we do not have a concrete bridge, we should use a bamboo bridge first, and media or arts exchanges are the steps to transform the bamboo bridge into a concrete one. --AKP

(By SOKMOM Nimul)

-------------------

SAC Holds 2nd Conference to Review Work Performance in the Past 4 Years

Phnom Penh, September 3, 2010 AKP -- Scout Association of Cambodia (SAC) held the 2nd conference here on Sept. 2 to review the work performance in the past 4 years in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister H.E. Sok An, minister in charge of the Office of the Council of Ministers.

The conference was also attended by government officials and as many as 316 members of SAC.

The participants will discuss the amendment of SAC Charter and its internal regulation, as well as conduct an election for leaders of SAC in the 2nd mandate.

After the 1st conference, members of SAC made a great effort in the scout movement, said Mr. Chey Chap, chairman of the National Commissioner of SAC.

Scout Association of Cambodia became a member of the world organization of scout movement in July, 2008 and the membership certificate was conferred to SAC in 38th conference of the world organization of scout movement held in Jeju island of S. Korea on July 14-18, 2008, he said.

H.E. Sok An appreciated SAC for its efforts in scout movement until being recognized as a member of the world organization of scout movement.

He urged SAC to try the best to train and educate themselves, either mental or physical to be good citizens.

He also asked the participants to hold a deep discussion on the amendment of the scout charter and the internal regulation to ensure the proper importance in response to the real situation of the country. --AKP

(By THOU Peou)

-------------------

DPM Keat Chhon Meets IMF Representative for the Asia and Pacific Region

Phnom Penh, September 3, 2010 AKP -- Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance H.E. Keat Chhon met here on Sept. 1 with visiting Representative of International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the Asia and Pacific Region Mr. Olaf Unteroberdoerster.

In the meeting, Mr. Olaf Unteroberdoerster praised Cambodia for the economic stability and development in the time of world financial crisis. He also appreciated Cambodia for having effectively used IMF’s resources for the country’s social and economic development.

In reply, H.E. Keat Chhon highly valued the good cooperation between Cambodia and IMF, which he said helped strengthen and develop Cambodia’s economic and financial sectors. --AKP

(By Théng)

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80,734 Tourists Visit Preah Vihear in First Six Months

Phnom Penh, September 3, 2010 AKP -- During the first six months of this year, the total number of visitors to Preah Vihear province, about 294 kilometers north of Phnom Penh capital city, saw an increase.

According to a report of the provincial authorities, for the first semester of 2010, some 80,734 tourists, of them 5,773 foreigners, visited the province.

The report attributed the increase to the province’s cultural and eco-tourism potentiality – especially the Preah Vihear Temple, a World Heritage Site, which stands on the Dangrek Mountain at the border with Thailand – and the local authorities’ efforts in promoting the province’s tourism.

The provincial authorities have so far published 3,000 copies of the book on Preah Vihear’s tourism resorts and products, of them 1,700 are in Khmer and the rest in English, it said. --AKP

(By KOM Heng)

Exiled Cambodians arrive

Sim Loeuth, aka Louis, a 43-year-old Cambodian national deported from Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, talks to reporters outside the gates of the immigration police offices after arriving across the street at Phnom Penh International Airport yesterday. 2010 Rick Valenzuela

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:03 Brooke Lewis and Mom Kunthear

FIVE Cambodians, including one woman, arrived in the Kingdom yesterday after being deported from the United States as part of a controversial operation that the American embassy in Phnom Penh described as an example of “excellent bilateral cooperation”.

The new arrivals bring to 234 the number of Cambodians who have been deported from the US as the result of an agreement signed by the two countries in 2002. Only three of those are women.

All the deportees are former legal permanent US residents who have served prison sentences or been given suspended sentences for aggravated felonies, a classification that was expanded in 1996 to include some crimes that were previously misdemeanours.

The five returnees, who arrived at Phnom Penh International Airport at 11:20am and were immediately transferred into the custody of the Interior Ministry’s Immigration Department, were among a group of nearly 50 Cambodians held in the US in advance of being deported.

Activists in two US cities have decried the latest round of deportations. Deported Diaspora, a Boston-based organisation, collected more than 2,000 signatures on a petition that was scheduled to be sent to the US government last week. The petition asked the government to prevent the deportations from proceeding.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Tuesday that about 80 people had attended a rally on Monday to call attention to the case of 35-year-old Hov Ly Kol, who was expected to be deported this week.

But the US embassy said yesterday that the deportations were necessary.

“Every sovereign nation recognises the need to receive their citizens back to their countries, and both the Kingdom of Cambodia and the United States share this commitment,” the embassy said in an emailed statement. The embassy also said it remained “committed to helping the returnees successfully to reintegrate into Cambodian society”.

Cambodian officials have been largely mum on the details of the operation, offering no information about the individual deportees and scant information on how they were being processed.

Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, predicted on Monday that a group of 10 returnees would arrive this week, but said yesterday that he could not confirm when the other five would arrive.

He acknowledged that it may be difficult for returnees to adjust to life in a new country, but said the Kingdom would “welcome them because they are still Cambodian citizens and they do not have American nationality”.

He referred further questions to the Immigration Department, which referred questions to National Police spokesman Kirt Chantharith, who could not be reached for comment.

A deportee who arrived in Cambodia six years ago and went to meet the new arrivals at the Immigration Department facility where they were held yesterday afternoon said “a lot” of returnees end up homeless and jobless. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he accused the US embassy of not doing enough to help deportees adapt to life in Cambodia, a country with which many of them are unfamiliar.

“Most of these guys are shocked, traumatised, separated from their families. Someone has to help these guys stabilise mentally,” he said, and called for the embassy to facilitate reintegration by providing education, job placement and clinical supervision.

As he left the Immigration Department at about 4pm yesterday, Luis Sim, a 43-year-old deportee who was released into the care of family members in Phnom Penh, said he had not been to Cambodia since he was 12.

Though he said he was “very happy to come back”, he also expressed some trepidation. “I don’t know how they live over here,” he said.

SRP points finger at Vietnam

Photo by: Heng Chivoan
Thach Le prays after his hearing at Takeo provincial court earlier this week.

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:03 Cheang Sokha

THIS week’s conviction of four men for distributing anti-government leaflets in Takeo province may have come at the behest of the Vietnamese government, an opposition lawmaker said yesterday.

Yont Tharo, a Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian and head of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Cultural Centre, connected the convictions with comments made by a top Vietnamese security official in Phnom Penh last month. The official praised Cambodia’s cooperation in disabling anti-Vietnamese “plots” – especially the activities of Khmer Krom activists.

“The sentence of the [men] in Takeo was in parallel to the cooperation raised by Vietnam, on the border issue and the issue of Khmer Krom activists. We see that [Cambodia] has clearly followed the requests from Vietnam,” Yont Tharo said.

On August 3, Vietnamese Vice Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang told a conference in Phnom Penh that “cooperation and positive assistance” from Cambodia had helped to “disable plots and operations of hostile forces opposing the Vietnamese revolution”.

In his speech, Tran singled out Khmer Krom activists in the Mekong Delta region as a target of the joint efforts, which he said had recently led to the arrest of one person for illegal possession of weapons and three others for anti-Vietnamese leafletting in the border area.

In the case heard in Takeo provincial court on Monday, three of the men – including one employee of local rights group Licadho – were jailed after being sentenced to two years in prison. A fourth suspect was convicted in absentia and sentenced to three years in jail.

The three were arrested in May for distributing anti-government leaflets in Takeo province, which borders Vietnam, ahead of the January 7 Victory Day celebrations marking the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime.

The fliers reportedly stated that the day should not be viewed as one of liberation, but as the day Cambodia became “abused and occupied” by Vietnam, which supported the overthrow of Pol Pot.

Takeo provincial police commissioner Ouk Samnang could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, did not comment specifically on whether Vietnam helped in the arrest of the three men, but said Cambodia maintained close law enforcement links with many other countries, including the United States, France, Australia, Thailand and Laos.

“We do not concentrate just on Vietnam,” Khieu Sopheak said. “But the cooperation with neighbouring countries is like tooth and tongue.”

He said the three men were arrested for publishing disinformation about current Cambodian leaders and “looking down” on former King Norodom Sihanouk.

KRT lawyers renew call for inquiry

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:03 James O'Toole

LAWYERS for former Khmer Rouge Brother Number Two Nuon Chea have appealed a decision by judges at Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal not to investigate allegations of political interference by government officials.

In a filing dated Wednesday, the lawyers said a decision from the court’s Office of the Co-Investigating Judges last month to reject their request was part of a pattern of placing “considerations of expediency above fair trial requirements”.

“The defence cannot help but feel that the OCIJ is afraid of somehow embarrassing the Cambodian authorities” with an investigation, the filing said.

In outlining their concerns about government interference, the lawyers pointed to statements by Prime Minister Hun Sen and others that six senior officials summoned by the court were not obligated to appear. They also suggested that Cambodian Co-Investigating Judge You Bunleng had been pressured into backing out of pending investigations in the court’s third and fourth cases that his international colleague, Marcel Lemonde, was conducting on his own.

A report to be released by the Open Society Justice Initiative today praises the court for the completion of its first case last month, but says concerns about political interference should be resolved before the second case goes to trial.

The OSJI also cites the importance of the court’s securing donor funding to make up for budgetary shortfalls. Currently, the court’s international side is short US$6.3 million for this year, while the domestic side is short $3.6 million, the report says.

Court spokesman Reach Sambath said Cambodian judicial and legal officers at the court had not been paid salaries in two months because of budgetary concerns, but were expected to be paid next week.

United Nations court spokesman Lars Olsen said fundraising was a “priority” for Clint Williamson, the UN’s special expert to the secretary general for the tribunal, as he travels to Cambodia this week to meet with officials from the Kingdom and donor countries.

State urges discretion in border coverage

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:03 Vong Sokheng

OFFICIALS from the Ministry of Information met yesterday with their Thai counterparts in Phnom Penh, emphasising the need for media outlets to report accurately and avoid fanning the flames of the border dispute.

The meeting came just weeks after Cambodia and Thailand returned their respective ambassadors and restored full diplomatic ties following the rift over Phnom Penh’s appointment of fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economics adviser. Thaksin, wanted in Thailand on graft charges, resigned from the position last month.

Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said that as the countries work to repair their frayed relationship, their media must avoid needlessly stoking nationalistic passions.

“I appreciate the mature attitude of media from the two countries who don’t publish reports that will cause hatefulness or racism among the populations of the two countries, even though we’ve had problems in diplomacy,” Khieu Kanharith said.

Media outlets have often played a contentious role in Thai-Cambodian relations. In 2003, rioters burned down the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh following a false report, cited in a speech by Prime Minister Hun Sen, that a Thai actress had claimed the famed Angkor Wat temple complex belonged to Thailand.

More recently, Bangkok’s The Nation newspaper quoted Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva as saying last month that Bangkok would consider “both diplomatic and military means” to solve the disagreement with Cambodia over a patch of land adjacent to Preah Vihear temple. Hun Sen cited this quotation in a letter to the president of the United Nations Security Council, calling it an “obvious threat”.

Officials in Bangkok, however, later said that Abhisit’s statements had been misquoted and taken out of context, citing Thailand’s commitment to a 2000 Memorandum of Understanding with Cambodia that provides for peaceful demarcation of the border.

“We want to solve these problems peacefully, without the use of force,” Abhisit said last month, according to the Bangkok Post.

Moeun Chhean Narridh, director of the Cambodian Institute for Media Studies, said reporters had a responsibility to carefully handle the “very sensitive and delicate” issues at the centre of the Thai-Cambodian conflict. He said he worried about the tendency of news outlets in both countries to trade in inflated nationalism and war-mongering.

“The media has a role to not take sides and avoid conflict,” he said.

Ongart Klampaiboon, Abhisit’s Office Minister and the leader of the visiting delegation, said dubious media reports on the dispute were a continuing problem. On Wednesday, Ongart said, several Thai media outlets incorrectly reported that Hun Sen had backed out of a proposed meeting with Abhisit at an international summit scheduled for next month in Belgium.

But just as news outlets need to be discerning in their reporting, officials from the two countries should be discrete in their communications with one another, Moeun Chhean Narridh said, and avoid doing diplomacy through the media.

“The government should not rely on the media as statements representing any side,” he said.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JAMES O’TOOLE

Buddhist layman guilty of rape

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:03 Chrann Chamroeun

PHNOM Penh Municipal Court yesterday found a 56-year-old Kandal province layman guilty of raping two women, one who was underage at the time, and sentenced him to 17 years in prison.

Ros Sarin, a layman and director of construction at Sovan Thormareach pagoda in Ponhea Leu district, was arrested by military police last year and charged with raping and committing indecent acts against a 35-year-old woman and a 20-year-old woman. The latter woman was 14 when she was first assaulted.

The attacks date back to 1994. A complaint filed by the victims accused Ros Sarin of assaulting them in 1994, 2003, 2004 and 2009. It also accused him of raping many other women, some of whom were also underage.

During that period, Ros Sarin counselled women on “love problems”, and he often gave them “holy water and magic potions” during these sessions, said defence lawyer Lim Vanna.

The court also found Ros Sarin’s assistant, Heng Samoeun, guilty of serving as an accomplice to the attacks, concluding that he was aware of them. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Judge Duch Kimsorn said the court had ordered both men to pay a total of 50 million riels (US$11,862) in compensation to the two victims.

Te Chamnan, a lawyer for both victims, applauded the ruling. “I am very happy with the court’s decision, which is acceptable and just for the two victims,” he said.

But Lim Vanna said he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to convict his client.

Hang Borey, president of the International Communities Organisation of Cambodia, contended that the complaint was merely a ploy to get money out of Ros Sarin, who as director of construction was responsible for raising money for the pagoda from outside donors.

Man says court officials extorted

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:02 Meas Sokchea

A JUDGE and deputy prosecutor at Battambang provincial court requested US$13,000 to secure the release of nine people arrested in a raid on a guesthouse suspected of doubling as a brothel, the owner of the guesthouse said yesterday.

Khan Socheat, owner of Cobra III Guesthouse and Restaurant in Battambang town, said he had filed a complaint to the Anticorruption Unit on Tuesday, alleging that Judge Phlong Visal and deputy prosecutor Long Hokmeng “extorted” the money from him in exchange for the release of nine workers.

Police arrested the nine during a raid on the guesthouse in April 2009, suspecting it of acting as a front for a brothel. Khan Socheat said his employees were released the following month, after he paid $13,000 at the request of the two officials.

“I have documents, evidence, I guarantee it. It is not an exaggeration or an illegal accusation. It is an offence of extortion,” he said. “I lodged a complaint to the ACU [because] the officials have taken their power, taken rights provided by the state for their personal interests.”

Khan Sovan, Khan Socheat’s brother, who helped filed the complaint, said he wanted the ACU to initiate legal action against the officials.

“There have never been people suing the court, only the court taking people to jail,” he said. “We wait to see about [ACU head] Om Yentieng’s achievement, whether or not he can do it.”

When contacted yesterday, Om Yentieng said he had not yet seen the complaint from Khan Socheat, and that the body – which held a swearing-in ceremony for some officers on Tuesday – had received seven or eight complaints so far.

Phlong Visal and Long Hokmeng could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Evictees face a difficult transition

Photo by: Will Baxter
A former resident of Phnom Penh’s Dey Krahorm community carries her sick child past the shack where she now lives at a relocation site in Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district. Families living at the site say it is prone to flooding, and that there are no job opportunities in the area.

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:02 May Titthara and Will Baxter

Kandal province

OVER the past eight months, Chork Teng has become an adept hunter of frogs and freshwater crab, stalking her prey at night in the rice fields near her ramshackle home in Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district.

But she laments the fact that she has been forced to adapt to this scavenger’s lifestyle.

A former resident of the Dey Krahorm community in central Phnom Penh, hers was among the 144 families evicted in a violent operation in January 2009, when police and construction workers employed by local developer 7NG Group levelled all remaining homes at the site.

The families were initially relocated to Dangkor district. Then, on December 12, 2009, a total of 467 former Dey Krahorm families and vendors were relocated yet again to the Tang Khiev community in Ponhea Leu’s Phnom Bat commune, said Va Savoeun, the community’s chief.

However, as a result of the lack of employment opportunities at the relocation site, which is over 40 kilometres from Phnom Penh, more than 240 families have since returned to the city to seek jobs, Va Savoeun said.

Chork Teng said that before the eviction she had been a construction worker.

“But now I only have 1,000 riels (about US$0.25) in my pocket, and when my child gets sick, I have to wait for support from an NGO doctor,” she said.

“I don’t have enough money to start a small business here,” she said. “We want to find jobs in Phnom Penh, but we have no money to rent a room there.”

Va Savoeun said yesterday that the government should provide jobs for his community. “They were happy to get land, but if we only have land and not jobs, how can we live?”

He said the families had been given 4-metre-by-6-metre plots on which they had built makeshift shelters of wood, mud, tarpaulins and corrugated tin. But many of the shacks do not even have walls, and the site is prone to flooding.

Meanwhile, 7NG has moved ahead with plans to construct a fitness centre on part of the former Dey Krahorm site.

Chan Vichet, a former Dey Krahorm representative, said it was ridiculous that 7NG Group had evicted an entire community when it had no clear development plan for the site.

“If the company is just going to put up a fence around the land and construct football fields, the government should give the land back to the residents,” he said. “I cannot find the words to say how upset I am about this development project.”

Meng Phally, 50, said, “I cry when I think about the fact that we have been forced to live in an area that floods, so that the company could construct a football field.”

Srey Chanthou, managing director of 7NG Group, declined to comment yesterday. In June, he told the Post that the company had no official plans for the site beyond constructing an exclusive fitness centre for its employees.

Mann Chhoeun, former Phnom Penh deputy governor, said it was “kindly of the company” to provide the 467 former Dey Krahorm families with land in Phnom Bat commune.

But Am Sam Ath, technical supervisor for the rights group Licadho, said it was an “injustice” that the company “has not developed anything on the site besides an office and football fields”.

Heng Samrin defends deputy

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:02 Tep Nimol

NATIONAL Assembly first deputy president Nguon Nhel said yesterday that Assembly President Heng Samrin had written a letter defending him against charges from the opposition that he employed an excessive number of advisers.

Last week, a group of 13 lawmakers from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party wrote to Heng Samrin alleging that Nguon Nhel employed 71 advisers and asking for an investigation of this “irregularity”.

Nguon Nhel said yesterday, however, that the National Assembly president had come to his defence.

“Samdech Heng Samrin’s note said that having advisers is, according to the law, the indisputable right of all officials at the leadership level,” Nguon Nhel said. “This is justice for me, and it was a reasonable note according to the law.”

The SRP lawmakers alleged in their letter that the government pays a total of US$26,730 in expenses each month for Nguon Nhel’s advisers.

Among these advisers, the SRP said, is Nhem Thavy, a lawmaker from Kampong Thom province who is also Nguon Nhel’s brother-in-law.

Nguon Nhel said earlier this week that he was considering bringing a defamation suit against the SRP lawmakers who had written the letter. He said yesterday, however, that he considered the matter closed and was no longer considering such a suit.

SRP parliamentarian Ho Vann said yesterday that the opposition members had no intention of defaming Nguon Nhel with their letter, and were only seeking information.

“We asked so that transparency can be ensured for the National Assembly, parliamentarians and citizens,” Ho Vann said. “It was only a request for explanation.”

Nguon Nhel has declined to say the number of advisers he employs.

“I abide by the law and Royal decrees, and all requests are made in accordance with administrative law,” he said yesterday.

Cheam Yeap, head of the National Assembly’s Finance and Banking Committee, said this week that he employed three advisers, but that senior officials were authorised to employ larger staffs.

Rainsy appeal set for next month

via Khmer NZ

Friday, 03 September 2010 15:02 Meas Sokchea

THE Appeal Court will next month hear the case against opposition leader Sam Rainsy and two Svay Rieng villagers convicted of uprooting wooden demarcation posts on the border with Vietnam, the court said this week.

In a citation issued Monday, court prosecutor Nget Sarath ordered the three defendants to appear on October 5, when the court will hear their appeal against a verdict handed down by Svay Rieng provincial court in January.

Sam Rainsy, who is living in self-exile abroad, was sentenced in absentia to two years jail, and the two villagers – Meas Srey, 40, and Prum Chea, 41 – received one-year sentences.

The three were charged with racial incitement and the destruction of public property following an incident last October in which Sam Rainsy led villagers in pulling up the posts in Chantrea district during a protest against alleged Vietnamese encroachments.

Sam Rainsy’s lawyer, Choung Choungy, said yesterday that he was ready to defend his client against a sentence he described as “unjust”. “I have already prepared myself to defend him. The people cannot accept the court’s decision,” he said.

Sam Sokong, the lawyer for two jailed villagers, said his clients were being held at Kandal provincial court, and that they were suffering health problems because of their captivity.