Working conditions have improved – Better Factories

http://www.fibre2fashion.com

August 29, 2009 (Cambodia)

Better Factories, Cambodia, an organisation affiliated to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has reported that the compliance of labour laws has improved amongst hundreds of factories, but these gains may be nullified due to the slowdown in the global economy.

Better Factories, works towards creating better working conditions in the manufacturing sector also acknowledged that around 60,000 jobs have been lost in the garment manufacturing sector since the last few months.

But experts from the apparel sector, question the figure of job losses quoted by Better Factories by saying that there are many units which are not registered with the ILO, since only exporting companies are obliged to register themselves.

There are over a 100 apparel manufacturing units which work on sub-contract from the bigger units and the working conditions of workers is very worse in these plants. Experts suggest that if the country wants to match the standards of China and Vietnam, these factories will also need to be brought under the ambit of ILO.

The report also delves upon the repeated number of strikes taking place in the garment sector in the country and says that the number of strikes have doubled in number from 12 to 23 in the first six months of 2009, with 17 of them reported from the garment export manufacturing sector.

Experts are of the opinion that these repeated strikes are hampering production cycles of export companies and bringing disrepute to the industry, which could prove to be harmful in the long run, when buyers decide to place orders with countries, with relatively less labour problems like India and Bangladesh.

According to the Free Trade Union of Workers, 78 factories have closed so far this year and the Commerce Ministry has projected a negative growth of 30 percent for garment exports in 2009. Experts have advised factories, not to cut wages as part of cost cutting measures to face challenges.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

Fugitive Denim

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/

Saturday, August 29, 2009 , By Hilton Yip, The China Post

In this fascinating book, Rachel Louise Snyder takes a piece of everyday clothing, the humble but respected pair of jeans, and proceeds, through demonstrating the wide-ranging chain of globalization, to examine the different people and processes that are involved in making a pair of jeans from start to finish. Taking readers on a journey across the world, from cotton fields in Azerbaijan to designers in Italy to factories in Cambodia and China, Snyder presents an informative and moving account that showcases globalized manufacturing and the stories of the people who make their livelihood off of jeans manufacturing.

Touching on cotton picking, cultural clashes, global trade laws and factory labor standards, Fugitive Denim is part social commentary, part business book, and part primer for international trade and politics. With a lot of meticulous, detailed research and reporting, Snyder presents the stories of factory workers, denim designers and factory monitors, as well as the nitty-gritty of processes such as judging the quality of raw cotton and designing denim for making jeans. The book tends to veer a bit towards tedium in the latter parts due to the high amount of information.

Along with the stories of the people, Snyder also outlines the challenges faced by their countries, such as the shock and resignation among Italians of their famous clothing industry, including jeans of course moving to China.

The book features some interesting viewpoints that challenge conventional Western thoughts regarding factory workers and sweatshops. For instance, in Cambodia, one of the world's least developed and poorest countries, Snyder points out that garment factory workers often make about US$50 a month. Civil servants like police and teachers make an average of US$25-30. While many in the West are tempted to see these garment workers as largely oppressed, and some of them truly do suffer harsh work conditions, the work is also a form of liberation for these workers from a life of rural hardships and even restrictive cultural norms.

Despite the wealth of information and in-depth personal stories, the book is not very compelling due to a lack of a direct, overall message. There also isn't a direct connection that links the different people, for example the factory that the featured workers work in isn't the one that makes the jeans designed by the Italian designers profiled, other than that they're all vital in the manufacturing of jeans. Nevertheless it's still an insightful book that does well to show the human face behind globalization.

The Washington Post's Support For Torture

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

by Andrew

In the latest release from those in the Bush administration and CIA who authorized and supported America's torture of prisoners of war, we get the following story today in the Washington Post. It details that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed gave up a wealth of information in the period after he was tortured by Cheney and Bush via the CIA. It does not and cannot prove that his information could not have been procured by legal or ethical interrogation methods. But what is interesting to me is the Washington Post's editorial and institutional position in favor of not calling waterboarding and sleep deprivation what they have always been called in every court of law and every society including the US in recent times: torture. They refuse to use the word "torture" for an act that is memorialized in Cambodia's museum of torture. That's how deeply the Washington Post is enmeshed in the pro-torture forces in Washington. The refusal to use this word is a clear, political act by the Post in defense of the Bush administration's torture and abuse policies. It places the Washington Post as an adjunct to the Bush-Cheney policy of torturing thousands of prisoners across every theater of war and across the globe.

For example, here's a classic couple of sentences where you have to strain to avoid the t-word:
Over a few weeks, he was subjected to an escalating series of coercive methods, culminating in 7 1/2 days of sleep deprivation, while diapered and shackled, and 183 instances of waterboarding. After the month-long torment, he was never waterboarded again.

"Coercive methods". "Torment". Notice something missing? Now read the piece stripped of its Orwellian newspeak:

Over a few weeks, he was subjected to an escalating series of brutal torture sessions - he was shackled naked to maintain a stress position for a month, the shackles cutting into his wrists and forcing his feet to swell painfully, culminating in 7 1/2 days of sleep deprivation, subjected to days and nights of loud noise and bright lights, while diapered and shackled, and 183 instances of waterboarding. After the month-long torture, he was not waterboarded again.

Now just imagine that we heard news that the soldier still captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan - mysteriously absent from the media since he went AWOL - had been subjected to these techniques. Do you believe that the Washington Post would not use the word "torture" to describe them? Of course they would. They have described John McCain's experience in Vietnam as torture, and yet what he endured was nothing like as brutal as what was done to KSM. Now check out the macho swaggering of Reuel Marc Berecht in the WSJ today, and Cheney's grandstanding on Fox tomorrow, and you see what the hard right, which now includes the Washington Post (having purged their only opinion columnist prepared to speak truth to torture power, Dan Froomkin), is doing.

And look at the cloak of anonymity given to "one former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the interrogations were carried out." This Bushie is the main force in the piece arguing - by inference, not provable data - that torture worked. Why is he given anonymity, especially since he is describing war crimes he and others conspired to commit? The WaPo explains: "he requested anonymity because the events are still classified." What? He is analyzing a document that has been declassified. There is absolutely no reason for the Post to give him anonymity, except to promote the neoconservative project of torture as the core means for the war against terrorism.

The fight for America to remain a torturing nation is resilient. It's what the neocons believe in: the torture of terror suspects, especially Arab or Muslim ones, even if there is no imminent threat of a WMD (and the interrogations found that al Qaeda was nowhere near a nuclear capacity). The Post omits but for one quote the fact that many regarded many of his claims after being tortured as being false. Here's how the WaPo deals with this dynamic: "Not all of it was accurate, but it was quite extensive." They omit KSM's statement to the International Red Cross that he gave large amounts of disinformation as well. And look at what the report said it discovered through torture:

Mohammed told interrogators that after the Sept. 11 attacks, his "overriding priority" was to strike the United States, but that he "realized that a follow-on attack would be difficult because of security measures." Most of the plots, as a result, were "opportunistic and limited," according to the summary.

So the US became a torturing nation to avoid plots that were "opportunistic and limited." Remember how the chief intellectual architect of the torture apparatus, Charles Krauthammer, defended torture solely in the case of ticking time bomb? There were no ticking time bombs, but the US used torture anyway. The lone hypothetical became instantly a rationale for torturing and abusing anyone for any reason suspected of being a terrorist. The rare exception became an ongoing government program of torture, absent any imminent threat of the scale that Krauthammer used to defend an elite cadre of professional torturers.

The fight must go on, as it must against the forces resisting every other kind of change in Washington, change that the American people insisted upon last fall. And the more vulnerable many neocons sense Obama is in the polls, the more furiously they will go about playing the Dolchstoss card, accusing the president of allying with terrorists to kill the American people. After the next attack, they will not blame al Qaeda, they will blame Obama. And they will do all they can to restore torture as the pre-eminent form of interrogation for the leader of the free world. This is the threat we face. Electing Obama was just the start of restoring the US as a nation governed by the rule and core moral decency. We are learning that more acutely with every day that passes.

39 years after jungle battle, unit awarded

Courtesy of John Poindexter Cavalrymen, along with an infantryman (dressed in the ammunition vest), exhibit wildlife found in the Vietnamese jungle

Courtesy of John Poindexter An Alpha Troop platoon in a tight daytime defensive position while on patrol

Courtesy of John Poindexter A few of the Alpha Troop members at rest, along with a South Vietnamese soldier

Courtesy of John Poindexter Cavalrymen pose outside of an M113, nicknamed "Hussar."

http://www.armytimes.com

By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Saturday Aug 29, 2009

The news filtered down to Capt. John Poindexter and his troops around noon.

Four kilometers away from their position, an infantry company was surrounded by a battalion’s worth of North Vietnamese fighters. The Americans were running low on ammunition, and casualties were mounting.

Poindexter reached a decision — a decision he and his soldiers knew they had to make.

“The choice, to me, was one of [the] certainty of suffering versus a lifetime of guilt,” he said. “It was a collective realization of what we were getting ourselves into, but the consequence was to see a hundred men killed.”

For the next eight hours, Poindexter and his soldiers would battle the jungle and a determined, dug-in enemy force as they fought their way to their fellow soldiers.

The battle that day, March 26, 1970, was fierce and bloody.

But almost 40 years would pass before Poindexter and his men would be recognized for their courage and valor.

This fall, A Troop, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, will receive the Presidential Unit Citation, a unit award equivalent to the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest valor award behind only the Medal of Honor.

The award for A Troop is the result of five years of painstakingly detailed work led by Poindexter, who learned almost 30 years after what he calls the “anonymous battle” that his men never received the individual awards for which they were nominated.

The battle was mentioned briefly in a book Poindexter read called “Into Cambodia,” by Keith William Nolan. In the book, one of the soldiers was quoted as saying he and his fellow soldiers were nominated for awards but never received them.

“I resolved then, 30 years later, to resolve that terrible wrong,” said Poindexter, who volunteered for the Army in 1966, when he was 22, even though he had a job and was attending graduate school in New York.

Poindexter served in Vietnam from June 1969 to July 1970, leaving the Army after his tour.

In 2003, he began his research into the Presidential Unit Citation, tracking down former soldiers for their statements and assembling documentation. He spent a year writing the nomination packet for the award, detailing his soldiers’ actions from so long ago.

Poindexter submitted the nomination in late 2004, and it was approved in late 2008 by the Secretary of the Army. The Army issued the general order for the award in April 2009.

According to the citation for the award, “after being exhausted by months of continuous combat operations, [the soldiers of A Troop] volunteered to rescue Company C, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, a 1st Cavalry Division unit surrounded by an overwhelming enemy force near the Cambodian border, in The Dog’s Face, War Zone C, in Tay Ninh Province of the Republic of Vietnam.”

The soldiers of C Company were fighting a battalion of the 272nd North Vietnamese Army Regiment.

The enemy resisted hours of bombardment and was expected to “destroy or capture the 100 American infantrymen within hours,” according to the citation.

According to the citation, “Troop A skillfully penetrated four kilometers of nearly impassable jungle terrain and unhesitatingly mounted a fierce assault directly into the heavily fortified North Vietnamese Army position. The soldiers faced down “withering” machine gun, automatic rifle, rocket-propelled grenade and recoilless rifle fire as they forced the enemy away from C Company and inflicted heavy casualties.

Poindexter estimates there were at least 75 U.S. casualties that day, including seven dead.

Poindexter said he is proudest of his men.

His soldiers “had options, mostly didn’t have to be there, and once there, didn’t have to perform as they did, but chose to on their own volition,” he said. “But [they] then were not recognized for their valor for 39 years.”

The award represents the sacrifices made by all who served in Vietnam, Poindexter said.

WTO Delhi meet to bat for poor nations

http://www.business-standard.com

Sudheer Pal Singh & Jyoti Mukul
New Delhi August 30, 2009

Meeting will confine discussion to processes involved in building consensus among members

The informal ministerial meeting on the Doha trade negotiations to be held in New Delhi next week will throw open the issue of inclusiveness of developing economies, particularly the least developed countries (LDCs). The meeting will confine discussion to processes involved in building consensus among members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and will not delve into the “content” of the negotiations or specific themes.

The inclusiveness concern of developing nations forms a part of the set of issues identified by the commerce ministry to be taken up for discussion in the ministerial meeting on a priority basis.

In a paper circulated among 36 participating nations for discussion in the meeting of senior officials, India has asked these countries to examine the extent of focus on development concerns of developing economies, particularly the least developed ones, even as systems are put in place to boost trade.

The official-level talks will happen a day before the ministerial talks begin on September 3.

The issues identified by the ministry in the paper form the blueprint for the direction the negotiators could give to the WTO ministers after the talks.

The paper asks the participants to deliberate on how can “the modalities for LDCs be tailored to ensure effective market access for their products as well as to provide meaningful assistance for them to build capacity in order to benefit from this round”.

The LDC group comprises the world’s 32 poorest countries in the WTO with common interests and includes Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Congo, Maldives, Nepal, Tanzania, Myanmar and the Central African Republic, among others. Tanzania is the coordinator of the group.

India has also asked officials to dwell upon how the timeline of 2010 for concluding the Doha round can be met and if it is possible to build sufficient consensus for another informal ministerial meeting to review the progress by December this year.

The paper also directs officials to ensure progress in areas other than the conventional issues of agriculture and the non-agricultural market access (NAMA).

“Negotiations in Geneva have so far focused on building consensus on agriculture and NAMA. This is in consonance with the sequencing envisaged in the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration,” said the discussion paper. Another important point of consideration in the New Delhi ministerial is abstaining from any new approach towards the negotiations.

“Of late, new ideas have been floated to alter the concept of the modalities, for instance, enhanced transparency, a no-surprises package and complete modalities. In light of the 2010 timeline, members may like to reflect on the necessity for and the implications of changing a tried and tested process,” said the paper.

Last month, referring to this newly-proposed approach of skipping the discussions on modalities, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma had said, “This is not agreeable to India. There should be a discussion on modalities first.”

During discussions in the WTO Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) last month, negotiators, while welcoming the improving “signals of political commitment” to Doha, had expressed concern over a host of unresolved issues, not just in agriculture and NAMA but also in services and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights.

The commerce ministry has said that the objective of the Delhi ministerial meeting is to “weave together” the separate signals of commitment to move the multilateral process forward. The meeting, in which members from around 36 countries are likely to participate, “is not aimed at any specific agenda. It only tries to build the consensus on how ministers would like to see the process of negotiation fast-tracked”, Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar had said last week.

For love of tomatoes: Couple has cultivated a bountiful life

Saran Gnoato, originally from Cambodia, grows tomatoes in her garden at home on Netop Drive in South Providence. The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

http://www.projo.com

Saturday, August 29, 2009
By Mark Reynolds
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — Saran Gnoato and her husband are an unlikely couple who came to Rhode Island from opposite sides of the world, overcoming war and cultural barriers to discover a mutual affection for a ripe, juicy, homegrown tomato.

The tomatoes they grow in the backyard of their Elmwood home from imported seeds have resisted the blight that has affected many tomato crops this summer. And they are big. Some weigh in at 2½ pounds.

The success the couple have had growing the fruit may have something to do with the place tomatoes have had in their lives.

Gnoato says that tomatoes make her happy, and she realizes now that what her mother and her grandmother told her when she was a little girl was quite true. They told her that a homegrown garden would help her “eat good and look good and see the flowers,” she says. She could do it herself and never need to worry about anything, they told her.

“It’s true,” she says. “I have a happy life. You can see. My husband comes home from work. We have a beautiful house and a great yard where everyone wants to be. You can see.”

Her adoring neighbors, quite aware of the tomato-growing talents next door, visit often. Gnoato, 53, sends them home each summer with their hands full. Sometimes she even pushes her produce on strangers who pass by her Netop Drive home.

Gnoato’s family never bought vegetables from the market when she was growing up in western Cambodia in the ’60s.

Each morning when she headed off to school, she saw her mother and grandmother tending tomatoes and cucumbers and rosemary in the garden.

The tomatoes were her favorite. She relished the flavor and texture of the fruit’s skin.

This bucolic farming life came to a violent end in 1975 when the brutal regime of Pol Pot came to power. She was 19 years old when the Khmer Rouge took control of her neighborhood.

One of her older brothers, an army captain, was slain.

The Khmer Rouge corralled the family into a work camp, where she had to make do without fresh vegetables. The Khmer would dilute two or three cans of soup in a massive bowl of water to serve a large group of people. Death was everywhere, she recalls.

“They wanted to kill us,” she says.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died of starvation, disease, torture and overwork in the camps during Pol Pot’s four-year reign, which focused on creating a peasant society — the communist ideal in the view of the Khmer Rouge.

Visions of a happier, more-nourished existence crept into Gnoato’s mind whenever the work at the camp ceased and she had a chance to sit down, often on a hillside. In those moments, she told herself she didn’t need to be rich if she ever made it to a free country. No. She only needed good food.

Tomatoes.

She escaped with her parents and three siblings in the fall of 1979. They hiked into southern Thailand, where they were held in an internment camp near the Cambodian border.

A year later, the young woman arrived in Rhode Island. She was hired at Scuccato Corp., an East Providence jewelry manufacturer.

Despite her malformed fingers, a birth defect, she became an expert jewelry solderer, controlling a needle-like tool with a 3,000-degree flame. She churned out bracelets, necklaces and other pieces of jewelry.

Her future husband, Daniel Gnoato, a toolmaker, arrived from Italy on a Wednesday in 1984 and met her that Saturday at a wedding reception. He, too, loved tomatoes. But the subject didn’t come up early on.

In general, they didn’t say much to each other because he didn’t speak English and she didn’t speak Italian. His sister didn’t like the idea of him dating a Cambodian, and her mother slapped her for going out on dates with someone she hadn’t married.

She says she worried for some time that marriage would require the sort of submissiveness that husbands frequently demand from wives in Cambodian culture.

The couple didn’t discover their mutual tomato love until about five years after they had met. By then, they were married and living on Netop Drive.

They planted their first crop on a St. Patrick’s Day.

He tilled an area in the yard and fertilized it with manure, moss and lime; she planted the seeds and watered religiously, often early in the morning.

But the tomatoes from that garden just weren’t up to snuff.

“They weren’t meaty enough,” says Daniel Gnoato, a 58-year-old machinist at Electric Boat in Quonset.

So about eight years ago, during a summer visit to see his family in Bassano del Grappa, Italy, they picked up some high-grade European seed. They planted the seeds the following March and harvested the new crop that summer.

The neighbors have been awestruck ever since.

Cambodia Can Earn Millions of Dollars from the Carbon Market – Friday, 28.8.2009

Posted on 29 August 2009
The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 627
http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com/

“With the remaining forest cover in the country and with activities to conserve the environment, Cambodia is thought to be able to earn millions of dollars by selling carbon credits in the volunteer carbon market if Cambodia has experts.

“In Cambodia so far, there are not many people who know how to earn money to be used for development and humanity activities legally from the volunteer carbon market by selling carbon credits, while at present Cambodia is a country that has already ratified the Tokyo environment protocol, and it is considered to be a country that has potential.

“The volunteer carbon market is a free trade market, created after many countries had signed and ratified the Tokyo protocol. It is a market formed by between volunteer buyers, mostly big companies in industrialized countries that emit much carbon dioxide, and sellers, mostly organizations or communities in developing countries that are active to conserve the forest and to prevent the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. At the volunteer carbon market, both sides can settle their accounts through carbon credits, corresponding to the quantity of carbon dioxide that is reduced to be emitted into the atmosphere by any activities with this effect. For example, using a stove consuming firewood can release 1.5 kg carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but a community had came up with a creative idea to create a new type of stove which can work as well as the previous one, but emits only 1 kg carbon dioxide. Thus, the remaining 0.5 kg of carbon dioxide is the carbon credit that can be kept to exchange for money.

“In the world nowadays, a tonne of carbon dioxide can be exchanged for up to Euro 30 (roughly US$ 42.80).

“The head of the Climate Change and Renewable Energy Unit GERES Cambodia, Mr. Minh Le Quan, said recently that by now, there have been about tree projects only in Cambodia that receive credits from the volunteer carbon market, and one of them is the project of GERES Cambodia. He does not know how much dollars those projects can make by exchanging carbon credits, but he just said that in general, it is kept confidential, because in the volunteer carbon market, there are also competitions like in other commercial markets. He merely said that Cambodia is a potential country.

“He added, ‘The settling of carbon credit accounts is like food buying, where sellers have to compete with each other. It is a trading market, and the prices depend on quality and negotiations.’

“According to Mr. Le Quan’s estimation, so far, prices in the settling of accounts of carbon credits per tonne of carbon dioxide that Cambodia receives are from US$4.- to Euro 20 [approx. US$28.50], and most of the clients of Cambodia are from Europe and Australia. Also, there is a small number of clients in the country. The reason that Cambodia cannot receive high prices like other countries is that Cambodia has not had much of its own ability developed to reach the volunteer carbon market; Cambodia sells its carbon credits through brokers.

“Mr. Le Quan went to on say, ‘I do not know about other projects, but a project of GERES Cambodia could help, from 2003 to 2007, to reduce 314,854 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and it could help about 1.2 million citizens.’

“At present, the volunteer carbon market is operating in some countries such as Australia, the European Union, New Zealand, and the USA. According to an estimation of the World Bank in 2007, the whole quantity of carbon dioxide worldwide is worth as much as US$64 billion, while only 123 million tonnes of carbon dioxide could be sold in 2008, earning just US$705 million.

“Besides the three projects mentioned above by Mr. Le Quan, another project is being prepared by the Forestry administration and PACT Cambodia.

“The deputy head of the Forestry Community Department of the Forestry Administration, Mr. Long Ratanakomar, said via telephone last week, ‘Cooperating with PACT Cambodia and with nine forest protection communities in Oddar Meanchey, we had reached an agreement with a company based in the United States to conserve a forest region of about 60,000 hectares; it is an effort to prevent the emission of carbon dioxide, about 8.5 million tonnes within 30 years.’

“However, Mr. Ratanakomar does not yet know how much the agreement will cost, saying that it needs further clarifications and interpreted legal procedures.

“Regarding the trading of carbon credits in the volunteer carbon market, Mr. Le Quan said that it is not easy, and not each individual can engage in activities to protect the environment, and then ask to exchange carbon credits. Money from carbon credits cannot be transferred into the pockets of an individuals. All money will be kept collective to be used continually for training, for the construction of infrastructure and of schools, and for the creation of jobs.

“He stated, ‘A person can join to protect the environment by, for example, not using vehicles, but they cannot exchange those activities for cash. The exchange for cash needs to be negotiated and to go through many complex legal procedures.’

“Thus far, the projects that have been receiving credits from the carbon credit trading in the volunteer carbon market are a project to create a type of special stove by GERES Cambodia [see embedded Video after the headlines - there may be some seconds time delay], a project of the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), and another project of the national-level bio-energy program of Cambodia. It is expected that in the near future, forest communities in Oddar Meanchey will receive one more project.”

Rasmei Kampuchea, Vol.17, #4984, 28.8.2009
Newspapers Appearing on the Newsstand:
Friday, 28 August 2009

Khmer Rouge trial enthrals Cambodian public

http://www.humanrights-geneva.info

29 August 09 - The ongoing Khmer Rouge tribunal here of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, has heard some highly charged testimony in recent weeks, as civil parties have told the court of how the murders of their loved ones ruined their lives.

Robert Carmichael/IPS - On Aug. 17 it was the turn of French national Martine Lefeuvre, who was married to Cambodian diplomat Ouk Keth, to testify.

At the invitation of the Khmer Rouge government, Ouk Keth returned to Phnom Penh in 1977 to help rebuild the nation, but was immediately arrested, tortured for six months and then killed at the infamous Tuol Sleng, otherwise known as S-21, prison that Duch (pronounced Doik) ran.

Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge cadre to be tried in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or the Khmer Rouge tribunal, which is backed by the United Nations (UN). He faces a life sentence on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as homicide and torture.

Her husband’s fate unknown to her, Lefeuvre told the court how she searched for several years for news of her missing husband. In 1980 a family friend in a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border told her he had seen Ouk Keth’s name on a list of people murdered at S-21, a former high school that the Khmer Rouge converted into a prison in 1975. Ouk Keth was one of more than 15,000 thought to have been tortured and executed in the Tuol Sleng (which means ‘Hill of the Poisonous Tree’) facility under Duch’s command.

Lefeuvre returned to France and her two young children.

"I had to tell my children that they must grow up without their daddy," she said breaking down. "My son, who was seven, and my daughter, who was four and a half, asked me every day: ‘Have you seen Daddy? Will we see Daddy again?’ I had to tell them, no, they will never see their daddy again."

Much of the testimony from the tribunal is harrowing, and the experiences of many Cambodians explain why many do not talk about what happened under the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled the country between 1975 and 1979. Around two million people are thought to have died under one of the most brutal regimes in recent history.

But telling Cambodians about those terrible years is a key part of the remit of the joint U.N.-Cambodian tribunal, said Reach Sambath, the head of the tribunal’s public affairs office.

That is a challenge here, where around 85 percent of people live in rural areas, and illiteracy is widespread.

For that reason, the court endorses a number of methods of informing the public, Reach Sambath said. One method that his office runs, for example, is to bus in people from across the country to watch proceedings in the 500- seat auditorium. By mid-August more than 17,000 Cambodians from across the country had attended the trial, he said.

The public affairs office, which operates with limited resources, also produces material that is distributed online and by hand at the court itself. But measured in sheer numbers, the most successful way of letting Cambodians know about the proceedings and workings of the tribunal is through the use of television and radio.

The tribunal’s daily proceedings are broadcast live on national television every day. But many people do not have the time to spend four days a week following events, which is where a surprisingly successful television show has come in.

The weekly half-hour TV show, which is mainly funded by the British Embassy, is entirely independent of the tribunal’s public affairs office. It is broadcast by national broadcaster Cambodia Television Network in its prime lunchtime slot on Mondays and repeated the following day.

The show’s producer, Matthew Robinson of independent production company Khmer Mekong Films, said between two and three million people watch it each week – a sizeable proportion of the South-east Asian country’s 15 million population.

The format is straightforward enough. Robinson, an experienced British producer and director who lives in Phnom Penh, says that two presenters and a guest examine the events of the previous week.

Co-presenter Neth Pheaktra said the purpose of the show is to provide a concise summary of Duch’s trial, which began on February 17.

"During the 24 minutes of the programme we have the summary, the diary of the Duch trial, and the key points that the witness, the defendant and the judges reveal in the court," Neth Pheaktra said.

According to Robinson a key challenge when devising the format was to create a show that was relatively simple to make but that would appeal to the target audience of mainly rural and often poorly educated Cambodians.

"Then (we mould) them all together in a fairly fast-moving way in language that our audience could understand and be interested in," he explained, "so that over a short period, you have seen the most important things in the proceedings that week."

Ung Chan Sophea, the other presenter, said the show’s writers ensure that the scripted wording is as simple as possible, even when trying to convey the complicated legal jargon that characterises legal proceedings.

That is something the live feed, understandably, cannot do.

At a small coffee shop in Phnom Penh, Mao Sophea said he loves the analysis the show provides of the week’s proceedings.

"For me this is a good show, and the presenters are excellent too," he said. "But to tell you the truth, I haven’t heard too many people talking about it – most of the people I know prefer to watch the all-day broadcasts."

And not everyone is a convert. Lah Yum, seated at another table, hardly watches it "because I am normally asleep during lunchtime when this show is broadcast."

But some of Lah Yum’s friends do watch it, and as the trial of Duch heads towards its conclusion, they are interested in more than just the proceedings. They want to see what the process and the verdict will mean to those who lost loved ones under the Khmer Rouge regime:

"What they are waiting to see is how the trial will manage to deliver justice for the families of the victims," he said.

Machine-made mats threaten traditional weavers

http://www.fibre2fashion.com

August 28, 2009 (Cambodia)

A traditional craft of mat-weaving by hand in Cambodia is under threat due to the mat-weaving machines. These machine manufactured mats are imported from Vietnam and Thailand. These machines can work faster and cheaper.

It is only the quality of the mats that they weave, inherited from her forefathers and which will be passed on to future generations will help them survive and will guarantee the future of the family business, says a craftswoman.

Further she added that as people in Vietnam and Thailand manufacture mats, using machines, the hand-made mats of Cambodia cannot compete with them, with regards to price and designs. But, in terms of quality, the hand-made mats can compete with machine-made products, she said.

Her mat-weaving business sells 200 to 250 mats per month in peak periods, at US $4-7.50, each. The sale goes up, especially during the traditional Cambodian wedding season, Khmer New Year and the Pchum Ben holiday.

During recession, the Cambodian consumers shift to cheaper machine-made mats from Vietnam and Thailand. This has resulted in fall in production of hand-made mats from 8-10 mats per day to 3-4 mats.

These hand-made mats are sold in Takeo, Kampot and Kandal provinces, besides, local markets and also have supply agreements with most major markets in Phnom Penh.

The mat weavers were tempted to drop prices to compete with machine made mats, but it has proved to be devastating for the few who did so, due to the high cost of raw materials, which sometimes has to be brought in from other provinces and the already low margins.

The craft workers here need assistance from the Cambodian Government as well as local and International NGOs in order to obtain guidance from international experts to develop new designs and improve the quality of the mats to compete with international products.

Award-Winning Documentary "To Touch the Soul" Screening at Southern Winds Film Festival

http://www.pr.com

"To Touch the Soul" makes its Oklahoma debut at the Southern Winds Film Festival in Shawnee, Okla.

Shawnee, OK, August 28, 2009 --(PR.com)-- “To Touch the Soul,” a 70-minute, award-winning documentary about the experiences of artist educator and social activist, Carlos Silveira, and his California State University, Long Beach students who traveled to Cambodia to create art projects with impoverished children impacted by HIV/AIDS, will screen during the Southern Winds Film Festival on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2 p.m., at the Kilpatrick Building, 10 East Main, Shawnee, Okla.

Directed by Ryan Goble, with cinematography by Erin Henning and narration by Cassandra Hepburn, the film captures the emotional context as Carlos and the students bond with the children and discover the true meaning of kindness, selflessness and courage.

“My team and I are thrilled that the Southern Winds Film Festival is giving us this opportunity to share our story with the film festival audience and the surrounding community,” said Teresa Hagen, producer and owner of Cut Loose Productions, located in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. “I truly believe that Dr. Silveira’s and his students’ work with Cambodian youth who are either infected with HIV/AIDS or have become orphans due to their parents dying from the disease (a population expected to grow to 108,700 over the next five years) captures the spirit of the growing worldwide movement to find common ground, renew mutual compassion and engage in social activism.”

“I focused on capturing both the beauty that surrounds Cambodia and the tragedy that hides within,” commented Goble, who is making his feature film directorial debut. “Our goal was to make the viewer feel like they were in Phnom Penh working with these kids. We chose to use the point of view of the Cal State Long Beach students because they had no idea what to expect when they arrived. They were naïve. That’s easy to relate to because the majority of the viewers have probably never worked with Cambodian children infected with H.I.V.”

Featuring original music composed by Martin Herman, “To Touch the Soul,” has so far won eight awards, including Best Documentary honors from the San Joaquin Film Festival in Stockton, Calif., and the Wild Rose Independent Film Festival in Des Moines, Iowa; and honorable mentions at the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) International and Byron Bay (Australia) Film Festivals. The documentary has also won a prestigious Best of Show Award as well as an Honorable Mention (motivational/inspirational category) from the Accolade Competition, which recognizes film, television and video professionals who demonstrate exceptional achievement in craft and creativity, and those who produce standout entertainment or contribute to profound social change.

For information on purchasing tickets for the screening, visit http://southernwinds.bside.com/2009/. Contact Teresa Hagen at 310-346-3650 or via e-mail at scifigal@cox.net; or visit www.totouchthesoul.com to learn more about “To Touch the Soul.”

Conflicts sap Australian sentiment in Thailand

Durieux: Regional rivals set to gain.

Bangkok Post
http://www.bangkokpost.com

Writer: NAREERAT WIRIYAPONG
Published: 29/08/2009

Continuing political confrontations and escalating violence in the southernmost provinces have dampened Thailand's investment climate and could jeopardise the government's attempts to revive the Thai economy, said the Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce.

Foreign direct investment is critical for Thailand as the tourism and export sectors are battling the downturn, said chamber president Andrew Durieux.

"Ongoing political problems and violence in the South make it more difficult for foreign investors to move here, set up or increase their investment in Thailand," he said.

Exports are vital for the Thai economy but will not recover without a global rebound, he said. Meanwhile, tourism faces the fresh blow of the H1N1 epidemic as well as militant attacks in the South.

"Thailand requires foreign investments to move the economy forward. (But) foreign investors are now being put off by political issues and the problems need to be fixed," he said.

Although Thailand has huge advantages in its geographical location and natural resources, Australian companies have started to shift their focus to neighbouring countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam and also to southern Africa.

"Neighbouring countries - even Cambodia - have become much more open for foreign investors. Among our top investment destinations are now Vietnam and Malaysia. And, of course, China continues to draw Australian dollars in the form of investment," he said.

Foreign investors need stability, the rule of law, consistent regulations and government assistance to make foreign investments operate smoothly, he said.

Customs and labour laws must be improved to increase Thailand's appeal to foreign investors, he said. Opening up the banking sector and loosening regulations would also pave the way for more investment.

"It is now difficult for foreigners to get loans from banks. They have sought funds locally to avoid the fluctuation of the Thai baht," he said.

Auscham has 450 corporate members in Thailand, many of them involved in mining, metals, education, services, tourism and hospitality.

Each year, about 5,000 Thai students graduate in Australia and return home while 20,000 Australians visit Thailand, including tourists, investors, long-term expatriates and retirees.

But the Board of Investment (BoI) reports that Australian companies made only three investment applications in the first seven months of this year with a total value of 88 million baht - a sharp decline from 11 projects with a value of 2.14 billion baht in the same period of last year.

In all 2008, direct investment from Australia to Thailand totalled 3.2 billion baht, said the BoI.

RIGHTS-CAMBODIA: Newest Evacuation ‘Biggest in Decades'

Australia.TO News
http://www.australia.to

Written by Robert Carmichael

PHNOM PENH, Aug 28 (IPS) - Dozens of families this week started dismantling their homes and moving away from lakeside land in the centre of the capital after giving up on their lengthy struggle to remain. By the end of the eviction process at this site, around 30,000 people will have been moved off now-valuable land.

Human rights workers said it will be the biggest movement of Cambodians from their homes in decades.

Residents do not want to leave, but said they are being driven out by threats from the municipality. Some have not given up yet.

Sixty-seven-year-old Pol Vanna has lived at Village Four at the city centre site, called Boeung Kak, since the early 1980s. The former railwayman is adamantly opposed to moving to the relocation site û a field with no facilities some 30 kilometres away.

”We don't want to leave Boeung Kak,” he told IPS during a small demonstration outside City Hall earlier this month. ”The company should give us some land for us to live on instead of forcing us to move away. I don't understand why they can't give us the land.”

The company in question is Shukaku, which reportedly belongs to Senator Lau Meng Khin from the ruling Cambodian People's Party. His firm received a 99-year lease from the government last year in a typically opaque land deal. Since then, it has been pumping huge amounts of sand into the lake in order to fill it and create more land on which to build.

Evictions are nothing new in Cambodia. At least 100,000 people have been evicted from sites in this capital alone since 2001. The problem is widespread in rural areas, too. The rocketing price of land means there are huge profits to be made, says Naly Pilorge, the director of local human rights group LICADHO, or the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights. She said greed and impunity are driving the problem.

The number of people affected nationwide is not clear. Amnesty International said last year that 150,000 were at risk of eviction. LICADHO, which operates in 13 of the country's 24 provinces, says the numbers of land grabs, evictions and threatened evictions reported to its staff have climbed from around 2,600 cases in 2003 to more than 16,000 in 2008.

Pilorge said that equates to more than a quarter of a million Cambodians in just six years. The true number is certainly higher, she added. ”I bet you anything if we had twice as many (staff), we would have twice as many cases.”

Uprooting people and relocating them to distant sites where there is no work and few facilities is hardly conducive to poverty alleviation even if that is a stated key concern of government. Pilorge said many evictees at relocation sites outside the capital have been pushed below the poverty line.

One such group of residents was violently evicted in January from a city centre site called Dey Krahorm, which means ‘Red Earth'. There were two broad categories of people at Dey Krahorm: Those who could show they had a legal right to their land because they had lived there for an extended period, and those who were renting.

The evictees from Dey Krahorm were taken to a site called Damnak Trayeung, located outside Phnom Penh. Those who had an entitlement to land at Dey Krahorm received a simple one-room brick home, the size and design of a single garage. Families who were renting received nothing, and are still living under rough tarpaulin lean-tos on a muddy scrap of land next to a road.

There is very little work at Damnak Trayeung. And because the site is more than 20 kilometres from the centre and it would cost a day's wages to travel to and from work, many people no longer have jobs. According to Licadho, two-thirds of the evictees who used to earn an income now earn nothing.

Luy Sinath is a 41-year-old seamstress who used to earn eight US dollars a day at Dey Krahorm. Now she earns just 25 cents. That means her three children cannot afford to go to school, and her family is no longer self-sufficient. She relies on food handouts from charities to survive.

”We have no food to eat sometimes so people share what we have with each other,” she said. ”When I was in Dey Krahorm, I was hopeful that my children would get a good education, but now that we are here, I have lost hope.”

It is those experiences that worry Pol Vanna and his son, Touris, a 26-year-old construction worker. The latter has visited the proposed relocation site for the evictees from Boeung Kak, which he said lacks any facilities.

”It is very far from the schools for our children and from where we work. Most of us are construction workers,” he said. ”It is a long way to the nearest hospital. We can't afford to pay for transportation for our children.”

LICADHO's Naly Pilorge said conditions at some relocation sites outside Phnom Penh are dire, with practically no health care, no schools, no running water, no sanitation, and no jobs. At the Andong relocation site, for example, the human rights group's doctors go door-to-door because some residents are too ill or old to come to the medics.

”We are seeing malnutrition, beriberi, discolouration of the hair, extended bellies,” she said. ”They have sores (on their legs) at Andong û these huge infected wounds û because they are constantly walking in stagnant water that is mixed with sewerage.”

Back at Boeung Kak, the air is heavy with the sound of hammering as people dismantle homes they have lived in for up to 30 years. They are the first of an estimated 30,000 who will eventually be evicted from the surrounds of the lake.

It is still too early to say how their lives will be affected by the country's latest dubious land deal. But the experiences of Luy Sinath and others suggest the lives of the people from Boeung Kak will likely get a lot harder in the coming months.

Vietnam ramps up investment in Laos, Cambodia

VOV News
http://english.vovnews.vn

08/28/2009

Vietnam has become one of the leading investors in the Southeast Asian countries of Laos and Cambodia.

A recent issue of Laos’ Economic and Social newspaper reported that foreign projects in Laos, especially those of Vietnam, have contributed to the Lao economy and have improved the lives of Lao clan members.

Vietnam ranks third among the 32 countries that invest in Laos, according to the Lao Ministry of Planning and Investment. Statistics through June showed that the Lao government had licensed 186 Vietnamese projects at a total capitalization of more than US$2 billion. These projects are mainly in four areas: electric power, mining, agriculture and services.

Vietnamese businesses are constantly expanding their operations in Cambodia. Local experts believe that Vietnam is likely to surpass China, the Republic of Korea and Russia to become the largest investor in Cambodia in 2009, thanks to a surge in Vietnam’s investment in the past eight months.

The President of the Cambodian Economic Association, Chan Sophal, said that with great untapped potential, Cambodia is now an attractive destination for Vietnamese investors.

Vietnam and Cambodia have signed a total of 13 new joint venture contracts worth nearly US$500 million since early July.

Kenya launches malaria campaign; PBS' newshour airs segment on drug-resistance in Cambodia

http://www.news-medical.net

28. August 2009

Kenya on Thursday launched a national malaria campaign to encourage Kenyans to sleep under insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) every night to prevent infection, the Daily Nation reports.

Elizabeth Juma, head of Kenya's Division of Malaria Control, said, "Though mosquito net ownership has increased, their actual use remains relatively low." According to the Daily Nation, "recent statistics reveal that only 48 percent of Kenyans slept under nets every night compared to 56 percent who owned them."

Assistant Minister for Public Health James Gesami said that about 18 million ITNs had been distributed, which led to a 44 percent decline in malaria mortality cases of children younger than age of five. The campaign is sponsored by Population Services International in collaboration with the government, the WHO and other medical research organizations (Wanja, 8/27).

Also, PBS' the NewsHour recently aired a segment examining the emergence of drug-resistant malaria in Cambodia. According to the NewsHour, counterfeit drugs and incomplete drug regimens have contributed to the problem. "Taking less than a full dose means some parasites remain in the body, where they adapt genetically and become immune to the drug," NewsHour special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro said.

During the show, de Sam Lazaro interviews Mark Fukuda of the U.S. Army, who co-authored a study about drug-resistance in Cambodia. The show also examines how drug-resistant malaria parasites can spread to other regions and discusses Cambodia's efforts to crack down on the distribution of counterfeit drugs. It includes an interview with Michael O'Leary, head of the WHO's Cambodia office (de Sam Lazaro, 8/25).

WB eyes on agriculture sector in Cambodia

People's Daily Online
http://english.people.com.cn

August 28, 2009

A senior World Bank official who had paid a visit to Cambodia early this week said that the world is now looking into agriculture which is one of the important sectors in the country, officials at Ministry of Economy and Finance said Friday.

During a meeting early this week, Jim Hagan, executive director at the World Bank, representing a constituency of 13 countries told Keat Chhon, minister of economy and finance that World Bank's new policy is to focus on agriculture, citing it as a priority demand by the Royal Government of Cambodia, according to the officials.

The officials said, in response, Keat Chhon welcomed World Bank's interest in agriculture by saying that development in agriculture will help reduce the heavy reliance on external factors such as the reliance on investors for garment sectors or foreign tourists.

Garment and tourism have been, for many years, the main earning revenues for Cambodia.

After forming a new government following the 2003 general election, Prime Minister Hun Sen set in his rectangular policy that agriculture is one of the priorities that his government is committed to achieve it.

Some 80 percent of Cambodia's nearly 14 million populations are farmers.

Last year, Cambodia produced 7.15 million tons of rice from a total farming land of 2.25 million hectares.

Source:Xinhua

Cambodians ‘Regret’ Loss of Ted Kennedy

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
28 August 2009

Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died Tuesday at the age of 77, is being remembered around the world for his accomplishments.

In Cambodia, officials said they regretted the loss of a man with so many achievements, but whose deeds would not be forgotten.

Cambodians have an expression, “that the physical is lost in deed, but the reputation remains as a widespread fragrance inside and outside the country,” said Cheam Yeap, a Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker.

The youngest brother of John F. Kennedy, the US president assassinated in 1963, Edward Kennedy promoted better living for the American poor, opposed the US war in Iraq and fought to put an end to the US war in Vietnam and war in Cambodia. He helped improve rights for immigrants and endorsed the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama.

Son Chhay, a parliamentarian for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, said Cambodia needed examples like Edward “Ted” Kennedy.

“As we’ve seen, in the US there have been memorials to the work of Edward Kennedy, over his achievements,” Son Chhay said. “He was a senator who helped contribute to the government of the US, paid attention to assisting people to live with dignity and advocated without thinking of himself personally.”

Politically, Kennedy was a Democrat and a strong ally of Obama, and his presence would be missed, said Koul Panha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections.

“It has an effect, because the senator was an important person,” he said. “He had influence and he had a lot of support from people, because he’s in the Kennedy family.”

He was also able to work with Republicans in the Senate, Koul Panha said.

Prak Sereyvuth, vice chairman of the Federal Khmer Krom Association, based in the US, said Kennedy had understood the plight of Cambodians and the US role in it, with the backing of Lon Nol and the wars and consequences that followed.

“He had sympathy for Cambodians…and any refugee who wrote letters to him or their families to intervene,” he said. “His office paid attention and responded quickly, asking the State Department and immigration to take refugees in to the US.”

Thai Trial for 16 Cambodians Delayed

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
28 August 2009

A Thai provincial court on Friday postponed a hearing for 16 Cambodians who have been charged with illegal entry and illegal logging on Thai soil.

The group was arrested late last month, but Cambodian officials say they had not crossed into Thailand when they were arrested. The Ubon provincial court will hear the case Sept. 23.

The Cambodians live near the disputed border at Preah Vihear temple, and officials say they were looking for wild honey and wood in the forest.

“The Thai court ordered a reinvestigation of the cases…because there was not enough evidence to try them,” said Koy Kong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The 16 had “absolutely denied” the charges against them, leading to the decision, he said.

Cambodia is providing an independent lawyer to defend them, and the consulate in Sras Keo province was working hard on the case as well, he said.

Sar Thavy, Preah Vihear deputy governor, said he had requested the 16 be returned.

“I believe the Cambodians could not go to cut trees inside Thailand, because the mountain is high and the walk is difficult to the top of the mountain,” he said.

The case comes at a time of easing tensions over a longstanding border dispute, with Cambodians withdrawing some of its troops from positions near Preah Vihear temple earlier this week.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Banteay Meanchey provincial court sentenced a Thai man to three months in jail for illegal entry into Cambodia.

Authorities had originally sought to charge him for insulting the national symbol of Angkor Wat, by carving its image into cement near a public toilet in Poipet.

CAMBODIA Young women take on leading roles in Church ministries

Srey Ponhacka (in pink) with students from the Paul Tep Im Center

http://www.ucanews.com

August 27, 2009

PHNOM PENH (UCAN) -- Young Cambodian women are rising to leadership roles in Church institutions in their male-dominated society.

Women are no less capable than men in performing managerial tasks, asserts Srey Ponhacka, 29, director of Paul Tep Im Center, a boarding house for high-school and university students in Battambang.

Next month she will start work in Phnom Penh as manager of St. Clara Student Center, which houses about 20 women university students from around the country.

Ponhacka sees her service as "a chance to return a good deed to the Church." The woman, who comes from a poor family, said the Church had supported her university studies and helped with her medical needs.

Acknowledging that men have traditionally filled leadership roles in Cambodia, she said it is up to women to see themselves as valuable -- able to manage projects and to be a moral force in society. "Women are not weak, as the men say," Ponhacka remarked.

Jesuit Father John Evens Ashley, director of the Catholic Church Students Center (CCSC) in Phnom Penh, agrees that women can run things as well as men. And he is giving another Cambodian woman, Hun Saren, a chance to prove it.

The priest said he recently chose her as his successor, in line with the Church's objective to have Cambodians head local Church projects.

Saren, 29, will take over the job in September after previously working for a human rights NGO. She said she wants to minister to young people and help them face modern challenges. The center provides material and spiritual support to poor students from the provinces who do university studies in the capital.

Another young woman in a leadership position is Keo Kagnha, deputy director of the Catholic Social Communications (CSC) office in Phnom Penh since last March. The 23-year-old describes being responsible for the CSC's accounts and radio production as "very hard work."

"Sometimes I have to spend more than 10 hours a day and also the weekend (at the office) to finish my work," she said. However, she also said she considers her workplace her "second home" and feels happy to "bring Jesus' message to the people."

Soun Bunnareth, 26, who heads the cultural office of Battambang apostolic prefecture, incorporates artistic creativity in her work, which includes creating liturgical dances for children based on traditional Khmer dance forms.

Sister Ang Sangvat, who runs a girl's hostel in Prey Veng province, sees women today as capable, clever, brave and independent.

"Now there are many young women who have the chance to study and get good jobs," the Lovers of the Holy Cross nun pointed out, saying she supports moves to allow women to head Church projects.

Rat-atouille

A farmer perpares rats caught in a nearby rice field Saturday for a stir-fried dinner in Takeo province. Many say paddy rats are tasty, as opposed to inedible city rats. For more, go to www.phnompenhpost.com to see last year's audio slideshow on hunting and grilling rat.

Pictures source: http://www.weirdasianews.com

Rats… To many rats are a disgusting creature that we cannot wait to have killed or removed.

However in Cambodia, no rat is left to waste… especially not when inflation has increased the cost of meat almost double in the last year.

Many Cambodians already believed rat meat to be a great source of protein and a tasty little snack when gathered together drinking, but the popularity of the meat really began to increase when beef hit around $10 a pound.

At around $2.50 a pound, rat meat favorites like the garlic-flavored field rat have quickly replaced the standard beef dishes.

“Not only are our poor eating it, but there is also demand from Vietnamese living on the border with us.” said an agricultural official from Koh Thom.

Not only have the locals saved money by eating more rat meat, they have also been able to earn more money by catching rats and making them table-ready.

This year drought has affected thousands of hectares of rice paddy through out the country, and eight provinces are hit by drought

A Cambodian farmer, Chhun Samnang, 49, plants rice on the dry earth in the rice paddy at Prey Kla village, Kampong Speu province, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Aug. 28, 2009. According to the government's rice agency, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), said this year drought has affected thousands of hectares of rice paddy through out the country, and eight provinces are hit by drought. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

A Cambodian farmer, Chhun Samnang, 49, plants rice on the dry earth in the rice paddy at Prey Kla village, Kampong Speu province some 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Aug. 28, 2009. According to the government's rice agency, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), said this year drought has affected thousands of hectares of rice paddy through out the country, and eight provinces are hit by drought. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

A Cambodian farmer, Chhun Samnang, 49, plants rice on the dry earth in the rice paddy at Prey Kla village, Kampong Speu province, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Aug. 28, 2009. According to the government's rice agency, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), said this year drought has affected thousands of hectares of rice paddy through out the country, and eight provinces are hit by drought. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

A Cambodian farmer, plows in the rice paddy at Prey Kla village, Kampong Speu province, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Aug. 28, 2009. According to the government's rice agency, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), said this year drought has affected thousands of hectares of rice paddy through out the country, and eight provinces are hit by drought.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Cambodian farmers clean rice seedling in the rice paddy at Prey Sar village of the capital Phnom Penh's outskirts, Cambodia, Friday, Aug. 28, 2009. According to the government's rice agency, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), said this year drought has affected thousands of hectares of rice paddy through out the country, and eight provinces are hit by drought.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Bank Official: The Global Economic Crisis Does Not Affect Banks in Cambodia – Thursday, 27.8.2009

Posted on 28 August 2009
The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 627
http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com/

“Phnom Penh: The director of the National Bank of Cambodia said that even though the financial crisis is affecting many countries in the world, Cambodia does not suffer from it seriously.

“In the morning of 26 August 2009, the Club of Cambodian Journalists held a roundtable meeting about banking management and the trust of the public, with the participation of many journalists and representatives of the National Bank of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

“Ms. Tal Nay Im, the director general of the National Bank of Cambodia, who represented the governor of the National Bank of Cambodia, Mr. Chea Chanto, to preside over the meeting, said, ‘In this time of a global financial crisis, we must point out the progress of the banking systems in Cambodia within the last two years.’ She went on to say that the banking system in Cambodia operates at present with the National Bank of Cambodia as the central bank of the country, 27 commercial banks, 2 representation offices of foreign banks, 6 expert banks, and 25 micro-finance institutions under the control and monitoring of the National Bank of Cambodia.

“Ms. Tal Nay Im added that during the last two years, he number of commercial banks operating in Cambodia has increased. Most of them are foreign banks that come to invest in the banking sector in Cambodia. The increase in the interest looking for benefits by foreign banks at the Cambodia market is considered, by Cambodian people, as a positive point, because Cambodia has political stability and a market, seen by foreign investors as having potential for strong progress under the legal framework of Cambodia, though there is no neutrality yet, but there is a favorable environment to attract investment in a free trade atmosphere, which does not limit the in-and-out flow of capital or currency exchange operations. She continued to say that also the fact that there is a high level of dollarization in the Cambodian economy helps to ease the control of active and inactive property of a majority of the banks that operates with dollars. Even though Cambodia is a small country in the region, it has potential for development and investment for profit almost in every economic sector which can be considered as having an interesting outlook for foreign investors.

“Ms. Tal Nay Im went on to say that in Cambodia in 2009, the number of people who deposit money at commercial banks is 820,284, corresponding to 6% of the country’s populations, excluding the deposits at the micro-finance system. Also, Cambodia had reserved currency resources at the National Bank of US$100 million in 1998, but now US$2,300 million in 2008.

“The Country Representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation of Germany, Ms. Rabea Brauer, said that provided that Cambodia does not suffer from the impact of the financial crisis as seriously as the United States, according to a study conducted previously, the financial crisis has an impact to a smaller extent, especially on women and children, and this impact will continue.

“She added that journalists should focus on topics about the impact of the global financial crisis on women and children.”

Kampuchea Thmey, Vol.8, #2033, 27.8.2009
Newspapers Appearing on the Newsstand:
Thursday, 27 August 2009

The Last Liberal

by Orrin Judd

Let me begin by offering a personal story about Ted Kennedy that is illustrative, but quite possibly apocryphal. At the time of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, he was a Senator from New York. The other member of the delegation was the liberal Republican, Jacob Javits. In that time of less politicized judiciary appointments, senators had significant sway with the White House and the party in power made a less concerted effort to pack the courts with ideologically safe choices. At any rate, the two politically similar senators had worked out a deal to the effect that for every two judges RFK got to recommend, Mr. Javits would get one.

As it happened, my grandfather, Orrin G. Judd, had gotten their joint nod, on April 25, 1968, to fill an open seat on the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, but with RFK out of the way, the Johnson administration started making noises about withdrawing the nomination and naming a Democrat instead. The story has it that Senator Javits went to the Senator from Massachusetts, explained the deal he’d had with the dead brother and asked Ted to intervene with the White House. He did and the appointment was confirmed on June 24, 1968.

While this anecdote naturally inclines me to be a tad more charitable to Ted Kennedy than many conservatives, the takeaway is really what a creature of the institution of the Senate and of Washington he was. There must have been some irony for Mr. Kennedy when Barack Obama became the first senator elected to the presidency since John F. Kennedy, despite his never having passed a significant piece of legislation through the chamber. Ted Kennedy, by contrast, steered some 300 bills into law, a legislative record that is likely unparalleled in the history of the US Congress. The imprint he leaves behind effects every facet of our daily lives, from immigration liberalization to passage of civil rights laws to trucking and airline deregulation to election and campaign finance reform to funding for cancer and AIDS treatment and research to No Child Left Behind and so on and so forth. And his skills as a parliamentary infighter and role as a voice of the party served him well when it came to stopping Executive branch appointments too, as witness the way he single-handedly transformed the Robert Bork nomination to the Supreme Court, turning a seeming done deal into a vote that few Democrats could afford to oppose him on.

Restoring health and hope with construction

Marines precisely cut material to be used during construction of an annex being added to the Pechmony Health Center during construction Aug. 8. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Cordero).

http://www.okinawa.usmc.mil
Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Cordero

KAMPONG SPEU PROVINCE, Cambodia (August 28, 2009) -- At the center of a small market town in the Kampong Speu Province, the sounds of drills and hammers were heard among the busy shops as U.S. Marines and sailors along with Royal Cambodian Armed Forces engineers worked throughout August to restore a closed down medical facility.

Restoring the Veal Ang Popel Health Center was part of the Cambodia Interoperability Program Engineer Civic Assistance Project 2009. Not only did they finish construction, but they finished before the expected completion date of Tuesday.

The health center was once a children's clinic and a delivery hospital.

The project was expected to take more than a month to complete, but the U.S. Marines and sailors and the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces engineers completed the project in less than three weeks.

Infrastructure and design improvements included replacing the ceiling, roofing and tiling; adding ramp accessibility and installing electrical power with solar panels.

Many of the improvements were done to reduce the effects of corrosion, aging and termite damage, according to Sgt. Bradley S. Carlton the platoon sergeant of combat engineer platoon, Engineer Operations Company, Marine Wing Support Squadron 172, Marine Wing Support Group 17, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing.

The project was part of Cambodia Interoperability Program 09, an effort of U.S. and Cambodian governments to build relationships and develop bonds between the forces.

A ceremony marking the opening of the center was conducted Thursday.

Marines and sailors are also working with Royal Cambodian Armed Forces engineers to restore the Pechmony Health Center, which should be completed by the end of August.

Ask Gill: Is luggage claim a lost cause?

Angkor Wat in Cambodia can be easy to visit under your own steam

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Gill Charlton offers advice on a missing suitcase, a flight cancellation and visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

By Gill Charlton
Published: 11:40AM BST 28 Aug 2009

Sally Newman from London writes

We are visiting Thailand for a beach holiday and would like to spend a few days at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. What's the best way of going about it?

We don't like coach tours, but do we need a guide to the temples?

Gill Charlton replies
It's easy to visit Angkor Wat under your own steam. Buy a flight to Siem Reap and choose a hotel near the ruins. I would organise a guide and driver for the first day. Use this time to drive through the core site and on to some of the outlying temple complexes. Then, if you are a fairly confident rider, rent bicycles to explore the Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom complexes. There are quiet lanes for cyclists and the whole experience is far more atmospheric. Try to visit the Angkor Wat at lunchtime, when most visitors return to their hotels for lunch. The best guide is Dawn Rooney's Angkor, published by Odyssey Books but laser-printed in Cambodia, where it should cost only a few dollars from a small boy.

For a sundowner drink, visit the former Foreign Correspondents' Club, a beautiful art deco house that also has bedrooms (www.fcccambodia.com).

Try to time your visit to include a Saturday night. A Swiss doctor puts on a fund-raising cello concert and talks about his work in Cambodia. It is a thought-provoking experience.


Lost luggage
Alison Lennox, London, writes

My family and I recently travelled to Tunisia with Thomas Cook Airlines, but my suitcase did not arrive. Thomas Cook paid £75 towards essentials I needed on holiday, but said I must claim for the case and its contents through my travel insurance.

I submitted a claim for £1,700 to Standard Life. I sent a list of everything in the Samsonsite suitcase, from my Karen Millen dresses to my daughter's nappies, but I did not have any receipts.

Some of the clothes were made up abroad on previous holidays, others were part of a weekly Tesco shop. The problem is that I paid cash for most of the more expensive items, such as dresses, shoes, hair straighteners and cosmetics because I don't have a credit card and I rarely use my debit card.

Standard Life has said it will only pay for items valued up to £10 unless I provide receipts for purchases or purchase new items to a similar value and then hope it will accept these as reasonable replacements.

I cannot afford to do this. What should I do next?


Gill Charlton replies
Standard Life says it needs proof of purchase of higher-cost items "where possible" as it would be "irresponsible simply to pay this claim without any attempt to gain proof of possession". I asked the Financial Ombudsman's office for its opinion. It says it expects customers to make every effort to provide whatever evidence they can. As well as obtaining signed chits from shops such as Karen Millen for a similar dress or shoes, you should try to provide photographs of yourself wearing these clothes on previous holidays (which I understand you do have).

Unfortunately, the incidence of fraud involved in baggage claims is high and insurers are no longer prepared to take the customer's word for it.

If customers don't have receipts, insurers will want to see credit or debit card statements. In your case, Standard Life has confirmed that it will accept evidence of cost from other sources such as the internet.

It is important to make a real effort to price losses accurately. For example, the retail price of all your Mac make-up, Birkenstock sandals and GHD hair straighteners can be found online. Send the insurer printouts of the current retail cost of these items. You also need to describe items more precisely. "Samsonite suitcase – £200" isn't good enough. You need to list the model and find the exact replacement cost.

If you make a real effort to obtain this level of detail, most of the claim should be paid.

Low-cost winter flights
Olwyn-Anne Cook in Maché, France writes

I live in France and need to travel back to Britain fairly regularly. Do you know when low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet publish their winter schedules?

Gill Charlton replies
There is usually a rolling programme of announcements for winter flights to Europe. The best way to keep in the loop is to sign up with the airline for email alerts to new routes, changes to routes and flight offers. For Ryanair, click on the "Register for Offers" tab on the left-hand side of the home page; for easyJet, see the "e-Offers" logo on the top right of the home page.

US hotel rates
Barrie Redding from Evesham in Glos writes

In January I booked three nights at the Fisherman's Wharf Holiday Inn in San Francisco through eBookers to arrive on September 12. The rate was £441.81 plus a booking fee. The eBookers website displayed a "Best Price" guarantee. I paid in full at the time and knew that the reservation was non-refundable. I have now discovered that eBookers is selling a similar three-night break at the hotel for almost £100 less than I paid. When I asked eBookers for an explanation it just sent me an email saying that "the prices are controlled directly by the hotel or the hotel supplier".

Surely there should be some advantage in booking a room so far ahead on a non-refundable basis?

Gill Charlton replies
Holiday Inn's head office says that its full or "rack" rate for a booking made in January was $219 and that you paid a discounted advance purchase rate of $187 through eBookers. "Along with the rest of the travel industry, our hotel rates fluctuate throughout the year depending on a number of factors," a spokeswoman for Holiday Inn said. If advance bookings are low, cheaper rooms will be advertised around two months ahead of the arrival date. A week ago Holiday Inn told me that its current advance purchase rate was $144 and that, as a gesture of goodwill, it would upgrade your room to club level for your three-night stay. I have checked its rates again and business has obviously improved. At the time of going to press, eBookers is charging £395 for these three nights while Holiday Inn's rate has leapt up to $190 a night (£354 for three nights).


Costly cancellation
David Wood from Knutsford in Cheshire writes

Earlier this year Wizzair added a Saturday flight from Luton to Cluj in Romania, making its service a daily one. In good faith I booked a flight for September 26. Now the service has been cancelled for commercial reasons.

This means I have to fly the day before and my reservation at the Luton Travelodge is non-refundable, so I have had to pay for another room there the previous night. I have also had to pay for an extra night in Cluj. Wizzair says it has no obligation to compensate me. Is it right?

Gill Charlton replies
Wizzair is right. If an airline cancels a flight for commercial reasons outside the 14-day limit for compensation under EU Regulation 261/2004, it does not have to pay for any "consequential" losses such as prepaid accommodation.

As airlines struggle to keep flying through the recession schedules are being hacked back – and at short notice. The only way to guard against losses like yours is to buy flexibility, though it comes
at a cost.

The Luton Travelodge charges £45 a night for a double room that you can cancel up to your arrival day without penalty. This compares with £32 for a non-refundable "saver" room.

Some hotel groups and hotel booking websites offer cancellation insurance for a few pounds more, which is definitely worth taking up.