2007/2/28
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, AP
Cambodia's royal palace has condemned four Web sites that use the name of King Norodom Sihamoni to promote Las Vegas casinos, discount airfares and dating services.
The palace called for those behind the sites to be prosecuted for slander.
"The royal palace condemns vigorously all persons usurping (the king's name) for their personal use or to slander the sovereign," said a statement from the palace dated Feb. 23.
The king's official Web site is www.norodomsihamoni.org.
The Web sites in question include www.norodomsihamoni.com, which provides links to Las Vegas hotels and casinos and to online dating services, and www.norodomsihamoni.info, which offers travel deals and free music downloads. Neither has any connection to the Cambodian king.
Two others cited by the palace were www.norodomsihamoni.net and www.norodomsihamoni.gov, which did not appear to be functional.
It was not immediately clear where the Web sites were based.
Sihamoni, a constitutional monarch, ascended to Cambodia's throne in October 2004 after the abdication of his father, former king Sihanouk. .
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Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Cambodia condemns Web sites using king's name
U.S. allows aid for Cambodia projects
Associated Press
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Direct U.S. aid to support Cambodian government projects will resume following the lifting of a decade-old ban by Washington, the U.S. ambassador said Tuesday.
President Bush signed a congressional appropriations resolution for the 2007 fiscal year on Feb. 15 that "contains no restrictions on direct U.S. government funding of Cambodian government activities," Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli said in an e-mailed reply to questions from The Associated Press.
He said Congress had maintained the ban in previous resolutions.
The United States cut off direct funding to Cambodian government projects in 1997 after Hun Sen ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh, then his co-premier, in a coup. Hun Sen has since remained the prime minister.
Washington's aid to Cambodia has mostly been channeled to projects implemented by non-governmental organizations in the impoverished Southeast Asian country. The United States provided $54.9 million to Cambodia through non-governmental organizations last year.
Relations between the two governments have improved in recent years. Early this month, a U.S. warship paid a visit to a Cambodian seaport for the first time in more than 30 years.
Mussomeli noted that even when the ban was still in place, there were exceptions that allowed U.S. funding to assist the Cambodian government in certain areas, especially in health projects.
The lifting of the ban "is yet another sign of the deepening and strengthening of the promising relationship between our two countries," said Mussomeli, who has joined other donors in strongly criticizing the Cambodian government for doing little to tackle rampant corruption..
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Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Trial under Treta
VOA
Febrero 27, 2007, 21:30 EST
It has been almost 10 years since Cambodia and the United Nations began preparing to try the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge but no one has yet appeared before a judge.
The ultra-Maoist group ruled Cambodia and killed almost two million people in the late 1970s. Its surviving leaders are now old and frail and many people fear that they will die before facing justice.
The Cambodian government blames the delay in opening an international tribunal on what it calls "issues of procedure". For several years, the government and the United Nations have debated what legal procedures to follow.
Spokeswoman for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Helen Jarvis, said, "I think it is a really complex operation to harmonize Cambodian law and procedure with international standards and at the same time also to harmonize the work of people from 11 different countries and different legal systems. Perhaps I think in retrospect we can say we were overly optimistic that this operation could be done more quickly."
One area of dispute: many Cambodian judges do not want foreigners serving as defense attorneys.
The U.N. also is concerned about Cambodia's insistence that domestic law take precedence over international law during the tribunal.
Cambodian judges will hold the majority in the tribunal panels but many Cambodians and outside legal experts consider the country's judiciary hopelessly corrupt.
Concerns about corruption are so severe that this week the U.N. Development Program said it is auditing the tribunal's finances because of questions about hiring procedures. There have been allegations from aid organizations that Cambodians had to bribe government officials to get jobs with the tribunal.
It took several years to find donors to fund the tribunal - another factor in the delay. A few years ago Japan, France, Germany, Britain, Australia, India and the European Union pledged to cover most of the costs, estimated to be $59 million over three years.
The United Nations is wary of associating itself with a trial that falls short of international legal standards.
The U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, Joseph Mussomeli, says his government is withholding support for the trials for now.
"I always say that the only thing worse than no trial at all would be a trial that's a farce," he said. "We are still assessing whether we can directly support, and we have not reached the conclusion we can do that yet because frankly we are not yet completely convinced that the trial will meet international standards."
Some human rights activists say the real reason for the delay is that the Cambodian government includes many former Khmer Rouge members.
Lawyer Theary Seng is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge era and heads Cambodia's Center for Social Development.
"We know that this Cambodian government never truly genuinely wanted a Khmer Rouge tribunal because many of the current government officials were former Khmer Rouge soldiers," Seng said. "They could be implicated in a way that could tarnish their reputation and their history."
Among them are Prime Minister Hun Sen and Heng Samrin, a senior leader of the ruling Cambodian People's Party. Both were in the Khmer Rouge as very young adults, and both later took part in a Vietnamese invasion that toppled the Maoist government. However, the prime minister has endorsed holding the tribunal.
There had been hope that the tribunal would start investigating cases and filing charges this year, but that may not happen. In March, a rules committee will meet to try to resolve the procedural differences.
If there is an agreement, then the Cambodian National Assembly must vote to approve it, probably in April, before proceedings can begin. That means, lawyers and tribunal staff members say, it will be 2008 before hearings begin.
However, political analysts, some U.N. staff and even some judges privately say that if no agreement is reached, there is a danger that the United Nations might abandon the effort entirely.
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Sunday, February 25, 2007
In Cambodia, art, hardship ebb and flow
By Christopher Smart
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:02/24/2007 10:06:08 AM MST
Southeast Asia In the final installment of a three-part package detailing his trip to Southeast Asia, Tribune reporter Christopher Smart visits Siem Reap, Cambodia.
SIEM REAP, Cambodia - Lounging at a sidewalk café in Siem Reap, a tropical city of about 100,000, it's hard to equate the Cambodian people with either the Khmer dynasties that built the temples at Angkor Wat or the murderous Khmer Rouge that sought to destroy every aspect of this society.
Cambodia is a place of wonder and horror.
The ancient temples of Angkor are among the man-made Seven Wonders of World, and stand today as monuments to the Khmer dynasties that date back to the ninth century.
You can wander through these giant sandstone marvels for hours, days even, awed by their architecture and mystified by their unending passages and their Hindu- and Buddhist-inspired stone carvings.
And, of course, this country of 13 million, tucked between Thailand and Vietnam, was home to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge - authors of the Killing Fields and other atrocities of the 1970s that claimed 2 million Cambodian lives. If you have a mind to, you can visit the Killing Fields. Many visitors do.
This little country is still trying to shake off the aftermath of armed conflicts that - one after another - swept through here for a decade, during and after U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
Cambodia is beautiful, but poverty-stricken. Next to Myanmar (Burma), it's the poorest country in Southeast Asia, despite the tourism boom around Siem Reap. The casual observer might reach the conclusion that if these people didn't have coconuts and landmines, they wouldn't have much of anything.
But a closer look reveals an undying spirit, and it keeps Cambodians smiling through each day. Maybe it's their belief in Buddhism, which instructs life is defined by suffering. Or perhaps it's a sense of their magnificent history. Whatever the reason, it's difficult not to be captivated by these polite people who wear quiet dignity in the face of sobering hardships.
Among the pleasures of traveling through Southeast Asia is staying at small, locally owned hotels. In these pensions, travelers are adopted as if they are special house guests. Visitors get a close view of the people and their culture than they might at large resort hotels springing up near Angkor Wat.
At the little place where I stayed, a pretty, young woman behind the desk greeted me enthusiastically. "Good morning, Mista," she offered with a big smile. "How you today?" Now that's the way to start a day.
In the evening along restaurant row in the Old French Quarter, you might bump into a couple of young Dutch women trekking across Asia. At a sidewalk table, you could buy them cold Angkor Beer for 25 cents a glass and fill the tropical night with laughter under a shimmering Cambodian moon.
Upon your return, no matter how late, your little hotel team will be waiting for you, as they were for me, making sure I got tucked in OK.
The next morning I was greeted like this: "Good morning, Mista. How you today? You have happy night last night!"
Getting around Siem Reap is quite easy by tuk-tuk - motorcycle-powered rickshaws. Just walk out the door of your hotel and half a dozen of them will offer to take you anywhere in town for 8,000 riel (about $2).
You can get to Angkor Wat and back for about $10. Or you can hire an air-conditioned car and driver and tour the entire area for about $40 a day.
The Landmine Museum is a little closer to town, although off the beaten path. The small attraction was birthed by Aki Rah, a Cambodian pressed into armed service as a child by the Khmer Rouge.
It is an important, if chilling, stop. Some 3 million landmines still dot the landscapes of Cambodia. Three people are killed or maimed each day, on average, when they trip over them. Nak Hajt, a 19-year-old guide at the museum, lost his right leg 10 years ago. He was outside his small village playing with his 10-year-old brother and 12-year-old sister when one of them tripped a hidden explosive. His brother and sister died.
This is the legacy of the Vietnam War and its destabilizing impact on Cambodia. Amputees are everywhere in Siem Reap. Few have prosthetics. Some become musicians. Some become artisans. One young man, who sold books from a push-cart near a favorite hangout in the French Quarter, had lost both arms to the elbow. Somehow, he managed to smoke a cigarette with his stumps. Others beg.
Earning a living in Cambodia is tough, even for the healthy. My tuk-tuk driver, who called himself Thomas, left Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, because there was no work there. He dodges authorities with his unlicensed cab and is happy to take his customers anywhere for practically nothing.
For about $4, he drove 12 kilometers south of town to giant Lake Tonle Sap. There, boats are for hire, making possible a visit to the floating village of Preak Toal, where people spend their entire lives on small house boats. Children even attend small schools on the water.
During the wet season, the village moves up the swollen Sangker River toward Siem Reap. In the dry season, the floating town is miles downstream. Inhabitants of the floating village cannot afford to live on land, and send pre-schoolers paddling out in tiny saucer-shaped floats to beg passing tourist boats for money.
Although there are other sights to see, most come here for the temples. Angkor Wat is the most famous, but there are a dozen temple complexes in the area.
It's possible to visit most of them in a day, but it's not a good idea. There is too much to take in, and a slow tour over several days is the ideal way to get a full appreciation of these intricate sandstone wonders.
The earliest temples, known as the Rulos group, were built of brick in the ninth century. But more than 1,000 years ago, the Khmer rulers harnessed elephants to haul giant sandstone blocks quarried from distant mountains to build cities like Angkor ÂThom.
You could easily spend half a day at Angkor Thom, believed to be the center of a community of 100,000 in the 13th century. Its gates were designed so one could enter riding atop an elephant. Some tourists do exactly that.
Each of the various temples has its own wonder and history, as one Khmer dynasty replaced another, century after century. But you'll want to visit the pyramidlike temples of Angkor Wat more than once. Surrounded by a huge moat, its giant towers symbolize Mount Meru, the center of the Hindu universe.
Built by King Suravarum II in the early 12th century and dedicated to Vishnu, the Hindu god and preserver of the cosmos, its many facets are mesmerizing. Among them are eight stone-carved galleries that represent great kingdoms and fierce wars between good and evil.
There are excellent books with great photos of Angkor Wat and the other temples. To make the most of your trip, read up and hire a guide before arriving at the temple grounds. (Freelance guides lurk at the temples; some are better than others.)
Return on subsequent days without a guide to peruse at your leisure, with a reference book. The temples and their histories crack a glimpse into the past as you explore the sandstone relics.
High atop Angkor Wat, you gaze down dim corridors beyond ancient stone images and out into the brilliant green Cambodian landscape. Sitting quietly, you can almost feel Khmer history - the rise and fall of great empires and the harshness of war. And your world becomes a different place.
csmart@sltrib.com
Siem Reap, Cambodia
* WHY GO? The Temples of Angkor Wat are among the seven man-made wonders of the world.
* HOW TO GET THERE: Fly to Bangkok, Thailand, and on to Siem Reap.
* WHAT IT WILL COST: Round-trip airfare will cost $1,300 and up. Once there, lodging and meals can be as low as $50 per day. You can do it in style for $100 per day per person.
* NOT TO MISS: Angkor Wat, the temples that are the crown jewel of the ancient Khmer dynasties.
* WEATHER: Hot and humid. Pack lightweight clothing.
* WHAT TO EAT: Siem Reap has many good, modestly priced restaurants. Eat anything that's cooked and nothing that isn't. Be sure to try the fish steamed in spicy coconut milk.
* WHEN TO GO: The most popular time to visit is winter. Avoid large crowds at Angkor Wat by visiting in the fall. (The rainy season runs through October.)
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Human Rights issues in Communist in Southeast Asia: Red Alert
By John E. Carey
Quoc Te co ran
Feb. 25, 2007
There is something of a crises of Human Rights abuses in Southeast Asia in general and in Communist Vietnam in particular.
According to David M. Kinchen, Editor, Huntington News Network, "hardliners in Vietnam's politburo in Hanoi are obsessed with punishing, oppressing and even eliminating peoples - such as the Khmer Krom, Montagnards and Hmong Lao, that aligned themselves more than 30 years ago with the United States during the Vietnam War."
The Communist Party of Indochina, founded by Ho Chi Minh, which is the only political entity in Vietnam, is the one organization most responsible for the killing fields of Cambodia, the repression of the boat people (escape from Vietnam has been a punishable crime since 1975), and the re-education camps set up to brainwash everyone from South Vietnam who participated in any way in the war against the Communists.
International human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and the Montagnard Foundation are issuing a "Red Alert" of sorts about the human rights abuses ongoing in Vietnam for three reasons: First, the Communist Party in Vietnam has stepped up its assault on ethnic minorities once loyal to the United States and, Second, the United States seems to be looking the other way, and Third, it is difficult to determine "ground truth" in these Communist countries because all the media is strictly controlled by the Communist state.
After thousand of Hmong Lao tribal peoples fled Vietnamese and Laotian military aggressions inside of the Communist country of Laos, the Communist Party of Indochina issued an order to eliminate the more than 10,000 of the ethnic minority Hmong Lao, descendants of former CIA soldiers, who remain in hiding in remote mountain areas in Laos.Communist Vietnam is apparently using its soldiers to attack these indigenous peoples and killing thousands of Hmong Lao using extreme measures such as chemical weapons, bombs and rockets.
"We know that the Vietnamese are the higher rank military commanders inside of our country Laos, Hanoi is in charge of Laos - as in the case of Cambodia. Hanoi is giving the final orders - we saw them attacking us, we hear them speaking Vietnamese, it is no secret to us who is attacking us Hmong Lao" said Faitou Vue, a Hmong Lao refugee, and CIA veteran who fled Communist Laos' widening military aggressions to refuge in Thailand.
In Vietnam, the indigenous peoples such as the Montagnards and Khmer Krom, who also sided with the U.S. during the Vietnam War, endure severe oppression and human rights violations, with many of them escaping to neighboring Cambodia."But if we stay in Cambodia, the Vietnamese will get us any minute. Cambodia listens to Hanoi, so many of our people got killed or forcefully brought back to Vietnam. The Cambodian authorities do nothing to protect us," stated one of many hundreds of Khmer Krom refugees, an indigenous peoples from the Mekong Delta, who fled further than Cambodia, hiding as an illegal migrant in Thailand.
In December, a group of about 200 Hmong refugees escaped from the Communists along the Thai-Laos border and were assaulted by Thai authorities in an effort to drive them back into the Communist side of the border. Some 22 ethnic Hmong refugees were sent to the Netherlands just two weeks ago as part of a program managed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This occurred only about one month after President Bush and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Communists Vietnam.
One director of refugee operations for the UNHCR told us, "Frankly, we are very disappointed in the response of the United States to the plight of the ethnic minorities in Vietnam and elsewhere."These Hmong moved from Thailand to the Netherlands were among 153 migrants who have been held at a detention centre near the Thai-Laos border since December for illegally entering Thailand. Also two weeks ago, inside of Vietnam - five Khmer Krom Buddhist temples, together with their Khmer Krom communities held a peaceful demonstration to request to Hanoi to be allowed to maintain their Buddhist religion, which they say was not granted.
"They abuse our people for so long, we are arrested for teaching our own language, or our history, and they always target our Buddhist monks, the heart and soul of our Khmer Krom people," said T. Thach, president of NGO Khmer Krom Federation."Our temples are the center of our communities. We are imprisoned and tortured when we listen to the radio from the outside word, or when we check the internet related to our concerns. Writing e-mails to the outside world is prohibited."T. Thach continued: "If our Khmer Krom Buddhist monks teach the sacred Buddhist language Pali - they are ordered by Hanoi to include Communist doctrines, if not, they get disrobed and are not allowed to be monks anymore, and are imprisoned as traitors and enemies of Communism .
This is not right: our religion has nothing to do with Communism, or any form of politics, it is our religion, and sacred to us. It is the teaching of peace and rightful conduct in life. But we are not allowed to maintain our religion, we are not even allowed to maintain our Khmer Krom culture, way of life, actually, they want to Vietnamize us in a manner, that nothing would be left from us, as Khmer Krom peoples, or Montagnards peoples - and we object to that.""One can always tell when a group of Montagnards escapes into Mondulkiri Province. Vietnamese army and police officials chase after them and cross the border as if they owned western Cambodia," said journalist The Co Van, from the Montagnard Foundation."The Cambodian provincial police are alerted, and the guesthouses in the capital of Sen Monorum quickly fill with Cambodian police and army officials from neighboring provinces," The Co Van added."What a tragedy that America has abandoned our former allies in the Vietnam War a second time.
Now the U.S. has the leverage to force the Vietnamese government to treat the Montagnards better but it remains silent when Hanoi glosses over their draconian human rights record in their bid for entrance into the WTO."The Montagnard Foundation reports that they hold evidence that bounty hunters capture the Montagnard refugees in Cambodia, and sell them back to the Vietnamese for $20 to $100. Twenty dollars is a month's pay for a policeman in this part of the world."Why does the mainstream media ignore the plight of the Montagnards, the Khmer Krom, and their cousins, the Hmong in Laos for over 30 years, and still continue to do so?" asked Chue Chou Tchang, from the Special Guerrilla Units (SGU) Veterans. SGU Veterans is a U.S.- based Hmong human rights organization organization.
"One has to wonder why the Vietnamese Communist Party is so paranoid and ruthless in their treatment of a few Montagnards and Khmer Krom - escaping their clutches in the middle of the night," said Van."Why Laos, under the advice of Hanoi pressures Thailand to force thousands of Hmong Lao refugees back to Laos? That's because they know they can get away with it and that the mainstream media in the West really isn't interested in the human rights abuses of Communist police states" said Van.
EDITOR's NOTE: The South Vietnamese called American military advisors "Co Van" during the war in Vietnam. But the word translates more exactly as "consultant." Mr. Carey is former president of International ("Quoc Te") Defense Consultants Inc., a company of Co Van thast has operated since 1997.
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Saturday, February 24, 2007
Khmer Rouge Trial risked collapse, UN feel the killing from Ex-Khmer Rouge
By Erika Kinetz
Newsweek International
Nearly 10 years after the Cambodian government first asked for help setting up a court to try leaders of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, it has yet to hold a single hearing. Washington refuses to fund the court on the ground that it's not up to international standards, and its ambassador, Joseph Mussomeli, says, "no trial would be better than a trial that will be a farce."
The court's foreign and Cambodian judges are deadlocked over procedure, and the foreign judges have threatened to walk out rather than participate in what they fear could become an exercise in politics over justice.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Since the Nuremberg tribunal after World War II, trials of brutal leaders have slowly become more common and established a moderately positive record.
U.N. courts have convicted numerous individuals for the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide. A hybrid court under local and international auspices is slowly getting off the ground in Sierra Leone. But the Cambodia tribunal, also an experimental local-international hybrid, has gone nowhere—denying justice to the almost 2 million victims of one of the 20th century's worst acts of mass slaughter. Court insiders, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, now give the tribunal a 50-50 chance of collapsing.
Part of the problem is that, unlike the U.N. courts, Cambodia's tribunal is, at the government's insistence, mainly a national affair staffed mostly with Cambodian judges (though they are supposed to be guided by international principles). Hans Corell, who led the U.N.'s effort to help establish the court, says that he is "not at all convinced that this represents a good solution" to the problem of achieving justice in a local context. There's a certain emotional logic to prosecuting Cambodian crimes in Cambodia, and optimists hope a televised exercise in real justice will help break the cycle of violence and impunity that haunts the nation.
But that outcome looks unlikely. Hun Sen's government seems interested in the trial only to the extent it will vindicate its own anti-Khmer Rouge credentials—without dredging up awkward facts, such as current officials' own Khmer Rouge ties or the support that China, now a close ally, gave to the genocidal regime. The are other worrisome signs: one of the court's Cambodian judges has admitted taking bribes, and another once sent an opposition politician to prison after a one-day trial.
An American watchdog group, the Open Society Justice Initiative, recently alleged that employees of the court were being forced to pay kickbacks to government officials (a charge Phnom Penh denies), and the U.N. is auditing the court's hiring of local staff. Sara Colm of Human Rights Watch says the Cambodian government "got cold feet" when it realized that working with foreign partners meant "it might not be able to control" the judicial process.
The government does look willing to let the trial proceed, albeit in a limited fashion. Part of Hun Sen's legitimacy comes from the fact that his Vietnam-backed government held the Khmer Rouge at bay during the 1980s even as the West backed remnants of the murderous regime. "Twenty years ago we fought the Khmer Rouge, and no one supported us except a few friends," says Prak Sokhon, the cabinet secretary. "Now the tribunal will show that [we were] right."
Even if it does move forward, however, it's unclear which kind of justice the court can deliver. The key suspects are old and, like Pol Pot, rapidly dying off. And though surveys show most Cambodians support the tribunal, what they really want to know is what happened to their spouses and children. Moreover, traditional Cambodian justice usually involves simple retribution, using lynch mobs or cash compensation.
The court's Canadian co-prosecutor, Robert Petit, maintains that no court can hope to deliver justice equal to the suffering of victims in such cases. But if Cambodia's court is transparent, he says, it could establish an "incontrovertible record about what happened."
Ideal or not, most agree that Cambodia's hybrid court is the country's last chance to exorcise its demons—and that time is fast running out. French judge Marcel Lemonde says that if procedures aren't adopted by this spring, it may, regrettably, be time to call it quits.
International staffers are nearing their wits' end: "Nobody came here to move paper around," says Petit. But that's as close to justice as Cambodia is getting these days.
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Vietnam-Cambodia trade to post 27-pct annual growth by 2010
Trade between Vietnam and Cambodia is expected to annually rise 27 percent to 2.45 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, according to a local trade agency on Friday.
Of the total trade, Vietnam is expected to export goods worth some 1.9 billion dollars to the foreign country, said the Export and Import Department under the Trade Ministry.
Vietnam, the 4th biggest exporter of Cambodia, is expected to increase the export percentage of industrial products to the neighbor country, while decreasing that of fuels and minerals, and maintaining that of agricultural, forestry and fishery products, and foodstuffs.
Specifically, the export percentages of industrial items, fuels and minerals, and agricultural, forestry and fishery products are expected to respectively stand at 55 percent, 37 percent and 8 percent in 2010, and 63 percent, 29.5 percent and 7.5 percent in 2015.
For imports, the country is set to import mostly semi-processed agricultural, forestry and fishery products from Cambodia.
Vietnam needs to expand trade with Cambodia at border areas, and give priorities to trade activities through land border gates, said the department.
Trade between Vietnam and Cambodia reached 940 million dollars in 2006, posting year-on-year rise of 35.6 percent, said the department.
Source: Xinhua
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Communist Hanoi president Ngyen Minh Triet continou visiting Cambodia
The president’s visit, from February 27 to March 1, comes at the invitation of Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni. Vietnam and Cambodia have recently exchanged many high-ranking delegations, including the visits by Vietnamese Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2005.
Last year Vietnamese PM Phan Van Khai visited Cambodia in March and his successor, Nguyen Tan Dung, traveled there in December.Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, National Assembly President Heng Samrin and Deputy PM-cum-Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hor Namhong also visited Vietnam in 2006. Vietnam and Cambodia have bolstered defense cooperation over the past few years and have worked closely to solve land and sea border issues.
During Cambodian officials’ visits to Vietnam last year, the countries signed the Supplementary Treaty to the 1985 Border Demarcation Treaty alongside other cooperation agreements that have helped lift bilateral ties to new heights. Two-way trade has steadily increased over the past years, reaching US$900 million in 2006, up 30 percent over the previous year.
Additionally, the countries have launched bilateral education, energy, health care and
transportation collaborations. Vietnam and Cambodia have also cooperated within frameworks of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Mekong Sub-region and the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle.
Source: VNA
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Friday, February 23, 2007
Cambodia's poor scavenge unexploded ordnance
Watching him work is unnerving. Alerted by the detector, he digs with his hoe and finds the broken tail of a mortar shell.
Still, the potential rewards remain hard to resist.
Equity News back for Cambodia's commune councils election
The Equity News Elections Bulletin, a joint UNDP-TVK project, is retuning to state television and radio for the run-up to the commune councils elections to climax on April 1, said a press release on Friday.
The 15-minute Equity News program will provide coverage of political parties and platforms and follow campaign activities in a wide range of communes throughout the country, said the release jointly issued by Ministry of Information and the UNDP.
It will be broadcast every evening at 07:30 p.m. local time after the regular TVK news on weekdays with a summary edition on Saturdays during the campaign period from March 16 to 30, it said.
Equity News will also resume during the campaign period for the National Elections in 2008, it added.
To mark its return, a ceremony for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding by Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith and UNDP Program Director Anne-Isabelle Degryse-Blateau in the presence of the UN Resident Coordinator Douglas Gardner will be held at the Ministry of Information on Monday (February 26).
In 2003, during the parliamentary elections, Equity News was seen as a breakthrough in Cambodian election broadcasting. It was the first time that all main political parties received balanced and impartial coverage on television and radio.
It was also the first time that opposition leaders were both seen and heard on the news explaining their platforms and that the concept of equity was employed as a system of allocating air time coverage for political parties on the electronic media.
Source: Xinhua
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Over 100,000 candidates to join Cambodia's commune councils election
The Cambodian National Election Council (NEC) announced on Friday that 102,266 candidates from 12 political parties will compete in the 2007 commune councils election.
The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), the co-ruling Funcinpec Party and the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP), each with over 20,000 candidates, are the four major parties to compete in the provinces and the municipalities, according to a press release issued by the NEC.
The CPP, with 26,600 candidates, or the most among the 12 parties, is to compete in all 1,621 communes, the press release said.
Meanwhile, the SRP with 24,870 candidates is to compete in 1, 596 communes, Funcinpec with 21,791 candidates in 1,460 communes, and NRP with 22,169 candidates in 1,431 communes, it added.
In addition to the four major parties, eight other parties with hundreds of candidates each will just compete in parts of the communes.
They are the Khmer Democratic Party, Sangkum Jatiniyum Front Party, League for Democracy Party, Hang Dara Democratic Movement Party, Khmer National Party, Democratic Society Party, United People of Cambodia Party and Cambodian Progress Party, according to the press release.
The process of the 2007 commune councils election started on September 21, 2006, and will end on May 23, 2007. Final results will get published on April 1.
Source: Xinhua
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New World mysteries test Cambodia's lost tribe
LY KAMON clears his land with a stubby bush scythe, diligently felling the jungle he once used as a shield to hide from Vietnamese soldiers.
The community split up. Mr Kamon joined a group of 12 — four couples, each with a small child — and moved into the dragon's tail, an arrow of Cambodian territory bounded by Laos and Vietnam. All they took with them was a small tin of rice, herbs and vegetable seeds.
Using their subsistence farming skills, they built a new life in the jungle. They had one machete, a cooking pot for each couple and woven back baskets. In the next 15 years, the group grew to 34, their children married and had children of their own, only one older man died.
Ting Luong has also received a hectare of land each year from his village. He works it in the burning midday sun, dressed in a black, long-sleeved polyester shirt and rough cotton pants. "I can find clothes to wear here, in the jungle we used the leaves of trees," Mr Luong says.
Cambodia responded sharply to Oil policy recommentations by US
Cambodia has so far not begun full-scale drilling and is judging its oil reserves on exploratory wells from a number of companies including US giant Chevron. However, it has been predicted the reserves are significant and could reverse the country's current heavy dependence on aid.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Cambodia determined to take Oil blessing, not a curse
Oil is a tremendous resource for Cambodia that the government is determined not to allow to turn into a curse, Prime Minister Hun Sen told an economic forum in the capital Thursday.
He said Cambodia's as-yet untapped oil reserves were a way of "obtaining direct resources for production investment and poverty reduction" and push medium and long term economic growth.
Initial estimates tip off-shore oil reserves worth billions of dollars, which have the potential to reverse the country's current heavy reliance on aid.
However, critics have pointed to endemic corruption and a culture of impunity and warned that if the reserves are not properly managed the country has the potential to follow the disastrous path of other less developed oil rich countries like Nigeria.
"Of course I will try my best to ensure that our oil reserves realize a dream and not a curse," Hun Sen told the gathering of economists, politicians, non-government representatives and media.
2007 DPA
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Cambodia's NRP to hold rally against Funcinpec lawsuit
The Norodom Ranariddh Party ( NRP) plans to stage a demonstration soon to protest the Funcinpec Party's allegation that NRP president pocketed public funds, said a press release received on Thursday.
The rally aims to protest a lawsuit filed by the co-ruling Funcinpec Party to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court that NRP President Prince Norodom Ranariddh kept the money for selling Funcinpec's headquarters in November 2005 when he still headed Funcinpec, said the release.
The rally also aims at Funcinpec Secretary-General Nhiek Bun Chhay, who accused Ranariddh of breach of trust regarding the sale, as well as the court's bias in handling the case, it said.
The demonstration scheduled in early March is expected to draw some 10,000 participants, it added.
The party is completing an application form for submittal to the Interior Ministry and Phnom Penh Municipality about the plan to hold the huge demonstration.
Ranariddh established NRD later after he was ousted as Funcinpec President in October 2006 for neglecting party affairs and being unable to cooperate with Prime Miniser Hun Sen.
Source: Xinhua
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NGO calls to improve living quality of HIV/AIDS patients in Cambodia
Cambodia should strive to improve the living quality of its HIV/AIDS patients rather than just support them to live, the Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA) said on Thursday.
The kingdom is now faced with new and different challenges in its anti-HIV/AIDS campaign, such as moving beyond meeting the basic needs of the patients, KHANA said in a press release issued along the inauguration of the two-day Stakeholder Conference on the HIV/AIDS Response in Cambodia.
Let's "think of living, not only surviving," added KHANA, organizer of the conference and major HIV/AIDS fighter in the kingdom since 1997.
Cambodia also needs to assure that the aid programs are well governed and accountable, and that the people of Cambodia have access to a range of opportunities to ensure their health and well- being, said the press release.
Meanwhile, a report issued by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) at the conference confirmed that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is no longer growing rapidly in Cambodia , which means that the kingdom has "turned the tide" in the period from 1991 to 2005.
The HIV/AIDS prevalence rate among the Cambodian adults has dropped to the current 1.9 percent from three percent in 1997 and the people living with HIV/AIDS also decreased from 179,000 in 1998 to the current 135,100, including 123,100 adults and 12,000 children, it said.
According to government statistics, HIV/AIDS has killed about 100,000 Cambodians so far.
Source: Xinhua
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Hunting Montagnards in Cambodia
They still hunt Montagnards here in the eastern province of Mondulkiri, Cambodia, like the Native American Indians were hunted down in the Old West in the United States. It's hard to believe that such a thing could still be happening in the year 2006 and that the rest of the world doesn't give a damn, but that's the way it is here. The irony is that hunting the forest animals for meat is now against the law in Cambodia but there is no such prohibition when it comes to hunting humans who flee oppression from the nearby police state of Vietnam.
The main crimes of the minority peoples of Southeast Asia is that they aligned themselves with the Americans during the Vietnam War and that the hardliners in the Hanoi politburo have never strayed from their obsession with collecting their blood debt after the war.
The communist party of Indochina founded by Ho Chi Minh has given the world the boat people, the reeducation camps, the genocide of the Hmong people in Laos, and the killing fields of Cambodia.The Vietnamese communist party apparatus still maintains a virtual iron curtain around the Central Highlands of Vietnam that used to be the traditional homeland for the 54 ethnic hill tribes loosely defined as Montagnards.
No Montagnard can leave a village without a pass, their leaders are confined to house arrest, and many are in prison that refuse to denounce their protestant religion. One can always tell when a group of Montagnards escape into Mondulkiri Province. Vietnamese army and police officials chase after them and cross the border as if they owned western Cambodia.
The Cambodian provincial police are alerted, and the guesthouses in the capitol of Sen Monorum quickly fill with Cambodian police and army officials from neighboring provinces. The government approved bounty hunters, who bring along their karaoke girls for the week's fun, then hunt the fleeing Montagnards and sell them back to the Vietnamese for $20 to $100, depending upon the importance of the individual captured. Twenty dollars is a month's pay for a policeman in this part of the world.
The UNHCR who is supposed to be there to assist the Montagnard refugees then enters the picture. After most of the Montagnards have been captured and sold back to the Vietnamese, Prime Minister Hun Sen gives permission to the UNHCR in Phnom Penh to travel to Mondulkiri to help the escaping Montagnards.After an 8-hour drive from Phnom Penh to Mondulkiri in their shiny white Land Rovers, the UNHCR workers give the pretense of searching for the escaping refugees, and once in awhile, they happen to find a few.
One has to wonder why the UNHCR has their refugee camp an impossible distance of 300 kilometers for the fleeing Montagnards to reach safely. My experience last year with a UNHCR rep in charge of the refugee camp was that he had utter contempt for the fleeing Montagnards from Vietnam, referring to them as economic refugees rather than legitimate political refugees.
With a straight face, he told me that the Montagnards sent back to Vietnam are quite well treated and receive high paying jobs. "We have a Vietnamese on staff who resides in Hanoi, "he proudly stated. "He travels to the Central Highlands to investigate human rights violations."
And surprise, there aren't any human rights violations. That's the way the game is played here in Cambodia. The human rights organizations that I met with here last month in Phnom Penh have little respect for the UNHCR.
UNHCR bowed to behind the scenes pressure from the Hanoi government several years ago and pulled their camps back to Phnom Penh where they now only give a wink and a nod to the fleeing Montagnards. The US Consulate staff in Vietnam has adapted the UNHCR's view of the Montagnards' plight in the Central Highlands in that the Montagnards themselves are the cause for most of their difficulties and that there are no human rights abuses there.
In October of 2005 in Saigon, I met with the refugee resettlement section representing eleven Montagnard families from North Carolina. They were pleading for US officials to intervene with government officials for their relatives who were being hassled and extorted for huge sums of money for documents that they needed to successfully emigrate."The Montagnards are basically an uneducated bunch who don't follow the rules," lectured one senior US official.
"When we go out to investigate, we find them to be the ones causing the problems."But of course, when US officials are allowed into the Central Highlands on rare occasions, a communist minder accompanies them. The Montagnards are then interviewed with police officials breathing down their necks. And surprise, they say they are treated quite well. There is an iron curtain that surrounds the Central Highlands today. There is absolutely no independent inquiry allowed there. Even our own ambassador can't visit there independently.
There was more press freedom in Vietnam back during the Vietnam War as western reporters could travel anywhere and report their findings without censure or fear. The American media doesn't seem to be interested in this topic today. What a tragedy that America has abandoned our former allies in the Vietnam War a second time. Now the US has the leverage to force the Vietnamese government to treat the Montagnards better but it remains silent when Hanoi glosses over their draconian human rights record in their bid for entrance into the WTO.
The new focus in Vietnam today is market capitalism with no human rights or religious freedom for the ethnic minorities. The communist party and the politburo that are the real power in Vietnam learned long ago that they could make money off the backs of the little people. That's why they confiscated the Montagnards' valuable land in the Central Highlands. According to the magazine Asia Inc, Nov-Dec 2006, the government of Vietnam today owns 1500 state enterprises worth 30 billion dollars. Yes, that's right, a tiny minority that comprises the communist party that is the government of Vietnam is now worth 30 billion dollars.
Why have the mainstream media ignored the plight of the Montagnards and their cousins, the Hmong in Laos for over 30 years, and still continue to do so?The modern day intelligentsia that dominate our universities where speech codes are in place and free exchange of ideas are very limited, grew up as a part of the anti-war movement of the l960's singing the simple Marxist phrases of Ho Chi Minh and damning the evil American military capitalist machine. And most of the mainstream media stars of that time period marched lock step with them.
It's now a given that the Vietnam War was lost in the streets of American and on American television. Even the North Vietnamese generals admit it in their memoirs. (Is a similar parallel unfolding today?)Those Vietnam Veterans who fought the war along side the South Vietnamese and the Montagnards received the scorn of the American left who sang praises for Uncle Ho and his communist cadres who were going to introduce the new socialist paradise on earth.
But then, the holocaust that unraveled in Southeast Asia after the American military left, had been simply too painful for the left in America to face, for if they honestly examined it, they might find themselves guilty by their tacit support for the perpetrators of the killing fields in Cambodia, the reeducation camps in Vietnam, and the genocide of the ethnic hill tribes that continues today. To put it into simpler words, that's the side the left in America rooted for in the Vietnam War. How can they ever honestly face up to it? Or accurately write about it. One has to wonder why the Vietnamese communist party is so paranoid and ruthless in their treatment of a few Montagnards escaping their clutches in the middle of the night.
That's because they know they can get away with it and that the mainstream media in the West really isn't interested in the human rights abuses of a communist police state. It seems the Socialist Republic of Vietnam still owns the hearts and minds of the dominant media culture in America. By their ongoing silence that has lasted for over 30 years, they continue to ignore the ongoing genocide in Southeast Asia of our former allies and swallow the communist doublespeak as to the human rights violation there.
But if one were ever to stray off the tourist path in Cambodia and Vietnam like I have, it's easy to discover that, "The Montagnards are hunted down like animals and sold back to the Vietnamese communist government, and the rest of the world doesn't give a damn.
We are at Peace and Freedom salute Mr. Scott Johnson in Australia who works tirelessly in behalf of the Montagnard peoples and manages the Montagnard Foundation. http://www.montagnard-foundation.org/homepage.html Co Van translates as "The Advisor."
The writer of this essay works inside Communist Vietnam sometimes on behalf of the Montgnards and needs to remain anonymous to relain free.
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Vietnam to plant rubber trees in Cambodia
Vietnam will invest some four million U.S. dollars in growing 4,000 hectares of rubber trees in Cambodia, according to the Vietnam Rubber Corporation on Thursday.
Under a plan on growing the trees in the foreign country recently approved by the Vietnamese government, the state-owned corporation will provide funds, seedlings and necessary equipment for the plantation.
The plantation is part of the corporation's scheme of cultivating 100,000 hectares of rubber trees in Cambodia, already adopted by the government.
Vietnam, the world's fourth biggest natural rubber exporter, sold overseas 65,000 tons of rubber valued at 104 million dollars in January, posting respective year-on-year rises of 12.6 percent and 17.8 percent, according to the Vietnam Rubber Association.
The country exported 697,000 tons of rubber totaling nearly 1.3 billion dollars to more than 40 countries and regions, including China, the United States and Europe in 2006, up 18.7 percent and 58.3 percent, respectively, against 2005.
Source: Xinhua
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Cambodia supports six-party talks on Korean Peninsula nuclear issue
The Cambodian government has said that it supports the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the Koh Santhephea Daily reported on Tuesday.
The report said Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong had congratulated Choe Han Chun, the out-going ambassador of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to Cambodia, on the progress achieved at the talks and expressed his support.
Hor, also minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, said Cambodia would always support reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula.
The latest round of the six-party talks, involving the United States, DPRK, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, ended in Beijing on Feb. 13 with the signing of a joint document that represents the first step toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
According to the document, the DPRK will shut down and seal the Yongbyon nuclear facility, including the reprocessing facility, and invite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) back to the country to monitor and verify its actions.
In return, the DPRK will receive emergency energy assistance of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, starting within 60 days.
In exchange for irreversibly disabling the nuclear facility and ending all nuclear programs, the DPRK will eventually receive another 950,000 tons of oil, according to the agreement.
Source: Xinhua
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Corruption allegations in Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal promptUN audit
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A U.N. agency said it has audited the finances of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal, as local and foreign officials involved in the judicial process were divided Wednesday over recent corruption allegations against it.
The announcement by the United Nations Development Program, which is managing some of the tribunal's funds, added weight to allegations of corruption made last week by a New York-based legal monitoring organization. The findings of the audit have not yet been announced.
The Open Society Justice Initiative alleged in a statement that Cambodian judges and other court personnel had kicked back some of their wages to Cambodian government officials in exchange for their positions on the court.
The UNDP said in a statement that its decision to conduct an internal audit action had been prompted by "various reports" late last year that "raised concerns about transparency of hiring procedures" of the tribunal.
"UNDP takes such matters very seriously," it said, adding that findings of the audit — conducted from Jan. 29 to Feb. 2 — are being prepared. It did not say if or when they would be released.
Today in Asia - Pacific
"Appropriate action will be taken to respond to the internal audit recommendations," it said.
Corruption permeates the society and administration of Cambodia, one of Asia's poorest countries.
The tribunal was created by a 2003 agreement between Cambodia and the U.N. after years of difficult negotiations to bring those behind the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime to justice.
The radical policies of the now-defunct communist group, which held power in 1975-79, led to the deaths of about 1.7 million people from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.
Cambodian officials at the tribunal's administrative office have strongly denied the OSJI's accusations. The tribunal is being jointly run by Cambodian and U.N.-appointed foreign staff.
Sean Visoth, the office's Cambodian director, has decided to sever all dealings with the OSJI, the tribunal's Cambodian spokesman, Reach Sambath, said Wednesday.
The OSJI has helped organize legal training for the tribunal's Cambodian staff in the past, Reach Sambath said.
He said Sean Visoth has also sent a letter to OSJI Executive Director James A. Goldston accusing the group of being irresponsible in making the allegations.
"They released the statement without responsibility. Cooperation with an organization that shows such bad faith and bias is impossible," Reach Sambath said.
Peter Foster, a U.N.-appointed tribunal spokesman, said Sean Visoth's decision was unilateral and does not keep the OSJI from having full access to the tribunal's premises and to other officials involved in the tribunal.
The U.N.-appointed deputy director of administration, Michelle Lee, has not issued any ban on OSJI, he said, adding that "We still consider them a valuable partner in the process."
If the OSJI's allegations turn out to have merit, "we believe they should be fully investigated," Foster said.
The corruption accusations could deal another blow to the already troubled tribunal, which is set to convene later this year after long delays.
However, there are concerns that further delays could result from continuing disagreements between Cambodian and foreign judges on draft rules for the proceedings.
The tribunal has been set up to operate under Cambodia's judicial system, which is widely regarded as corrupt and susceptible to political influence.
Foster said meetings scheduled to resume early next month will be an opportunity for Cambodian and foreign judges to tackle their differences over the tribunal draft rules.
He said foreign judges could "pull out" of the whole process, as allowed by a clause in the tribunal agreement, "should the U.N. feel that international standards are not being maintained."
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Vietnam to grow rubber trees in Cambodia and Laos
Under a bilateral cooperation plan, VRC will provide funding, seedlings and necessary equipment for the planting. The investment was part of a project to cultivate 100,000 ha of rubber trees in Cambodia which was previously approved by the Government.
Cambodia considers more seats for National Assembly
Cambodia has organized a six- member committee to study the possibility of raising the number of seats of the National Assembly, an official said on Wednesday.
"So far we have met only for one time to discuss the matter and we have not got the result yet," said Ek Sam Ol, chairman of the Legislation and Justice Committee of the assembly.
The result will be known in March, he said, adding that he had no comments over whether the assembly should be enlarged or not.
King Norodom Sihanouk signed a royal decree on January 26 to create the new committee to conduct such study and research in preparation for the general election in 2008, he said.
The committee includes one member from each major party in the assembly, two members from the Ministry of Interior, and one from the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Planning, said Ol, member of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP).
Meanwhile, Nov Sowathearo, spokesman of the co-ruling Funcinpec Party, can not be reached for comment.
In addition, Sam Rainsy, president of Sam Rainsy Party, said recently that Cambodia should increase the number of seats of the top legislative body by 10 because the kingdom's population has risen to about 14 million.
Currently, the National Assembly has 123 seats for lawmakers. Among them, 73 are from CPP, 26 from Funcinpec, and 24 from the Sam Rainsy Party.
Source: Xinhua
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Australian Senate president promises more cooperation with Cambodia
Australian Senate President Paul Calvert has promised to carry out more cooperation with and extending more aid to Cambodia during his recent visit here, reported official news agency AKP on Wednesday.
While meeting with Calvert here on Monday, King Norodom Sihamoni said his visit will further strengthen and consolidate the bonds of relationship and cooperation in all fields between the two countries.
He also thanked Australia for playing an active role in helping Cambodia seek for peace and granting aids for country's development in all sectors, particularly agriculture, health care, human resources and legal affairs.
While separately meeting with Senate President Chea Sim and National Assembly President Heng Samrin here on Monday, Calvert said that the Australian Senate will further support and provide more assistance, especially human resources training, for Cambodian Senate officials.
He also highly valued the government's and the legislative bodies' achievements in the rehabilitation and economic development of the kingdom.
While meeting with Calvert here on Monday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said that Cambodia and Australia should further push forward their cooperation.
"At this moment, our cooperation is better (than before), especially in fighting terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and intelligence information exchanges, but we should further promote it," he said.
Calvert was here on an official visit. Detailed schedule of his visit has not been disclosed.
Source: Xinhua
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Nuclear Master is worrying about its own mess
United State Nuclear plant in storage crisis
The Associated Press
FRENCHTOWN TOWNSHIP, MICH.
DTE Energy Co. faces a deadline for the amounting problem of storing spent nuclear fuel from its Fermi 2 reactor in Southeastern Michigan. In about three years, the detroit-based utility will run out of room in fuel storage pool next to the reactor vessel and expects it will have to store the fuel bundles on the Fermi plant's ground in heavy concrete and steel casks designed to contain the radiation.
" we have received some bids from a number vendors and those are under evaluation," DTE spokesman John Austerberry told The Monroe Evening News. " we are also looking at the option of forming alliances with other plants to obtain the storage containers."
Storage of spent nuclear fuel has bee a controversial issue at plants across the country due to environmental and security concerns. DTE will begin a $9 million "re-racking" of Fermi's fuel pool this month, allowing a tighter pack of the spent fuel assemblies to extend the pool's capacity to 2010. It will be the second times the plant has re-racked the pool.
The federal government initially vowed to take used fuel off the hands of utilities with nuclear plant and store in deep underground in Nuvada's Yuca Mountain. But that plan is years behind schedule, due to planning, political and safety concerns.
DTE officials have said that because of buildup of waste at other nuclear plants, the chances of any Fermi's waste ever being transported to Yuca Mountain are slim. Spent fuel already is stored in casks at Consumers Energy's Big Rock Plant near Charlevoix, the Palisates plant near South Haven and more than two dozen other locations around the country.
CUT IN EMISSIONS DTE Energy Co. is spending more than US$1 billion on its Monroe power plant as part of a five-year effort to comply with federal rules to reduce emissions. The Detroit- based utility, which own Detroit Edison and Michigan Consolidated Gas will install two flue gas desulfurization units, or scrubbers, and a selective catalytic reduction unit.
The new equipment will be able to control up to 97 per cent of sulfur dioxide emissions and 80 per cent of mercury emissions at facility. The coal-fired plant, the utility's largest, has already seen 63 percent drop in emissions of sulfur dioxide, an irritant to human respiratory system.
Emissions of nitrogen oxide, which contributes to acid rain, smog and global warming, have fallen 56 percent. " we have been doing a lot in this area, and it is really getting much better," Skiles Boyd, DTE's vice president of environmental management and resources, told the Detroit Free Press for a Monday story.
The project will put the facility ahead of federal mandates under the Clean Air Interstate Rule and the Clean Air Mercury Rule that start in 2015.
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Southern Gold steps up role
SOUTHERN Gold has expanded its footprint in Cambodia via a joint venture with local company Greystoke. The Adelaide gold and base metals explorer said yesterday it had signed a letter of agreement to form a joint venture over two of Greystoke's exploration areas.
This brings to five the number of tenements Southern Gold is exploring across Cambodia, with a total area of 1155sq km.
"Exceptionally encouraging exploration results are being recorded from all these tenements as a better understanding of the mineralisation models are achieved," the company said in a statement yesterday.
"Southern Gold also notes Oxiana's reporting of several high-grade gold drilling results from Oxiana's Shin-Ha joint-venture project, which is adjacent to Southern Gold's O'Kthong project in eastern Cambodia."
Oxiana's results included 33m of 9.9 grams per tonne of gold and 4m of 10.4g/t.
Southern Gold's new tenements cover 375sq km and the company will earn an 80 per cent interest in each by funding exploration up to the bankable feasibility stage, managing director Stephen Biggins said.
The company said geochemical sampling and geological mapping would occur across the tenements during the first quarter of 2007, with drilling scheduled for several targets mid-year.
It has told the Cambodian Ministry of Industry Mining and Energy that it intends to apply for exploration licences for all of its tenements in Cambodia. Southern Gold shares added 1.5c to 54.5c yesterday.
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As economy fizzles, job prospects dim
A drop in both economic growth and the employment intensity of that growth has dimmed job prospects in Thailand, says a report by the United Nations Development Programme and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Indonesia shares a similar plight, said the report which studied the situation in Cambodia, China, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
Except for Malaysia, ''all the Asian countries studied experienced inadequate employment growth, and the problem has got worse in recent years'', said the ILO statement.
''This has been major factor in weakening the impact of economic growth on the earnings of the poor and in making growth less poverty-alleviating than it might have been.''
The causes of inadequate employment growth vary, the report says.
''In China and India, the two largest developing countries, the sharp fall in the employment intensity of growth has been the problem,'' said the ILO.
''In Indonesia and Thailand, the cause was both a reduction in employment intensity and a reduction in the rate of growth. In Cambodia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka the poor employment performance was, by and large, due to inadequate growth or growth bypassing the large sectors where poor workers are concentrated,'' the ILO said.
The study, titled ''Asian Experience on Growth, Employment and Poverty'', focuses on the employment intensity of economic growth as a means of poverty reduction and provides insights into why job growth is declining in some fast-growing Asian economies.
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Cambodia's deputy prime minister due in Seoul on enhancing cooperation
SEOUL, Feb. 20 (Yonhap) -- Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Keo Puth Rasmey was due in Seoul Tuesday on ways to increase bilateral cooperation, the Foreign Ministry said.
"Deputy Prime Minister Rasmey, who also heads Cambodia's (co-ruling) Funcinpec Party, will visit Seoul until Thursday," Lee Youn-soo, a ministry spokesman, told reporters.
He was scheduled to attend a dinner hosted by South Korea's Foreign Minister Song Min-soon later Tuesday.
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Monday, February 19, 2007
Rush for Cambodia's Oil begins
CAMBODIA
Cambodia has huge offshore oil fields whose expected worth far exceeds its current GDP. Experts fear that only the government, one of the most corrupt in the world, might benefit. An agreement with Thailand must still be worked out to develop fields in the Gulf of Thailand.
Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Oil companies have begun lining up for licenses to tap Cambodia’s vast oil and gas fields, but experts are wondering whether this new wealth will be a blessing for the country. Firms from China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Kuwait, Australia, and France have come knocking on officials’ doors to get permits to explore and develop the country’s energy riches. US giant Chevron Corp. has already drilled in the Gulf of Thailand in the last two years and found oil in five oil wells.
According to several studies conducted by the United Nations, World Bank, Harvard University, and other reliable institutions, Cambodian reserves could contain as many as 2 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. Based on the current world price of oil and gas, this may provide Cambodia with annual revenues of US$ 6 billion a year over the next two decades, an amount more than the country’s gross domestic product which is only about US$5 billion a year.
Cambodia is one of the world’s poorest countries. Some 40 per cent of its population of 14 million live below the national poverty line of 50 cents a day, 50 per cent of children never complete their primary education, 30,000 children die every year from preventable diseases, and only half of the countryside has access to electricity.
Many experts fear a repeat of what has happened in many other developing countries where massive influx of oil money enriched elites without improving the standards of living of the population.
The best example is Nigeria. Since the discovery of oil in the 1970s, the African country has exported more than US$ 400 billion in oil, but that has not benefited its people, 70 per cent of whom continue to live on less than $1 a day. Moreover, the country is carrying a US$30 billion debt.
Cambodia is still viewed as one of the most corrupt countries in the world with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party using violence in maintaining its power. But in recent years, Prime Minister Hun Sen's government has had to accept some reforms and show some more respect for human rights in order to get foreign aid which represents about 60 per cent of its working budget. However, soon it will no longer need Western aid and could disregard human rights groups altogether.
In fact, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s regime has already created a Cambodian National Petroleum Authority under his full direct control over the oil wealth.
Sokimex, Cambodia's leading conglomerate, is expected to play a key role in the energy sector. It is majority-owned by Sok Kong, a long-time friend of Hun Sen.
Cambodia’s main opposition party led by Sam Rainsy publicly accused the two companies of tax and customs-duty evasion on imported petroleum products and complained last year that domestic retail oil prices failed to fall in line with declining global oil prices, which fell by about 25 per cent between mid-July and November last year.
Cambodian oil fields are very important for China because they would allow its fuel shipments to bypass the congested Malacca Strait, through which nearly 80 per cent of its oil imports now flow.
Chinese leaders have also openly expressed concerns that in a potential conflict, US naval vessels could block China's fuel imports from the Middle East at the narrow channel that separates peninsular Malaysia and the Indonesia island of Sumatra.
Beijing has recently showered Cambodia with aid worth hundreds for millions of dollars. On January 18, a "goodwill" delegation from the Chinese Communist Party met and held undisclosed discussions with senior members of Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP).
Full-scale production of oil is not expected earlier than 2009 and Cambodia must still reach an agreement with Thailand on an overlapping area claimed by the two neighbouring countries in the Gulf of Thailand. Negotiations between the two have been going on for years but have not produced any result. (PB)
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Sunday, February 18, 2007
Meanwhile: The spirit world of the Elephant Mountains
James Pringle
Sunday, February 18, 2007
BOKOR, Cambodia
This once-opulent but long- abandoned hill town, located high above the sea on a spur of Cambodia's Elephant Mountains, is as evocative of French colonial days in Indochina as it is possible to get, down to the bottles of Bordeaux for sale at the forest ranger station.
When the stars blaze from the clear night sky and one sees the ghostly shadow of the deserted Bokor Palace Hotel at the edge of a 3,500 foot-escarpment, it is easy to imagine the orchestra playing prewar French favorites like "Valentine" by Maurice Chevalier, and numbers by his onetime lover, Mistinguett.
Colonial officials, rubber planters and their well-coiffed wives or mistresses would step out on the dance floor for the tango, rumba and Charleston.
Chips would click down on roulette tables in the nearby casino, now a deserted shell, as bow- tied attendants called "Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs."
But the screams of small apes calling to their mates in the cool night are the only nocturnal cries one hears today.
And at dusk Bokor resembles nothing so much as the setting of a Marguerite Duras novel like "The Lover" — or a spooky Hollywood movie. Nowadays, the population of the town is only 20.
Two girls come in to the ranger station for a dinner of rice, fish and winter melon soup, glad to escape the solitude, and easily imagined dangers.
Unfortunate, even terrible, events have really happened here. In the 1970s and '80s, the Khmer Rouge threw their victims over the nearby cliff, dead or alive, often tossing live grenades to finish them off. Skulls and human remains littered the jungle for years, until nature played its part.
The Cambodians, great believers in the spirit world, say Bokor is haunted.
Thai Vong, 29, my driver, who zig- zagged uphill for two hours over broken rubble on the once-tarred jungle track from Kampot, a town far below, suddenly dragged himself from the clifftop.
"Something was tugging my leg toward the edge," he nervously explained, insisting he was not, in turn, pulling my leg.
The first Western explorers reached the plateau in 1917, and in 1922 the hill station was founded, similar to the now tourist-clogged Vietnamese hill resort of Dalat, where the Emperor Bao Dai hunted tigers.
In the 1940s, in a microcosm of major conflict elsewhere, there was battling between Communist Viet Minh and French forces, then, in the 70s, fighting raged between the pro-Western Cambodian government and nascent Khmer Rouge.
The 1980s brought pitched battles between Khmer Rouge, holed up in the deserted Roman Catholic church, and invading Vietnamese forces holding the bullet-pocked hotel 500 yards away. Somehow the church's cross survived. Inside, a Khmer Rouge artist left a self-portrait on the wall.
Nowadays, there are still uniformed men armed with AK-47 rifles. But these are forest rangers employed to discourage illegal logging and to protect wildlife, which includes tigers, boar, bear, deer, python, deadly kraits and, in the more remote jungle, elephants.
Before arriving, I doubted that animals could have survived decades of fighting and bombing. But my doubts vanished as a large, black boar suddenly raced across our tracks.
The ranger, Vi Rang, 21, said he would not have shot the boar, even if it charged us.
"I'd have fired in the air, as I do to scare poachers and illegal loggers," he said.
All this is encouraging news to those who thought Cambodia's wildlife had disappeared. There is currently a debate on whether to devote all efforts to protecting what is now a national park or to encouraging more tourism, besides the iPod-toting backpackers now venturing to this unspoiled, magical time-warp.
Supporters say the largely mine-free Bokor would surely benefit from tourism. After all, as a senior ranger said, "Despite everything, the animals survived, and are even claiming back their land."
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Thailand is the big threat to the Land and Sea Demarcations of Cambodia.
