Foreign Ministry protests against Cambodia

The world will be laughing at Thailand's claims about Cambodia violation sovereignty of Thailand. Thailand have been stealing lots of temples and antiques from Cambodia. Preah Vihear temple and surrounding area is belong to Cambodia, any pieces of rock, the West entrance inside Thailand, any thing the whole area belong to the Temple should be belong to Cambodia.

The Foreign Ministry Thursday lodged an official protest with Cambodia over sovereignty violation in the overlapping area near Preah Vihear temple.

Virachai Plasai, Director General of Treaties and Legal Affairs summoned Cambodia's Ambassador Thailand Ung Sean to take an aide-memoire after Phnom Penh dispatched a number of armed forces the area in question over a month ago.

The protest was made as Cambodia has violated a memorandum of understanding signed by both sides in 2000 which barred two countries from making any changes in the area before the boundary demarcation, Virachai said.

The Nation
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French navy ship arrives in Cambodia for visit

PHNOM PENH, April 10 (Xinhua) -- The French naval vessel Dupuy de Lome docked at the south-western Cambodian port of Sihanoukville on Thursday for a visit aimed at strengthening bilateral ties with Cambodian navy, French embassy official said.

The French navy delegation will exchange experiences with the Cambodian navy side, said Sabyene Mansecan, spokeswoman of the French embassy to Cambodia.

She said that the Dupuy de Lome ship, which is 102 meters in length and has 100 crew members, will anchor at Sihanoukville for four days.

The French delegation will meet with some senior Cambodian officials, including Say Hak, Governor of Sihanoukville, she added. Read more!

Cambodia: Phnom Penh Empire Win Hun Sen Cup

A single strike from Anucha Chuaisri early in the second half was enough to allow Phnom Penh Empire FC to be crowned as the champions of the Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Decho Hun Sen Cup 2008 after beating Preah Khan Reach 1-0 in the final.

Anucha made clever use of limited space just four minutes after the restart to slam home to give Phnom Penh the crown to at least alleviate some of the disappointment of losing the league title in the recently concluded Cambodian Premier League season.

Phnom Penh Empire made the final this year after a convincing performance in the semi-finals in which they sent Build Bright University FC packing with a 4-1 beating while Preah Khan Reach eliminated Khemara Keila FC 5-4 in the other tie.

In the fight for third and fourth placing, Build Bright emerged victorious when they beat Khemara 3-2.

But it was Khemara who drew first blood when Kuoch Sokomphiak scored the opening goal in the fourth minute for Build Bright to stage a late reply in the 61st minute off Sem Bunny before adding further goals off Saidu Zila Sani (64th minute) and Nnandi Sylester Ahiem (88th minute).
Akpueze Kenneth late strike deep in injury time failed to change the scoreline as Khemara settled for fourth place.
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Cambodia lifts ban of rice exports for three provinces

PHNOM PENH, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister Hun Sen has lifted the ban of rice exports for three provinces neighboring Vietnam due to their difficulty of processing and storing newly-harvested paddy, English-Khmer language newspaper the Mekong Times reported on Wednesday.

The premier made the decision on Monday under the request of Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh to allow Prey Veng, Kandal and Takeo provinces to export rice, while the ban still remain valid for other provinces.

Hun Sen imposed the two-month-long ban of rice exports on March26 in order to help curb the spiraling price of the staple food.

Minister Agriculture and Fisheries Chan Sarun said that the permission is being offered because the farmers in these three provinces have harvested dry-season rice and found it difficult to store.

"Cambodia will not face a problem of food security because plenty of rice is already in stock," he added.

At the end of March, as another measure to help bring down the price, the government released national stockpile of rice into the market. High-quality rice once sold one U.S. dollar per kilo, almost two times the previous price.

Experts believed that the decrease of global rice production and the over purchase by Vietnam and Thailand from Cambodia had caused the price hike on the Cambodian market
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Thailand, Cambodia reopen talks on disputed waters

By an OGJ correspondent
BANGKOK, Apr. 8 -- Thailand and Cambodia plan to resume negotiations Apr. 21 in Bangkok over long-standing differences covering ownership of gas reserves in disputed waters.

An impasse has prevented development of 26,000 sq km area in the Gulf of Thailand. The area is believed to hold substantial hydrocarbon deposits.

Negotiations are being prompted by skyrocketing oil prices and the need of both Thailand and Cambodia to find indigenous energy supplies.

In 2001, both sides agreed to adopt the Joint Development Area (JDA), a scheme embraced earlier by Thailand and Malaysia, for developing oil and gas in the disputed zone without resolving exact maritime boundaries.

The original model negotiated by Thailand and Cambodia called for a 50-50 split of resources arising from the middle portion of the JDA, with sharing ratios differing on areas flanking the plot, depending on the proximity to their territorial claims.

However, Phnom Penh authorities are pressing for a 60-40 sharing ratio, unlike the 50-50 split adopted by Thailand and Malaysia on the 7,250-sq-km triangular JDA (OGJ Online, Aug. 15, 2006).

Songpop Polachan, deputy director-general of Thailand's Department of Mineral Fuels, said Thailand will insist that the Malaysia-Thailand JDA sharing model is adopted for the Thailand-Cambodia pact.

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Cambodia, Vietnam exchange methods on protecting forests, wildlife

Law enforcement officers from two provinces in central Vietnam have completed a week-long Forest and Wildlife Law Enforcement Study Tour of Cambodia, a press release said Wednesday.

During the visit organized by WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Vietnam and PeunPa, a member of the Wildlife Alliance, officials from Vietnam's Forest Protection Department (FPD) and Police met their Cambodian counterparts, observed rangers training at Preah Monivong (Bokor) National Park, visited Phnom Tamao wildlife rescue center, and attended seminars focusing on wildlife and forest conservation, the WWF press release said.

They also discussed inter-agency cooperation with Cambodia's Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team, which comprises Forestry Administration officials and members of the Royal Gendarmerie Khmer, it added.

The study tour gave participants first hand experience of regionally tested methods of forest and wildlife law enforcement, and will encourage greater international inter-agency cooperation between the two countries to suppress nature crime, the release said, adding that the chance to observe and discuss Cambodia's best practices will also help the participants consider ways to implement their own strategies for forest protection.

"Forest crime in Southeast Asia is a multi-million dollar activity that is stripping the region of irreplaceable natural heritage to the enrichment of a limited few. In Vietnam, responsibility for suppressing this criminal activity is shared between a wide range of agencies, from forest rangers to economic and traffic police, through to customs and border security forces," said Mark E Grindley, WWF Technical Advisor in central Vietnam.

"The Vietnam Government is encouraging the inter-agency cooperation necessary to address the problem, and we are pleased to support an exchange of ideas with Cambodia, where there are some highly successful models from which to learn," Grindley said.

The trip was jointly hosted by Cambodia's Ministry of Forest and Fisheries and Ministry of the Environment.

Source: Xinhua Read more!