The well-kept secrets of Angkor Wat

If you look beyond the smiling Buddha faces of Bayon and the towers of Angkor Wat, you might stumble upon a sleepy district lost somewhere in the shadows of its more popular neighbour Siem Reap.

Battambang, surprisingly the second largest city in Cambodia, is where I finally found the bona fide flavour of the country and which doesn't adhere to rules laid down for its tourist-centric trail.

Initially, I wanted to take a boat to Battambang from Siem Reap, despite knowing that the journey time would be doubled. The water levels of the Tonle Sap river were quite low, so that made sure I stuck to the three-hour road journey. To my surprise, this town that came across as a laid-back settlement, was actually the second-largest in Cambodia and has witnessed its fair share of tumultuous events in Cambodia's long, mutinous history.

The bamboo train Apart from the past that it still retains, Battambang has also held on to its ancient bamboo train system. Extremely impatient for a ride, I left the very same day for Odambang, the village from where you can 'board' the train. The train is nothing more than a large bamboo platform mounted on train axles powered by a small gokart engine, and as mundane as it looks, the journey atop is nothing short of exhilarating.

I didn't realise it till I sat on it, and waited for the young boy to pull the engine cord that brought the bamboo train to life. Within a few seconds, we were hurtling through greenery with fierce speed. With no roof, doors, or seatbelts and with only a railing to hold on to, it's more thrilling than a rollercoaster ride. The most quirky part is that when another bamboo train approaches from the opposite side, you have to stop to get off, heave the cart off the tracks, change positions and resume! It could actually be tiresome once the novelty wears off, but the teamwork of strangers is quite endearing.

For ages, the rural parts of the surrounding region have had the bamboo train as its most dependable mode of transport. I was sad to learn that it was phasing out and would soon be replaced by the modern railway system, and glad that I had a chance to experience it before that happened.

Art of making rice paper Around the main Battambang town are a host of elfin villages that introduce you to the rural heart of Cambodia in a way that none of the other places here do. I started this tryst in one such village where I saw and learnt the traditional way of making 'rice paper'. This is not the paper used for artwork but refers to the thin, translucent layer of pounded and steamed rice used to wrap fresh spring rolls.

Until I spent hours there observing how the rice is boiled, drained and milled before even starting the real process, I would have never thought of the humungous effort that goes into making an everyday dish here. My remork or 'tuk tuk' driver was on a mission to show me 'real Cambodian food' and the village of Phsa Prohok welcomed us with a stench that pervaded my senses for days after.

Fish paste, which is a condiment of freshly pounded fish of all kinds that is left to rot, is a major ingredient in authentic homemade Cambodian food. Though I was assured by everyone that once cooked, the smell evaporates, there was no way I could be convinced to buy some and try it out. What I did buy though was the delicious bamboo sticky rice. Though it is found pretty much all over Cambodia, the sticky rice in Battambang, the 'rice bowl of Cambodia' is famous all over. Getting off from the ubiquitous hammock that Cambodians love to lie in, the young girl at the roadside shack heated one of the bamboo pieces over fire and cracked it open to reveal the ready mix of steamed rice, coconut milk and nuts. Despite not being a rice lover, I devoured it in minutes. No visit to the palate trail is complete without a visit to the petite Battambang Winery, the sole winery of Cambodia, so we made a pit stop there to sample the traditional red and white wines apart from the locally brewed brandy and delicious ginger ale.

The mini Angkor Wat
While Angkor Wat is Cambodia's biggest draw, few know that tucked away in Battambang is a primeval temple that is believed to have been the inspiration for the magnum opus. A long flight of steps up the quiet hillock takes you to the Banon temple which was built in the 11th century by Udayadityavarman II. It has five towers pointing towards the sky and looks like a smaller version of Angkor Wat.

Being surrounded by dense foliage, it's hard to get anything more than a glimpse of the expanse below. But if you want a grand view, the best bet is the hill atop which rests the temple Phnom Sampeu. It commands a surreal sight of Battambang in the distance and a vast canopy of green in the foreground of the dark hills that glow like embers in the last rays of the dying sun. Before it turned completely dark, I spiralled down the hill on a 'bike taxi' for my most awaited moment.

The colony of bats
Close to the base is a limestone cave that houses a colony of bats that numbers close to three million. I was sceptical initially, as I had not read about it in my guidebook or heard about it from fellow travellers, but I decided to give it a shot because the locals know best. We parked the bike on the roadside and stood solemnly like the handful of other people waiting for the spectacle. I turned my face towards the cave that a native pointed out and waited with bated breath. As the light began to dip, the distant din grew louder and slowly the insect bats spilled out of the cave's mouth, tumbling, reeling and getting back into the file that flew towards the fields each night in search of food. I stood there with my neck craned up for nearly an hour, amazed at this secret that Battambang cradles. As the last of the bats dissolved into the night, I left the site trying to discern the dark track still moving across the sky. I'm not sure if the bats earned Battambang a special place in my heart, but they would definitely be a big part of my reason to return.

Fact file
Getting there:
Fly to Siem Reap via Bangkok. From Siem Reap, it's a three-hour bus journey to Battambang.

Best time to go:
Winter (November-March) is the best time to beat the humidity.

leisure.mirror@indiatimes.com Read more!

Secret Recipe secures master franchisees in Cambodia, India

KUALA LUMPUR:Lifestyle café chain Secret Recipe has secured master franchisees to operate its business in Cambodia and southern India by April next year.

Faba Global Group Co Ltd has been granted the master franchise to operate in Cambodia, while Secret Recipe South India Pvt Ltd will operate in India.

Secret Recipe Cakes and Cafe’s chief executive officer, Datuk Steven Sim said the business in India was expected to start in the third quarter of next year with target of 10 outlets by end of 2013.

The Indian market has a huge growth potential as its gross domestic product is expected to grow at 8.4 per cent in 2012 and 8.5 per cent in 2013, he added.

Sim was speaking to reporters at the international franchise signing ceremony yesterday , witnessed by Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir.

In Cambodia, Sim said, the target location was Phnom Penh with the first cafe expected in April next year. The country’s gross domestic product projected to grow at 6.5 per cent for next year and the year after.

Meanwhile, Mukhriz said Secret Recipe’s venture into India and Cambodia was timely amid the anticipated growth, demographics expansion and robust gross domestic product trends and very attractive consumer markets in the two countries. Bernama Read more!

Surapong plays down Cambodian attack on chopper

Foreign Minister Surapong Towichukchaikul said yesterday that an incident in which Cambodian forces fired upon a Thai helicopter near the Cambodian border last week was a misunderstanding and would not lead to a dispute between the countries.

He said he would clear up the misunderstanding, although reports had it that Navy commander Admiral Surasak Runrerngrom had issued a letter of protest against Cambodia and closed border checkpoints and goods-transit points.

The foreign minister said the incident would not inflame the border conflict because Thailand and Cambodia enjoyed cordial relations. He said he is scheduled to meet Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong on December 29, which would give him an opportunity to discuss many issues.

Vice Admiral Pongsak Riroj said the helicopter of the Chanthaburi and Trat Border Prevention Command was attacked and damaged by Cambodian forces for unknown reasons while flying in Trat on Friday. The Thai military retaliated by closing two transit points for goods in Trat's Muang and Bo Rai districts, and 30 smaller border checkpoints in Chanthaburi and Trat used by Cambodia to buy supplies for military personnel and civilians.

The checkpoint at Ban Had Lek, however, remained open.

Democrat Party spokesman Chavanond Intarakomalyasut accused Surapong of failing to protect the country's integrity and sovereignty by not protesting to Cambodia over the incident. "The first thing the government must do is to lodge a protest with the Cambodian government, otherwise it means we admit that we are wrong.

"Cambodia has issued a statement saying its forces shot at the helicopter legitimately because Thailand encroached upon its territory,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Chavanond called on the Foreign Ministry to reveal the truth over the issuing of a passport to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

The Pheu Thai Party earlier said Thaksin, who is on the run from a corruption conviction, was not on a ministry blacklist. Chavanond said Thaksin is the subject of an arrest warrant on a criminal charge and is banned from holding a travel document.

"The rules are clear. How can the government distort or delete these rules?'' the spokesman asked.

Meanwhile, Auditor-General Sriracha Charoenpanit said his office last week submitted its second summons for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to give a statement on an alleged conflict of interest in connection with the government's tax-deduction policy to support first-time homebuyers. Sriracha said Yingluck postponed her first summons response because she was occupied with tackling the flooding.

Yingluck has 30 days from the issuing of the second summons to meet with officials. The Democrat Party accuses the government of policy corruption by issuing a housing scheme that favours SC Asset. Yingluck is a former chief executive of the company. Read more!

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie launching charities for their kids

Angelina Jolie has announced that she and partner Brad Pitt will create charities for each of their six children.

Jolie revealed during a chat on Anderson that she and Pitt are funding a clinic in Ethiopia in honor of their daughter Zahara Marley, who was born in the country.

The Hollywood superstars have also built a children's medical center in Cambodia for their son Maddox.

Pitt and Jolie plan to create several more charities in order to teach their children the value of philanthropy and keep them in touch with their home countries.

"They have programs in their countries [for] each of them we're starting. There's a TB/AIDS clinic being built for Zahara; there's a clinic already for Mad," Jolie told Anderson Cooper.

The actress continued: "So each of them will take that responsibility. They are from their country and they are of their country and they should know that, it's part of their family, we are their family but so is their country."

Jolie recently acknowledged that she was living a "self-destructive" lifestyle until she began her own charity work as a UN Goodwill Ambassador.

Her directorial debut In The Land of Blood and Honey, which has netted her a Golden Globe nomination, opens in US cinemas on December 23. A UK release date has yet to be announced.

Jolie's full interview on Anderson airs on Monday (December 19). Read more!

Americans donate blood to Cambodia

Cpl. Asmond L. Coker, radio operator, gives blood to Cambodia's national supply during a drive at an auditorium Dec. 16. More than one hundred service members from USS New Orleans, USS Pearl Harbor, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Amphibious Squadron 5 donated. The Camp Pendleton-, Calif., based Marine unit embarked three U.S. Navy ships in San Diego Nov. 14 and arrived in southeastern Asia Dec. 11 as part of a regularly scheduled deployment.


REAM NAVAL BASE, Cambodia - U.S. Marines and sailors and members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces queued up to give blood to Cambodia's national supply during a drive at an auditorium on Ream Naval Base Dec. 16.

U.S. service members from USS New Orleans, USS Pearl Harbor, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Amphibious Squadron 5 donated 107 units, while Cambodians from the Royal Khmer Navy donated 113 units.

Hok Kim Cheng, the Ministry of Health's National Blood Transfusion Center director in Phnom Penh, said Cambodia needs blood - around 3,000 units per month, with two-thirds required in the capital alone.

Approximately 35 percent of the national supply comes from voluntary donations, while the rest comes from families; however, a fifty-fifty source is ideal, said Cheng.

"That is why we organize mobile blood drives," said Cheng, adding that the Ministry of Health solicits donors from the country's own infrastructure - the military for example.

"Today is very helpful," said Cheng. He said the collaboration between Cambodia and the U.S., and the health ministry's relationship with the American embassy and U.S. Pacific Command, was "good for our nation."

Ten-time blood donor Staff Sgt. Toby Salas, 28, who serves as an administrative chief for unit Marines aboard New Orleans, said, "It was a different experience from giving blood in the past."

Salas, who carries an American Red Cross donor card in his wallet, said, "The feeling of giving this time was special - being in a different country, around a different culture. I felt good about it."

The Cambodian and American donors alike received a 20-page booklet, slightly larger than a business card and stamped by the Ministry of Health, with the first blocks filled out to mark the donation.

"It's a good souvenir," said Salas, who hails from Tuscaloosa, Ala. "I can't read it; it's in a foreign language, but it's a reminder of my time in Cambodia. It's a keepsake that I can show the kids and wife. It'll show them there are other cultures outside our own, outside America."

The Camp Pendleton-, Calif., based Marine unit embarked three U.S. Navy ships in San Diego Nov. 14 and arrived in southeastern Asia Dec. 11 as part of a regularly scheduled deployment. Read more!

1st motor manufacturing plant starts operations in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- A Japan-invested motor manufacturing plant launched operations in Cambodia on Saturday, raising a hope for the development of hi-tech industry in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

"Cambodia has reached a new phase of attracting investors for high technology industry after, in the past, it had attracted investments in garment industry," Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen said at the inauguration of the small-size motor manufacturing plant (Minebea Cambodia) in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone.

"The plant reflects Japanese investors in Cambodia and it has brought modern technology for the development of Cambodia," he added.

Kinoma Yoshihisa, president and CEO of the Tokyo-based Minebea Co., the investor of Minebea Cambodia, said the plant would assemble DC brush motors and micro-actuators for office-automation equipment, household electrical appliances and digital equipment, using parts supplied by Minebea plants in Thailand, and the finished products will be exported back to Thailand.

"The plant is the first manufacturer of sophisticated and small- sized motors in Cambodia and it creates thousands of jobs and contribute to the development of Cambodia's economy," he said.

Kep Chuk Tema, the governor of Phnom Penh, said the plant began the construction in April, 2011 on the land plot of 100,000 square meters in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone.

He said in the next phase, the company will build one more plant on the same plot of land to manufacture medium-size motors.

The total investment for the project is 60 million U.S. dollars, he said.

Japan is Cambodia's 11th largest investor with the total investments of 257 million U.S. dollars from 1994 to October 2011, according to the reports of the Council for the Development of Cambodia. Most Japanese investment projects here are in manufacturing industry.

The Minebea was founded in 1951. So far, the firm has set up 32 motor manufacturing plants in 11 countries: Japan, Thailand, China, Singapore, Malaysia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Slovakia, Czech and Cambodia. Read more!

More Japanese firms eye investments in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH (Kyodo) -- More Japanese firms are looking to Cambodia this year either to invest or to learn about the investment environment in the country, participants in an economic forum were told Friday.

Sok Chenda, secretary general of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, told the forum in Phnom Penh for Japanese investors that the government is improving as quickly as possible the investment environment, human resources and infrastructure.

More than 65 Japanese representing various institutions and companies attended the meeting.

Yoshihisa Kainuma, president of Minebea Co., said some challenges remain in Cambodia such as incomplete infrastructure and the high cost of electricity, but his company decided to invest there because of low labor costs, strong support from the government and a location close to Thailand where his company had already invested.

Statistics provided by the council showed that in the first 10 months this year, 16 Japanese companies invested $67.6 million in Cambodia, up sharply from only six companies that invested $35.3 million in all of last year.

In addition, nine more Japanese companies have applied in the first 10 months this year to make investments worth another $53 million, the statistics showed.

The investments cover a variety of industrial sectors, including shoemaking, garments, motorcycles and packaging, as well as beach and island development.

Japanese investments in Cambodia since 1994 through October this year totaled $250.6 million.

Since 1994 through November, China has invested $8.8 billion, South Korea $4 billion and Malaysia $2.6 billion. Read more!

Cambodia to guard garment exports amidst EU crisis

The Cambodian Government is worried that the Greek economic crisis could affect the country’s garment exports to the EU, and it will take measures to absorb external shock, Keat Chhon, Minister of Economy and Finance said at a trade exhibition in Phnom Penh.

The Government has expressed concern in spite of it upgrading the Kingdom’s gross domestic product outlook for 2011. The concern stems from the fact that EU is the second largest importer of Cambodian garments, and hence crisis in the EU countries could hurt our exports, the Minister said.

The Government will take measures to absorb external shock arising from the EU debt crisis. These will include those related to strengthening domestic laws, human resources and financial institutions, he added.

However, Cambodian garments being less expensive in nature, there may not be much decline in orders from European countries, according to Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh.

He hoped that Europeans would not stop buying Cambodian clothes even in the midst of financial crisis.
Read more!

Nuon Chea Denies Khmer Rouge Intended To Destroy Buddhism

“He demolished Buddhism when he was in power.”

In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Nuon Chea, center, who was Pol Pot's No. 2 and the group's chief ideologist, sits during the second trial of the top leaders of Khmer Rouge in the court hall of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, file photo.

Jailed Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea continued to defend the regime’s policies in a major trial on Thursday, saying the movement was not bent on destroying Buddhism, despite the systematic destruction of pagodas across the country.

Those who accuse the Khmer Rouge of seeking to destroy the religion “do not understand Buddhism,” he said in testimony before the UN-backed tribunal. Buddhism resides in the heart, and in meditation, he said, not in temples.

Thousands of pagodas were destroyed, along with the banking and education systems, after the regime came to power in 1975.

“The party had no measures to eliminate Buddhism,” Nuon Chea told the court under questioning.

However, tribunal attendee Lay Sochea, a monk from Wat Neakvoan pagoda in Phnom Penh, disagreed.

“It’s just his pretext,” he said. “He demolished Buddhism when he was in power.” Read more!

Cambodia's future rests on punishing past sexual crimes, argue campaigners

Gender violence in Cambodia owes much to the Khmer Rouge, many feel – yet the trial of the regime's leaders ignores the issue

By Hanna Hindstrom

Relatives of Khmer Rouge victims take part in an emotional prayer ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Photograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Net Saveoun was 18 when she was gang raped by Khmer Rouge soldiers. She was one of 30 women selected to "carry salt" and taken to the forest in Pursat province, western Cambodia in 1978. Each of them was beaten, brutalised and had their throat slit before being tossed into an open grave.

"I was the last one," said Saveoun. "I was hit with an axe and my clothes were torn off and then they raped me. They hit me three times with an axe. Then I was thrown into that hole full of blood. Everyone else was already dead."

But Saveoun is not a witness in the proceedings that began last week in the extraordinary chambers of the courts of Cambodia (ECCC). Instead she addressed a separate hearing last Thursday, held on the other side of the city as part of the Cambodian 16 days of action on violence against women to highlight sexual crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge.

To the frustration of both victims and campaigners, rape and sexual violence have been broadly excluded from the UN-backed trials. The investigating judges have maintained that the regime punished perpetrators of so-called moral offences, and that rape did not form part of official policy. So only forced marriages have been included in the indictments.

But rights activists say the ECCC has failed to investigate fully allegations of rape. "Through our research we have seen that a lot of rapes were carried out, especially by guards in prisons, and rapes before killings were common," said Duong Savorn, co-ordinator of the gender based violence project, part of the Cambodian defenders project, which organised the hearing.

There is also evidence to suggest that perpetrators were not punished and that the Khmer Rouge deemed rape an acceptable retribution against "enemies of the state".

"I heard of only one case where the Khmer Rouge soldier in power who repeatedly raped women was sent to a re-education camp," said Kasumi Nakagawa, who has interviewed more than 1,500 people in a research project on sexual violence under the Pol Pot regime.

The hearing's panel of experts called for the ECCC to hold senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge to account for the widespread sexual violence inflicted on the Cambodian people.

"Sexual violence is the only crime against humanity that is routinely dismissed as 'collateral damage'," said Nancee Bright, chief of staff to the UN's special representative on sexual violence in conflict.

Organisers hope the event will encourage victims to speak out and help end the culture of impunity that still haunts Cambodia today.

"[The brutalities of the Khmer Rouge regime] may have happened a long time ago but the legacy of those crimes lives on," said Bright. "We see sexual violence including trafficking of girls as young as six, we see forced prostitution and gang rape, oftentimes via people within their communities, and we see very little protection of migrant workers."

This violence can also have devastating impacts on the social and economic rights of Cambodian women, including access to education. "I heard recently about a case of a man going into a house and raping four students," said Sam Noeun, executive producer at Women's Media Centre of Cambodia. "This can put parents off from sending their daughters to study, especially in the countryside, where it is difficult to travel."

There are no comprehensive statistics on sexual violence but, according to rights groups, rape is on the rise, especially among young people. While rape is illegal and punishable by law – Cambodia introduced a new penal code last year that clarified the definition of rape – enforcement is a problem. So too is a culture of blaming victims, which ensures few women speak out. Poor women and sex workers are the worst affected.

A 2010 Amnesty International report highlighted the endemic corruption and discrimination in the judicial system that prevents women from accessing justice. Many cases are "settled" out of court with the assistance of corrupt civil servants. Cambodia recently fell 10 places on Transparency International's annual corruption perceptions index; of 182 countries, it now ranks 164th.

"I have no hope at all in the legal system of this country," said Kong Vanna, who witnessed his sister's rape more than 30 years ago and still lives in the same village as two of the perpetrators. As the statute of limitations under Cambodian law has passed, he has no legal recourse.


Rights activists are adamant the ECCC must end the legacy of impunity and send a clear message that rape is unacceptable. "If we don't address issues of violence in the past, the violence of the present will continue to happen," said Duong Savorn. Read more!

Gunfire hits Thai Chopper

By Cheang Sokha


Cambodia military forces shot at a Thai military helicopter yesterday after it flew into Cambodian airspace in Koh Kong province.

Major General Dy Phen, chief of Cambodian-Thai border relations office, said the helicopter made an emergency landing after about 100 bullets were fired at it as it crossed markers in Koh Kong’s Mondul Seima district at about 1:30pm.

“They have abused the air territory of Cambodia, so we had to fire at them,” Dy Phen, who was recently promoted to the position of adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen, said.

The rear of the helicopter was damaged and could not fly, so it landed at the border between Koh Kong and Pursat provinces, he said.

“If we flew into their territory, they would also shoot at us, but so far we have not received any reaction from Thailand.”

Dy Phen said he believed the encroachment was deliberate and related to Thai soldiers wanting to erect a Buddhist statue along the border so they could deploy their military officials in the area.

“They did it on purpose,” he said. “Our soldiers are now following the situation.”

Attempts to place statues along the border had been made in the past, but Cambodian soldiers had always removed them, he said.

A high-ranking military official in Koh Kong province also confirmed to the Post that they fired at the helicopter after it flew into Cambodian territory.

“They tried to land, but we did not allow it,” he said.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongpakdee and Defence Ministry spokesman Thanatip Sawangsaeng could not be reached for comment, but a government source in Trat, Thailand, who did not wish to be named confirmed that a Thai military helicopter on a mission to supply a border post had suffered damage to its tail but had landed safely without anyone being injured.

At the Preah Vihear temple, on the border, Cambodian border-relations officials yesterday received a letter from their Thai counterparts saying Cambodian officials had brought a group of heritage experts to see the temple of Preah Vihear, damaged from shells during the clashes earlier this year, without prior permission, Chan Chhorn, official for the Preah Vihear National Authority, said. Read more!

Thai chopper shooting caused by misunderstanding: Thai navy

BANGKOK, Dec 16 - The commandant of the Royal Thai Marine Corps on Friday said Cambodia's firing on a Thai helicopter on a border mission was caused by a misunderstanding but said that Cambodian and Thai agencies would meet Saturday to discuss measures to prevent any repetition of the incident.

Vice Admiral Pongsak Phureeroj spoke in his capacity as commander of the Chantaburi-Trat border defence forces following media reports that Cambodia's firing at a Thai Bell 212 helicopter while it was on mission to survey the border area and transport food to army personnel stationed along the Thai-Cambodian border.

Adm Pongsak said the Royal Thai Navy already submitted a protest letter to Cambodia's Military Region 3 commander after the attack.

"I definitely affirm that the Navy's helicopter did not trespass Cambodian territory but we were flying to transport food for Thai and Cambodian troops which were deployed only 50 metres away from each other and this is a regular mission," he said.

Adm Pongsak said he was surprised after being informed of the attack as military ties between the two neighbours were considered "very good" and both troops had lunch together every day.

"The Cambodian commander will come to talk with us about this tomorrow (Dec 17) and lay out measures to prevent any repeated incident," Adm Pongsak stated. "What happened must have been caused by misunderstanding and there was no ulterior motive."

The Thai commander said his troops did not return fire on the Cambodian troops after the shooting but the pilot landed immediately as irregularities were detected after the shooting.

Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Towichakchaikul on Friday commented in correspondence with the Royal Thai Marine Corps chief that the firing at the Thai chopper by Cambodian troops was caused by "misunderstanding", and said he is waiting for more details on the matter. (MCOT online news) Read more!

Logging in Cambodia

Dead wood
A resurgence in illegal logging takes its toll

OF THE five dirt-poor farmers who set out from Chhoeu Slab village in November in search of rosewood, only four returned. The fifth is recuperating in a Thai hospital, having been shot by a Thai border patrol. The boom in trade of the rich-hued hardwood has already claimed 15 lives in 2011, and dozens more have been wounded by Thai soldiers. An unknown number have simply vanished. The shootings could yet become a source of tension between the Thai and Cambodian governments, whose relations have improved immeasurably since Yingluck Shinawatra became Thai prime minister in August.

Slung along the Thai-Cambodian border, the forests of the Dangrek mountains were once brimming with the luxury wood. But rosewood stocks have fallen precipitously in recent years as illegal logging has run rampant. For Cambodian loggers, that means having to push farther into Thailand’s territory—risking capture, injury or death.

The cause of the boom is simple: growing demand in Vietnam and, especially, China. To meet the demand, a complex network of loggers has sprung up, with the riskiest work carried out by the poorest. Some are country men plucked out by ringleaders promising large sums for sawn planks. Others are villagers solicited by local soldiers.

Timber is smuggled out of Cambodia in boats and trucks. For years the trade was overseen by top officials, tycoons and their families, until international attention and even the Cambodian prime minister’s displeasure put a clamp on things. Environmental groups say it is now led by Cambodia’s armed forces. A long-running Thai-Cambodian border dispute that flared up in early 2011 around the temple of Preah Vihear has been a boon for the trade: the army has free access to surrounding areas that others do not.

Inevitably, prices are rising with demand. On the international market, the best rosewood planks can sell for $50,000 a cubic metre. A rosewood wardrobe can fetch $20,000. And as the trade diverts wood abroad, prices within Cambodia have climbed too.

The financial impact on the villagers has been huge. They may earn as little as $250 a year as subsistence farmers, but middlemen will pay them $100 for a good rosewood stump and $10 for a small one. So it is hardly surprising that villagers are venturing farther into the Thai forests, even as the risks mount.

Soy Sambo, a 53-year-old who lives in Por Peal village, 120km (75 miles) east of Chhoeu Slab, is testament to those risks. Her husband and 19-year-old son ventured into the forests in October as part of a logging expedition of 12 people, organised at the behest of a local military officer. The teenager was shot dead, and his father was arrested by Thai authorities when he returned for the body.

A tearful Mrs Soy Sambo says that everyone knows the danger. But they are so poor, she says, they have to risk their lives for the money. Read more!

Cambodia’s Healing Fields

The Healing Fields
Land mines once crippled a war-ravaged Cambodia. Today the nation is a model for how to recover from this scourge.

By Mark Jenkins
Phototograph by Lynn Johnson


Delicately brushing away the soil with his fingers, Aki Ra uncovers a dark green land mine buried two inches beneath the overgrown dirt road. The size of a large soup can, the mine was planted by the Khmer Rouge about 15 years ago on this ox track in northwestern Cambodia—the most densely mined region of one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.

"This is the type 69 Bouncing Betty made in China," says Aki Ra, his breath fogging the blastproof visor of his helmet. Bouncing Betty is the American nickname for a bounding fragmentation land mine. The pressure of a footstep causes it to leap out of the ground and then explode, spraying shrapnel in every direction. It can shred the legs of an entire squad.

Soft-spoken and cherubic, Aki Ra knows the inner workings of the Bouncing Betty and just about every other variety of mine. In the mid-1970s, when he was five, the Khmer Rouge separated him from his parents and took him into the jungle with other orphans. At that time, Pol Pot, commander of the Khmer Rouge, had plunged the country into chaos, closing schools, hospitals, factories, banks, and monasteries; executing teachers and businessmen; and forcing millions of city dwellers into a gulag of labor camps and farms. The small hands of children like Aki Ra were invaluable tools. He was trained to lay land mines, defuse and deconstruct enemy mines, and reuse the TNT for what are now called improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Some years later, when Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia, they dragooned Aki Ra into their army, and he was forced to fight against his former captors. When the United Nations' peacekeeping forces finally arrived in 1992, he'd been living in the jungle for some 15 years. He joined the UN as a deminer. When the peacekeepers left two years later, much of the best agricultural lands—vegetable gardens, pastures, rice fields—were still mined. Farmers trying to reclaim their fields were being blown to pieces. For a decade and a half, using only a knife and a stick, Aki Ra worked as an unpaid sapper, defusing rather than detonating land mines, reclaiming his country one square foot at a time. By his own count, he has defused some 50,000 devices: blast mines, antitank mines, bounding mines, and other explosives.

"I found a lot of mines that I laid," he says with a conflicted sense of pride and shame.

Now a certified deminer, he has his own squad, the Cambodian Self Help Demining team, partially funded by the U.S. The deminers use special metal detectors to search for explosives; that's how they found the Bouncing Betty.

Sweat is dripping off Aki Ra's face as he carefully places a small charge beside the land mine, attaches wires, and runs a thin cable a hundred yards away. Like all official demining organizations, Aki Ra's team no longer defuses land mines but detonates them in situ instead. Squatting behind a tree, he pushes the red button. The explosion is terrifying. With half a grin, Aki Ra says, "One less land mine, one less child without a leg."

In the warfare that raged in Cambodia from 1970 until 1998, all sides used land mines. There are more than 30 different types. Villagers have prosaic names for them based on their appearance: the frog, the drum, the betel leaf, the corncob. Most were manufactured in China, Russia, or Vietnam, a few in the United States. Pol Pot, whose regime was responsible for the deaths of some 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979, purportedly called land mines his "perfect soldiers." They never sleep. They wait, with limitless patience. Although weapons of war, land mines are unlike bullets and bombs in two distinct ways. First, they are designed to maim rather than kill, because an injured soldier requires the help of two or three others, reducing the enemy's forces. Second, and most sinister, when a war ends, land mines remain in the ground, primed to explode. Only 25 percent of land mine victims around the world are soldiers. The rest are civilians—boys gathering firewood, mothers sowing rice, girls herding goats.

Despite its horrific history, Cambodia has now become a model for how a nation can recover from the scourge of land mines. There are more than a dozen programs for demining, land mine risk education, and survivor assistance in the country. The number of men, women, and children killed or injured each year by mines (both antipersonnel and antitank), explosive remnants of war, or IEDs has fallen from a high of 4,320 in 1996 to 286 in 2010. Survivors are offered medical and vocational assistance. Every schoolchild is taught about the dangers of explosives. Contests have even been held for the best hip-hop songs about land mine awareness.

"I've been rude since I was young," a male performer boasts in one winning song. "I can only make things from bombs."

"No need to exaggerate and show off to me," the female chorus replies. "I don't care and don't want to hear about this."

Major minefields have been mapped and are being systematically demined. There's even a Cambodia Landmine Museum, created by Aki Ra. Located outside Siem Reap, a provincial capital, it displays the mines and ordnance that he deactivated. With support from Americans Bill and Jill Morse, who founded the Landmine Relief Fund, Aki Ra also cares for and educates 35 children at an orphanage.

Worldwide, millions of land mines are buried in nearly 80 countries and regions—from Angola to Afghanistan, Vietnam to Zimbabwe. That's one of every three nations. Many of them are following Cambodia's example. In 2002 almost 12,000 people worldwide were reported killed or maimed by land mines or other explosives. Since then, annual casualties have fallen to fewer than 4,200. This dramatic improvement is a direct result of the Mine Ban Treaty signed in Ottawa, Canada, in 1997, an international agreement banning the use, production, or transfer of land mines and calling for mandatory destruction of stockpiles. Today 157 countries have become party to the treaty, including Afghanistan, Liberia, Nicaragua, and Rwanda; but 39 countries have refused to join, including China, Russia, North Korea, and the U.S.

The American position is complicated. The United States has not used antipersonnel land mines since 1991, not exported them since 1992, and not produced them since 1997. But the nation has a stockpile of some 10 million land mines, and prior to the '90s, it exported 4.4 million antipersonnel land mines, an unknown number of which are still in the ground. Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, described the government's official position in 2009: "We would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we signed this convention." Nonetheless, under pressure from the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Obama Administration has been conducting a comprehensive review of its land mine policy.

Despite its refusal to join the treaty, the U.S. has done more to counteract mines than any other country, spending $1.9 billion during the past 18 years through the Humanitarian Mine Action Program—roughly a quarter of the total spent on demining and other remediation activities around the world. There's been a special emphasis on helping Cambodia, which has received more than $80 million since 1993.

As in many countries, the vast majority of demining in Cambodia is done by hand. Demining machines—30-ton, dinosaur-size rototillers that flail the earth to a depth of 12 inches—are exceedingly expensive. Only three are in use, along with 50 or so dogs trained to sniff out a mine. But in the end, a human must dig it out.

Demining operations have strict protocols. Outfitted in heavy, high-collared, crotch-​protecting flak jackets and thick-visored helmets, a team of 10 to 25 deminers line up along the edge of a minefield with garden tools and a metal detector. Moving forward in yard-wide lanes, they first clear the vegetation from each three-foot-square block, then sweep the ground with the detectors. They toil straight through monsoonal rains and scorching heat, moving the detectors across the ground, listening for the telltale beep.

The salary is decent for Cambodia—about $160-$250 a month—but money is not the main motivation. When Hong Cheat was five or six years old, a cow he was tending stepped on a land mine. The explosion killed his mother and father and blew off his right leg. He was surviving on the streets of Phnom Penh as a beggar when Aki Ra adopted him and trained him to be a deminer.

"I like to clear the land mines," says Cheat. "I don't want to see any more people like me in my country."


There's a new sense of hope spreading across Cambodia. The country is becoming a place where you can dream of a better life—and where sometimes, those dreams come true. Just ask Miss Landmine Cambodia.

Dos Sopheap, a young woman from Bat­tambang Province, lost her leg to a mine when she was six years old. Her father, then a soldier, was carrying her in his arms through the forest at night when someone in front of them stumbled on a trip wire. Her leg was amputated high above the knee, and she has always used crutches with her false leg—until now.

To the tearful clapping of her family, Sopheap is taking her new titanium prosthesis for a test run around their dirt front yard, scattering the ducks and chickens. As befits a beauty queen, she is wearing a flouncy, peach-colored dress lit up like a rose by the setting sun. Her twin sisters hang on to each arm as she walks stiffly in circles, and her mother weeps.

Competing against 19 other women who had also lost limbs, Sopheap won the 2009 title of Miss Landmine Cambodia through an Internet vote based on her photo. She was awarded $1,000 in cash and a $15,000 state-of-the-art prosthesis. The beauty pageant was founded by Morten Traavik, an eccentric Norwegian theater director who organized the first contest in Angola in 2008.

"The goal is to bring attention to the global issue of land mine contamination," Traavik had told me earlier at a beauty parlor in Battambang where Sopheap was being coiffed and made up for a photo shoot, "and to make us think about how we, able-bodied people, look at disabled people, and not least how disabled people perceive themselves and present themselves."

"It was so hard to watch other children run and play in the schoolyard," says Sopheap's mother. The other children teased the young girl. But that didn't discourage her. Beautiful and quiet, she became a top student, ranking fifth in her high school class. The other kids now call her Miss Landmine, which pleases her. She hopes to become an accountant someday. Her mother later confides that Sopheap also "just wants to be like the other girls and be able to wear jeans."


People aren't the only victims of land mines. A country's economy is crippled too. More than 60 percent of Cambodians are farmers, who can't work a field if it's mined, can't earn an income, and can't feed their families. This is one reason why so many other mine-poisoned countries have struggled for so long after armed conflict has ended.

"There's a clear link between land mine contamination and poverty," says Jamie Franklin of Mines Advisory Group (MAG), one of the major demining operations in Cambodia. Franklin has a large map of the country on the wall of his office in Phnom Penh. The eastern half is splattered with thousands of tiny red and purple dots, representing U.S. bombing raids during the Vietnam War. The western half is marked with hundreds of yellow squares, representing minefields. Unexploded ordnance and minefields are huge obstacles to increased agricultural production, which the government believes is necessary for economic development and recovery.

MAG has demined thousands of acres of contaminated land during the past two dec­ades, including the village of Prey Pros in central Cambodia, where brilliant green squares of flooded rice fields shimmer as far as the eye can see. In Prey Pros, you can hear hammers and laughter. Crops have been good for the past few years, and residents are building homes.

Thath Khiev, the village chief, bounced a naked baby on his knee while his wife stirred a cauldron of bubbling rice. Seventeen years ago, their world was very different.

"We did not have enough food to eat," Khiev tells me. "We could not grow rice on our own land because the soldiers had laid the mines." Prey Pros was once a garrison for Cambodian government forces. Two companies of soldiers were stationed here to protect a nearby bridge. To deter the Khmer Rouge, the bridge was mined and the village's rice fields were also heavily mined as a no-man's-land perimeter. Even footpaths in the village were mined. "It was very difficult," Khiev says.

MAG demined the area around Prey Pros in 1994 and 1995, removing 379 antipersonnel mines and 32 unexploded ordnance.

"Now we can walk safely to the rice fields and work freely without fear of mines," Khiev says. Tossing his grandson in the air, he adds, "It's safe for little children. If they want to swim in the river, in the lake, they can."

As villages and rice paddies like Prey Pros have been cleared, Cambodia's economy has grown stronger. In 1999, the first full year of peace, Cambodia had a gross national income (GNI) of $10 billion and a per capita annual income of $820; 11 years later, in 2010, the GNI had almost tripled to $29 billion, and personal income had more than doubled to $2,040.

Since 1992 demining has cleared about 270 square miles, but there are still some 250 square miles of contaminated land left. Currently, 23 to 31 square miles are cleared a year, which means it will take another decade to rid Cambodia of mines and other explosives—a goal that has been achieved in less heavily mined countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Albania.

"We simply cannot clear them fast enough," Franklin says.


Even though deminers are still busy, Cambodia is no longer a devastated nation. Cities and villages throb with industriousness.

"We have a future now," says San Mao.

Short and muscled, Mao is an elite runner. He rises at four o'clock every morning to train, threading five miles through the wet, black streets of Phnom Penh. An hour later, after changing his curved fiberglass prosthesis for a rubber foot, he goes to work, whizzing around town as a motorcycle taxi driver. At five in the afternoon, he picks up his young daughter from school, then goes out for another run. His efforts have paid off.

Nine times in recent years, Mao has won the Angkor Wat International artificial leg ten-­kilometer foot race, part of the Angkor Wat International Half Marathon, which was founded in 1996 to help land mine survivors.

He doesn't run just to win races. Running has calmed his mind. He used to get headaches from thinking too much about the past. "Now I focus on making a living for just one day, on eating for one day," he says, almost smiling.

Mao was a 15-year-old farm boy in 1987 when he was kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge. Soldiers dragged him away from his family into the jungle near the Thai border, forcing him to carry ammunition and refusing to feed him. One morning he spotted fruit beneath a tree. The next thing he remembers he was lying in the mud, blood every­where. The tree had been booby-trapped. "I cannot find anything to compare to the pain," whispers Mao. "I died there."

Three days later, unconscious but alive, he was found by other soldiers, who carried him to a hospital across the border in Thailand. Doctors amputated his leg below the knee. Upon returning to Cambodia, he began vocational training sponsored by Handicap International. That's where he met Ouch Vun, his future wife.

Today the couple live in central Phnom Penh with their daughter and ten other tenants. Their corrugated metal shack is set on stilts above a swamp with floating garbage. Inside, the walls are papered with pages from a pop culture magazine. Mao's race medals hang from nails behind the TV.

When I visit, Regina, their seven-year-old, offers me a bottle of water, then sits in her father's lap. Ouch Vun hobbles over and places a whirring electric fan before me, then awkwardly seats herself beside her husband, tucking her sarong over her artificial leg.

Vun is so shy she barely speaks. Her eyes drop when I look at her. She tells me that her right leg was blown off in 1990 when she was digging for gold with her impoverished family. "When the doctor cut off my leg, I cried for months," she says.

Regina has been watching first her father, then her mother, tell their stories. Mao is stroking her hair, Vun lightly touching her arm. Unlike her parents when they were her age, she can walk without fear of suffering the same fate.

A week later, on a mild December morning, a crowd of hundreds cheers the start of the Angkor Wat ten-kilometer race. It's a fitting location for the biggest race of its kind in Cambodia, with 50 or more runners. The famous ruins were once indiscriminately planted with land mines. Today Angkor Wat is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations.

When San Mao first comes into view, the clapping and cheering swell. Sweat streaks his cropped black hair; his round face is as calm as Buddha's. Whether he knows it or not, Mao is the embodiment of a country transcending its past. His feet, one muscle and bone, the other bowed fiberglass, are like wings. When they carry him first across the finish line, Cambodians erupt in jubilation.

. Read more!

Cambodia is the new China for Halfords

By Enda Mullen
China is no longer the automatic go-to country for manufacturing with the emerging economies of tomorrow offering better value, according to the boss of one of the Midlands’ best known companies.

Halfords chief executive David Wild said the company was seeking out new manufacturers across the globe in countries such as Cambodia as it strove to retain a competitive edge.

Mr Wild revealed the South East Asian country had emerged as an unlikely supplier for bicycles in a supply chain that is rapidly changing and evolving and believes it offers a real alternative to the Chinese option.

“As these markets mature labour costs increase,” he said. “If we want to stay price competitive we also have to be trying to find new manufacturing sources.

“We are now buying bikes from Cambodia, which is a lower duty area and therefore has lower costs.

“We have to go to new sources and have found a supplier that provides excellent value and we pass that on to the customer. You have to work much harder to find the cheapest sources.”

But it is not a case of the company turning its back on China, with Halfords having recently opened an office in Shanghai to target new manufacturing areas of the country and Mr Wild continues to see the country as a major supply source.

“We have set up an office in Shanghai to look at the whole of China and see there are areas that offer lower production costs,” he added.

“The south east seaboard of China was the traditional production area and most of the buying offices were in Hong Kong. More and more production is spreading to other parts and Shanghai is an important buying area for us.”

The Cambodian connection came about more by chance than by design, according to Mr Wild, with Halfords taking a proactive role as it developed.

“We go to fairs two or three times a year where all the cycle producers exhibit,” he said. “At one we met someone who was actually producing in Taiwan. He found it increasingly expensive and said he was thinking of opening a factory in Cambodia.

“We looked at the bikes and the guy clearly knew what he was doing.

“Cambodia offered cheap labour costs and duty rates, so we said if you want to build a factory there we will provide some technical help regarding the bikes we want.

“We started buying bikes two years ago, in relatively small volumes at first but it has got bigger over time.

“It’s an example of finding the right partner, supporting them with our technical help and moving to a significant level of production.”

Importantly, Cambodia could be just the first step of many and Mr Wild revealed it is not the only new country it is exploring opportunities in.

“We’re not talking about it publicly but we are already looking at where we can go next,” he said.

The Halfords chief remains cautious about dealing with the downturn but believes providing customers with services and products they need and want at the right price remains key, particularly in relation to car servicing at its Nationwide Autocentres chain.

“The recovery profile is looking to be a long one so what customers are doing is recognising things are not going to get any better so they are changing their behaviour,” he said. “Customers are much more price conscious when servicing their car and our autocentres business has been doing well.

“Our position is that most customers feel main dealerships do a very good job but they pay a very high price. They are happy with the quality of work but feel they are paying too high a price. Independents are much more flexible, much more responsive and you can usually get your car in more quickly. But customers need to feel more comfortable with an independent as regards the same quality of work and trustworthiness.

“We are delivering a balance, the quality of work of a main dealer with a brand that is trusted and the same price you pay at an independent.”

There are also plans for growth of the Nationwide Autocentres business. When Halfords bought it last year there were 223 servicing outlets, a figure that has since grown to 247, and Mr Wild said he believes there is room for 400 or more with plans to grow the business by around 30 outlets a year.

Bicycles also continue to be a growth area for Halfords, as does its online retailing operation, though Mr Wild feels its ‘reserve and select’ model where people browse online but go to a store to confirm their purchase is in line with what customers want.

“It’s a very powerful combination,” he said. “People talk about multi-channel retailing and Halfords is one of the best in the UK at doing that.

“They research online and buy online but come to the store to get added value. In most cases don’t take money off customer until they come to the store, to give them a chance to be completely satisfied before parting with their money.” Read more!

Cambodia to get its first drop of oil by end of 2012

China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) has begun drilling in Block F, nearly 40km south of Sihanoukville in southern Cambodia, Council of Ministers Press and Quick Reaction Unit spokesman Ek Tha said Wednesday.

"CNOOC’s chief executive told Deputy Prime Minister HE Sok An today about the company drilling its first well since it got the oil and gas exploration project in 2007," he said.

The spokesman said Sok An welcomed the drilling and asked about CNOOC’s decision in Block F.

According to the National Petroleum Authority, the block covers more than 7,000sqkm, with the first drilling project expected to cost US$20 million.

The commencement of drilling follows an environmental impact assessment received by civil society last month. Cambodia expects to get its first drop of oil by the end of 2012. Read more!

CNOOC to start drilling 1st oil well in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH - The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) will start drilling the first well in the Block F offshore in Cambodia's Preah Sihanouk province later this month, Li Fanrong, the company's Chief Executive Officer, said Wednesday.

His disclosure was made during a meeting with Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, minister of the council of ministers, according to Ek Tha, spokesman and deputy director of the Council of Ministers' Press Department.

Li Fanrong said the start of the drilling showed the firm's commitment to investing in Cambodia's oil and gas sector and it resulted from good and long relationship between Cambodia and China, according to Ek Tha.

The first well drilling is expected to cost 20 million US dollars.

Meanwhile, Sok An said it was a very good sign for Cambodia's oil and gas sector and added that Cambodia fully supported the firm for the drilling.

He also asked the CNOOC, which is China's biggest offshore oil and gas company, to help develop Cambodian petroleum officials to keep up with new techniques in oil and gas industry.

The government of Cambodia awarded the Block F in the total area of over 7,000 square kilometers to the CNOOC in 2007, according to the document of the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority.

The Block F is one of the six offshore Blocks that Cambodia awarded to companies to do the exploration.

The other five Blocks are Block A by the US Chevron and Japan' s Mitsui Oil Exploration, Block B to Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production and Singapore Petroleum, Block C to Polytec Petroleum Hong Kong, Block D to China Petrotech Holdings Limited, and Block E to Medco Energi and Kuwait Energy.

The impoverished Southeast Asian nation hopes that the first drop of its own-produced oil will be available from December, 2012 as now Cambodia's Petrochemical Company, a joint-venture with the China National Automation Control System Corporation, has been studying the feasibility to build an oil refinery with an annual capacity of 5 million tons per year in Preah Sihanouk province. Read more!

Inevitable, or in Limbo? A Dam for the Mekong

“Many villages don’t even know they need to be resettled, and people living downstream don’t know what’s happening.”

By Rachel Nuwer


As The Times reported last week, environment ministers from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos have decided to await the results of further studies before making a decision on whether to proceed with construction of a dam in the Mekong River. Conservationists argue that damming the river, a vital and biologically diverse lifeline for people in all four countries, would be irresponsible. (Check out our slide show to get a sense of the river’s centrality to people in the basin.)

Zeb Hogan, University of Nevada, RenoA floating village in the Tonle Sap River, which drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. The arrow trap, one of many indigenous fishing methods that developed over the centuries, shifts seasonally depending on water levels and the related behavior of fish.


What comes next, however, is unclear. The government of Laos, where the dam would be built, is not satisfied with the decision, according to Viraphonh Viravong, the deputy minister of the Laotian Ministry of Energy and Mines. “It would be very sad and not very fair to Laos not to develop the Xayaburi project since this is a very rare opportunity for Laos to attract foreign investment,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Times. “We would not be very proud of ourselves to continue begging for development assistance.”

What is more, Laos began preliminary construction at the dam site before last week’s meeting and has yet to make a clear commitment to stop construction at Xayaburi.

“The government of Laos didn’t mention the topic at the meeting,” said Surasak Glahan, a spokesman for the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental body that is responsible for promoting cooperation in the basin and organized the meeting. He said the commission and the other member governments had sent official letters to the Laotian government inquiring about construction activity but had yet to receive a reply.
After the meeting, the Laotian authorities told some members of the local media that the construction activity had nothing to do with the dam and was part of “normal” projects like bringing roads to local communities.
As we noted here last week, the Xayaburi dam, a 1260-megawatt hydropower project, is the first of 11 proposed mainstream dams on the Mekong River. Although it is aimed at generating much-needed foreign exchange earnings for Laos, scientists and neighboring countries like Vietnam and Cambodia have expressed concern over the project’s potential social and environmental impacts since it was first proposed in September 2010.

Some scientists and conservationists still hope that the project can be shelved altogether. “We will continue to advocate for no dams on the Mekong,” said Ame Trandem, the Southeast Asia program director for the nonprofit group International Rivers. She said that damming the river would be “reckless and irresponsible” given the many uncertainties about the project’s effects on the ecosystem and local people.

Zeb Hogan, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno who has studied the river’s ecosystem, said that the Mekong countries had made “a prudent decision” for now that represented “a rare win” for fish and for the millions of people who depend upon fish and the health of the Mekong for their livelihoods.

For critically endangered species like the Mekong giant catfish, the delay preserves the possibility of saving the species from extinction, he said in an e-mail.

Mr. Viravong counters that the dam’s impacts would be “insignificant” and that the project will not cause significant trans-boundary problems downstream.

Mr. Glahan of the Mekong River Commission said that it was awaiting directions from the four member countries. The nations may request further studies and the drafting of details on what approach the countries would prefer to take in addressing the dam’s potential impacts, he said.

The four countries have already asked Japan to assist in further studies.

Thirteen other nations, including the United States, and donor agencies like the World Bank attended last week’s meeting. In a statement, those countries and organizations said they hoped that further studies would address knowledge gaps and “account for the full value of environmental, economic and social services currently provided by the basin.” A spokesman for Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, called the delay “a positive sign,” Agence France-Presse reported.

Mr. Viravong said that Laos was recruiting experts on fisheries and sediment to review previous reports evaluating the dam’s potential impacts, including a strategic environmental assessment and a controversial report commissioned by Laos that said dam construction would pose no serious risks yet incorporated no new scientific research. He said that such reviews should take two to three months.

A comprehensive environmental study involving Japan and the other donor countries would probably take 10 years, Mr. Viravong warned.

The international partners have also recommended deeper engagement with local communities in the decision-making process, especially people who could be most affected by the dam. That would require providing the communities with detailed environmental impact assessments written in their own language at least 30 days before a public consultation, Ms. Trandem said, which has not happened so far in any of the four countries.

This is especially pressing for Lao communities, who have not been consulted. “They’ve really heard mixed information,” Ms. Trandem said, “Many villages don’t even know they need to be resettled, and people living downstream don’t know what’s happening.”

Mr. Viravong, the Laotian government minister, emphasized that the Xayaburi project would provide clean, renewable and sustainable energy. “This is not for Lao people only, but for the benefit of the region and the whole world,” he said. “Please help Laos develop sustainable hydropower projects and don’t make this more difficult for the poor people of Laos.” Read more!

Khmer Rouge leader tells Cambodia court: 'don't call me Brother Number Two'

The former deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Wednesday that he was never called "Brother Number Two", a nickname he said was "too big" for him.

"I am not 'Brother Number Two'," the 85-year-old Nuon Chea said in court Photo: REUTERS/Mark Peters


Giving evidence at his landmark atrocities trial, alongside two other senior members of the brutal 1970s regime, Nuon Chea said there "was no such thing" as a hierarchy numbering system within the Khmer Rouge.

"I am not 'Brother Number Two'," the 85-year-old said, though he admitted he was the deputy secretary of the party and "one step below" leader Pol Pot – who died in 1998 and was widely known as "Brother Number One".

The hardline communist Khmer Rouge emptied cities, abolished money and religion and wiped out nearly a quarter of the population through starvation, overwork or execution in a bid to create an agrarian utopia.

Nuon Chea, ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan all deny charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity for their roles in a regime blamed for the deaths of up to two million people.

The trio's long-awaited trial is seen as vital to healing wounds in the still-traumatised nation and hundreds of Cambodians again packed the public gallery to see Nuon Chea, wearing a black jumper and jacket, take the stand.

"So 'Brother Number Two' to me seems too big for me," the elderly defendant said. "I have never used 'Brother Number Two' and in the party no one called me 'Brother Number Two' at all."

He added that he believed the moniker was popularised by Cambodians who had studied in neighbouring Vietnam and copied that country's culture of assigning numbers to indicate ranks.

The first phase of the trial will focus on the forced evacuation of over two million residents from Phnom Penh to work in rural areas, a decision Nuon Chea said was made without input from fellow accused Khieu Samphan.

"He had no business to do with the evacuation or otherwise of the people. It was not his task," Nuon Chea said.

On Tuesday, Khieu Samphan told judges he was a mere figurehead who had no real power in the party. The French-educated intellectual has always insisted he knew nothing, until long afterwards, of the mass killings under the regime. Read more!

Cambodia expects 7% growth in 2011: premier

PHNOM PENH - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday said the country's economy would grow by about seven per cent in 2011 despite the agricultural damage caused by unusually heavy flooding.

Cambodia's deadliest floods in over a decade, triggered by heavy rains in August and September, killed at least 247 people and destroyed nearly one tenth of the nation's rice paddies.

"I would like to confirm that although the agricultural sector growth is at zero per cent, Cambodia's economic growth rate will be around seven per cent this year," Hun Sen said during a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh.

He said the economy was boosted by an increase in garment exports and international tourist arrivals and a resurgent construction industry.

The International Monetary Fund last week projected that Cambodia's economic growth in 2011 would fall slightly below six per cent as a result of the floods, down from an earlier forecast of 6.7 per cent.

The global body said it expected Cambodia's gross domestic product growth to reach 7.25 per cent in 2012.

Written off as a failed state after the devastating 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime and several decades of civil war, Cambodia has used garment and footwear exports and tourism to help improve its economy.

The country enjoyed several years of double-digit economic growth before being hit hard by the global financial crisis which began in 2007.

But like much of Asia, Cambodia has bounced back and achieved 5.9 per cent growth in 2010, according to Hun Sen.

Cambodia remains one of the world's poorest countries, with around 30 per cent of its 14 million people living on less than US$! (S$1.3) a day. Read more!