ADB Helps Wire Northwest Cambodia with Thai Electricity

Press Release - Asian Development Bank

June 28 2007

A major electricity shortage in northwest Cambodia, including around the tourism hub of Siem Reap, is being fixed with the help of an $8 million loan from the Asian Development Bank to build power lines that will import electricity from neighboring Thailand.

The development will be a boost for the regional economy, not just in tourism but also in agriculture, mining and manufacturing. As demand for power grows, it will also reduce emissions as businesses will not have to invest in new diesel-powered electrical generators.

“This will give the region access to cheaper electricity and a reliable supply,” said Tomas A. Norton de Matos, a Senior Structured Finance Specialist with ADB. “It is also promoting regional cooperation because the electricity will be supplied by Thailand. We worked closely with ThaiExim Bank to enable this project, which also includes trade in Thai equipment and services, to proceed.”

ADB’s Board of Directors agreed on June 27 to loan the money to the (Cambodia) Power Transmission Lines Co. Ltd, a private Cambodian company. The high-voltage grid lines will be the first to be privately owned in the Greater Mekong Subregion. It is the first ADB private sector infrastructure project in Cambodia.

“We are pleased to be investing in Cambodia’s critical transmission infrastructure and to have worked closely with Cambodian and Thailand authorities, and all our partners, in this respect,” said Ly Say Khieng, Chairman and CEO of the company.

Northwest Cambodia, like the rest of the country, suffers from insufficient and unreliable power. There is no national grid and electricity is generated almost exclusively by small diesel plants that generate emissions. This hinders Cambodia’s ability to attract investment and promote sustainable economic activities, which are critical to reducing poverty.

Electricity in Cambodia is among the most expensive in the region because of the disaggregated and isolated small-scale systems.

Siem Reap is home to the famed Angkor Wat temples and is an important and growing tourism center. Many hotels in the area rely on their own power generators. There are similar power shortages in neighboring Battambang, an important agricultural center, and Banteay Meanchey, which supports manufacturing and trading activities.

The 115kV power lines will connect with Thailand’s national grid at the border. They will then run about 221 kilometers mainly alongside National Road 5 and National Road 6 to Siem Reap and Battambang. In addition to connecting the major towns, the new lines will provide opportunities to wire rural communities along the route for electricity.

Work on the project has already started and the first section to Siem Reap is expected to be completed this month or next. The second section to Battambang is scheduled to be completed a couple of months later.

ADB’s $8 million loan will go toward the estimated $32 million total project cost. The balance of funding is being provided through equity, as well as loans from the Export-Import Bank of Thailand and local Cambodian banks. Read more!

Cambodia Town

Ethnic district designation would honor refugees.

There are some understandable concerns being voiced about naming a section of Long Beach Cambodia Town. We have spoken with and received letters from plenty of people who feel that a special designation for Cambodians would be at the expense of blacks, Hispanics and whites who have also hung their shingles along Anaheim Street between Junipero Avenue and Atlantic Boulevard.

While we understand these concerns, we do not see how honoring one group's contributions dishonors anyone else's. The proposal the City Council plans to consider tonight recognizes hardworking refugees who have made homes and built businesses in the central city. It does not do so at the exclusion of any other race or ethnicity.

There are indeed people of all nationalities living and working in Artesia's Little India, L.A.'s Koreatown and any number of Southern California ethnic districts. The same is true for what would become Cambodia Town. Such designations merely call attention to a neighborhood's unique characteristics, but not so at the expense of the other ethnicities.

Ethnic districts can benefit everyone in a neighborhood by drawing tourists and diners, something that worn-out stretch of Anaheim Street could use. We doubt, for example, that Pioneer Boulevard in Artesia would draw so many visitors without Little India, but that doesn't mean the city's sizeable Portuguese and Hispanic populations are invisible to outsiders.

In addition, there is something special in recognizing Cambodian refugees - and their children - who escaped a brutal regime at home before finding the American dream in a welcoming city, Long Beach.

Though there is dissent, the proposal has the unanimous approval of the Housing and Neighborhoods Committee and is being carried by the committee's chairwoman, City Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal. Committee polling found support for a Cambodia Town. Here's a little more. Read more!

Cambodia to introduce safer air route from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville

The Cambodian government will introduce safer route between the kingdom's hottest travel destinations Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, thus reducing the possibility of air crash, local press reported on Tuesday.

Future flights between the two cities will avoid mountainous areas judged to be too dangerous, but the detour will mean flights last twice as long, English-language newspaper the Cambodian Daily quoted officials as saying.

It was unclear when any air carrier will begin serving the new route, which is still in the process of mapping, it said.

"The new route is expected to be safer but it needs to detour around the area where we think it isn't safe," said Him Sarun, cabinet chief at the State Secretariat for Civil Aviation.

"We believe the new route will take an hour and a half while the current route is just 45 minutes," he added.

Cambodia's PMT Air Flight U4 241 crashed on June 25 into a Kampot province mountainside en route from Siem Reap and only 51 km from Sihanoukville's Kang Keng Airport. All 22 people aboard were killed.

Tourism is one of the pillar industries of Cambodia. The flight route from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville was just kicked off early this year to further promote the tourist boom.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Life's Walk

They sat in silence.

There was no "Amen" or nervous chatter, just silence. Members of the Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship sat in their fabric-covered seats without uttering a sound. Minutes before they had heard from a man who had lived in Cambodia 27 years and had witnessed firsthand the despair of a war-torn country full of starving refugees.

"I went to Cambodia as a joke," said Bob Maat, a Jesuit physicians’ assistant and co-founder of the Coalition for Peace and Reconciliation in Cambodia.

There had been a Time Magazine cover of a "starving mother and child from Cambodia," that Maat says haunted him. He kept thinking about that photograph. In jest, he turned to his buddy one day, a student of theology, and said to him, "Frank, we ought to go to Cambodia."

"We went for three months; I stayed 27 years." said Maat, who first stepped foot in Cambodia in 1979.

"Adults and children were starving; it’s life changing when you’ve been with someone who is starving to death; you can’t be the same," Maat said.

There seemed to be a marked sense of sadness that belied the lightness of his tone. His attempt to tone down his weighted speech with jokes seemed to hit a Sunday sermon chord common in steeple settings.

The word "You" is not used in Cambodia, he said, instead people are called who they are such as mother, father, son, daughter, etc.

"I am Grandpa now," Maat said. "A young man came up to me and said, ’Grandpa, do you remember me?’ I had been there 27 years and did not remember him. He says to me, ‘My mother saw you walking down the road and pointed you out to me and told me that you were the foreigner who helped take care of me when I was hungry; you fed me ice cream when I was a baby.’ "

When he wasn’t trying to cure malnutrition, Maat was helping cure Cambodian refugees ravished with tuberculosis. In 1987, he contracted TB and was subsequently cured. He has served as a United Nations protection officer, as well as a rice farmer. Though he’s been stateside a while now, having returned to Cambodia twice, in 1984 and 1994, it seemed that no amount of distance or time would ever separate him from the borders of Cambodia.

"There was a prophecy that once said, ‘There will come a day when darkness will settle over the people of Cambodia. There will be houses with no people in them, roads with no people upon them … there will be no religion. People will live in jungles dressed in black. Only the mute and deaf will survive.’ In 1975, that prophecy came true. There were more bombs dropped in Cambodia than all of WWII. There were 3 million who died between 1975 and 1979. There was a lack of food, lack of medical care and just lack of care altogether."

In 1991, Maat and others started walking for peace in Cambodia. It was known as the Dhammayietra and has since become an annual month-long walk. He says the first Dhammayietra began in the refugee camps along the Thai border.

"We had a lot of obstacles to cross," said Maat, who was born in New York City and graduated from a Jesuit High School in Cleveland, Ohio followed by Emory, where he graduated in 1977 with an oncology degree.

Due to suffocating heat, Maat said walks would begin at 4 a.m.

"We walked with land mines in the ground," he said. "There were 10 million land mines in the ground - more land mines than people. We formed an army of peace. We used bullets of loving kindness. It was a land mine of the heart. Where there was greed, we used the weapon of generosity; where there was hatred, we used the weapon of loving kindness; where there was ignorance, we used the weapon of wisdom. We walked to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful and remove the wrongs of injustice."

It was his relationship with a monk named, Venerable Maha Ghosananda, now deceased, that Maat says transformed his way of thinking.

"He could speak 15 languages, but he spoke best the language of the heart," said Maat of Ghosananda.

Currently, Maat is hopping Greyhound buses traveling the countryside to educate the public about the importance of the Dhammayietra, a walk of hope.

In his closing remarks, Maat looked out over the gathered fellowship and spoke of what the Bible teaches.

"Jesus says to love one another as I first loved you," he said.

And with a soft step, he returned to his seat - to sit in silence.

To help fund the walk of peace in Cambodia, checks should be addressed to Coalition for Peace and Reconciliation in Cambodia or CPR, P.O. Box 60, Bungthong Lang Post Office, Bangkok 10242 Thailand. Read more!

I LEFT PLANET HOLLYWOOD TO HELP THE POOREST KIDS ON THE PLANET

Why ex-movie boss Scott now dedicates his life to charity work

By Annie Brown

TWO days ago as he stood knee deep in the stinking mud of a Cambodian dump, Scott Neeson's life flashed in front of him.

He was once "Mr Hollywood", a movie executive with a mansion, a 36ft yacht and A-list stars on his speed dial.

But four years on and the trappings of wealth are gone.

Scott sacrificed his opulent life to move to Phnom Penh, to set up the Cambodian Children's Fund (CCF) in 2003 and help Cambodia's poorest children who lead a grim existence scavenging in Phnom Penh's notorious rubbish dump.

Scott, from Edinburgh, now has 263 children in three facilities, with health care provided by Fiona McLeish, a paediatric nurse from East Kilbride.

And he has just enlisted the help of Sumner Redstone, America's 25th richest man and the media mogul famed for firing Tom Cruise.

However, a couple of days ago on one of his regular visits to the dump, he lost his footing and found himself sinking in to the mire.

Scott said: "The stench was awful. I was knee deep in what I will politely call mud, but wasn't. At that moment I thought of my previous life and my friends who were returning from Cannes while I am trying to scrape muck off my leg with a stick."

He returned to the CCF centre, which now educates, cares for and feeds impoverished children and he was greeted with laughter.

He said: "The kids were edging away from me shouting 'you stink'."

Scott enjoyed a glittering 10-year career in LA as President of 20th Century Fox International and as head of Sony Pictures' international marketing.

He oversaw the releases of such films as Titanic, Star Wars, Braveheart, Independence Day and X-Men.

He was friendly with Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford and even shook hands with Prince Charles at a movie premiere.

Scott, 48, had a house in the Hollywood hills, complete with swimming pool and Cindy Crawford as a neighbour.

He returns to LA about four times a year, but now the importance of Tinseltown is exploiting his connections there for the benefit of the CCF children.

His latest success story is a perfect illustration and brought Redstone to the rescue of Lyda, one of the world's poorest girls.

Media mogul Redstone is worth an estimated £6billion as chief of Viacom, which owns Paramount, CBS and MTV.

Lyda is a 13-year-old girl who has been a CCF child for two years after Scott found her at Steung Meanchey, Phnom Penh's huge garbage dump - a place he describes as "apocalyptic".

She had been abandoned at five and was sleeping on the ground. Like all the children from the dump she was earning a living working 13-hour days from 5am, picking through the garbage for recyclables to sell for pennies.

Scott said: "When I first saw Lyda, she was small, hunched and alone, but she was so loving and had an amazing smile."

A medical check-up at CCF uncovered scoliosis, a severe curvature of the spine.

Scott took her to LA after a hospital offered to treat her for free, but was then devastated to be told that the doctors considered it too risky to operate.

But while he was in LA he met up with Sumner who had been asking about CCF and he took Lyda with him.

The billionaire was so taken with her that he got on the phone to the Cedars-Sinai Hospital in LA to which he had just donated Û20million.

Scott said: "Sumner was doing the whole curmudgeon thing, and starts barking out orders and the next thing you know, Lyda is getting the best medical treatment in the whole world."

One of the world's top orthopaedic surgeons, Dr Robert Bernstein, successfully operated and Sumner picked up the Û100,000 tab.

The day after the operation it had straightened Lyda's spine so much she was 5cm taller.

Lyda was released last Monday, a week earlier than expected, and she is now able to walk.

She is staying with friends of Scott and has with her Fiona McLeish who has been working with CCF for a year.

Fiona is the health co-ordinator for CCF and as well as administering first aid at the dump, runs a series of health programmes, not just for the children, but for their families too.

The nurse, who worked at Yorkhill Hospital for Sick Kids, is still in LA with Lyda but will return to Cambodia with her shortly.

She said: "CCF is an amazing organisation. I only planned to stay for three months but as soon as I saw what they were doing, I decided I had to stay on longer.

"The children are wonderful and it makes such a difference to their lives."

AFTER his sojourn to LA, Scott wanted to get back to Cambodia straight away in what he sees as "reality".

He said: "It's nice being safe, they have traffic rules and the chances of getting dysentery are slimmer."

But he added: "After 10 days I get the itch to come back to reality. I miss the kids too much. I would rather be in the back of the truck with the kids than a private jet any day."

While in LA Scott visited a friend in the movie business who was arranging for a private jet to be flown to Europe for a famous actress and the publicist was demanding to know the thread count on the seats.

Scott said: "I really don't miss that at all. It's totally obscene."

After 10 years climbing the corporate ladder, Scott now admits he had lost perspective on the level of wealth which surrounded him.

He now looks back with a more cynical eye.

He said: "I once had a case where there were two actors who were in a film together and they didn't get on.

"We had to send two private jets to fly from LA to Europe because they just wouldn't go together. The cost of the jets and the fuel was ridiculous."

It was on a backpacking holiday through Asia when a stop over in Cambodia changed Scott's life.
He was struck by the terrible poverty and thought that helping the child beggars would be a simple case of giving their families money.

He paid for children's education, bought families furniture and clothes only to discover that when his back was turned they would sell everything and take the children out of school.

He set up the CCF in 2003, providing shelter, food, education, medical care and fun through dancing and art classes.

The children learned the joys of security and simply being children. After trying to juggle a new job at Sony, Scott realised to really make a difference he would have to up sticks and move over to Cambodia.

"So many people in LA think the film industry is all there is," Scott said. "Every day people tell you how lucky you are to have such a great job and have so much money. Eventually, you start to believe the hype.

"It makes it hard to give it up."

But he said the decision was as much for himself as the children "It was fear on my part," he said.

"I didn't want to reach the age of 70 and look back at my life and think 'well, I have had a very successful corporate life'.

That just wouldn't be enough as I want achieve so much more."

So it's no surprise that many in Hollywood thought he had lost his marbles when he quit.

His mother Elizabeth is dead, but his father Colin, from Edinburgh, also thought he was insane.

The 84 year-old had watched his son's rise from a working class boy to millionaire movie executive and couldn't comprehend why he would give it all up.

Scott said: "He thought I was crazy. He hit the roof." It was in Scott's contract with the film company that his father would be flown first-class twice a year from Australia, where he now lives, to visit his son in LA. But Scott's move brought his father's days of flying first class to an halt and instead he was demoted to travelling cattle class on Vietnam airlines.

But when he saw what his son was doing, he was immediately converted.

Scott said: "Now he thinks it's the best thing I have ever done. He sits outside in his little red plastic chair and the kids are all over him.

"It's the best gift I have ever given him. He is at his happiest when he is here."

Since he set up the CCF there have been good days and bad days with one constant - Scott also has never been happier.

To make a donation log on to www.cambodianchildrensfund.org

'I would much rather be in the back of a truck with all the Cambodian kids than in a private jet any day.' Read more!

Fact sheet on Cambodia

THE Kingdom of Cambodia, formerly known as Kampuchea, is a country in Southeast Asia with a population of almost 15 million people, with Phnom Penh being the capital city.

Cambodia is the successor state of the once-powerful Hindu and Buddhist Khmer Empire, which ruled most of the Indochinese Peninsula between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries.

A citizen of Cambodia is usually identified as "Cambodian" or "Khmer," which strictly refers to ethnic Khmers. Most Cambodians are Theravada Buddhists of Khmer extraction, but the country also has a substantial number of predominantly Muslim Cham, as well as ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and small animist hill tribes.

The country borders Thailand to its west and northwest, Laos to its northeast, and Vietnam to its east and southeast. In the south it faces the Gulf of Thailand. The geography of Cambodia is dominated by the Mekong river (colloquial Khmer: Tonle Thom or "the great river") and the Tonle{aac} Sap ("the fresh water lake"), an important source of fish.

Much of Cambodia sits near sea level, and consequently the Tonle Sap River reverses its water flow in the wet season, carrying water from the Mekong back into the Tonle{aac} Sap Lake and surrounding flood plain.

Cambodia's main industries are garments and tourism. In 2006, foreign visitors had surpassed the 1.7 million mark. In 2005, oil and natural gas deposits were found beneath Cambodia's territorial water, and once commercial extraction begins in 2009 or early 2010, the oil revenues could profoundly affect Cambodia's economy.

Cambodia is the traditional English transliteration, taken from the French Cambodge, while Kampuchea is the direct transliteration, more faithful to the Khmer pronunciation.. Since independence, the official name of Cambodia has changed several times, following the troubled history of the country. Read more!

A plague in paradise

.Sold to a brothel by her family as a toddler, Yorchi Hong Nhea is one of 30,000 sex slaves in Cambodia. Few clients these days are western sex tourists: most are Cambodian men. Three decades after the Khmer Rouge devastated the country, Jon Swain witnesses a surge in violent sexual exploitation.

As dusk falls, the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh is at its most appealing. It is bathed in a soft and purplish evening light. The air is filled with tropical scents. Lovers stroll along the river bank by the old Royal Palace. The visions of Cambodia at peace after years torn by civil war are enchanting.

But the glitter of dusk over the city hides an ugly reality. For all of its exotic charm, Phnom Penh can be a cruel place. It is a city of terrible sexual exploitation and depravity. Between the Independence Monument and the Mekong lies a municipal park where desperate sex slaves - teenage girls - sit on benches selling their bodies.

The park is named the Jardin de Hun Sen after Cambodia's prime minister, whose house overlooks one side of it. Hun Sen has been in power since 1985 and is the longest-serving leader in Asia. But his government has been incapable of stopping Cambodia's multi-million-pound sex business despite periodic crackdowns by the police, who are underpaid and known for their extortion and corrupt ways.

Gary Glitter, the convicted British paedophile, used to live in a house next door to Hun Sen, paying thousands of pounds in rent for the privilege. He is now serving a three-year prison sentence in Vietnam for sexually abusing girls, after being permanently expelled from Cambodia on suspicion of having done the same there.

But the teenage girls who congregate in the park at dusk are not selling sex to western men. Phnom Penh has become dangerous for western paedophiles to operate in. It is full of campaigning and vigilant NGOs seeking to stop underage sex tourism by westerners. More than 100 people actively monitor child sexual abuse in Phnom Penh, and over the years an increasing number of arrests of paedophiles have taken place. The penalties are harsh. One convicted New Zealander is currently serving 20 years in a Cambodian prison for raping five girls. The girls in the garden are mostly selling themselves to Cambodian men on their way home after work.

There are estimated to be 30,000 sex slaves operating today in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh alone, 8,000 girls are working in the sex industry. There are 124 brothels, 83 massage parlours, 56 karaoke bars. In one establishment there are 300 working girls. Perhaps one in three is HIV-positive. Many have been sold into brothels by their families. Many are in their early teens. Some are as young as five years old. So it is that nearly three decades after the end of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, in which 1.7m people died, Cambodia is gripped by another kind of scourge. It is completely different in kind, of course, but it is ruining thousands of young lives. Cambodia is home to some of Asia's most sordid brothels.

The perception held by many concerned people in the West is that the cause of this big explosion in prostitution is sex tourism by western men, who come to southeast Asia to exploit vulnerable young women and children in a poor, underdeveloped country. In Phnom Penh recently I heard an Australian man describe the city as "PPP heaven" - meaning, as he so eloquently phrased it, "pot, piss and pussy". But the perception that western men are the reason for the existence of Cambodia's legion of sex workers is far removed from the wretched reality of what is happening.

When foreigners are engaged in underage sex, the nationalities are predominantly Asian, but the reason the country is awash with prostitution is primarily to service Cambodian men. With millions struggling to live on less than 25p per day, many women turn out of desperation to jobs in the sex industry, and poor parents sell their children when they are five or six for as little as £50. Girls prostitute themselves for £1 a trick, but at least half of this goes to their pimp or the brothel where they work, so they are left with very little themselves. The brothels are mostly tin-roofed wooden shacks with tiny windowless rooms, furnitureless except for a bed with a soiled mattress, with used condoms and cigarette ends on the floor.

The girls at the Jardin de Hun Sen charge a little extra for operating from a more salubrious part of town. Also considered to be a better class of prostitute, they can command higher fees: they are paid £2.50 for sex. Most of the clients are Cambodians, but there are also men who come to Cambodia from other Asian countries, particularly China, Japan and Korea, for whom the pretty, naive Cambodian country girls are playthings to be enjoyed on holiday or to be bought and taken back to their own countries as brides. It's a multi-million-pound industry.

Nobody knows this hard truth and the extent of this prostitution better than Somaly Mam, a 35-year-old Cambodian woman, energetic, doe-eyed with jet-black hair, who leads Afesip (Action for Women in Distressing Situations), an association that rescues girls and young women from the brothels. Born amid the tumult of war, she does not know who her parents are. She was abandoned and raped when she was 12 and two years later was sold off and forced to marry.

Her husband would get drunk, beat and rape her and fire bullets that passed close by her head and feet. When she was 15 she took his gun and shot him in the foot to hurt him as he had hurt her. He then sold her into a brothel, where she had to accept five or six clients a day. One day a client called her and another girl. He said he was with just one other man. In fact there were 20 of them, who abused the girls terribly. Later she married a Frenchman and had three children. Last year she indirectly became a victim of sex slavery a second time when her daughter Ning, 14, was kidnapped, drugged and raped, possibly out of revenge for her mother's work.

When I met Mam in Phnom Penh she was exhausted, having just returned to the capital from trips to Italy and Singapore to publicise the plight of Cambodian women in the brothels, and a gruelling 10-hour road journey from Pailin, a remote and squalid town in the far west of Cambodia which was once a Khmer Rouge stronghold and is now paradoxically a centre of pornography, prostitutes and gambling.

Though wearied by the travelling, she insisted on setting off almost immediately to visit the girls in her main refuge in the countryside, a three-hour drive away, where former sex workers attend school and learn skills like weaving and sewing so that they can earn a living outside the brothel.

She had received news that a six-year-old girl, along with her sister, had been sold into a brothel. The girl, later rescued, had developed full-blown Aids and was now dying. When we arrived, the little girl's face lit up at the sight of Mam, whom she had been crying out for. She put out her arms and hugged her. "I haven't seen her and the other girls for a month," Mam said.

"It is too long. Many of these girls are orphans or have been sold by their parents and I am their mother. They did not have a childhood, and I am trying to give back what they lost."

Here is Chim Chanry, who at the age of seven was raped by her uncle while she slept at her brother's house. When she revealed what had happened to her brother, he tried to kill her with a knife. Rejected by her family after the incident, she was sold into a brothel by her sister. 'she has never been home," said Mam.

Here is Keo, a 15-year-old orphaned Vietnamese girl who lived with her stepmother, who sold her via Cambodia into a brothel over the border in neighbouring Thailand. The brothel-keeper sold her on to another brothel, where she lived off a packet of noodles a day. When she became sick, the owner beat her and tortured her with electric shocks. Rescued by a Thai sister organisation of Mam's organisation Afesip, she does not know who her parents are or where they live. Still today, months after her rescue, her eyes are expressionless, dead, the eyes of someone who has borne the unbearable.

Here, too, is one of two sisters who was sold to a brothel by her mother when she was five - nobody knows how much for. She was drugged and beaten, passed from man to man, until she was rescued by Afesip and brought to the centre. How is she doing, I ask. Mam pauses. 'she is HIV-positive," Mam says. "We are going to make her life as comfortable as possible until she dies. It breaks the heart."

Also there is a little orphan girl. Her mother, a prostitute, had arrived at the centre covered in blood. She had been mutilated by a client who was trying to take out her unborn baby to offer it to the temple to bring him good luck. Horribly injured, her mother died while giving birth and the little baby was brought up by another former prostitute who had a baby of the same age.

These are just a few of the examples of the 45 girls at the Kompong Cham centre learning a new life. Being in Mam's care, they are the luckier ones. For every girl Afesip saves, there are dozens more who suffer in silence and isolation.

Prostitution and underage sex are nothing new in Cambodia. The great Chinese traveller Chou Ta-Kuan, who was an emissary to the kingdom of Angkor, describes on his travels through Cambodia in the 13th century the pinnacle of Khmer civilisation: the deflowering of young girls in a religious ceremony. Still today in the countryside, parents take their daughters to the monastery around the age of 14 to be deflowered by the head monk.

It is meant to bring good fortune. There is another reason why very young girls are in demand in Cambodia: as virgins they are thought through intercourse to cure Aids.

Ta-Kuan also described how the king had four to five thousand women in his palace, and even in modern times there is no law governing the number of young concubines the kings of Cambodia may have. Famously, in 1951, when he was 29 and already had four concubines and 10 children, Cambodia's playboy King Norodom Sihanouk took Monique Izzi, a half-Italian, half-Cambodian beauty, as his fifth concubine when she was only 16. They quickly had two children.

One of the great charms of Cambodia was that its people were pleasure-seeking and insouciant and lived simple, natural lives revolving around the family, Buddhist festivals and the rhythm of the seasons.

Perhaps that is too idealistic. Behind the enigmatic Khmer smile there were always undercurrents of violence, which exploded into the open finally with the war and the savagery of the Khmer Rouge. But the country's cultural values have been warped since by unbridled greed, consumerism and massive exploitation.

I well remember what a Cambodian foreign-ministry official said to me as Cambodia struggled to get back on its feet in the 1980s after the Khmer Rouge tyranny which had turned the clock in Cambodia back to Year Zero.

"Go and tell your investor friends that Cambodia is like a beautiful woman lying on her back with her legs open waiting to be taken," Chum Bun Rong said.

How true in every context this is. Sexual slavery has got such a strong grip on Cambodia now that defeating it is almost impossible. It is spreading like a cancer, and a new phenomenon that Mam and others combating the sex trade find particularly virulent and disturbing is the accompanying terrible rise in sexual violence.

Prior to 1990 there were no words for gang rape in the Khmer language. It did not exist. Now young Cambodians have invented the word bauk for it. Gang rape has become the norm in urban youth culture. Why exactly this is so, nobody knows, but the spread of violent pornographic films that are constantly playing in some local bars is thought to be part of the reason. In Phnom Penh the other day an old Indochina hand said to me: "Call Cambodia paradise and kiss it goodbye." Read more!

Australian cop to face drug charge and other crimes

A RUNAWAY former Victorian detective accused of armed robbery and drug trafficking while working for the National Crime Authority was extradited from Cambodia yesterday.

James Anthony McCabe was flown back to Australia under guard despite the absence of a formal extradition treaty between the two countries.

Mr McCabe, 38, faces charges in New South Wales, but has also been linked to drug trafficking allegations in Victoria.

He was accused of selling heroin to a police informer during the trial last year of Ian Ferguson, a jailed former member of the Victoria Police drug squad.

The first allegations against Mr McCabe emerged in 2004 while he was in Cambodia and about to be presented with a medal for helping to fight that country's drug war.

But by this month Cambodia decided to order him to leave the country after considering information provided to Cambodia's Prime Minister by the NSW Police Integrity Commission.

He was arrested in Phnom Penh a week ago.

Mr McCabe is believed to have a wife and child in Cambodia, where he has been working in the security industry.

Two PIC investigators went to Phnom Penh this week to escort Mr McCabe to Australia.

He was remanded in custody in Sydney yesterday and is due to apply for bail next week.

Mr McCabe resigned from the Victoria Police as a senior detective in 2004 after 15 years' service.

He was seconded to the NCA and the Australian Crime Commission between 1999 and 2003.

Mr McCabe was implicated during PIC hearings by a NSW detective who admitted stealing ecstasy, amphetamines and cannabis during phony arrests of drug dealers.

Det-Sgt Samuel John Foster, who since pleaded guilty to criminal charges and is awaiting sentencing, told the commission that NCA and ACC cars were used in the rip-offs, and on one occasion an NCA firearm was used.

Mr McCabe admitted during one PIC hearing he had been involved in a $36,000 drug rip-off while working for the NCA.

But he denied holding a gun to a drug dealer's head while pretending to arrest him in another rip-off where 1kg of amphetamines worth $120,000 was stolen. Read more!

ADB helps wire Northwest Cambodia

Manila, Philippines - A major electricity shortage in northwest Cambodia, including around the tourism hub of Siem Reap, is being fixed with the help of an $8 million loan from the Asian Development Bank to build power lines that will import electricity from neighboring Thailand.

The development will be a boost for the regional economy, not just in tourism but also in agriculture, mining and manufacturing. As demand for power grows, it will also reduce emissions as businesses will not have to invest in new diesel-powered electrical generators.

“This will give the region access to cheaper electricity and a reliable supply,” said Tomas A. Norton de Matos, a Senior Structured Finance Specialist with ADB. “It is also promoting regional cooperation because the electricity will be supplied by Thailand. We worked closely with ThaiExim Bank to enable this project, which also includes trade in Thai equipment and services, to proceed.”

ADB’s Board of Directors agreed on June 27 2007 to loan the money to the (Cambodia) Power Transmission Lines Co. Ltd, a private Cambodian company. The high-voltage grid lines will be the first to be privately owned in the Greater Mekong Subregion. It is the first ADB private sector infrastructure project in Cambodia.

“We are pleased to be investing in Cambodia’s critical transmission infrastructure and to have worked closely with Cambodian and Thailand authorities, and all our partners, in this respect,” said Ly Say Khieng, Chairman and CEO of the company.

Northwest Cambodia, like the rest of the country, suffers from insufficient and unreliable power. There is no national grid and electricity is generated almost exclusively by small diesel plants that generate emissions. This hinders Cambodia’s ability to attract investment and promote sustainable economic activities, which are critical to reducing poverty.

Electricity in Cambodia is among the most expensive in the region because of the disaggregated and isolated small-scale systems.

Siem Reap is home to the famed Angkor Wat temples and is an important and growing tourism center. Many hotels in the area rely on their own power generators. There are similar power shortages in neighboring Battambang, an important agricultural center, and Banteay Meanchey, which supports manufacturing and trading activities.

The 115kV power lines will connect with Thailand’s national grid at the border. They will then run about 221 kilometers mainly alongside National Road 5 and National Road 6 to Siem Reap and Battambang. In addition to connecting the major towns, the new lines will provide opportunities to wire rural communities along the route for electricity.

Work on the project has already started and the first section to Siem Reap is expected to be completed this month or next. The second section to Battambang is scheduled to be completed a couple of months later.

ADB’s $8 million loan will go toward the estimated $32 million total project cost. The balance of funding is being provided through equity, as well as loans from the Export-Import Bank of Thailand and local Cambodian banks. Read more!

Briton cleared of child sex abuse in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A Cambodian court cleared a 42-year-old Briton on Friday of sexually abusing two boys aged 12 and 14 after they withdrew their allegations against him.

Paul Ian Bower, who was working as an English teacher in the impoverished southeast Asian nation, was cleared of all charges after the two boys told the court Bower "did not do anything".

Child sex in Cambodia, which is trying hard to rid itself of its reputation as a haven for paedophiles and perverts, carries a jail term of between 10 and 20 years.

Bower was arrested in January at his rented Phnom Penh home and had to spend six months in detention while investigating judges probed the charges. At Friday's hearing, he appeared to be shivering and in poor health.

On being cleared, he said: "Justice is done". Read more!

Unesco delays Preah Vihear heritage listing

The UN cultural watchdog has delayed a decision on whether to add the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple to the World Heritage list for another year, a Thai official said yesterday. The decision was made at a meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) World Heritage Committee in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Cambodian government had applied for the second time to have the temple, located on the Thai-Cambodian border, classified as a World Heritage Site. The first application was made three years ago.

The heritage committee prefered that Thailand and Cambodia apply together to register the site next year, Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said.

Unesco simply wanted Thailand and Cambodia to settle certain issues and together table the registration to its meeting next year.

''Thailand does not oppose the registration of Preah Vihear on Unesco's list, Mr Tharit said.

''We agree in principle that the temple be named a World Heritage Site.''

The two countries did differ on how it should be made a heritage site.

Previously, the National Committee on the Convention for the Protection of World Culture and Natural Heritage expressed concern over Cambodia's lobbying of Unesco without Thailand's participation.

The committee said consideration should be given to the whole site, not just the part of it on Cambodian soil. The entrance to Preah Vihear is in Si Sa Ket province, right on the border with Cambodia.

The location was the cause of a long-standing dispute over the site's ownership until 1962, when the International Court of Justice ruled that the temple belonged to Cambodia.

Mr Tharit dismissed reports of a move to stir up nationalistic sentiment in Cambodia that might end in a new round of anti-Thai riots.

Both sides ''have learned a lesson'' from the 2003 riots in which Thai interests in Phnom Penh were looted and burned down. Read more!

Vietnam to build rail to Cambodia, Laos

Vietnam is planning to invest US$527.5 million in building two railways that will link the country with Cambodia and Laos, an industry official said Wednesday.

The projects are part of a scheme to construct trans-Asia railway networks connecting Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member countries, reported the Vietnam Railway Department.

No details on when the railways would be constructed were given.

An official with Vietnam Railways Corp. said the first railway will link Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh, and the second railway will link Quang Binh province in central Vietnam to Savanakhet city in central Laos.

The 130 km, VND3.91 trillion ($280.5 million) Sai Gon-Loc Ninh route to Cambodia will be built by the Vietnam Railway Department, the China Mechanical Equipment Import Export Corporation and the China Railway Construction Corporation.

The other 120 km line linking Vung Ang with Mu Gia in the central Ha Tinh province to Laos requires investment of over VND4.52 trillion ($247 million).

The railways are expected to promote trade and transport cooperation among Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as well as between the whole Indochina region and the rest of Asean and China. Read more!

Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia join forces to develop tourism

VietNamNet Bridge – Cambodia's Siem Reap and the Lao provinces of Luang Prabang and Champasak will sign an agreement on tourism cooperation with central Vietnam's Quang Nam Province.

Dinh Hai, director of Quang Nam's Department of Tourism, told the Daily that the tourism authorities of Siem Reap, Luang Prabang, Champasak and Quang Nam would sign the deal on the sidelines of a tourism festival.

The four-day Quang Nam - Heritage Road Festival 2007 kicked off on Wednesday in the World Heritage-listed town of Hoi An.

The four provinces, Hai said, will jointly market tourism products and promote their World Heritage sites. "We have special tourist attractions - World Heritage sites, so we want to join hands to introduce them to attract tourists," he said.

The UNESCO-recognized World Heritage sites are Hoi An and My Son in Quang Nam, Luang Prabang and Wat Phou in Luang Prabang, and Angkor Wat in Siem Reap.

These provinces will create favorable conditions for travel firms to meet together, arrange familiarization trips and carry out other activities, Hai said.

Earlier, his department had signed a similar deal with the tourism authority of Champasak.

Hai said tens of thousands of tourists, mostly locals, were expected to visit the Quang Nam - Heritage Road Festival.

"June is the low season for the province's tourism sector with an average room occupancy rate of 40% but hotels in the province have just reported occupancy of 70-80%," he said. Read more!

AIDS-infected people in Cambodia decreases half in 2006: official

Cambodia gained 70,000 AIDS- infected people in 2006, which decreased by half from the figure in 2003, a senior health official said on Thursday.

Cambodia is very proud of this result, said Mom Bun Heng, secretary of State of the Cambodian Ministry of Health, while addressing an AIDS seminar in Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian government could now provide the delaying-life medicine for 20,000 AIDS-infected people, including 2,000 children, he said.


The government's budget for AIDS prevention in 2007 stands two times higher than 2006, while the disease is spreading from urban areas to rural areas.

Cambodia is one of the worst-hit countries in the region in the field of AIDS spread. In 1997, its infection rate ran at 3.3 percent of its population.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Dengue deaths sweeping Cambodia highlight healthcare failures

KROUCH CHHMAR VILLAGE - Saing Ratha lies semi-conscious, her thin body shaking with fever as her mother tries desperately to cool her by placing blocks of ice under her arms.

Her 10-year-old bother Saing Sokun lies curled around a block of ice next to her in this spartan rural clinic.

Both have been struck down by dengue fever that has killed almost as many children in the first six months of this year as during the whole of 2006 in an outbreak that is expected to worsen with an early monsoon.

"In my village every house has been afflicted by dengue -- in some homes all the children are sick," says the children's mother, Chhiv Thy, as she wipes down the 13-year-old girl's body with wet towels.

For five days they have lain on crude wooden beds in a small alcove off one of the clinic's wings. Saline drips are tied to metal posts and the windowsill next to their cots is piled high with cooking pots and dirty plates.

Chhiv Thy says she has not worked since bringing her children to hospital. The medical care is free, and good, but the beds cost 30,000 riels (7.50 US dollars) each.

Since January some 7,655 Cambodian children under the age of 15 have been hospitalised with dengue, with 109 of them succumbing to the mosquito-borne illness, which punishes its victims with fever, vomiting and crippling muscle pain.

The most serious cases result in heavy bleeding as blood vessels disintegrate, and can quickly kill children.

Compared to last year's total of 6,149 cases and 158 deaths, "this year is much worse," said Ngan Chantha, director in the health ministry's dengue programme.

Doctor Un Sam Ath gestures up and down the bare hallways of the Krouch Chhmar clinic, saying that only a few days before they had been crowded end-to-end with beds and sick children.

Since May Krouch Chhmar referral hospital has received 20 dengue cases.

"Much more than 2006, when we had five cases total for the whole year," he says.

Two children have died. Un Sam Ath says he wanted to send them to the provincial hospital in Kompong Cham city, about three hours down a dirt road pitted with deep muddy holes.

"But their families were too poor to afford the trip. We have no ambulance and transport is a problem," he explains.

"We are so worried about the coming months -- parents are always waiting too long to bring their children to our hospital. By the time they arrive they have already fallen in a coma," Un Sam Ath says.

Those who can afford transportation to Kompong Cham will be okay, "but what about the poor?" he says.

The outbreak, which has stretched several hospitals in the capital Phnom Penh to capacity, highlights the many failures of Cambodia's health system, which like all of its public institutions is struggling after years of civil war and neglect.

"The total level of public financing for health is simply too low," the World Bank said in its 2007 equality and development report, which found that rural Cambodians still lacked significant access to healthcare.

The government spent only four dollars per person on health expenditures in 2006, the World Bank said, while Cambodian health officials admit that paediatric care is especially thin.

"We have not enough health care services for children -- it is still at a limited level," says Mam Bun Heng, a secretary of state with the health ministry.

A lack of basic health knowledge is also particularly deadly for uneducated rural Cambodians like many of those seeking help in Krouch Chhmar.

This combination has left Cambodia woefully unprepared for the current dengue outbreak.

"People's understanding of sanitation is still very low," Mam Bun Heng says. "We are educating them," but about three million dollars will be needed to fight yearly outbreaks of dengue.

Despite massive public education campaigns already warning people of dengue fever, Un Sam Ath said most people simply tune out the radio and television spots offering advice on how to combat the illnesses.

"People just want to watch the other programmes," he says.

"They need to understand more about this problem. Dengue fever outbreaks spread very quickly, and many people don't know how it spreads." - AFP/ra

Read more!

S. Korean bank to operate in Cambodia next month

The first commercial bank funded by South Korean investors will begin operations in Phnom Penh next month, with unusual banking services on offer, local newspaper the Rasmei Kampuchea said on Thursday.

Camko Bank, which is in the family of Camko City, a 2 billion U. S. dollar South Korean housing project to construct a satellite city on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, will become operational late July, the report quoted a Camko City official as saying.

With capital from its parent bank in South Korea, Busan Bank, Camko Bank will provide a variety of "unprecedented" banking services such as loans, VIP services and savings, according to the official.

Different from commercial banks currently operating in Cambodia, Camko Bank will provide among other things a lending service that borrowers don't have to repay the principal, but only the interest, said the official, who declined to elaborate on the issue.

According to the official, Camko Bank will play a main role in the future stock market in Cambodia.

The Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has been assisting the Cambodian government to set up a stock exchange market in Cambodia, which is expected to start in 2009.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

"Cambodia: land, people and cultural tradition" exhibition

VietNamNet Bridge – An exhibition themed "Cambodia: land, people and cultural tradition" was launched on Tuesday at the HCMC Exhibition House, 92 Le Thanh Ton Street, District 1.

The exhibition features 70 pictures and items representing images of the beautiful country of Cambodia, the friendly relationship between Vietnam and Cambodia, and the art of Cambodian sculptures and handicrafts.

Guests can see pictures of famous landscapes and temples of Cambodia, as well as view other sculptural objects made from wood, copper, silver and granite.

In addition, there are traditional paintings of the royal palace and ancient temples which are still well preserved thanks to special materials from tree roots, leaves and grains found by the Cambodian ancients.

Some of the traditional costumes of the Cambodian, such as wedding costumes and the handicraft works are also displayed in the exhibition.

The exhibition is a part of the Cambodian Culture Week that was jointly organized by the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts and the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and Information in HCMC and the southern provinces of Binh Duong and Soc Trang from June 25 to June 30.

Read more!

Cambodia approves anti-terror laws

PHNOM PENH: Cambodian lawmakers have approved phone tapping and computer hacking as part of a broader anti-terrorism package, reports said Wednesday.

Parliament unanimously passed the new 111-article anti-terror law on Tuesday in a bid to better protect the country’s ports and combat militant funding.

The legislation, which was written with assistance from Australia and funding from Britain, allows prosecutors and investigating judges to monitor telephone calls and access computer systems. Secretary of State for the Justice Ministry Hy Sophea was quoted in local media as saying the law “shows to all that Cambodia is not a refuge for terrorists.”

Others warned, however, that the law could be used to further political agendas. The anti-terror legislation follows a similar law passed in April to fight money laundering amid fears that Cambodia’s nascent banking sector could be used to fund terror groups.

Cambodia has emerged as an enthusiastic ally in the US’ “war on terror,” and has been praised by Washington for its efforts, most notably the 2004 prosecution of several people accused of being members of the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). Read more!

Plane Crash Prompts Concerns on Dodgy Travel Packages

Questions about the safety of discount package tours to Southeast Asia and China are on the rise following Monday's fatal plane crash in Cambodia.
According to the Ministry of Culture & Tourism, the number of Koreans who traveled to Southeast Asian countries more than doubled from 3.32 million in 2000 to 7.32 million in 2005. The number of travelers to Cambodia, famous for its Angkor Wat historical ruins, increased 15-fold during that period, from 2,046 to 33,072.

With tourism booming in Southeast Asia, some travel agencies are offering discount package tours in a bid to attract customers. While the victims of the accident each paid W599,000 (US$1=W938) for what was intended to be a six-day, four-night Cambodia trip, similar packages can be had for around W270,000 in some places.

In order to offer those bargain-basement prices the agencies sometimes contract with transportation companies that use older buses or planes, and that is becoming a threat to the safety of tourists.
Still, the accident seems to have persuaded few Korean tourists from traveling to Southeast Asia. Three hundred people on Tuesday canceled trips to Cambodia with Hanatour Service, the agency that put the tourists on the plane that crashed. But many tourists booked with other travel agencies left according to schedule.

In order to fill plane seats that they have already booked, travel agencies offer cut-rate tours during the low-demand season, up to one third the price of tours in the high season. Depending on the season, the price of a five-day, three-night tour to Cambodia can vary from around W300,000 to W1.1 million.

Some travel agencies offer tours including food, accommodation and local travel for less than the cost of the plane ticket, but travelers often end up complaining of hidden fees and disappointing tours.

"Choi" paid a local travel agency W500,000 for a five-day, three-night golf trip to Thailand in July of last year, but later filed a case with the Korea Consumer Protection Board requesting for compensation.

"I couldn't get to sleep at the hotel I stayed in the first night because of the noise, and a 'shrimp and pork barbecue' that was supposed to be provided as a special meal was not there. I had a car accident on the way to the airport on the last day and arrived late. The guide didn't direct me through the departure procedures, and I barely got on plane," Choi complained.

Tourism insiders warn that more fatal accidents could happen as agencies are booking cheap airlines to lower their costs.

"Many of the cheap packages to Southeast Asia that are currently on sale are on airplanes that are in poor condition," an official in the tourism industry said. "Because there's a lack of substitute planes, only one or two planes transport all the passengers, and in some cases small airlines with just a few years of domestic flying experience are operating on international routes."
Read more!

All 22 people killed in Cambodia crash

PHNOM DAMREY, Cambodia — Search teams reached the site of a plane crash on a remote Cambodian mountain Wednesday and said all 22 people on board were killed.

A helicopter spotted the wreckage about 1,640 feet up Phnom Damrey — Elephant Mountain — in southern Cambodia, ending a two-day search through treacherous jungle and monsoon weather by 1,000 soldiers and police.

The Russian-made An-24 plane crashed during a storm Monday while flying to the southern coastal town of Sihanoukville. It had taken off from Siem Reap, the country's main tourist hub and site of the famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

Thirteen South Korean and three Czech tourists were on board, along with five Cambodian airline employees and the Uzbek crew chief, officials said.

"This is a tragedy no one should have to experience," Prime Minister Hun Sen said at a news conference in Kampot province, where the plane went down.

More than a dozen family members of the South Korean passengers had traveled to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, late Tuesday to await news of their relatives.

The bodies were being flown to Phnom Penh for identification, said Nhim Vanda, a vice chairman of the National Committee for Disaster Management.

Sith Sakal, head of security at Cambodia's Secretariat of Civil Aviation, said the plane's flight data recorder had been retrieved and would be sent to Russia for analysis.

At the crash site, a woman's purse and some shoes lay strewn amid the blue and white plane parts.

"I just felt greatly heartbroken to see the bodies," said Horn Ratha, a Cambodian army helicopter pilot involved in the search effort.

The plane was operated by PMT Air, a small Cambodia airline that began flights in January from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville, a new route launched to spur the country's burgeoning tourism industry.

Sar Sareth, the airline's director, said Tuesday that he did not know what year the crashed plane was built, but that it was in "good condition" before taking off from Siem Reap.

Tourism Minister Thong Khon said the storm was likely to blame for the crash, rather than technical problems.

South Korean aviation authorities will hold safety inspections on PMT Air and six other foreign airlines in the coming days, said an official with the South Korean Civil Aviation Safety Authority. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

PMT Air has six roundtrip flights a week between Siem Reap and the South Korean cities of Incheon and Busan, according to the airline's Web site.

The last major air accident in Cambodia was in 1997, when a Vietnam Airlines TU-134B crashed while trying to land during a rainstorm at Phnom Penh International Airport, killing more than 60 people. Read more!

Official: No Survivors in Cambodia Crash

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, left, shakes hands with Shin Hyun-suk, South Korean Ambassador to Cambodia before a meeting at Kampot province's headquarters, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, June 26, 2007. Cambodia's prime minister said Tuesday a passenger plane likely crashed into a mountain and expressed little hope for survivors, just a day after the flight between two of the country's most popular tourist destinations went missing. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith) (Heng Sinith - AP)

The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 26, 2007; 10:36 PM


KAMPOT, Cambodia -- Search teams confirmed Wednesday there were no survivors from a plane that crashed in southern Cambodia with 22 people aboard, including South Korean and Czech tourists, officials said.

The Russian-made An-24 aircraft operated by PMT Air crashed Monday during a storm while flying between Siem Reap _ site of the famed Angkor Wat temple complex _ and Sihanoukville on the southern coast.

"All have died. It is confirmed," Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said.

Sixteen South Korean and three Czech tourists were on board, as well as five Cambodian airline employees and a Russian co-pilot, officials said.

A helicopter spotted the crash site for the first time early Wednesday morning after some 1,000 soldiers and police mounted an urgent two-day search by land and air through treacherous jungle in rainy monsoon weather.

The plane's wreckage was high on a forested mountain northeast of Bokor Mountain in Kampot province, according to provincial Deputy Governor Khoy Khun Huor, who said he saw the crash site from a helicopter. He said the wreckage did not appear to have been on fire.

"The immediate step to be taken is to clear some forest for access," he said. "Helicopters now cannot land close to it."

All rescue teams have now been ordered to rush to the crash site, said Nhim Vanda, first vice president of the National Committee for Disaster Management.

More than a dozen family members of some of the South Korean passengers arrived in Phnom Penh from Seoul late Tuesday to await news of the fate of their relatives.

Ly Thuch, a disaster management official, said the Cambodian government will pay for their accommodation while they are in the country.

PMT Air is a small Cambodia airline that began flights in January from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville, a new domestic route launched by the government to spur the country's burgeoning tourism industry.

Sar Sareth, the airline's director, said Tuesday that he did not know what year the crashed plane was built, but added that it was in "good condition" before taking off from Siem Reap on Monday.

"It was always in compliance with flight technical and safety procedures. But we cannot say anything yet (about the cause) because information is on the flight recorder," he said.

Read more!

Thailand donates medical equipment to Cambodia for bird flu control

The Thai government has provided the Cambodian government with medicines and medical equipment for the prevention and control of bird flu, local newspapers reported Tuesday.

The aid, approved at a signing ceremony at the Cambodian Ministry of Health, is in the framework of a joint project to fight avian influenza signed by Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, Chea Moneth, Deputy Director of the Communicable Disease Control Department in the Health Ministry, was quoted by the Koh Santepheap as saying.

The donation consists of 53 bird flu testing kits, four cases of masks, nine cases of N95 masks, 17 cases of Latex gloves, four cases of hand-washing gel, and seven bags of Surveillance and Rapid Response Team (SRRT) equipment, the newspaper said.

The Thai government has spent 2.5 million U.S. dollars on the aid from a fund it set up in 2005 to help the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS) fight outbreaks of the virus, reported the Kampuchea Thmey newspaper.

The aid aims to strengthen the capacity of hospitals in the border provinces of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, it added.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Landmine victims put Cambodia on map

Sporting success is an impossible dream for most people in Cambodia, where poverty and the scars of civil war are part of daily life.

But one group of athletes from the cash-strapped country are on their way to becoming world beaters.

They are not celebrities or highly-paid professionals, but former fighters in a brutal conflict who lost limbs to landmines and unexploded bombs.

Cambodia's disabled men's volleyball team are the champions of the Asia-Pacific region and have risen to number five in the world rankings.

"These guys are seriously fit, they really know how to work hard, and they work with their prosthesis," said Australian Christopher Minko, who has been involved in disabled volleyball in Cambodia for more than a decade.

"In this country, disabled people have to stand up on their own. Hopefully, we can push this team to be number one in the world," he told Reuters.

Since Minko started a national volleyball league for amputees, his teams have won gold at the 2002 FESPIC Games - Asia's equivalent of the Paralympics - and climbed up the world rankings.

Slowly emerging from decades of civil war including the 1970s Khmer Rouge "killing fields" genocide, Cambodia is littered with an estimated 6 million landmines, leaving it with one of the world's highest disability rates.

The league's 160 players are among some 40,000 "chonpika", or amputees, in Cambodia where one in every 290 people have been permanently disabled by landmines.

Although they fought on opposing sides during three decades of civil war, San Mao and Som Chak are team mates who have put their grim past behind them.

"We are the victims of the war, but we are friends now," said San Mao, a former Khmer Rouge guerilla who has a prosthetic leg after stepping on a mine while transporting munitions.

"When we chat, we chat for fun. We skip all the bad things."

Som Chak, 43, lost his right leg fighting the Khmer Rouge along the Thai-Cambodia border. He turned to sport to become part of a community.

"My friends in the hospital told me 'look around you, many people lost legs too, so move on,'" he said.

"I didn't want people to laugh at me because I couldn't do anything. I don't want anyone to insult us."

Som Chak said he hoped their success could raise awareness about landmines to prevent more of his people from becoming victims.

"My message to mine-producing countries is stop this," said Som Chak.

"I don't want more people to lose their legs like us."

In November, Cambodia will stage the World Organisation for Volleyball Disabled's (WOVD) Phnom Penh World Cup, which will be the first time the country has hosted a global sports event.

The tournament will be presided over by the kingdom's long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who lost an eye in the final assault on Phnom Penh in 1975.

The Cambodian strongman is a keen golfer and volleyball player, and regards himself as a disabled athlete.

Volleyball for amputees is catching on in Cambodia, with 17 clubs taking part in the national league.

There is even a team comprised entirely of ex-Khmer Rouge rebels in Anlong Veng, the final resting place of "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the architect of the 1970s "Year Zero" revolution, which claimed an estimated 1.7 million lives in four years.

Chim Phan, 39, said sport is his passion and he will not let his disability get in the way of his success.

"I love sport, it makes my body strong," said Chim Phan, who competes in a number of sports events, including marathons.

"If I don't play, it's like I'm sick." Read more!

Plane Carrying Koreans, Czechs Crashes In Cambodia

An aircraft carrying 13 South Koreans, three Czechs and four crew from Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temples crashed on Monday.

An aircraft carrying 13 South Koreans, three Czechs and four crew from Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temples crashed on Monday in jungle-clad mountains in the coastal province of Kampot, officials said.

There was no word on survivors.

"The plane has crashed in the Kom Chhay mountain range. I've already sent four ambulances to the crash site," Kampot governor Thach Khorn told Reuters.

Officials had found the wreckage of the plane in a remote stretch of dense forest 130 km (80 miles) southwest of the Southeast Asian nation's capital, Phnom Penh.

Rescuers at the site, which is outside mobile phone network coverage, had no word on possible survivors, he added.

The AN-24, operated by Phnom Penh-based carrier PMT Air, was on a flight from the central town of Siem Reap to the seaside resort of Sihanoukville when it disappeared in the late morning, airport officials said.

Air services between Siem Reap, home to the 800-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex, and Sihanoukville reopened in January 2007 after a prolonged hiatus during Cambodia's civil war.

The resumption of the internal route was touted as another sign of the former French colony's accelerating recovery from the destruction wrought by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge during their four years in power from 1975 to 1979.

Cambodia attracted more than 1.7 million tourists last year, most of them drawn to Angkor Wat.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry confirmed 13 South Koreans were on the flight, but did not release any names. Read more!

Cambodia Loses an Independent Press Voice

A staple of Cambodia's post-Khmer Rouge press may well have died this month after it carried a story on corruption and environmental destruction that veered too close to the country’s leaders, cutting seriously into the remaining independent journalistic voices in the country.

The already-ailing 12-year-old French and Khmer-language Cambodge Soir, which claimed to be the only independent daily paper for political and general news published in French in all of Asia, failed to appear on newsstands on Tuesday, June 12 and has not reappeared.

The day after the paper’s failure to appear, the 14-member Cambodian and French editorial staff said a political squabble with management had led to the summary dismissal of reporter Soren Seelow for publishing the article on an environmental report damning the government for corruption. After Seelow’s firing, the staff walked out in protest.

In a statement, the staff said that publisher Philippe Monnin had told them that their holding company, which technically employed the paper's 30-member staff, was bankrupt and would be shuttered for good. Internet access was discontinued and the paper's fledgling Web site www.cambodgesoir.info was taken offline.

The offending article, written by Seelow on June 1, described a report by the London-based forestry NGO Global Witness. "It started with the article on the Global Witness report with a theme judged too critical toward the government," said Stéphanie Gée, Soir’s editor-in-chief. Gee says, however, that the staff do not believe Cambodian authorities placed any pressure on management to fire the reporter. Two Cambodian officials have also denied attempting to bring any pressure.

The Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders alleged that Monnin was employed by France's overseas development agency as an advisor to Cambodia's Agriculture Ministry. In a statement, Reporters Without Borders said Monnin had told Seelow his article "would upset the authorities."

The journalistic watchdog protested the closure, calling on Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, a multilateral development organization created to promote the French language and one of Soir's principal financial backers, to intervene. OIF provides slightly less than half of Soir's operating budget and was committed to fund the paper until 2009, making bankruptcy seem improbable.

"Although your organization had just released new funds to support this newspaper, its management has decided to terminate this 12-year-old venture on the grounds of financial difficulties," Reporters Without Borders said. "We ask you to help prevent the disappearance of this exemplary French-language daily."

On Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists also issued a statement in Brussels saying that “the IFJ gives our full support to the staff of Cambodge Soir and urges management to halt liquidation to ensure Cambodia does not lose a vital voice in the French Language media,” said Asia-Pacific Director Jacqueline Park.

A request for comment from OIF Secretary-General Abdou Diouf has not been answered.

Monnin, who has declined all comment, was asked when the strike began why the staff was angry. "They don't have the same way of perceiving the development of the country."

The Global Witness report, Cambodia’s Family Trees, was scathing its indictment of how “a syndicate comprising relatives of Prime Minister Hun Sen and other senior officials has looted the country’s forests.” The report accused a "kleptocratic elite" within Cambodia of wholesale environmental plunder and venality. Cambodian authorities responded by banning the report and confiscating copies. Following the banning, information minister Khieu Kanharith ordered a probe into the report’s findings, because, he said, the report had destroyed Cambodia's international reputation.

The announced confiscation of the edition appears to have been symbolic since it is on the Internet as well. The Information Ministry has ordered newspaper not to reprint or serialize the report, with Sralanh Khmer, a pro-Sam Rainsy paper, did for a week straight.

Prime Minister Hun Sen's elder brother, Kompong Cham Province Governor Hun Neng, whose son and wife are both accused of various crimes by Global Witness, issued a warning: "If [Global Witness] come to Cambodia, I will hit them until their heads are broken," he said.

A Cambodian journalist following up allegations in the report for Radio Free Asia received death threats and has fled Cambodia for Thailand, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Lim Pisith received the threats on his mobile phone, and late last week crossed into Thailand seeking refuge.

An anonymous caller told Lem "to beware," and warned that he "could be killed" for his radio reports on alleged illegal logging activities, Lim Pisith CPJ. "I didn't want to leave my country and stop my reporting, but my life was in danger."

Gée said Soir decided to give the government more column inches by devoting subsequent articles to official responses. On June 4 the paper printed lengthy denials from Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun, whom the report accuses of auctioning off posts in his ministry posts to the tune of $2.5 million in bribes.

Six days later, Monnin nevertheless told Seelow, who had planned to leave Cambodia in September, that he was fired, according to the paper's staff. Contacted by telephone, Seelow declined to comment.

Meanwhile many of the 3,500 French residents in Cambodia appear to have lost hope that Soir will ever live again and have resigned themselves to struggling bleary-eyed through the English print media every morning.

"The decision to shut the newspaper Cambodge Soir is infused with a certain brutality and was definitely a mistake," a Franco-Cambodian reader wrote in a group email protesting the closure. "And as always the decision was taken without the least consideration for the Cambodian journalists and readers."

Despite France’s former prominence in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam as the colonial occupier, Asia has the smallest share of French speakers of any continent. In part due to the murderous ways of the Khmer Rouge, who outlawed the language, French is even less prevalent in Cambodia than in Vietnam, where the prestigious Paris daily Le Monde lamented last year that the language "is collapsing."

But Soir's language is not the immediate concern. In a country where nearly all Khmer-language media are aligned with either Prime Minister Hun Sen or other powerful individuals, a newspaper willing to face facts is particularly conspicuous for its absence. The two English-language papers in Phnom Penh, the Cambodia Daily and the bi-weekly Phnom Penh Post, are now virtually the only independent print media in the country.

Soir’s staff have continued to gather every day in the newsroom, according to Gee, who said in her statement that a “climate of trust” needs to be rebuilt if Soir is to have any hope of gaining the support of its former staff. She and the staff have called for a dialogue with management and the reinstatement of their fired colleague plus written rules on employment and termination.

"We're left waiting again," she said. "The ball is in their court." Read more!

Tourist plane crashes in Cambodia; 22 feared dead

By SOPHENG CHEANG
The Associated Press

PREY PEAY, Cambodia — A chartered plane carrying 22 people between two popular tourist destinations in Cambodia crashed today in a remote, mountainous jungle, aviation officials said.

The plane, a Russian-made An-24, was flying from Siem Reap — home to the popular Angkor Wat temple complex — to the coastal city of Sihanoukville, said Him Sarun, Cabinet chief for the Secretariat of Civil Aviation.

In Chiva, a provincial police chief, said conservation workers on a nearby mountain reported seeing a plane crash in thick forest in the distance.

Rescue teams of soldiers and police searched the area, but Him Sarun said they had not reached the crash site nine hours after the plane disappeared — hampered by nightfall, the remoteness of the area and slippery soil from recent rains that made trails impassable for vehicles. Five ambulances were sent to the general area of the crash.

"If we located the plane three or four hours after the crash, there might have been some hope of survivors who could have been taken to the hospital," Him Sarun said late Monday. "But since it is going to be a whole night passing without finding it, even if there had been any survivors, they could die from loss of blood."

Him Sarun said the flight is thought to have crashed between Kamchay and Bokor mountains, about 80 miles southwest of the capital, Phnom Penh. The plane belonged to PMT Air, a small Cambodian airline that began flying the route in January.

Thirteen South Koreans and three Czechs were aboard, with a crew of five Cambodians and a Russian co-pilot, an official at the Siem Reap airport said. The plane lost contact five minutes before it was to land, said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Nhim Vanda, vice president of the National Committee for Disaster Management, said the search was suspended for the night. Speaking briefly by phone from the area, he said he feared that the chance of finding survivors was low.

Kim Young-chae, an official at the consular division in Seoul of the South Korean Foreign Ministry, confirmed that 13 South Koreans were on board.

South Korea had the highest number of tourists to visit Cambodia last year — some 221,000 South Koreans were among last year's total of 1.7 million foreign visitors, according to Cambodia's Tourism Ministry. Read more!

Bond with Cambodia still strong NA chair

HA NOI — Relations between Viet Nam and Cambodia have continuously strengthened in all areas over the past half-century, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong told a rally in Ha Noi on Saturday to mark today’s 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Trong said the two countries have continuously exchanged experience and mutual assistance in national development through visits by high-level officials from ministries, agencies and local governments in border areas, helping promote solidarity and friendship between the two countries.

Trade and commercial ties continue to flourish, matching the two countries’ political relations and potential, Trong said, noting that two-way trade turnover has grown annually by 25-35 per cent, reaching US$940 million in 2006, a figure expected to increase to $2 billion by 2010.

Trong urged the people of Viet Nam and Cambodia, particularly the younger generation, to uphold and consolidate the tradition of friendship between the two countries in an effort to lift it to a new height.

Addressing the rally, Cambodian Ambassador to Viet Nam Vann Phal spoke highly of the comprehensive co-operation between Cambodia and Viet Nam which he hoped would be further strengthened in the future.

A meeting was also held in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province of An Giang on Saturday to mark the anniversary of diplomatic relations with participation of provincial authorities and representatives from the neighbouring Cambodian provinces of Kandal and Takeo.

A three-day exchange programme between youth of An Giang and Cambodia was initiated to mark the occasion.

A meeting to mark the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Cambodia and Viet Nam was held in Phnom Penh on Saturday.

In his speech, Heng Samrin, chairman of the National Assembly and president of the Cambodian United Development Front (CUDF), stressed that friendship and co-operation between the countries were not born 40 years ago but have been in effect over hundreds of years.

Heng Samrin, who is also the Honourable President of the Cambodian People’s Party, said bilateral relations have recorded massive achievements through co-operation programmes in various fields from the central to grassroots levels.

Heng Samrin, on behalf of the CUDF and Cambodian people, expressed profound gratitude to the whole hearted, valuable assistance of the Vietnamese people in keeping peace, maintaining political stability and aiding socio-economic development from the ashes of genocide.

Addressing the meeting, Vietnamese Ambassador to Cambodia Nguyen Chien Thang thanked the people of Cambodia for their assistance to Viet Nam’s struggle for national development.

Thang said that though Viet Nam and Cambodia have undergone ups and downs in their respective histories, the solidarity and friendship between the countries have been fostered and developed.

On the same day, a seminar on Viet Nam-Cambodia relations was held in Phnom Penh, drawing representatives from both countries.

To mark the anniversary, a ha ben held Cambodian Cultural Week in four Vietnamese cities and provinces from June 25-30. The aim is to introduce the people, land and customs of Cambodia. — VNS

Read more!

Cambodia supports Pakistan as full dialogue partner for ASEAN

The Cambodian government fully supports Pakistan as full dialogue partner for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), local media reported Saturday.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong has told newly appointed Pakistan Ambassador Mohammad Younis Khan that Cambodia supported Pakistan which was proposed to be full dialogue partner with ASEAN, Sin Bun Thoeurn, head of press department of the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, was quoted by the Raksmey Kampuchea Daily as saying.

Meanwhile, Cambodia and Pakistan will improve bilateral ties and cooperation through the embassy in Phnom Penh, which was opened in 2005, Sin Bun Thoeurn said.

Hor Nam Hong also urged the Pakistan side to help implement the project with 10 million U.S. dollars of loan for an irrigation system in Kampong Speu province, which was pledged by Pakistan while its premier Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali visited Cambodia in 2004, Sin Bun Thoeurn added.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Holidays with a conscience

By LIM CHEE WAH

Don’t just travel. Travel responsibly. Here are a couple of hotels that offer the tourist with a conscience the opportunity to help the disadvantaged in Cambodia while enjoying a holiday there.

I GUESS I was like most people who hadn’t been to Cambodia: I had this image in my head fabricated from postcards and media visuals of beautiful, surreal Angkor Wat ruins.

Last year, in search of validation of that image, I finally went to Cambodia; specifically, to Siem Reap, the town closest to the temple complex – and I was taken completely by surprise.

Siem Reap – the whole of Cambodia, for that matter – is a place of uneasy contrasts. On the one hand, because of Angkor Wat, Siem Reap has an active tourist industry, which means pricey restaurants (like the Blue Pumpkin, which “wouldn’t look out of place in London or Paris,” says lonelyplanet.com) and luxury hotels (even one of the very exclusive Amanresorts places). On the other hand, you have very obvious, grinding poverty.

You might have heard friends who have visited describe this country’s poverty or seen TV documentaries about it but you can’t really grasp just how hard life is there until you’ve been there and seen it for yourself.

Pol Pot’s horrifying regime might have ended in the 1970s, but the country is still struggling to come back from the Khmer Rouge leader’s attempt to send it back into the dark ages by killing teachers, artists and intellectuals, thousands of people that didn’t conform to his twisted idea of what was “politically correct”. His bloody rule left a sense of chaos that still lingers and stripped Cambodia of its ability to progress and become self-sufficient.

You see children hawking postcards, bamboo flutes, books and other trinkets within the temple compounds when they ought to be in school. Or children who are obviously too young to look after themselves, carrying a baby sibling, begging for change on the streets.

Everywhere you turn, you will be confronted by the disheartening difficulties of this land’s people. If you are a traveller with a conscience, it would be hard to leave the children out on the street and enter your nice hotel to tuck into a hearty meal....

This is where the growing area of socially responsible tourism can help. This is tourism that is “good for you and good for me”, as one website put it; the “me” in this case being the country (usually a Third World one) the tourist is visiting. The idea is to enjoy the country while contributing to its development rather simply exploiting its heritage, environment and people.

Tourism that touches lives

In Siem Reap, two sister hotels are championing this cause wholeheartedly: Hotel de la Paix and Shinta Mani. They both sit firmly in the higher end of the market, yet they refuse to sugar-coat the place and its troubles with the gloss of luxury. Rather, they encourage travellers to connect with the locals and the land in all their bare honesty.

Earlier this year, I went back to Siem Reap but this time I made a point of visiting these two hotels.

One drizzly morning, over breakfast coffee, Chitra Vincent, general manager of boutique hotel Shinta Mani, tells me an inspiring story of how a simple connection had changed a local family’s life for the better:

Eight-year-old Kim Lay was no different from any other child vendor in Angkor – except for her ear for foreign languages. Her command of English so impressed a Californian couple that were guests at Shinta Mani that they took her back to the hotel, determined to help her attend school and stop peddling postcards to tourists.

With the hotel’s help, the couple channel US$100 (RM340) a month to Kim and her brother to support their schooling. Kim happily walks into Shinta Mani every day now to pick up her boxed lunch before going on to school. She writes to the couple, which she refers to as her godparents, every month.

That is what you get when you stay at Shinta Mani: the opportunity to contribute to the local community.

In fact, just by staying there, even without making any direct donations, a guest would already be helping young people in Siem Reap because Shinta Mani was actually created to fund its highly acclaimed Institute of Hospitality. The institute provides underprivileged Khmer youth with free, full-time training in restaurant and hotel work. These students, once they graduate, are highly sought after by employers in Cambodia’s burgeoning hospitality industry.

As with most hospitality schools, students here get to choose what field they want to specialise in, be it the culinary field, housekeeping, front office operations, maintenance or even spa management (Hotel de la Paix has the well-known Spa Indochine and Shinta Mani also has a spa).

But this is Cambodia, so this is not your ordinary school; to get students into the school, you have to take care of the whole family. So, students are given rice to take back home with them, together with a monthly allowance of US$10 (RM34) to make up for the family’s loss of income now that they are no longer working.

Vincent confesses that picking candidates for the institute has been among the most difficult moments in her working life “because everybody’s story is so sad”. The school can accommodate only 28 students; for this year’s intake, 225 eager young people turned up for the interviews. It’s heartbreaking to turn students away when you know this school could be their one chance to lift not only themselves but also their whole family out of poverty.

Menu of good deeds

Noelene Henderson, sales and marketing director of Hotel de la Paix, is confident that Shinta Mani’s community service model has the potential to grow. There are plans to make Shinta Mani into a brand and take it into other provinces within Cambodia, as well as Luang Prabang in Laos and also into Vietnam.

Shinta Mani’s luxurious sister property, Hotel de la Paix, however, has a different set of community outreach programmes. Things like visits to orphanages and rural villages can be arranged for interested guests, for instance.

Guests can also choose how they want to contribute through the hotel’s Connections “menu”. For as little as US$25 (RM85), you can support a family for a month with a food package that includes 50kg of rice, five cans of dried fish, five bottles of soy sauce and oil and salt.

You can also donate a pair of piglets for a family to raise, which they can resell six months later to generate income. This “Piggy Bank” option costs US$70 (RM238).

There are many more “menu” items to choose from, from donating school supplies and sponsoring rice to building a house for a family.

But the best part of the Connections menu is not the comfort you can purchase for people. It’s giving them hope and presenting them with the opportunity to change their lives for the better, a contribution that is far more precious than any material sustenance.

In Cambodia, less than 11% of the population have access to fresh water. A mere US$90 (RM306) is enough to provide a family with a much needed well. This doesn’t just mean a clean water supply but also the opportunity for the family to take up agriculture and generate an income for themselves. It is, ultimately, so much more than just a well: it is a way out of poverty.

Currently, Hotel de la Paix and Shinta Mani have put in 360 wells in Siem Reap and the surrounding region. They have also helped improve the lives of over 2,000 villagers by teaching them farming and providing material assistance. Families who make outstanding progress are rewarded with a brick house complete with toilet and septic tank. To date, the hotels have built 17 such houses.

Hotel de la Paix’s philosophy is explained eloquently by its executive chef, Joannes Riviere: “Supporting the local community is also about putting money into the system, which I think is far more important that the one-time donation sort of ‘community service’ that we are so accustomed to.”

Sewing up the future

The hotel’s latest joint venture with a Cambodian NGO, Life and Hope Association (LHA), is a fine example of how tourist dollars are being invested in supporting the local community.

The community sewing school caters to disadvantaged women, especially the “brick-laying girls” who work long hours in brick-making factories for less than a dollar a day.

LHA director Hoeurn Somnieng, who also oversees the school, explains that, “the school provides the girls with life skills so that they and those under their care won’t remain victims of poverty or domestic violence for the rest of their lives”.

Students, who range in age from 14 to 34, are also taught English language skills and, at the end of their training, will each take home a sewing machine to start their own business.

Sustainability is a major driving force of Hotel de la Paix and Shinta Mani’s community projects. The sewing school is currently making school uniforms requested by the guests of Hotel de la Paix for donation to villages and orphanages. There are also plans to produce commissioned items for other hotels.

However, the most remarkable thing about these two hotel’s community projects is the ripple effect of positive changes that has ensued. It’s like they have put into motion a system of “pay it forward” that might just be the catalyst of change in Siem Reap.

Srey Mom’s story is a good example. After graduating from Shinta Mani’s Institute of Hospitality two years back, she is now working in Hotel de la Piax’s bakery, earning a respectable wage that is more than double the income that her entire family put together earns.

What’s even more vital is the fact that her training at the institute has made her realise the importance of education and she is now putting her brothers and sisters through school. This is what it means to break the cycle of poverty. As that proverb says, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime”.

There’s another aspect to these two hotels’ tourism-based community programmes that sets them apart from your usual aid efforts: accountability.

Remember the rash of relief organisations that seemed to pop up after the Asian tsunami in 2004 and how we all scrambled to donate to them? Do you know what, exactly, has happened to your money? With Hotel de la Paix and Shinta Mani’s programmes, you can see just how your money is used – you can go and meet the orphans who got the books bought with your money. You could meet Srey in the bakery.

This is why even the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (www.world-tourism.org) has recognised that tourism has great potential to alleviate poverty. So the next time you plan a trip, consider socially conscious tourism.


For more information on Hotel de la Paix go to hoteldelapaixangkor. com, call +855-63-966 000, fax +855-63-966 001 or e-mail info@hoteldelapaixangkor.com.
To contact Shinta Mani, go to shintamani.com, call +855-63-761 998, fax +855-63-761 999 or e-mail cba@shintamani.com.

The Business Enterprises for SustainableTravel (BEST) website, sustainabletravel.org, offers tips on How To Be a Civic Traveler. Read more!

Cambodia, Vietnam commemorate 40 years anniversary of diplomatic ties

Cambodia and Vietnam celebrated the 40 year anniversary of diplomatic relations at a ceremony here on Saturday, while both countries determined to have more cooperation and help each other for development, a joint statement said.

Cambodia and Vietnam determined to cooperate to work harder than before and maintain their relationship as good forever because they are neighbors which used to help each other, the statement said.

It added that the diplomatic relations have made the two countries help each other in liberating from new and old colonies and made they have independence, national unity, peace and development subsequently.

The ceremony was attended by about 50 senior governmental officials from both countries, including Cambodian senior minister Men Sam On.

The Kingdom of Cambodia and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam established diplomatic relations on June 24, 1967.

Source: Xinhua Read more!