Evidence of Artemisinin-Resistant Malaria in Western Cambodia

Figure 1. Parasite Density, Parasite-Clearance Time, and 50% Inhibitory Concentration (IC50) among Patients Receiving Artesunate, According to Clinical Outcome.

Panel A shows the parasite-reduction curves for the 56 patients who were cured, the 2 patients classified as having artemisinin-resistant infections, and the 2 with drug failures (i.e., patients who had recrudescence but who were not classified as having artemisinin-resistant infection, since the drug level was inadequate). The data points and horizontal I bars denote the means and standard errors. Panel B shows the parasite-clearance times in the artesunate group, as compared with the IC50 for dihydroartemisinin (R=0.31, P=0.03). Orange circles indicate patients whose infection was classified as artemisinin-resistant, and blue squares patients in whom treatment failed but whose infection was not classified as resistant.

To the Editor: Although artemisinins are potent and rapidly acting antimalarial drugs, their widespread use for treating patients with Plasmodium falciparum malaria raises the question of emerging drug resistance.1,2 Artemisinin monotherapy should not be used in areas where malaria is endemic; it requires an extended administration period and may lead to treatment failure, most frequently because of problems with compliance. Recent reports of high failure rates associated with artemisinin-based combination therapy, as well as in vitro drug-susceptibility data, suggest the possibility of clinical artemisinin resistance along the Thai–Cambodian border.3,4 We studied the potential emergence of artemisinin resistance using in vivo, in vitro, molecular, and pharmacokinetic methods specifically designed to address the question of potential artemisinin resistance.

We randomly assigned, in a ratio of 2:1, 94 adults from Battambang Province presenting with uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria (100 to 100,000 parasites per microliter) to receive either high-dose artesunate therapy (4 mg per kilogram of body weight per day, orally, for 7 days) (60 patients) or quinine (30 mg per kilogram per day) plus tetracycline (25 mg per kilogram per day) in a split dose every 8 hours for 7 days (34 patients). The study was approved by ethics review committees in Cambodia and the United States and was conducted from October 2006 through March 2007. Written informed consent was obtained from all study participants.

Patients were admitted for 28 days to rule out reinfection. The clinical outcome was recorded, plasma drug concentrations and in vitro drug susceptibility were measured, and molecular assays were performed to investigate genetic resistance markers and to rule out reinfection. Only patients who met all the following criteria were classified as having artemisinin-resistant infection: persistence of parasites 7 days after the start of treatment or reemergence of parasites within 28 days after the start of treatment; adequate plasma concentrations of dihydroartemisinin, a major artemisinin metabolite; prolonged time to parasite clearance; and reduced in vitro susceptibility to dihydroartemisinin.5

Four of the 60 patients who received artesunate had reemergence of parasitemia between days 21 and 28 after the start of treatment (with a Kaplan–Meier probability estimate for cure at day 28 of 93.6%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 84.7 to 97.7); 2 of these patients (3.3%) were classified as having artemisinin-resistant infection, according to the criteria listed above (Figure 1A). These two patients had parasite-clearance times that were prolonged (133 and 95 hours, as compared with a median of 52.2 hours for patients who were cured), and the plasma drug concentrations after the first dose were classified as adequate (greater than the mean for the cured patients minus 1 SD) (see the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at www.nejm.org). For these subjects, the 50% inhibitory concentrations for dihydroartemisinin were up to 4 times the geometric mean for cured patients and almost 10 times that for the reference clone W2. In the artesunate group, 47.9% (95% CI, 36.1 to 60.0) of the patients still had parasitemia 48 hours after the start of treatment, as did 21.9% (95% CI, 13.1 to 33.1) 72 hours after the start of treatment. Clinical and in vitro data suggest that artemisinin resistance may be more accurately portrayed as the long tail of a single distribution than as the result of a sudden change in sensitivity (Figure 1B). Resistance did not appear to be mediated by the number of copies of the P. falciparum multidrug resistance gene pfmdr1 or selected PfATPase6 polymorphisms tested in this study.

The high overall treatment efficacy seen in patients treated with artesunate indicates that relatively few parasite isolates have crossed the threshold of artemisinin resistance as defined in our study. Artemisinin resistance does not seem to be a widespread epidemiologic phenomenon at this time. The prolonged parasite-clearance times and the two cases meeting our definition of artesunate resistance are nonetheless a concern.

Harald Noedl, M.D., Ph.D.
Medical University of Vienna
A-1090 Vienna, Austria
harald.noedl@meduniwien.ac.at

Youry Se, M.D.
Kurt Schaecher, Ph.D.
Bryan L. Smith, M.D.
Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences
Bangkok 10400, Thailand

Duong Socheat, M.D.
National Center for Parasitology, Entomology, and Malaria Control
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Mark M. Fukuda, M.D.
Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences
Bangkok 10400, Thailand

for the Artemisinin Resistance in Cambodia 1 (ARC1) Study Consortium

Supported by the U.S. Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections System Program. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

This letter (10.1056/NEJMc0805011) was published at www.nejm.org on December 8, 2008. It will appear in the December 11 issue of the Journal.

References

Duffy PE, Sibley CH. Are we losing artemisinin combination therapy already? Lancet 2005;366:1908-1909.

Krishna S, Bustamante L, Haynes RK, Staines HM. Artemisinins: their growing importance in medicine. Trends Pharmacol Sci 2008;29:520-527.

Jambou R, Legrand E, Niang M, et al. Resistance of Plasmodium falciparum field isolates to in-vitro artemether and point mutations of the SERCA-type PfATPase6. Lancet 2005;366:1960-1963. [CrossRef][Medline]

Vijaykadga S, Rojanawatsirivej C, Cholpol S, Phoungmanee D, Nakavej A, Wongsrichanalai C. In vivo sensitivity monitoring of mefloquine monotherapy and artesunate-mefloquine combinations for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria in Thailand in 2003. Trop Med Int Health 2006;11:211-219. [ISI][Medline]

Noedl H. Artemisinin resistance: how can we find it? Trends Parasitol 2005;21:404-405.
[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]

Read more!

Cambodia cuts military budget after IMF concern

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's government has slashed its proposed military budget for 2009 after the International Monetary Fund questioned the big increase it had announced, officials said on Monday.

In a parliamentary debate on next year's budget, the government proposed military spending of just $160 million for next year, way below the $500 million it had earmarked earlier after a border clash with Thailand in October.

"Before, we planned to divert resources to defence and security, but once we announced the plan, there was some criticism from donors," said Cheam Yeap, head of the National Assembly's finance commission.

"We don't want donors to get nervous about spending in the field so we decided to reduce it," Yeap told Reuters.

The IMF expressed concern about the big increase in military spending at a meeting of international aid donors in Phnom Penh last week.

Cambodia's opposition has also worried about the government's plan to spend more on the military at a time when donors such as the World Bank are contributing millions of dollars to help demobilise troops and slim down the country's bloated army.

The budget for military spending in 2008 is $108 million. Total spending on security, including the police force, is around $250 million.

Officials said the proposed increase in military spending next year would go towards better pay and welfare in the army, not weapons.

Cambodia's total budget for next year is now likely to be around $1.4 billion rather than the $1.8 billion proposed earlier.

Read more!

Former Cambodian monarch says his health is deteriorating

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodia's former king Norodom Sihanouk said his health was deteriorating and hinted that he did not have long to live, in a letter seen on his website Monday.
The 86-year-old, who left for Beijing in July for his annual medical treatment, wrote in a message titled "The deterioration of the state of my health" that his "eminent Chinese doctors" had told his wife, former queen Monineath, that he should be hospitalised in case of emergency.

"My important and respected Chinese friends dare not speak about my death (from old age) in the not so distant future. But I told them I would prefer to die in 'my' residence instead of a hospital, where I have very comfortable apartments," Sihanouk said.

In the message, dated December 1 but only posted recently on his website, the former monarch added that doctors had increased their examinations from once a week to many times a week, and sometimes twice a day.

Sihanouk has suffered from a number of ailments, including cancer, diabetes and hypertension.

Despite giving up his role as monarch, he remains a prominent figure in Cambodia who often uses messages to weigh in on matters affecting the country.
Read more!

Fair Trade Fairs Fare Well For Shoppers

Jill Kimball's love affair with Southeast Asia blossomed seven years ago, when adopting her daughter Jayne brought her in touch with the Cambodian people, art, and culture. Along with her new baby girl - her real treasure, she brought home gorgeous handwoven silk scarves, handmade jewelry and crafts fashioned from recycled materials that most of us would consider trash. Jill was so impressed with what the indigenous artisans' cooperatives could produce. "In these poor, rural communities, there is absolutely no waste," she says.

She and her friend Kathy Mahoney, both Montclair Moms, were game to start a business supporting fair trade artisans, and import their beautiful handicrafts to the US market. Lotus Jayne was born three years ago, and we first wrote about them when we noticed their Bombshell Bracelets made from 155mm artillery shells. Now, Lotus Jayne is present at nearly all of Baristaville's fair trade fairs and markets.

Annual buying trips include visits to remote villages reached by paddling over rice paddies, have enriched their inventory with items from India and Thailand hand-crocheted purses, jewelry, and silk clothing, both casual and chic. You'll find silver jewelry made by the Karen Hill Tribe in Thailand, new pendants made by artisan friends in Phnom Penh, and custom designed handwarmers (unknown to the artisans) and scarves made by women from the Godavari Delta of India.

Lotus Jayne's merchandise is amazingly affordable. Check their website, there's nothing listed over $50. Here's where you'll find Lotus Jayne this month.

Sunday, Dec. 7 & Dec. 14, 11am-1pm
Union Congregational Church Holiday Alternative Gift Fair
176 Cooper Avenue, Montclair, NJ

Thursday, December 11, 3pm-9pm
Montclair Coop School's Huge Winter Wonderland Holiday Shopping Fair
Includes Cafe and Children's Area
65 Chestnut Street, Montclair, NJ

Sunday, December 14, 10:30am-1pm
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Montclair
Fair Trade Holiday Fair
67 Church Street, Montclair, NJ

Wednesday, December 17, 5pm-8pm
Chalk Farm
Holiday Shopping, Wine & Cheese
182 Glenridge Avenue, Montclair, NJ

They are also available by appointment. For more info, visit their website or call
Katie Mahoney 973-744-7576, Jill Kimball 973-744-7802.
Email: info@lotusjayne.com

Jill's comments about the photos:
Manager
This intelligent, beautiful woman manages the work brought to the village by Somphen.

Old Woman Spins
Old woman spins silk onto spools made of pieces of pvc pipe. When we asked her (by translator) why she didn't wear her glasses to see the almost transparent fibers of organza, she answered "I only wear my glasses for TV!" The village has a little black and white TV run by a moto battery powered by a small generator.

Silk by Hand
Silk ready to be wound onto spools. This home is so clean and neat.

Village Farewell
Goodbye! Leaving the village, everyone accompanies us to the riverbank. Read more!

Cambodia And Human Trafficking

On December 7th, performing artists, human rights activists, non-governmental organizations, and officials of the Royal Cambodian government will gather at Angkor Wat to focus world attention on the scourge of human trafficking.

A rock concert will be held at Angkor Wat, December 7th, in cooperation with MTV EXIT [End Exploitation and Trafficking], a project of the MTV Europe Foundation. This London-based charity is working to increase awareness and prevention of human trafficking exploitation. MTV EXIT in Asia is produced in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development.

British and a number of international artists will perform along with some of Cambodia's biggest recording artists, including Pou Khliang. The Angkor Wat show is part of an exciting nation-wide concert tour that began November 22nd at Ochheuteal Beach in Sihanoukville. The final concert, featuring Cambodian pop star Preap Sovath, will be held at Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh on December 12 in recognition of Cambodia's National Day to Combat Human Trafficking.

"We are incredibly proud to perform at this important concert," said one band member. "We hope that through our music and involvement in this event and the MTV EXIT campaign that millions of people learn about this tragic form of slavery." The concert tour will provide content for a series of television programmes produced by MTV EXIT to be broadcast in Cambodia and on MTV channels internationally. These specials will combine concert footage with important information about human trafficking.

Public awareness is just one component of a larger global effort to prevent human trafficking. In its annual report on human trafficking, the U.S. State Department notes that the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and expunging corruption, are critical to the fight against trafficking. Estimates suggest that some 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders annually, with up to 80 percent of the victims being female and up to 50 percent being children. These figures do not include millions who are trafficked for purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation within national borders as well.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it is important for "responsible nations across the globe to stand together, to speak with one voice, and to say that freedom and security are non-negotiable demands of human dignity." Read more!

Tourist dies in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH - A GERMAN tourist has died in Cambodia's north-east after falling off a veranda and refusing hospital treatment, police said on Saturday.

Eye-witnesses told police that 65-year-old Klaus Dieter Rubloff had been waiting for a bus on a riverside veranda in Kratie province on Thursday when he fell three metres to the ground.

He was taken to the nearby provincial hospital with head and hand injuries but refused to stay there, wanting to travel instead to the capital Phnom Penh.

He was found dead the next morning at the guesthouse where he was staying.

'The tourist accidentally fell off the balcony. After he was sent to the hospital, he refused requests by the doctor and his two foreign friends to stay in the hospital,' said provincial police chief Chuong Seang Hak.

'His death was caused by the accident and his refusal to be hospitalised here,' he said. -- AFP


Read more!

Concert to benefit school in Cambodia

By Ron Cassie

A benefit concert planned for later this month traces its genesis back three and a half years, to a meeting between a Frederick couple and a former Cambodian refugee.

During a vacation to Vietnam and Cambodia in February 2005, Ted and Bonnie Nieman were overwhelmed by the poverty in rural Cambodian towns. When they returned to Frederick County, they began raising money to build wells for clean drinking water in the villages neighboring their hotel -- work they continue to this day.

Sensavon Bennici, who as a child escaped Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s with her family, read about their efforts in The Frederick News-Post in April 2005 and contacted the Niemans. The Niemans and Bennicis, including Sensavon, her husband Frank and four children, Maria, Anthony, Matthew, and Charles, have been friends ever since.

Now Maria, a senior at Walkersville High School, has organized a concert to benefit the Niemans' latest Cambodian project, a new school for 120 children in a rural village about 30 miles outside Siem Reap (population 10,000).

"I have had this idea since the end of my sophomore year," said Bennici, a classical pianist. "This summer I really got thinking about it, and in July and August I began talking to some of my friends about it. At the beginning of the school year I talked to our principal, David Kehne, and he was supportive. Everyone at the school has been very supportive, taking the time to deal all my questions and make I was doing everything I needed to do."

Bennici named the concert "Harmony for Hope."

Fifteen Walkersville students, including Maria and her brothers, will play. Anthony, 15 and a sophomore at Walkersville, will play classical guitar, and Matthew, 8, and Charles, 7, will both play piano concertos. Maria will perform a duet with each sibling.

"I thought that would be cute," she said.

The first half of the program will be classical. After intermission, the second half will feature more contemporary music.

"Jason Mraz, Train, things like that," Bennici said. "That way everyone in the audience will have a particular favorite."

Admission is free. Donations toward Cambodiawecare.org, the Niemans' nonprofit group, and the new school will be accepted. Bennici said she plans to have Ted Nieman give a brief talk about both before the concert.

Since 2005, the Niemans have raised money to install an estimated 1,000 wells and helped local Buddhist monks construct and launch a sewing center for impoverished women, Ted Nieman said. They have raised $6,000 toward the $30,000 for the new elementary school in Pouk.

About 120 first- and second-graders now squeeze into a single-room schoolhouse. Their two teachers' salaries are subsidized by Cambodiawecare.org. Donated school books and supplies are delivered regularly.

"The kids push and shove each other for a new No. 2 pencil," said Nieman, who with his wife has traveled back to Cambodia five times since their first trip. "They are so eager to learn."

One hope is that eventually the school will be expanded to include third- and fourth-grade classes.

"I was raised to make education a priority and it's very important to me, personally," said Bennici, who is considering Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon and NYU, among other colleges.

"I think the whole world should have access to quality education, and I think what the Niemans are doing is inspiring. It shows you don't have to be Angelina Jolie to make a difference. You can start your own organization or make a contribution to one right here."

Read more!

Cambodia Considers Allowing Foreign Ownership of Property

Cambodia real estate values are in freefall, and officials may soon allow foreigners to purchase buildings, though foreign ownership of land is still out of the question. For more information, read the following article from Global Property Guide:

Cambodia’s housing market is plummeting, and the government is considering a new law to allow foreigners to own buildings.

In 2005, the government amended an investment law to allow foreign ownership of buildings. However Cambodia’s property market was then experiencing one of the biggest booms in Asia. As a result, the law was never implemented and the idea floundered.

The boom saw prices surge 25 percent to 40 percent annually from 2004 to 2007. Land price increases were at first confined to Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, but the boom spread right across Cambodia. Other hot spots have been the border areas with Vietnam and Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Laos.

The capital’s most sought after locations fetched US$500 per square metre in 2000, but were sold at around US$4,000 or more per square metre along Norodom Boulevard, and US$2,500 per square metre in the central residential neighbourhood of Boeung Keng Kang (BKK).

A downturn started in July 2007 after the government announced new investment guidelines for developers.

Then in mid-2008, the bubble burst. The global financial crisis had hit Cambodia’s biggest investor, South Korea, and Korean investors began pulling out foreign assets to increase liquidity.

Real estate sales plummeted 30 percent to 50 percent from a year earlier.

To prevent the market from sliding further, the government is considering moves to allow foreigners to fully own buildings. Land ownership is still out of the question.

The housing boom

Cambodia has just witnessed one of the biggest real estate booms in Asia.

The reasons are obvious, as soon as you visit Cambodia. Phnom Penh is an attractive colonial city, with broad avenues, charming housing, a hip and young atmosphere, and a riverfront view. Siem Riep, which houses Angkor Wat, is even more charming, and has a cooler, more agreeable climate. There are agreeable beachfronts at Sihanoukville.

Cambodia is in a strategic position in the centre of IndoChina. Prices are laughably inexpensive (from a foreign perspective) and economic growth is exploding. The combination is hard to argue with.

Rentals are far higher than in days when Phnom Penh was a sleepy outpost where the only foreigners worked for aid organizations. In BKK I, according to a report in the Bangkok Post dated March 2008, a spacious, four-bedroom apartment with gym, swimming pool, parking and 24-hour security is on the market for US$3,000 a month. Nearby, the owners of a two-story, four-bedroom villa are looking for US$5,000 per month.

Phnom Penh has, as a result, experienced a construction boom. The government is aggressively pro-development, and squatters and other eyesores are simply cleared away, by a government which is in league with wealthy developers.

Part of the charm may be about to be lost as Phnom Penh succumbs to development. A 42-story US$250 million twin condominium, twice as high as Phnom Penh’s current tallest building, is being built in the most conspicuous position possible—at a busy corner leading to the city's Independence Monument. Residential units in the ‘Gold Tower 42’ project, which will not be completed till 2011, range from US$459,000 to US$1,500,000, according to developer Yon Woo Cambodia Co. Around 70 percent of the buyers are Cambodian. Around 40 percent of the sales have gone to speculative investors.

World City Co. Ltd., a South Korean company, is investing US$2 billion to build a satellite city called Camko City on a 120-hectare (300-acre) in northwest Phnom Penh. The single biggest foreign direct investment in to date, Camko City will include residential units, villas, condominiums, commercial and public facilities, trade and financial centres, office buildings, shopping centres, hotels, schools and hospitals. The project will include about 500 apartments with price tags ranging from US$112,000 to US$1.8 million a unit. Construction will take 3 1/2 years to complete. Nearly half of the units have already been sold.

Land values in Siem Reap have risen 25 percent to 30 percent every year for the last four years at least. The average price of land per square metre is now around the US$500 to US$600 mark. But premium land in downtown tourism districts is around US$1,600 per square metre.

Housing mortgages

Mortgage finance is now available in Cambodia. Acleda Bank entered the home lending market in January 2007; by March 1 2008 Acleda’s home loan portfolio was worth about $40 million. To get around foreclosure risk, given the corrupt legal system, Acleda keeps the title to the property until the loan is repaid.

ANZ also offers 15-year installment loans, allowing customers to borrow up to 60 percent of the home purchase price at variable interest rates, lending against registered titles.

Foreign-ownership schemes

Foreign individuals cannot buy real estate in Cambodia directly. But land can be held by foreigners on long (renewable) leases and through majority locally-owned companies incorporated in Cambodia. This company structure is the safest for a foreigner wishing to buy land. It is not totally bullet-proof, but in practice it works.

Foreigners typically take two Cambodian nationals as partners in the land-holding company, with the 51 percent share allocated so that the foreigner is the biggest single partner. Other safeguards include

Creating different classes of shares, giving the foreigner more rights;
Minority control documents;
A mortgage on the land, stipulating that the land cannot be transferred without the consent of the foreigner.

Leases up to 99 years are another common acceptable structure—the magnificent Raffles Hotel le Royal in Phnom Penh, for instance, is held on a simple lease. Read more!

CAMBODIA: Children miss out on school because of corruption

PHNOM PENH, When Sok Sopheap could not pay his daily bribe, his secondary school teacher refused to let him attend class.

The teacher demanded he stand for an hour by the door until the class finished.

"It was humiliating, but it happens a lot to students," said the 19-year-old son of a food vendor, graduating years late because of what he calls "high corruption fees".

"We have to pay unfairly for almost everything at school," he complained, including exams, tests and even class time.

"I don't think the problem is getting better," he said. "Young people in Cambodia have lived with this all our lives and no one has done much to stop it."

Chronic poverty

"New teachers often face a many-month delay before they receive their salaries," David Coleman, education chief of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) for Cambodia, told IRIN. "Teachers sometimes supplement their income with a second job. This can affect their own attendance at school, and can put pressure on the amount of time they have to prepare their lessons."

Teachers' salaries start from US$50 a month, even less than garment factory workers earn, Coleman added.

High oil and gas costs, which have only fallen slightly since their summer peak, despite a global price plummet, could be adding to teachers' salary woes, said Soprach, a primary school teacher in the capital, Phnom Penh.

"The price I pay for gas every month is almost the same as my salary," Soprach told IRIN. "How am I supposed to survive and feed my family without charging extra?"

Daily fees of 700 riel (20 cents) do little to drain students of money while keeping his own family afloat with $200 a month, he added.

Yet others think the tiny costs add up in significant ways, unfairly forcing poorer students out of school.

A 2007 report by the Cambodian NGO Education Partnership (NEP)
reveals education costs for each child averaged $108 annually, or 9 percent of each family's annual income.

The inability to pay informal fees was the most common reason parents gave for their children dropping out, the report stated.

"When you include informal and formal school costs, and private classes and snacks, many students are paying $2.50 every day," Leng Theavy, education and capacity-building officer for the NGO Education Partnership (NEP), told IRIN.

"That money is a lot because many Cambodians don't make more than $60 a month. In the survey we found the informal fees to be small, but we think the numbers could be much higher now," she added.

The study also noted that a quarter of parents were unaware that their children were entitled to a free education, a legal right.

Informal fees are prevalent in Phnom Penh, not in the countryside, the report said, though Theavy said corruption still happened in the provinces.

"Some teachers in the countryside take large fees too, and often the communes receive documented complaints from parents," she said.

Tackling corruption

As part of Cambodia's Education Strategic Plan for 2006 to 2010, the Ministry of Education is seeking ways to improve efficiencies to reduce informal fees.

The establishment of a Teacher Professional Code, ensuring on-time payments and raising teacher salaries are priorities.

However, Theavy said government had only limited options.

"The situation is out of the control of the Ministry [of Education] even though they circulated a ban on informal payments," she told IRIN. "Teachers commit this on their own."

Corruption overall is one of Cambodia's most pressing issues, with anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International scoring the country the 14th most corrupt in the world in its 2008 index, and the third most corrupt country in the Asia-Pacific region.
Read more!

Global Draw and Elixir Gaming form Strategic Alliance for Placement of Server-Based Gaming Machines in Asia

NEW YORK, SGMS wholly-owned subsidiary, The Global Draw Ltd. ("Global Draw") and Elixir Gaming Technologies (EGT:elixir gaming technologies) announced today they have formed a strategic alliance to address new opportunities in the high-potential gaming market of Cambodia through placements of Global Draw's popular server-based gaming machines at Elixir Gaming sourced venues. Pursuant to this agreement, gaming machines from Global Draw will be placed at venues on a revenue share basis and Global Draw and Elixir Gaming will share in the net win of the machines placed into operation. It is expected that Global Draw and Elixir Gaming will enter into a similar arrangement for the Philippines in the first quarter of 2009.

The first placement of Global Draw machines under this new agreement of approximately 65 Silverball networked gaming machines will be placed in casinos and licensed gaming halls in popular visitor destinations in Cambodia, as sourced by Elixir Gaming, during the first quarter of calendar 2009. In addition to securing new locations for the placement of Global Draw products, Elixir Gaming will provide ongoing marketing and technical support of the installed units.

Global Draw first introduced server-based gaming to the British betting market in the late nineties and has over 13,000 of its popular Silverball and Nevada terminals operating worldwide.

Neil Moir, Director of International Business Development for Global Draw, said: "This new alliance with Elixir Gaming aligns us with the perfect strategic partner to immediately access the South East Asian gaming market, which is the fastest growing gaming market in the world and represents another significant milestone in Global Draw's ability to expand our presence beyond our core market in the UK. Global Draw's unique downloadable, server-based games and services are applicable to all global markets as they allow us to work closely with our customers to increase machine income by making constant changes to our content. We are very pleased to leverage the benefits of Global Draw's unique products with the expertise Elixir Gaming has quickly developed in addressing the Cambodian market through their strong market presence and expanding relationships with venue owners. We expect our exciting level of content and increasing the level of security and flexibility offered by our products will provide immediate benefits to venue owners and their players in these rapidly growing markets."

Elixir Gaming is a leading supplier of technology gaming solutions in its key markets in Asia. Through its growing installation base of over 1,200 electronic gaming machines which are leased to its customers on a participation basis, local market relationships, and operational expertise, Elixir Gaming has established a meaningful presence in the high-potential gaming markets of the Philippines and Cambodia.

Clarence Chung, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Elixir Gaming, said: "We are delighted to be working with a company like Scientific Games, and its subsidiary Global Draw, which share our passion for delivering excellence in terms of cutting edge games, technology, and customer service. This agreement provides us with opportunities to ramp up our installed base with value-added networked gaming machines that complement our existing operating units. Importantly, this new alliance is another indication of the progress we are making with initiatives to improve our operating performance as we believe the entertainment value of Global Draw's products will help to deliver incremental net revenues to Elixir Gaming while allowing us to preserve capital for execution on additional growth initiatives."

About Scientific Games

Scientific Games Corporation is the leading integrated supplier of instant tickets, systems and services to lotteries worldwide, a leading supplier of server based gaming machines and systems, Amusement and Skill with Prize betting terminals, interactive sports betting terminals and systems, and wagering systems and services to pari-mutuel operators. It is also a licensed pari-mutuel gaming operator in Connecticut, Maine and the Netherlands and is a leading supplier of prepaid phone cards to telephone companies. Scientific Games' customers are in the United States and more than 60 other countries. For more information about Scientific Games, please visit www.scientificgames.com.

Company Contact:
Investor Relations
Scientific Games
212-754-2233


About Elixir Gaming Technologies, Inc.

Elixir Gaming Technologies, Inc. is a provider of gaming technology solutions. The Company secures long-term contracts to provide comprehensive turn-key solutions to 3, 4, and 5 star hotels and other well-located venues throughout Asia that seek to offer casino gaming products. The Company retains ownership of the gaming machines and systems and receives recurring daily fees that average in excess of 20% of the net gaming win per machine and provides on-site maintenance. The Company has established a strategic presence in the Asia Pacific region with a focus on the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam markets. For more information please visit www.elixirgaming.com.

Company Contact:
Traci Mangini
SVP, Corporate Finance
702-617-4741


Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release which are not historical facts constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those forward-looking statements include statements regarding the expectations for the business relationship between Global Draw and Elixir Gaming including the placement of games and recurring revenue that may develop from the relationship between the two companies. These statements, including those relating to timing of contracts, renewals or other events, business plans and performance objectives, are based upon management's current expectations, assumptions and estimates and are not guarantees of future results or performance. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in these statements due to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors, including, among other things: that Global Draw and Elixir Gaming may not realize the expected benefits of the game placements, risks related to Elixir Gaming's inability to place gaming machines at significant levels or at all and risks relating to Elixir Gaming's ability to place games that generate the expected amount of net-win; competition; material adverse changes in economic and industry conditions in our markets; technological change; protection of intellectual property; security and integrity of software and systems; laws and government regulation, including those relating to gaming licenses, permits and operations; seasonality; dependence on suppliers and manufacturers; factors associated with foreign operations; failure to retain, renew or perform on contracts; resolution of pending or future litigation; and other factors described from time to time in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and except for our ongoing obligations under the U.S. federal securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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Cambodia promised aid worth nearly $1 bln for 2009

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia has been promised aid worth $951.5 million for next year -- the most since 1994 -- with pledges linked to the country implementing reforms and fighting graft, the finance minister said on Friday.

Speaking at a news conference after a donors' meeting, Keat Chhon said China was Cambodia's biggest aid donor, with $257 million, followed by the European Union with $214 million, and Japan with $112 million.

"China is more than just a good rich neighbor ... China knows what Cambodia needs," he told reporters, saying Beijing's aid was unconditional, unlike assistance from the rest of the donors.

At the conference, other donors urged Cambodia to approve a long overdue anti-corruption law which they said was essential for private sector investment.

"Passing the law will be an important signal, providing investors and development partners with confidence to make more long-term commitments in Cambodia," said Qimiao Fan, the newly appointed World Bank country manager for Cambodia.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also expressed reservations about the government's plan to double spending on the military next year to $500 million after a border clash with Thailand earlier this year.

Finance Minister Keat Chhon said the spending increase was for pay and social welfare rather than arms and equipment. (Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
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Milton students to attend school dedication in Cambodia

It is a foreign school they 'built"

By Wayne Laepple

MILTON -- At 2:45 this morning, eight students, six teachers and chaperones were climbing aboard a bus to begin an epic journey, the culmination of their yearlong quest to build a school in Cambodia.

By airplane, boat and bus, their trip will take them to a tiny village called Mean in Kampong Cham Province to see the dedication of the Milton School, believed to be the first school in Cambodia built with funds raised by American public school students.

They will see first-hand what their work has meant to the children of the poverty-stricken Southeast Asian country. It was their efforts to raise money that built the school.

Larissa Luu, a Milton senior who is the spark plug of what came to be known as Educate Cambodia, is among the group taking the trip. She became the face of the effort, speaking before church and civic groups, urging her fellow students on, and her work brought her the 2008 Young Heroes Award from the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia.

"I'm really excited that it's built," she said. "But I'm nervous about the trip."

The trip is costing each of the participants about $3,300, a price that includes a deep discount by American Council for International Studies, of Boston, which made all the travel arrangements.

Michael Conn, who teaches history and world cultures at Milton, visited Cambodia during the summer of 2007. He saw the desperate poverty and hunger for knowledge and made the initial pitch to help build the school.

Luu and her fellow students took it from there.

Conn and two other teachers, high school Principal Bryan Noaker, a teacher's sister and a parent, will accompany the students.

Conn said there hasn't been much contact with the people in Mean.

"We got an e-mail last Friday telling us the school was open and kids were attending," Conn said. "That's when it really hit us that we had done it."

The Milton School in Mean has 145 students and 11 teachers, and more pupils are expected as word spreads through the region about the school.

A week from today, Luu and her fellow students plan to wear the "Educate Cambodia" T-shirts they sold as fundraisers to the dedication.

Community response phenomenal'

William Clark, Milton's superintendent, said those going on the trip are "ambassadors of educational goodwill."

Clark has been supportive of the trip ever since Conn pitched the idea to him a year ago.

"It's an opportunity that shows a teacher with a passion for kids can take it to a higher level," Clark said.

"The outpouring of support from the community has been phenomenal," Clark said. "You get a broader perspective of the world when you understand what's outside Milton."

Milton students -- kindergarteners through seniors -- raised more than $36,000 since last December to build the school.

They held car washes, spaghetti dinners, penny wars and other fundraisers. They did chores and sold T-shirts. They manned booths at Wal-Mart and at various community events. The Milton community rallied behind them, and service clubs, churches and individuals added to the tally.

In fact, their $30,000 goal was reached in fewer than five months.

They worked through American Assistance for Cambodia, a charity based in Tokyo that has helped to open 366 schools in Cambodia and has 72 others under construction.

Many of the schools in Cambodia were financed by individuals and schools in Japan, Australia and Britain. The Milton School is the first sponsored by a public school in the United States, although two private schools have done so.

During a 20-year period, when the Khmer Rouge ruled the country, schools were razed, teachers were executed and books were burned. The country is still struggling to recover from that period, when more than 2 million citizens were killed by the government.

Sarah Haas, a Milton junior, said she's feeling emotional about making the trip.

"I think I'll be overwhelmed when we finally get there," she said. "It's a product of what we did here."

School is in session

When the first $15,000 was raised by Milton students, the school building was constructed and staffed, equipped with textbooks and solar panels to power a computer.

The seven-room school will educate children in Khmer, English, math and science. The additional funds raised will go to continue operating the school, provide a well for clean water and plant a garden to help feed the students and their families.

The group will fly from New York to Hong Kong today, and after a short layover, will fly on to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, arriving there around 6 p.m. Friday -- 6 a.m. Friday, Milton time.

The flight to Hong Kong will take more than 17 hours. Because the students will cross the International Date Line, it will be Friday afternoon when they arrive in Hong Kong.

Extraordinary field trip

The group will tour Vietnam for a couple of days before traveling by boat along the Mekong River to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on Tuesday. On Tuesday and Wednesday, they will visit cultural and historic sites, including the infamous "killing fields," where thousands of Cambodians were slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge.

Finally, on Thursday, they will travel several hours by bus from Phnom Penh to the village of Mean for the dedication of the Milton School.

Luu will speak during the ceremony.

"I didn't write anything down," she said. "I want to be open to say what I feel at that moment."

Reflecting on the yearlong campaign to raise the money, she praised her fellow students.

"I hoped we'd get to this point, but I never expected it to happen the way it did," she said. "And I never expected to be going there." Read more!

China, Cambodia agree to further comprehensive, cooperative partnership

PHNOM PENH, China and Cambodia agreed here Thursday to further promote bilateral comprehensive and cooperative partnership during the talks between China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin and Cambodian Senate President Chea Sim.

Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), spoke highly of the development of bilateral relations in the past five decades of diplomatic ties.

He said China attaches great importance to its relations with Cambodia and the Chinese side will work with the Cambodian side to explore potentials and continuously push forward bilateral partnership of comprehensive cooperation so as to achieve reciprocal and win-win results.

The further development of bilateral traditional friendship is the common aspiration of the two peoples, conforms to the fundamental interest of the two countries, and will contribute to regional prosperity and development, said Jia, who arrived here Tuesday on an official goodwill visit as Chea Sim's guest.

He said the Communist Party of China attaches importance to its relations with the Cambodian People's Party and Funcinpec Party, and the CPPCC will strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the Cambodian Senate.

Chea Sim said Cambodia takes China as a close friend, neighbor and cooperative partner, hoping that the two sides will actively push forward bilateral cooperation in such fields as economy, trade, tourism culture and education.

He also hoped that the two sides will enhance cooperation within the framework of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and strengthen coordination in international and regional affairs.

Cambodia is the last leg of Jia's four-nation visit which has taken him to Jordan, Turkey and Laos.

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ADB gives $10 mln for Cambodia to improve public financial management

PHNOM PENH, The Asian Development Bank is (ADB) providing 10.81 million U.S. dollars to support efforts by Cambodia to improve its public financial management to ensure thatmuch-needed government funds reach the rural poor, said an ADB press release here on Thursday.

The program consists of a 6.71 million U.S. dollars of grant for the first of two sub-programs that will strengthen public financial management (PFM) reforms in the three ministries supporting rural development, namely the Ministry of Rural Development, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, it said.

Another 4.1 million U.S. dollars of grant will fund an institutional and capacity development project under the program.

The two grants will focus on improving the capacity of the three ministries in PFM subsystems relating to budget formulation,execution, procurement, and reporting; and internal audit for better service delivery to rural communities.

The two grants support Cambodia's Public Financial Management Reform Program, which was launched in December 2004 by the Ministry of Economy and Finance to address weaknesses in the public financial management system, according to the release.

While the benefits of recent growth have been widely spread across Cambodia, the rural poverty rate has not declined as expected. The poverty rate in rural areas was estimated at 39 percent in 2004 compared with the national rate of 34 percent.

With an estimated 80 percent of the population living outside the main urban centers, this translates to more than 4 million people living below the poverty line in rural areas, said the release.

Poverty reduction is severely hampered by the limited effectiveness of public spending due to the weak link between policy and the budget.

"The ministries that support rural development in Cambodia are currently the weakest and most underfunded of all the ministries. As a result, service delivery in rural areas is slow and the ruralpoor do not have many economic opportunities," Prasanna Kumar Jena, Governance Specialist of ADB's Southeast Asia Department, was quoted as saying.

A strong public financial management system will help the government implement its National Strategic Development Plan, which aims to reduce poverty, particularly through policy and financial support to the agricultural sector, which employs an estimated 70 percent of the rural population and accounts for a third of gross domestic product, said the release.

The capacity development needs of the government's National Audit Authority will also be taken into account by the program to improve the overall governance framework of Cambodia's public sector, it added.
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Cambodia's elite applaud Vancouver director's ambition

MICHELLE VACHON

PHNOM PENH — Director Robert McQueen's first taste of meshing opera with diverse cultures came by way of the Vancouver Opera, which asked McQueen to set Mozart's The Magic Flute among British Columbia's native people. His 2007 production used a forest setting with props and costumes inspired by traditional designs from 10 West Coast native groups, and he modified the text to include words from a Coast Salish language. But "the story remained the same," McQueen said, "and I did not touch one note of the music."

Then, used to uncharted waters, McQueen decided to take on another challenge, this time with an entirely new work: staging Cambodia's first rock opera, set in that country, and blending rock music with the eerie sounds of its traditional instruments.

Where Elephants Weep premiered last Friday in Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh. Fred Frumberg of Cambodia's non-governmental organization Amrita Performing Arts, which is producing the show, says it is the most ambitious production staged in the country since the 1960s.

So rare was the occasion that on Friday Cambodia's major players in arts and culture as well as the city's usual special-event crowd, complete with government officials and the diplomatic corps, packed the Chenla Theatre at the corner of Mao Tse Tung and Monireth boulevards.

McQueen, just days before the opening, was still nervous about the finished product. "If you're directing a Neil Simon play, you can probably figure out on day one what opening night is going to look like," he said while overseeing one of the last rehearsals in Phnom Penh. "What's kind of extraordinary for me is that I have no idea how it's going to turn out."

It was the concept, rather than the scale or newness of the work that had prompted McQueen to get involved in the project. He said the two years he spent working on The Magic Flute in Vancouver, his hometown, made him incapable of going back to the usual musical or opera fare.

Until then, McQueen's career had followed a more traditional path, which had included directing Puccini's La Bohème for the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto and the musical The Spitfire Grill at the Grand Theatre in London, Ont., and playing the role of associate director for Mamma Mia! at New York's Winter Garden Theatre.

While he worked on The Magic Flute, he said, "without consciously knowing it at the time, it began to alter the kind of theatre that I wanted to be doing."

McQueen said he was now eager to explore how cultures could come together in a project and not so much blend as "inform" each other.

In Where Elephants Weep, a Cambodian man visits his homeland in the mid-1990s after immigrating to the United States as a child at the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. As he finds himself a stranger in a culture he no longer knows, he falls in love with a woman pledged to her brother's business partner in an arranged marriage.

The story reflects the mixture of Western and traditional elements of today's Cambodia: women in long silk skirts next to others in short dresses or pants; men praying at Buddhist pagodas in the morning and splitting their time between karaoke bars and sex workers at night.

At Friday's performance, the artists received a standing ovation, which is quite unusual in Phnom Penh, and at the reception afterward, Cambodians as well as foreigners were enthusiastic about the show, the few dissenting voices those who dislike musical theatre in general.

Where Elephants Weep was created by Cambodian music composer Him Sophy, Franco-American librettist Catherine Filloux and U.S. executive producer John Burt. McQueen met the team in Phnom Penh in 2003 while he was travelling in Asia. But with Burt and Filloux based in New York and Him Sophy in Phnom Penh, it would be four years before the three were ready to call on McQueen finally to stage the show.

The cast consists of one Cambodian singer and New York singers with Asian roots, as no Cambodians with musical-theatre-type voices could be found in the country. Actors, dancers and the 11 rock and traditional musicians are Cambodian.

Many of the scenes, and especially those at pagodas, involved "cultural protocol considerations," McQueen said: "I couldn't just stage the scene the way that I wanted to ... because to a [Cambodian] local audience, it might be complete confusion if they see monks doing something that monks would never do."

Customs in Cambodia are mainly taught through oral tradition, so McQueen relied on his Cambodian assistants to let him know whenever a scene did not ring true. And yet, he pointed out, "I still had to draw on what I know as a theatre maker - I can't abandon that because that's me, the storyteller - and I had to include the information that was coming at me and figure out a way of weaving them together so that they meet."

Most of the opera is in English with occasional Khmer songs and dialogue; subtitles were provided in English and Khmer.

Where Elephants Weep is being staged in Phnom Penh through Sunday, with plans to tour in Asia and North America, Burt said. As for McQueen, he is heading for the Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo where he will stage "Carousel, one of the most American musicals ever written, and I'm doing it in Japanese." Read more!

Cambodia revives Pol Pot's deadly canals

BARAY, Cambodia: The dry season has taken hold here, but water is everywhere. It pours out of sluice gates with the roar of an Alpine torrent. Playful children do back flips into the ubiquitous canals and then pull their friends in with them. Fishermen cast their nets for minnows, and villagers wash their Chinese-made motorcycles.

"It's never dry here," said Chan Mo, a 36-year-old rice farmer standing on top of an irrigation dike.

The Khmer Rouge canals have come back to life.

By the time the brutal government of Pol Pot was toppled three decades ago, 1.7 million Cambodians were dead from overwork, starvation and disease, and the country was a ruin. But the forced labor of millions of Cambodians left behind something useful - or that's how the current government sees it.

The leaders of the Khmer Rouge were obsessed with canals, embankments and dams. They presided over hundreds of irrigation projects to revive Cambodia's glorious but perhaps mythical past of an agrarian wonderland.

"There has never been a modern regime that placed more emphasis and resources towards developing irrigation," wrote Jeffrey Himel, a water resource engineer, in a recent study of Cambodia's irrigation system.

"The Khmer Rouge emptied all cities and towns, and put practically the entire population to work planting rice and digging irrigation dikes and canals." Some of the canals were poorly designed - "hydraulic nonsense," says Alain Goffeau, a French irrigation expert with the Asian Development Bank. But many were viable.

The Khmer Rouge built around three-quarters of Cambodia's more than 1,000 canal networks, according to a survey commissioned by the United Nations in the 1990s.

Now, across this impoverished nation of 14 million people, the canals are being rebuilt by a government hoping to take advantage of the world's increasing demand for rice.

The Asian Development Bank is helping finance the rehabilitation of a dozen canals, adding to projects financed by the Japanese and South Korean governments.

"There's a lot of possibility," Goffeau said.

For older Cambodians, the canals are a source of ambivalence. Men like Loh Thoeun, 61, now a rice farmer, think back to the baskets of dirt that he carried away, hour after hour.

He recalls the horrors of the Khmer Rouge - the laborers, hands tied behind their backs, who were "dragged away like cows" and never returned, the Muslim families who were thrown down a nearby well. The foremen of the irrigation project in Baray were killed after the canals and embankments were completed - without explanation. Loh says he once saw Pol Pot inspect the canals on what he described as a "speedboat."

All of the work was done by hand here in Baray, a two-hour drive north of the capital, Phnom Penh. No talking was allowed among laborers. The Khmer Rouge played revolutionary songs and banged hubcaps to encourage the workers. Contemporary photos show huge crowds toiling in the dust.

"The earth here is very hard, and when we dug deeper we got to the hardest part - the most compact ground," said Loh, sitting in a bamboo shelter beside his rice fields. "We had to hammer at it. It was like cutting down a tree."

For so many Cambodians the Khmer Rouge years, from 1975 to 1979, were about digging. Villagers and residents of Phnom Penh, who were forced to move to the countryside, were organized in small work units.

"I was a slave," said Ang Mongkol, now the deputy director general of the Ministry of Interior who was a law student when the Khmer Rouge came to power and was assigned to haul dirt.

Yet despite the sorrow of those years, there are only traces of remorse here about taking full advantage of the canals. Loh hopes the canals he built in slave-like conditions will help double or triple his rice output.

"I always recall the past to my children," Loh said. "I say, "We have water from this canal that was built by the people. And many of them died."

Ang is leading an experimental project that uses water from the canal to irrigate fields of hybrid rice varieties that promise to yield four times as much as the variety traditionally grown here. Because only about 20 percent of Cambodia's fields are irrigated, its rice farmers harvest on average half as much as Vietnam's and one third as much as China's.

The irrigation system in Baray, which is fed from water diverted from the nearby Chinit River, functioned for several years after the Khmer Rouge left power. But in the mid-1980s it fell into disrepair. It was only in 2005 that the government began rebuilding it. Today, the local municipality hires a maintenance crew to keep the water flowing.

Among the workers is Sim Vy, 48. As a teenager she was enlisted by the Khmer Rouge to help build the canals. She was told she was working for national glory but received only a watery gruel as recompense. Now she is paid $55 a month. "I prefer working this way," she said. Read more!

Our hungry planet: A time of want

As world hunger worsened this past year, some blamed countries that limited trading and began to hoard food. Others blamed free trade policies.

SAMPOAH VILLAGE, CAMBODIA

Some of the worst fallout of the world's food crisis this year hit villages like this one, a ramshackle collection of unsteady huts set next to rice fields.

Here, on a late summer day, Som Samuen stood in her doorway as she considered what had become a daily problem: How would she find dinner for herself and her 12-year-old son, who scampers through the fields on rainy days to hunt for crabs and minnows that dart through the shallow water of the rice paddies.

The washerwoman lays claim to a meager income on most days, and when the price of fish and rice shot up this year during a global food crisis, her tenuous hold on life began to fray. Some days, she and her son don't eat.

Cambodians have a phrase, "the hungry season," for the weeks in late summer that fall just before harvest. This year it hit like a hammer.

People here, some of the poorest in the world, simply couldn't keep up as food prices raced upward this spring, fueled by a food shortage, poor crops and commodity speculation in financial markets around the world.

Food riots broke out in some countries, and dozens of nations began restricting exports to ensure there would be enough to feed their own residents -- which sent food prices even higher in other countries.

Although the crisis has eased, the shocking specter of famine led to a renewed debate about the benefits and limits of free trade, particularly with some food companies and farmers in Minnesota and other developed nations enjoying some of their fattest profits on record.

Today, some 967 million people worldwide -- 44 million more than last year -- exist in a state of hunger like Samuen and her son, unable to afford the higher prices for the 2,100 calories a day needed to nourish the body. And though food prices can be difficult to predict, the United Nations has forecast that the world by 2050 will need twice the amount of food produced today to feed an expected global population of 9 billion people.

Executives at Cargill and other international food companies say free trade is the only way to meet that demand. But a growing chorus of critics say that global trade policies and practices have left residents of developing nations more vulnerable to market gyrations and calamitous natural events, such as the prolonged drought in Australia that has helped drive up rice prices. Producing food locally is far more efficient than carting it around the world.

Stand at the edge of a Cambodian rice field and it's hard to imagine anyone would go hungry here. The neon green fields stretch to the horizon in some places.

But the need for more food in Cambodia has rarely been more urgent than it is today. About one in five Cambodians don't have enough to eat, some 2.8 million people. A full 44 percent of Cambodian children are malnourished, according to the World Health Organization. Rising food prices tipped 105 million people into poverty, a World Bank economist estimated, with about 210,000 Cambodians counted in that number.

Higher prices for their crops didn't benefit farmers in developing countries enough to counteract the extra burden on their budgets. That's largely because many Third World farmers don't grow enough to feed themselves and must supplement their diet with food bought at market, according to a World Bank analysis published this summer.

The Cambodian government urged farmers to plant more rice this year, hoping to increase the national crop from 6.38 million acres to 6.42 million acres, said Prak Thaveak Amida, a government agriculture minister. That might require more land though since yields have remained steady for a while, according to the International Rice Research Institute.

Annual rice production of about 6.7 million tons would make a valuable cash crop for export, but Cambodian farmers, like those in other poor nations in Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, use decrepit machinery that makes the rice unsuitable for export markets. Instead, about a third of the crop in its raw form moves out of the country by informal channels to Vietnam, where it's processed in high quality mills.

If Cambodia's local rice industry were more advanced with storage silos, modern mills and the capital to buy a farmer's crop for processing, the country could export like its neighbors to the east and west, Thailand and Vietnam, the world's No. 1 and No. 2 rice exporters. Corruption and bribery plague Cambodia, foiling outside investors who could help develop the country's economy, according to Transparency International, a group that monitors government corruption.

The pressures that drove U.S. grocery bills up 7.5 percent in the past year were more acutely felt in the developing world, where people often spend a larger percentage of their income on food. The high prices led to the government's collapse in Haiti, and fear of shortages led 47 countries, to restrict trade this year, including Vietnam, Cambodia's neighbor to the east. The move ensured plenty of rice within Vietnam, but left its trading partners scrambling to make up the difference. Prices in Cambodia quadrupled from their historic averages, forcing many families to go with less -- or without.

Unable to sell

On a day in late August, a wooden boat laden with bags of unmilled rice ferried up the Mekong River to the shoreline outside the bustling city of Can Tho, Vietnam. The boat was soon swarmed by men lifting bag after bag out of the boat's hold and onto a conveyor belt that ran into Tran Quoi's rice mill. Quoi, a private rice seller, had a competitor for most of this year that he couldn't beat: his own government.

The government-owned rice mill near his office rode out the trade barriers imposed by agriculture ministers in Hanoi, but his business relies on exports.

"It's unfair for some poor people," said Quoi, who normally mills the rice and ships it out for the export market. He was eventually allowed to sell on the export market when the government lifted the restrictions this fall, but by then prices were dropping and he had lost the best market.

Cargill and other companies say trade barriers were precisely the wrong response to the crisis because they send the wrong signals to everyone in the food chain.

They say limiting exports means lenders will shy away from financing purchases of land or equipment; scientists will devote less time and money working to improve crop yields; and farmers will have little incentive to boost efficiency or output.

"In the countries that hold prices down, they send a less vibrant message to their farmers to expand production," Cargill CEO Greg Page told the Star Tribune this summer, drawing on the example of Argentina, where leaders instituted price controls and export restrictions in the face of rising food prices this year. "So I think it's easy to make the argument that in Argentina, by dramatically suppressing the price of grain in the country at the same time they have to pay world price for fertilizer, they mute the signal to the farmers of Argentina to produce more to feed the world's need."

Cargill is not alone in that belief. Economists and government officials in the United States and elsewhere, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, argue that each country should simply grow those foods that it's most efficient at growing, and trade for the rest, a model of "comparative advantage" that is the goal of free trade. The English economists who coined the phrase once made this argument using wool and wine as examples, saying it made more sense for England to trade its excess wool to Spain for wine than to plant vineyards.

For consumers, free trade makes buying Chilean grapes easier. For Minnesota farmers, it creates more markets for their soybeans, corn and milk. And food companies such as General Mills can more reliably replace expensive soy oil with palm oil.

Of course, trade restrictions are not limited to developing nations. The United States, France, and other nations use subsidies or tariffs to protect a variety of agricultural interests from foreign competition.

Despite this year's turmoil, free trade has not been an easy sell to the American public, with many blaming it for the loss of American jobs or the import of contaminated food. A Pew Research Center poll this year found that 48 percent of respondents believe free trade agreements are bad for the United States. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found similar fears, with 58 percent of Americans saying globalization has subjected this economy to unfair competition from cheap labor.

The world's on-again, off-again embrace of open trade was off again this summer when the latest round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization blew up in July. The talks -- the Doha Development Round -- came undone because some WTO member nations worried that the agreement wouldn't protect against surges of cheap imported food that would then collapse local farming economies.

For Alexandra Spieldoch, a trade expert and free-trade critic with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minneapolis-based think tank, the policies in Doha are precisely the problem. Privatization schemes, deregulation and trade facilitation, are "exactly the approach that has contributed to many of the problems we are seeing today in the food system," she said. "It's likely that this approach will worsen rather than ease the crisis."

The priority should be on local food systems, she added. Her argument is the counter to Cargill's view of "comparative advantage," one that says a country's food security relies not on trade but on education and investment in local agriculture. It's a twist on the old axiom that would have people teaching a man to fish rather than giving him food.

Local investment, and not free trade deals with Europe or the United States, would feed more people in Africa, argued Patrick Woodall, senior policy analyst at Food and Water Watch, a Washington-based think tank.

"It's not that tons of people in Africa are drinking coffee and eating chocolate bars," he said. "They're dedicating acreage to crops that are exported to the U.S. and Europe, and the continent's going hungry."

The problem has been exacerbated by low prices for commodities such as cocoa, coffee and cotton. "This has been comparatively advantageous to the people who buy raw coffee beans, and but it's not comparatively advantageous to those who are hungry."

Worried it's not enough

Stepping into the rice market in Phnom Penh's neighborhood of Ben Keng Kong means navigating a warren of stalls and vendors jammed side-by-side. Plastic tarps strung overhead keep at bay some of the heavy rain that comes every afternoon of rainy season. Kol Kim, 65, withered and shirtless, sat in the shade of one such tarp on a late summer day behind mounds of fresh rice.

His customers had been happier lately because prices had retreated since April, when rice sold for nearly four times its historic average. Still, prices are about double what they were, he said, about 70 cents per kilogram for the best quality rice. Some customers were buying more than they needed, fearing prices would go back up.

Said Kim: "They buy it just to store it."
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China lends Cambodia $305m

PHNOM PENH - CHINA on Wednesday gave impoverished Cambodia more than US$200 million (S$305 million) in loans and grants to re-build the country's infrastructure, a government official said.

Chinese and Cambodian officials inked an agreement to give a 200-million-dollar-loan to rebuild roads in the kingdom during a meeting between Prime Minister Hun Sen and China's visiting top political advisor Jia Qinglin, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said.

During the meeting, Mr Jia also announced a grant of US$7.26 million and the same amount as a non-interest loan, he said.

The announcement came just a day before the annual aid meeting between the government and international donors.

Last year, Cambodia's donors pledged US$689 million to the impoverished country, including tens of millions from China.

China, a former patron of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, routinely gives Cambodia hundreds of millions in aid outside the donor structure, and has been repeatedly praised by Mr Hun Sen for not attaching any conditions to its money. -- AFP

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Cambodia to form tourism task force to tackle crisis fallout

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia's tourism sector is set to form a task force next week to address the Thai political crisis that has caused foreign arrivals in the Kingdom to plummet, national media reported Wednesday.

The task force will consist of 10 institutions, including airlines, travel agencies, hotels, restaurants and government departments, and will develop a national strategy to attract foreign tourists, Ho Vandy, president of the Cambodian Association of Travel Agents, was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.

He said the Ministry of Tourism approved the task force on Tuesday and it would convene next week.

Both of Bangkok's major airports have been occupied by anti-government protesters since last week, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded.

The crisis has hit Cambodia's tourism industry hard, as about a third of the Kingdom's visitors arrive via Thailand.

Ho Vandy said the task force hopes to shift Cambodia's tourist arrivals away from Thailand.

"Although most tourists in Cambodia come through Thailand, our tourism sector has survived because we have other gateways such as Malaysia, Singapore, China, South Korea and Vietnam," he added.


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Cambodia's golf plans now face financial hurdles

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AFP) — The sun rises over Cambodia's famed temples of Angkor Wat, while nearby, dozens of female caddies wearing long-sleeved green shirts and wide-rimmed hats await golfers.

The 18-hole Angkor Golf Resort designed by golfing legend Nick Faldo opened a year ago, becoming the country's second professional-level golf course.

This is exactly what the Cambodian government has in mind when it says it wants to lure well-heeled travellers.

"We are developing more golf courses in order to attract more tourists to visit the country," says Minister of Tourism Thong Khon.

"Tourists can visit the Angkor Wat temples and stay to play golf in one trip."

At least four more luxury courses are now in various stages of construction in the impoverished country which drew more than two million tourists last year, but hopes to draw three million in 2010 and five million by 2012.

Golf is part of the plan to get visitors to stay longer than the few days it takes to visit the ancient Angkor temples, but Cambodia's strategy to diversify its tourism industry might have landed in the sand trap of the global financial crisis.

There are only four commercial courses in Cambodia right now, but the head of the national golf association, Suos Yara, thinks there needs to be at least 50 greens to nurture the game among locals and transform the country into a true golfing destination.

But as tourist arrivals slow amid the gathering global economic storm, he knows that dream looks increasingly distant.

"Many (Asian) investors want to build more golf courses here but because of the financial crisis, they have pushed back their projects," Suos Yara says.

Even the pristine Angkor Golf Resort, which was averaging more than 700 golfers a month, is starting to notice the drop in interest, says its manager Adam Robertson.

"I have already seen a decline in the number of visitors compared to last year. Usually in the time of a crisis the annual holiday is cancelled first," said Robertson.

"Without a doubt this (financial crisis) is a major worry for all hospitality oriented businesses."

Yet golf is here to stay. The country's defence minister last month teed off with Thai military officials in a spot of golf diplomacy before talks aimed at resolving a deadly territorial dispute.

The sport is so beloved at the highest levels of government that Cambodia's senate has its own nine-hole course.

Prime Minister Hun Sen's golf scores are posted on his cabinet website, even though he has a handicap of 15.

Earlier this year the premier, a huge golf fan, said he even wanted a luxury course built in the former Khmer Rouge rebel stronghold of Pailin.

Cambodia's leaders have also approved plans for a luxury golf course in Bokor national park, a protected wildlife area.

And despite the worldwide economic slowdown, the country's profile in the sport will be further lifted when the Asia Golf Tour stops by in December for the second annual Cambodia Open.

"Golf is still a new sport in Cambodia but I think it will continue to grow," Robertson said.

But there is still a long way to go as the sport remains alien to most Cambodians, he said, adding that the Angkor Golf Resort had to teach some 350 employees the rules.

"Not only do we at Angkor Golf Resort train our caddies, but we have taken it upon ourselves to train new golfers in the etiquette of golf," he said.
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Cambodia to seek less donor aid for 2009

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia will reduce the amount of aid requested from donors in the coming year, as the global financial crisis puts a pinch on the Kingdom's foreign backers, national media reported Wednesday.

The government will seek less than 600 million U.S. dollars in official direct assistance (ODA), Cheam Yeap, Cambodian People's Party (CPP) lawmaker, was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.

"Last year the government requested 602 million U.S. dollars, but they ended up giving us more 690 million U.S. dollars," he said ahead of a three-day meeting between donors and the government that begins Wednesday.

Cheam Yeap said that the global financial crisis could prevent countries from maintaining their normal levels of assistance.

The effects of the global economic recession will be one focus of the Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum, an annual event which is supposed to provide the government, civil society and donor groups with an opportunity to review key public policy issues and their financial requirement.

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Cambodian football team readies to face Singapore in Indonesia

PHNOM PENH, The Cambodian national football team will fly to Indonesia on Wednesday to play Singapore in their opening match of the 2008 ASEAN Football Federation Suzuki Cup, national media said Tuesday.

Cambodia was well prepared for the Friday game, Ouk Sethycheat, secretary general of the Football Federation of Cambodia, was quoted by English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily as saying.

"We are ready and will do all the best efforts we have," he said, adding that the 22 players had been in a training camp since Oct. 24.

It was a major success for Cambodia to qualify to compete, he added.

Cambodia has never defeated Singapore. As part of Group A, Cambodia is also scheduled to play host Indonesia on Dec. 7 and Myanmar on Dec. 9.

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China builds South East Asia ties

China's top political adviser, Jia Qinglin, has arrived in the Lao capital Vientiane, on a goodwill visit.

Separately, Chinese State Councillor Meng Jianzhu arrived in Cambodia and met Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Hun Sen highlighted the importance of China - and its powerful economy - to South East Asia.

At times under Vietnam's umbrella, Laos and Cambodia have been receiving more Chinese investment, aid and migration in recent years.

Chinese state media reported Hun Sen as saying that the fast economic development of China was an encouragement not only for the Chinese people, but for people in the region.

Laos and Cambodia have been willing recipients of growing amounts of financial and other assistance from China, from the building of roads to the migration of traders.

Cambodia appreciated the long-term support and help that China has given for the economic and social development of Cambodia, Hun Sen said.

Officials then signed agreements to promote co-ordination of security between the two countries, part of which will involve China donating police equipment to Cambodia.

Project criticised

In Laos, China is funding several large construction projects, including the now completed road from northern Laos into southern China.

Thousands of Chinese workers have been brought to the country to work on these projects.

Correspondents say that criticism has emerged of what some see as overly close ties with China.

They cite the example of the stadium under construction in Vientiane which is financed by the China Development Bank.

The bank brought in the Suzhou Industrial Park Overseas Investment company from China, which was then granted a 50-year lease on 1,600 hectares of marshland to build a special residential zone in an area of ecological and national significance near That Luang monastery.

Opponents of the That Luang Township have said that the plan to turn a large marshland into a new "Chinatown" cedes too much sovereignty to the large neighbour to the north.

Unofficial estimates of about 300,000 new Chinese residents in Laos are impossible to confirm as many Chinese live without documentation, correspondents say.

The Xinhua news agency reported Mr Jia as saying that China and Laos have enjoyed "frequent contacts between leaders, ever-deepening economic co-operation and trade, mutual support and close co-ordination in international and regional affairs and expanded exchanges and co-operation in diverse areas".

Mr Jia said he hoped that this visit will "promote continuous progress in China-Laos relationship featuring long-term stability, good neighbourliness, mutual trust and comprehensive co-operation". Read more!

Genocidal loopholes in Cambodia

By Stephen Kurczy

PHNOM PENH - The Khmer Rouge's alleged former chief executioner and head of state will both appear in court this week in Cambodia. Yet instead of reeling the radical Maoist regime's most senior leaders closer to justice, the two-and-a-half-year-old United Nations sponsored tribunal's final hearings for this year will showcase defense stall tactics and set up one defendant to be the first, and possibly the only, cadre convicted for the regime's crimes against humanity.

French attorney Jacques Verges, who represents Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head-of-state, will argue later this week before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) that the failure to translate all evidence into French has violated his client's right to a fair trial and thereby warrants his release.

Meanwhile, the court is expected to announce whether former torture prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, will be tried under the 1956 Cambodian penal code and Joint Criminal Enterprise, a form of liability that holds all members of a conspiracy responsible for each other's crimes. The ruling could prove disadvantageous to the defense, as the Khmer Rouge is accused of some of the most egregious violations of international humanitarian law in the 20th century during its three-year, eight-month and 20-day rule.

While Duch nears conviction for crimes committed during his oversight of the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh and the notorious Choeung Ek killing fields nearby, where a combined 12,380 detainees died, observers say Khieu Samphan's case showcases a defense team vigorously defending its client.

"The Khieu Samphan hearing will very much send the message, 'sounds like the court is hung up on technical details and administrative issues'. The other one, with Duch, looks a lot like a trial that is actually going to deliver something in the foreseeable future," said John Ciorciari, senior legal advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam).

The last time Verges appeared in the ECCC, on April 23, he refused to speak because all evidence was not translated into French. The pre-trial judges found that Verges' refusal to cooperate violated Khieu Samphan's right to be represented and "right to a timely hearing". The sideshow earned Verges a warning from the court, but also an eight-month delay in procedures.

More than a year has passed since the court placed Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's right-hand man in detention for his alleged role in "directing, encouraging, enforcing or otherwise rendering support to [the Communist Party of Kampuchea] policy which was characterized by murder, extermination, imprisonment, persecution on political grounds and other inhumane acts such as forcible transfers of the population, enslavement, and forced labor." Because of the delays and legal stalling tactics, Ciorciari said Khieu Samphan's trial is unlikely to begin until 2010.

That's good news for Verges, former advocate for Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie and the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal. He has said that the ECCC "borders on lynch-mob justice". Observers don't expect to see Khieu Samphan's release when the pre-trial chamber rules this week on Verges' appeal, legal experts say, but do anticipate another entertaining presentation from Verges. As Verges himself said in a November interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, "A good trial is like a Shakespeare play, a work of art."

Verges "is someone with a lot of tricks up his sleeve, and he's very masterful at using criminal processing in a way that tells a larger narrative about justice", said Beth Van Schaack, assistant law professor at the US's Santa Clara University School of Law who served on the criminal defense team for John Walker Lindh, the American citizen who joined Afghanistan's Taliban. "He'll be using whatever legal loopholes that he can find. To a certain extent, that's what we expect from a defense."

Verges and other defense lawyers can't claim full responsibility for delaying the UN tribunal. Twice in the past two years the court has been rocked by allegations of internal corruption. The Open Society Justice Initiative in 2007 said tribunal staff paid kickbacks for their positions and this year in August the UN Office of International Oversight Services in New York said multiple tribunal staffers had complained of graft.

John Hall, associate professor at Chapman University School of Law in California, has said the corruption allegations could "fatally" damage the tribunal if the Cambodian government cannot stamp it out. Not surprisingly, Verges has also called the entire court into question, saying in the Der Spiegel interview, "It may be that the trial against Duch will begin soon, but not the trials against the other four prisoners … because the tribunal in Phnom Penh has already gambled away its credibility and legitimacy."

Ailing comrades
Meanwhile, the aging Khmer Rouge cadres complain of illness. Khieu Samphan, 77, was treated in May for a minor stroke. Ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary, 83, entered the hospital in late July after doctors discovered blood in his urine during a routine checkup. Duch, at 66, is the junior by at least a decade to the other four detainees. Yet aside from Duch, none of the detainees are expected to go to trial until late 2009 or 2010, two years after the trials were originally expected to conclude.

"The more likely thing is that [Duch] happens to be the only one convicted before the other four all croak. He will, in a narrow legal sense, be the only one who got nailed," DC-Cam's Ciorciari said by telephone from Stanford University.

"It sounds a bit like Duch is being set up to be the fall guy," said Cambodia historian David Chandler, the author of Brother Number One and Voices from S-21 and an emeritus professor of history at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

However, the court on December 5 will rule on the very issue that could prevent Duch from becoming the fall guy: whether to allow as a form of criminal liability Joint Criminal Enterprise, a legal theory wherein members of a conspiracy are held responsible for each individuals' actions.

On January 7, 1979, when Vietnamese forces entered Phnom Penh and stumbled on Duch's detention center, "Troops discovered a number of recently killed persons still chained to iron beds, and thousands of documents scattered in and around the buildings," according to Duch's indictment. Twenty years later, the former math teacher was found in Battambang province living under a pseudonym. He had converted to Christianity and had his children baptized. Duch was arrested and placed in Cambodian military jail until July 2007, when he was transferred to the ECCC detention center.

The court's pre-trial investigation included interviews with Duch wherein he admits to receiving and conveying orders to execute, and also interviews with numerous witnesses, S-21 personnel and detainees that detail Duch's instructions to use electric shock, asphyxiation and fingernail extraction as methods of interrogation.
In their August 8 indictment, the co-investigators narrowed Duch's liability to crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It's what they did not charge Duch with that is the subject of the December 5 hearing. The co-prosecutors appealed the closing order because they believe Duch is also liable under the 1956 Cambodian Penal code - for homicide and torture - and Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE).

JCE is not clear-cut. In three briefs to the court, submitted in late-October, three legal experts offered differing views on JCE applicability, which comes in three classifications: JCE I, where participants share intent, such as in a heist when both the robber and the driver share the intent to rob a bank; JCE II, where participants engage in a common design, such as in a concentration camp when both the prison guards and the incinerator operators share tasks indispensable for the achievement of the camp's main goals; and JCE III, where participants in a common design are liable for those results foreseeable even if not necessarily intended, such as when the forced eviction of a city leaves the young, sick and elderly dying along the roadside.

JCE III has been rejected outright as a mode of participation in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and remains highly criticized in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. But in Antonio Cassese's brief to the court on JCE, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Criminal Justice backs the form of liability and cites from the 1947 International Military Tribunal Judgment at Nuremberg: "Hitler could not make aggressive war by himself. He had to have the cooperation of statesmen, military leaders, diplomats, and business men. When they, with knowledge of his aims, gave him their cooperation, they made themselves parties to the plan he had initiated."

Cassese's parallel is plain: though Brother Number 1 Pol Pot is dead, his crimes were part of a larger conspiracy that arguably included cooperation from the five Khmer Rouge leaders in detention today. Allowing JCE as a form of liability in Duch's case would bring the four other Khmer Rouge leaders in detention - Khieu Samphan, former foreign minister Ieng Sary, his wife former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith, and the regime's chief ideologue Nuon Chea - closer to responsibility for the atrocities at S-21 and further from escaping culpability.

"If I were a prosecutor trying to nail the other four," said DC-Cam's Ciorciari, "I would want to link them to Duch, because his crimes are the easiest to prove. If a prosecutor wants - and it would be wise - to link them all to Tuol Sleng, I would want to use a legal theory, like Joint Criminal Enterprise, that would enable me to connect these others to the very provable atrocities of Tuol Sleng."

Compelling evidence
Evidence already links Duch's torture prison with the four other detainees. Duch's named "superiors," whose identities are redacted in the indictment, are believed to include at least Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. Chandler has said the chain of command passed down from Pol Pot to Nuon Chea to Son Sen, the deputy prime minister of the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea government, to Duch at S-21, which was known of and approved by Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith and Khieu Samphan.

By allowing JCE as a form of liability, the court may cast a net so wide that it implicates and leads to the subpoena of senior Cambodian officials serving in today's government; a year ago, Norodom Sihanouk's official biographer Julio Jeldres said the court appeared on the verge of collapse when it was questioned if the former king should testify. (See Khmer Rouge tribunal in jeopardy (again) Asia Times Online, September 18, 2007.)

"JCE will bring other people to light," said Beth Van Schaack of Santa Clara University. "If the investigation becomes too wide-ranging, subpoenaing sitting members of the government, it could provoke some government backlash," she said by telephone from San Francisco.

It remains debatable whether all three forms of JCE existed on April 17, 1975, when Pol Pot's ragtag army first marched into Phnom Penh. Cassese, an ardent backer of JCE, has been called impartial by the defense because he was one of the five appellate judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia who authored the very phrase "joint criminal enterprise."

If the pre-trial chamber on December 5 announces that JCE is not allowed, the co-prosecutors say "the full scope of torture or mistreatment of detainees that was practiced at S-21" will not be covered. Of additional concern is that the prosecutors gambled away a half-year of precious time. While Duch's trial was anticipated to begin in September, court spokesman Peter Foster said the prosecutors' appeal pushed the starting date into the first quarter of 2009.

"The important thing to realize is it shouldn't be considered a delay. This isn't something out of left field," Foster said. The tribunal "takes as long as it takes. There's no ending mandate. What there is, are international standards."

Van Schaack agreed, arguing that even if JCE is unexpectedly barred as a form of liability, this decision will allow the co-investigating judges to hone in on evidence and frame future indictments. "Resolving jurisprudential questions is never a waste of time," she said. "There's no doubt that people are disappointed by the lack of progress. There's no doubt that it would have been nice had things moved along, but that's one of the problems of ad hoc justice, it takes time."
But what amount of time - and money - is justifiable? Rival goals of a speedy trial, yet on an international standard, will collide in public view during the final ECCC hearings of 2008 and may incite major donors of the proceedings, such as the US, to speak up and demand results, said Ciorciari.

In September the US pledged its first donation of US$1.8 million. Yet the US remains concerned about the ECCC's ability to meet international standards and address corruption in an efficient manner, John Bellinger, a legal adviser to the US secretary of state, said on November 14 in an address at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts. He told the audience, "Justice delayed is justice denied."

Already over-budget and nearing its original end-date with not a single trial begun, the tribunal must measure the cost of justice for the victims of the Khmer Rouge, Ciorciari said, either with a trial hurdling stall tactics and rushing to a timely end, or with a trial stretching beyond the natural lives of detainees, costing hundreds of millions of dollars more, and resulting in only one conviction.

"If someone doesn't say 'giddy-up,' we're in real danger."

Stephen Kurczy is a Cambodia-based journalist. Read more!

Cambodia, UNESCO post sign of world heritage at Angkor Wat temple

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) on Monday unveiled the sign of World heritage at the Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap province, which was listed as a World Heritage in 1992.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Marcio Barbosa, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, were presided over the ceremony at the Angkor Wat temple.

"It is a great honor for Cambodian people and the world because the Angkor Wat temple is universal for humanities," Hun Sen said at the ceremony with live radio broadcasting.

"We want to use our culture to develop the country through tourism," he said, adding that the country has hundreds of ancient temples.

"We also want to see a ceremony like this at the Preah Vihear temple," he said.

He also expressed concern that local residents in Siem Reap are trying to pump underground water which could cause damage to the Angkor Wat temple.

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Cambodian police seek last remnants of Japanese terror organization

PHNOM PENH, Police are on the hunt for Japanese terrorists suspected of seeking refuge in Cambodia after decades on the run, national media reported Monday.

According to documents issued by the Phnom Penh police, 14 ex-members of the leftist Japanese Red Army militia and Yodo-go Group, which is best known for the May 1972 Lod Airport massacre in Tel Aviv, have come under investigation by Cambodian police, the Phnom Penh Post said.

Hy Prou, Phnom Penh deputy police commissioner and chief of the Central Security Office, said that after receiving requests from the Department of Immigration at the Ministry of Interior, police officials at all levels are on the lookout for the fugitives.

"We are not sure if they are in Cambodia or other countries," Hy Prou was quoted as saying.

"They are international criminals, so (the Japanese) need the cooperation of the countries in the region," he added.

Meanwhile, Keo Vanthan, director of Interpol police at the Ministry of Interior, said that he was not aware of any request from the Japanese government asking for help locating the criminals.

"We have previously received one request from Japanese authorities seeking criminals, but not these ones," he said.

"I couldn't say whether those are dead or not, since I have not yet received the documents."
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