Former Lodi woman ready to help on a missionary trip to Cambodia

By Ross Farrow

nurse who is a fourth-generation Lodian is traveling to Cambodia to help child prostitutes and those who work for low wages in garment and other industries.

Nannette Grinnell, 58, will spend most of the next two years helping impoverished Cambodians with their basic needs. In the process, she will introduce them to Christianity in a land she describes as 99-percent Buddhist.

"She's just an unusual person and outstanding," said Arilee Pollard, a family friend from Lodi.

Working through Operation Mobilization, Grinnell will join missionaries from throughout the world in helping the poor on her mission.

"It was a lifelong dream to do it, but I never had the opportunity," said Grinnell, who spent the past week visiting her mother, Betty Grinnell, in Lodi.

Grinnell has been a registered nurse for 35 years, including two years at Stockton's Dameron Hospital before taking a similar position at Kaiser Permanente in South Sacramento in 2007. She moved to Texas six months ago to stay with her grown daughter before going overseas.

After training, Grinnell will focus primarily on children, some of whom haven't reached puberty, who are victims of the sex industry and labor practices in other fields that would violate American child labor laws.

"It's culturally accepted there," she said.

Grinnell said she will enter an environment where many mothers have died of AIDS, leaving their children to be raised by grandparents or other legal guardians with no income. That's how children become exploited in sex, garment or other industries, she said.

The plan calls for missionaries to develop relationships with grandparents and guardians, provide parenting classes and place children in a day-care center so their guardians can go to work.

"We can't change the (Cambodian) government, and we can't change their economic status, but we can give them the hope of Jesus, because that's the only hope," Grinnell said.

Additionally, she plans to use her nursing training to get families plugged into whatever medical help is available.

Going overseas for two years may be quite an undertaking, but Grinnell is excited to go.

"It's not really an interest; it's a call of my life," she said. "I'm an evangelist at heart, and I have a passion to share the gospel. I have a real passion for children to develop a foundation for the Word of God."

She took month-long missionary trips to Mexico in 1998 and India in 2000. But Grinnell said she wanted to commit herself for a longer period of time.

"I told God I would go wherever He needed me, and the doors kept opening to Cambodia," she said.

Although many missionaries are right out of college, Operation Mobilization is attracting older people — even retirees, Grinnell said.

Grinnell was born in Lodi and grew up in Placerville. She returned to Lodi in 2004 to take the Dameron Hospital position.

She came to Lodi a week ago from Texas to visit her mother, Betty Grinnell, and tie up some loose ends, like selling her car and her other possessions.

Grinnell will spend two weeks at a conference in Germany, where missionaries from around the world will take cultural training, pray for each other and give encouragement. Then she'll head to Operation Mobilization's Singapore headquarters for more training.

On Feb. 4, she will arrive to Cambodia, where she will spend three months learning the national language — Khmer. Its alphabet has 96 letters, and they're different from letters in the English language. Then she'll begin her missionary work.

When she returns in two years, Grinnell said she hopes to minister to the large Cambodian populations in Stockton and Sacramento. Read more!

Four arrested in Cambodian bomb plot

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodian authorities have arrested four men on suspicion of planting three bombs around the capital last week, a senior police officer said Saturday.

Deputy national police commissioner Sok Phal told reporters that one of the four alleged plotters was 44-year-old Som Ek, a dual Cambodian-Thai national who had previously worked as a Cambodian military policeman.

"He (Som Ek) told the police that his bomb plot was to bring attention to the group inside and outside the country, so he could extort money," Sok Phal said.

"This is just some kind of business just to rob or extort money," he added.

He said Som Ek had been arrested on Wednesday and told authorities that his group was backed by people outside Cambodia.

The deputy police commissioner gave no further details on the alleged group or other three suspects.

No one was harmed in the bomb plot in which police found three explosive devices on January 2 planted near the Ministry of National Defence and a television station.

Mine clearance personnel destroyed the bombs later that day.
Read more!

Cambodian retailers shaken by the after-effects of land speculation and economic crisis

By Ros Dina

In the middle of town or on the outskirts, in shopping centres or on little public market stalls, the sad diagnostic made by sellers is the same: for a few months now, business has been desperately slow. Already weakened by the consequences of the world economic crisis, Cambodia is experiencing the after-effects of several months of mad and unparalleled speculation in land. Indeed, many Cambodian consumers, among the wealthier, suffered the freezing of the savings they had invested in land, now affected by price stagnation. From jewellers to small street sellers, the effects of a reduced level of consumption are logically felt among merchants.

“Nowadays, Sundays are as bad as Mondays”, young Dary deplores. She sells fancy jewellery in a small shop on the third floor of Phnom Penh's brand new shopping centre, the Sovanna Shopping Mall. The first days after its opening at the beginning of 2008 saw crowds rushing in, but these days are now bygone, “even Sundays”, a traditional shopping and relaxing day for Cambodians. “Earning money is really difficult today. There are fewer and fewer customers, people do not come to the market any more”, the young woman adds, standing in front of her cheap necklace and bracelets.

11am. Around that time of the day, people usually rush about, but the market aisles are unusually quiet. Retailers are trying to keep busy reading newspapers and magazines outside their shop, while waiting for potential customers. Others mechanically dust their goods for the umpteenth time in the day...

The context then gives way to all sorts of situations, and anything will do to lure rare shoppers: a battle of promotions ensues, and signs offering 5% to 30% discounts cannot be missed. The shopping centre manager also did his own part and organised a prize draw boasting some big surprises, to attract a clientèle usually very fond of that type of game. Alas, customers are nowhere near the usual bustle. The majority of people who go to the new shopping centre is composed of high-school students, strolling around in groups of 3 or 4, but often more interested in the video game room located on the third floor than in window-shopping...

Where have all the customers gone?
“High-schoolers are not really good buyers”, Dary says, cursing her bad luck. “I rather find my best customers among the children of people affiliated to the high circles of power, or the children of wealthy Cambodians, who live here or abroad... But today, I have no idea where they may have all gone... Maybe they have gone back abroad”, she wonders. The young retailer, who used to earn a daily US$300 worth of sales when the Sovanna centre opened is now struggling to make more than US$50 a day.

Bargaining becoming fiercer with the days
Sok Long, a young Sino-Khmer owner of a mobile phone shop located near Dary's jewellery shop, shares her misfortune. In front of customers' demands, who are more and more inclined to bargaining, the young man feels desperate: “Even when I accept to cut my selling prices by a few dollars, customers don't want to buy... When a phone cost me US$120, they offer US$50 for it! I cannot lower my prices more... For a new mobile phone, I only make 2 to 3 dollars' profit”, Sok Long tells us, remembering the good old time - not so long ago - when high-ranking officials and their children used to buy two or three phones at once, without even trying to negotiate the prices...

Struggling to pay their business rent
The consequences of this slump in sales are starting to be felt: today, retailers find it hard to make ends meet and be able to pay for their business premises monthly rent. Little by little, Sok Long used all of his savings to be able to pay for his monthly US$875 rent, for an area equivalent to two shops. And he is not the only one making every effort to cover his expenses. On December 11th, shop-keepers at the Sovanna shopping centre went on strike for four days, demanding that the director reduce rents by 30% for nine months, due to bad business. Facing their discontent, the director-general eventually agreed to reduce rents by 10% for a period of 6 months.

From mobile phones to fruit and veg...
Mobile phone and jewellery shops in modern shopping centres were among the first ones to be affected by consumption decrease, but the crisis also struck those who sell vital products. Roth, a fruit and vegetables wholesaler and retailer at the O'Russey market in the centre of Phnom Penh, has not yet felt any change among his individual private buyers, he explains while tidying up his stall with the help of his wife. However, he did notice a drastic drop in whole sales. His eight main customers, who are restaurant owners, reduce their orders with every passing day, themselves experiencing difficulties with their clientèle. “At weekends, I used to sell US$800 to US$1000 worth of vegetables in just one day. Now, I only sell a quantity worth US$300 to US$500. For instance, an important restaurant owner, who makes noodle soup, only buys 10 dollars worth of vegetables every day - not that long ago, he spent 80 dollars.” For a few weeks now, Roth has watched his profit go down every day by 30%.

Households forced to cut their expenses
Nguon Chanthorn, who sells clothes at the Chom Chao market, to the South of the Phnom Penh airport on the outskirts of the capital, explains that she also tries to cope with the situation, like other retailers selling in that area of town. The mere income she manages to earn is not enough for her to sustain her standard of living. “Because of that situation, I had to reduce my daily food expenses to 3,000 riels (around 0.75 dollar) when I normally spend around 15,000 riels (3.75 dollars). Now, I only bring back home between 30,000 and 40,000 riels (between 7.5 and 10 dollars) every day, that is ten times less than before. So I only spend my money in vital goods now”, she stresses.

Near the Olympic market, this time, in the centre of town, a rice soup seller, having no customers to serve, watches people walk by. She started reducing her soup production weeks ago and now only makes half the quantity of soup she used to prepare. “Very few people have their breakfast out at the moment. Before, there was not enough room for everyone to sit. Today, my stall is very quiet, but it is even worse in other places!”, she said as her daughter, doing the washing-up, tries to explain: “It is probably because they invested their money in land, for speculations, and now they cannot sell it any more because of the economic crisis. When they used to come and have their rice soup here, they always talked land speculation and profit”...

Money frozen in pieces of land
This analysis tallies with the one made by president of the Cambodia Economic Association (CEA) Chan Sophal. “I believe that the main reason [for consumption decrease] is linked with the bad transactions generated by land speculation”, the economist puts forward. “Last year, in times of high economic growth, most Phnom Penh residents invested in land with a view to speculate. But this money now stays frozen”, he says, when income tends to decrease and consumers lack confidence, in a gloomy context of global economic recession.

The first victims of this contraction in demand, Chan Sophal details, are those sellers who cannot sell to customers, who themselves try to limit their expenses as much as possible, hoping for brighter days. But at the end of the day, this problem affects the whole economy, since sellers are buyers too... “When clothes sellers do not sell much, they reduce their expenses. Same goes for meat sellers: they do not have enough money to buy clothes”.

However, the CEA president would like to believe that the situation is not hopeless, but still reckons that a year at least will be needed before the situation goes back to normal.



Read more!

Cambodian garment industry needs to survive crisis

PHNOM PENH, Garment, the foremost pillar industry of Cambodia, has an urgency to survive its crisis in the upcoming days, amid the ongoing global financial crisis and the recession of traditional demand from the U.S. market.

LESS EXPORT IN 2008

At an annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Federation of Textiles and Apparel (AFTEX) which was held here on Thursday, Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said that the garment industry saw a 2 percent decrease in its export in 2008 over 2007.

"This is better than my own expectation. I thought that it would have been down 5 to 7 percent," said Van Sou Ieng, chairman of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC).

Previous local reports have attributed it to the withering demand of traditional client countries.

Around 70 percent of Cambodia's garment products were sold to the United States, 4 percent to Canada and the rest mainly to European countries.

The export volume of the garment industry used to account for over 70 percent of the country's total annual export volume.

In 2007, garment export earned 2.93 billion U.S. dollars for Cambodia, according to official figures.

CRISIS AHEAD

The garment industry of the kingdom will face a 6- to 9-month-long crisis in 2009, due to lack of profitable orders, Van Sou Ieng said at the AFTEX meeting.

"I think that we will have a crisis 6 to 9 months long this year," he said.

Due to the global financial crisis, especially the U.S. economic recession, most garment factories could not secure new worthy orders and the current orders could only sustain them until March, he said.

"The crisis has propelled some buyers to give prices too low to be acceptable for the producers, so they have no choice but shut down their factories," he said.

Over 20 or even more out of the 400-strong garment factories of the kingdom have closed, leading to the unemployment of some 25,000 workers, he added.

Meanwhile, suspension of bank credit also spilled oil over the troubled water of the manufacturers, he said.

ALTERNATIVE MARKET

Japan might become the alternative market for the garment producers of Cambodia, as the demand of traditional purchasers has sharply sagged, said the chairman, adding "currently, Japanese orders are few, because their quality demand is so high that we can hardly meet it."

Fortunately, Japanese buyers have already listed some suggestions which could help Cambodia improve product quality, he said.

"Two directors, rather than one, supervise the operation of every 10 workers. This is the open sesame that they give us," he said.

The United States, as the largest buyer of Cambodian garment products, may need 2 to 3 years to cope with its economic recession, so it has become ever more urgent for Cambodian garment producers to find new markets, he added.

The garment factories of Cambodia used to employ some 300,000 people and have been the largest foreign currency contributor for the kingdom.

Garment, as a labor-intensive industry, is well-rooted in Asian countries, which still encompasses China, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Read more!

Top Cambodian KRouge trial officials to be investigated for graft

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Phnom Penh court will hear a corruption complaint against top officials at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal, a judge told AFP Friday.

Chief judge of Phnom Penh Municipal Court Chev Keng said he would accept the complaint against Sean Visoth, the top government official at the court, and Keo Thyvuth, its former chief of personnel, lodged Thursday by defence lawyers.

The lawyers allege the pair have received kickbacks from court workers, but on Friday the tribunal's Cambodian judges released a statement denying any involvement.

The judges added the complaint "was causing confusion and seriously affecting the honour and dignity of all individual judges and this (Khmer Rouge tribunal) institution as a whole."

Thursday's complaint was lodged by international lawyers for Khmer Rouge "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, one of five former leaders due to stand trial.

They said the failure to address corruption allegations undermined Nuon Chea's right to a fair trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Last year the UN launched an investigation into allegations that Cambodian workers had been forced to pay for their jobs, and withheld at least 300,000 dollars in July funding and court salaries.

The investigation's findings were never made public but Keo Thyvuth was later transferred from the court and Sean Visoth put on leave.

The tribunal opened in 2006 after nearly a decade of wrangling between the United Nations and Cambodia.

It is expected to hear its first case within the next few months, against former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav.

Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation and overwork as the communist Khmer Rouge dismantled modern Cambodian society during its 1975-1979 rule in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia.
Read more!

Thai FM discusses plans for south

By Jonathan Head

Thailand's Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya has promised a new approach to the conflict in the country's south.

Mr Kasit told the BBC the government plans to appoint a new civilian body to administer the Muslim majority south.

It will make the military subordinate to a civilian body for the first time since violence flared in 2004 between separatist insurgents and the army.

Mr Kasit also promised a fresh start to negotiations with Cambodia over their disputed border.

A staunch supporter of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which helped unseat the last government, Kasit Piromya is the most controversial member of the new cabinet in Thailand.

As foreign minister he remains unapologetic about his support for the PAD's campaign of disruption, including the week-long occupation of Bangkok's main international airport last year.

He says he still views this as a legitimate tactic.

Armed clashes

Mr Kasit said a new civilian body would administer the south of Thailand, where 3,000 people have lost their lives over the past five years in the brutal conflict.

He also promised that soldiers found guilty of abuses would be brought to justice.

"This body will be under supervision at the political level," he said.

When asked whether the army would continue to run things in the region - as indicated by the army commander - Mr Kasit replied: "No, no - this is a civilian-led government.

"It's not the military or the police that will be running the south, it is the government which will be running the south."

The foreign minister said he also hoped to start fresh talks this month with Cambodia over the disputed territory around an ancient temple on their border, which was the scene of armed clashes between troops from the two countries.

There are no conflicts of interest to hinder us now, he said - a reference to allegations that the business interests of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Cambodia had influenced the foreign policy of the previous government. Read more!

Cambodia PM wants to unify dates of regional meets

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen urged Thailand on Thursday to coordinate the dates of regional meetings it will host because the current schedule inconveniences him and other leaders.
The annual summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations should take place at the same time as other regional get-togethers as has been the practice in the past, Hun Sen said.

"I can't travel to Thailand three times a year to join the ASEAN summit, I have my own work to do too, and I think other leaders also do," he said.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Wednesday announced that ASEAN's summit will be held Feb. 27 to March 1 at the seaside resort town of Hua Hin.

But he added separate meetings with dialogue partners China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand would be held in late April because Beijing will be busy with its own ruling party congress at the time of the ASEAN summit.

Hun Sen described the plan to separate the meetings as "a waste of time." He said if the meetings could not be coordinated, then they should be rescheduled for the end of the year.

Thailand had already changed the date and venue of the ASEAN meeting several times because of domestic political turmoil. The summit was originally scheduled for last December in the capital, Bangkok, then changed to the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Hun Sen is often critical of Cambodia's bigger, western neighbor Thailand, with whom it sometimes has frosty relations. Last year, a border dispute led to minor clashes in which several soldiers died.
Read more!

Cambodia's railway revenues drop by 25% over trade slump

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's railway revenues dropped by 25 percent in 2008 as freight deliveries plummeted and trade with Thailand declined, English-language daily newspaper the Phnom Penh Post said on Wednesday.

"Last year's revenues from railway transportation services was 1.5 million U.S. dollars, one quarter down from 2007," said Sokhom Pheakacanmony, director general of the Royal Railway of Cambodia.

The kingdom's limited railway, which runs from Phnom Penh municipality to port province Sihanoukville, as well as to Battambang province and Sisophon city in Bantey Meanchey province, are heavily dependent on trade with Thailand, he said.

"The drop was because the border dispute with Thailand led to a decrease in freight for goods such as cement that are brought in through the Poipet checkpoint," he was quoted by the paper as saying.

The border was closed entirely to train transportation in October, he added.

Meanwhile, the national election in July and the real estate downturn also affected the decline, he said.

"Cambodian businesses stocked up goods prior to the election and reduced their orders afterwards," he added.

According to official report, Cambodian trains transported 233,000 tons of goods in 2008, over 310,000 tons in 2007.
Read more!

Global Challenges | Children Increasingly Living With HIV/AIDS in Cambodia; Officials Focusing on Prevention

Cambodia has shifted the focus of its HIV/AIDS prevention efforts from young adults to children in response to 2008 statistics that show an increase in rates of antiretroviral use among children and mother-to-child transmission of the virus, the Phnom Penh Post reports. Mean Chhi Vun -- director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STDs -- said that the government has begun a program to provide "HIV testing for 6,745 pregnant women [this year] in 68 health centers across five of our operational districts." Thirty-five of the women tested positive for HIV and received follow-up care and medicine from the center, according to Vun. Teng Kunthy, general secretary of the National AIDS Authority of Cambodia, said that the government also is focusing on a national registration program to coordinate treatment for children living with HIV. The program "has been running smoothly so far and has encouraged more children to seek treatment," he said.

Vun said that between January and September of 2008, about 2,913 children received antiretroviral drugs, an increase from about 1,800 in 2007. He added that nationwide pediatric HIV/AIDS figures are determined by the number of children receiving antiretroviral treatment through the nation's clinics, adding that the figures do not include the estimated 600 children living with HIV who are not yet receiving treatment or who have not been tested for the virus. Chan Ry, deputy director of the National Pediatric Hospital, said that 300 children were treated at the facility in 2007 and now it is providing treatment to 1,155 children.

The increase in the number of cases involving MTCT "testif[ies] to the fact that women are not able to access good" prenatal care to prevent transmission, the Post reports. A 2006 UNAIDS report shows that while prevalence among young people ages 15 to 49 has decreased to 1.9% in 2003 -- compared with 3% in 1997 -- one-third of new HIV cases are because of MTCT. According to the Post, there are about 461,000 live births annually in Cambodia -- mostly outside of health centers and hospitals -- and an estimated 9,700 pregnant women are living with HIV. UNAIDS data indicates that without any intervention, about 3,000 infants may be born with HIV through vertical transmission. According to Tan Vouch Chheng, an undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Health, antiretroviral drugs are dispensed at 26 locations and HIV testing is offered at another 212 facilities. However, she added, "We have to expand our programs for prevention and the spread of HIV/AIDS from mothers to children."

The Post reports that the exact number of children living with HIV/AIDS is unknown but "experts support the proposition" that it is "rising fast." Seng Chhunleng, coordinator for the Orphans and Vulnerable Children program at World Vision, said the number of children living with HIV/AIDS will continue to increase if something is not done to stop vertical transmission. "This is a problem that we still have to commit to solving," he said, adding that Cambodia "should provide better education and more medicine to stop transmission between mothers and children" (Leakhana/Kunthear, Phnom Penh Post, 1/6).
Read more!

Providential Holdings Subsidiary PHI Mining Group Signs Agreement With Angkor Metal Corporation to Engage in Copper Mining in Cambodia

Providential Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB: PRVH) (FRANKFURT: PR7) (WKN 935160), a company engaged in mergers and acquisitions, real estate development, mining, and investing in special situations, today announced that PHI Mining Group, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: PHIG), a company focused on mining opportunities in Southeast Asia, through its wholly owned subsidiary Indochina Mining Corporation (IMC), has signed a principal contract with Angkor Metal Corporation, a Cambodia-based company, to survey, explore, exploit and process copper ores in Preah Vihear Province, Cambodia. According to the agreement, IMC will own 51% of Angkor Metal Corp. stock at the closing of the transaction.

Angkor Metal Corporation has already been granted an exploration license for a total area of 192 km2 (47,440 acres) in Kolean District, Preah Vihear Province, Cambodia, potentially one of the largest copper ore reserves in Southeast Asia, of which 2.5 km2 (618 acres) is fully surveyed with promising commercial exploitation ability. This mineralized material opportunity is estimated to be in excess of 500,000 metric tons and may amount to several million metric tons.
Providential Holdings, Inc. currently owns approximately 18 million shares (80%) of PHI Mining Group, Inc. stock.

About Providential Holdings

Providential Holdings and its subsidiaries engage in a number of diverse business activities, the most important of which are M&A and consulting services, real estate development, mining and investing in special situations. As part of its activities in Vietnam, Providential has been hosting seminars in conjunction with the Nasdaq Stock Market to help Vietnamese companies go public and raise capital through the U.S. financial markets. The Company currently develops "Pointe 91," an upscale residential community and luxury resort in Chu Lai, central Vietnam. Web site: www.phiglobal.com.

About PHI Mining Group

PHI Mining Group is a U.S.-based mining and exploration enterprise focused on acquiring and developing industrial mineral properties. The company is in the process of negotiating to acquire interests in diatomite, lead, copper and granite properties in South East Asia and South America. PHI Mining Group is committed to high standards in the areas of environmental management and health and safety for its employees and neighboring communities.

Web site: www.phimining.com .

Safe Harbor: This news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected on the basis of such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are made based upon management's beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management pursuant to the "safe-harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Read more!

Cambodian FDI inflows may weaken in 2009-World Bank

PHNOM PENH, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Foreign direct investment in Cambodia probably fell in 2008 and, given the dire state of the world economy, may drop again in 2009, but it could pick up the following year, the World Bank said on Wednesday.

Cambodia's investment agency said projects worth nearly $6 billion were approved last year but the value of actual inflows will not be known for some time.

Many of the approved projects were island resorts and construction projects largely invested in by Chinese and South Korean firms, said Soun Siththy, Deputy Director of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC).

The World Bank has projected FDI inflows at around $800 million last year and World Bank economist Huot Chea said they could fall further, 'probably to below $600 million', in 2009.

Cambodia said foreign investment of some $2.667 billion was approved in 2007 but the World Bank said the actual inflow was only $866 million.

The widespread economic slowdown, 'not political risk', was the main factor behind the drop in foreign investment, Huot Chea said.

However, the Bank expected inflows to recover in 2010 if the global economy bounced back.

Read more!

TIMELINE: Cambodia marks thirty years since Khmer Rouge

(Reuters) - Thousands of Cambodian survivors of the Khmer Rouge "Killing Fields" marked 30 years on Wednesday since the fall of Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist regime, blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people. A handful of aging and infirm leaders from the movement are being tried at a joint Cambodian-United Nations tribunal three decades after their disastrous attempt to create an agrarian utopia ended.

Here is an overview of the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge.

1953 - King Norodom Sihanouk proclaims independence from France, but soon abdicates to go into politics.

March 1969 - Secret U.S. bombing of Vietnamese communist bases in Cambodia begins.

March 18, 1970 - U.S.-backed premier Lon Nol ousts Sihanouk as prime minister while the latter is on an overseas trip.

April 17, 1975 - Khmer Rouge seize Phnom Penh and immediately start emptying cities and towns in a bid to create a totally agrarian society. An estimated 1.7 million people die during their nearly four years in power.

Dec 25, 1978 - Vietnam starts invasion of Cambodia after a series of increasingly daring cross-border Khmer Rouge raids.

Jan 7, 1979 - Vietnamese troops occupy Phnom Penh, driving Pol Pot to the Thai border. The occupation is to last 10 years.

May 1993 - U.N.-run election produces shaky coalition between Sihanouk's son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, and Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla installed as PM by Hanoi in the mid-1980s.

July 1997 - Pol Pot ousted as Khmer Rouge leader.

April 15, 1998 - Pol Pot dies in the jungle-clad mountain redoubt of Anlong Ven on Thai border.

Feb 9, 1999 - Last Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrender.

March 2003 - After years of negotiations, Cambodia and the U.N. sign deal to set up a joint "Killing Fields" court. Almost six years later, the court has detained five top cadres but no full trial has started.

Source: Reuters Read more!

No more KR suspects: Cambodian prosecutor

The Extraordinary Chambers’ Chea Leang breaks her silence on why the court must not seek to bring more ex-KR leaders on the docket


PUTTING more former KR leaders on the docket would contradict the original mandate of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, overstretch its duration and budget, and undermine national stability and reconciliation, according to Cambodian co-prosecutor Chea Leang, whose reasoning against expanding the trials was made public for the first time on Monday.

Since late last year, Chea Leang and her international counterpart, Robert Petit, have been at loggerheads over whether to submit more suspects for investigation - beyond the five former Khmer Rouge leaders currently detained.

"She feels that this court should instead prioritise the trials of the five suspects already detained," especially since, according to her, the tribunal's mandate "envisioned only a small number of trials", said a statement from the UN-backed tribunal released Monday.

"She maintains that this Court's mandate can be adequately filled by the prosecution of the suspects already detained," it added.

Chea Leang, who could not be reached for comment Monday, had filed her arguments December 29 to the tribunal's Pre-Trial Chamber in response to a "statement of disagreement" lodged earlier in the month by Petit after the pair failed to agree on his proposal to add additional suspects. While Petit has refused to confirm any figures, sources close to the court say that six additional former regime members have been targeted.

"There is a difference in our interpretation of what this court is about," Petit told the Post Monday, although he insisted the disagreement has not delayed ongoing investigations at the tribunal.

Expanding the docket would help the court fulfill its mandate, he said, adding: "The stability of any society can only be enhanced by improved accountability".

Petit acknowledged that expanding the docket presented "legitimate" financial concerns but was confident the move "would be supported by donors".

Long Panhavuth, program coordinator for the legal watchdog Cambodian Justice Initiative, said, "Expanding the number of suspects will improve the integrity and independence of the court, and that will attract more donor funds".

The group has urged the Cambodian side of the court to demonstrate its independence by allowing further investigation in the face of government fears that a wider roundup could expose current leaders to scrutiny. Read more!

Where to go in Cambodia's capital

I am going to Thailand and Angkor Wat later in the year with my boyfriend. He really wants to go to Phnom Penh too, but I m a bit nervous about that. Is it a safe city, and are there things to do and see, other than just the Killing Fields, which you know who is very keen to visit? Mary Holden, Newcastle

Sunday Times travel expert Richard Green responds: Actually, the Cambodian capital is a fabulous little place and well worth a visit I’d say, even if you don’t have your boyfriend’s ghoulish streak.

It’s changing fast, with lots of property development going on, but it still has a definite charm; a bit chaotic and noisy for sure,­ but it is set on the banks of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers, has some interesting colonial era districts, and the fabulous Royal Palace too.

Perhaps start at the National Museum, for some peace and quiet in its lovely courtyard, and for a break from all the traffic. After that, and just across the road is the sprawling Royal Palace complex, with incredibly ornate rooms like the dance pavilion, the Throne Hall, and the famous Silver Pagoda - with over 5 tons of silver tiles on its floor. You can only peek at a few of them from an entranceway though, as most remain covered for their protection.

You should definitely stroll over to Wat Phnom too, for a good view over some of the city rooftops. It’s the only hill the city has at just 88 feet. There are some street hawkers here, but it is usually good-natured stuff, and they are really targeting the many Cambodians who climb here to pray for good luck. Oh, and do drop in on the huge domed Central Market, just towards the river from here, for some crafty souvenir shopping.

Nearby is the grand Hotel Le Royal (www.raffles.com), which has a smashing bar and restaurant, and peaceful gardens too. In the evening, there are tons of great bars and restaurants, but you should try out the Foreign Correspondents Club (www.fcccambodia.com). It’s a sundowners institution, with big armchairs, ceiling fans, and a mainly expats and backpackers crowd. There are great views from the top floor terrace, and the western food is pretty good too – pizzas from £6.

The two main Khmer Rouge era sites are the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. They are both horrific and leave a strong and lasting impression. You’ll see plenty of locals visiting here too, and if you can face it, be sure to do it at the beginning of your stay in town rather than at the end, so that the wonderful spirit and joy of Cambodia today is the impression that you leave with.

Read more!

Cambodia: 30 Years After Fall of the Khmer Rouge, Justice Still Elusive

After 30 years, no one has been tried, convicted or sentenced for the crimes of one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century. This is no accident. For more than a decade, China and the United States blocked efforts at accountability, and for the past decade Hun Sen has done his best to thwart justice.

Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights

Anniversary Highlights Stalled Trials for Some of 20th Century’s Worst Killers

(New York, January 5, 2009) - Thirty years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's culture of impunity remains as strong as ever, Human Rights Watch said today. Under Prime Minister Hun Sen, the Cambodian government continues to obstruct the United Nations-supported court created to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders and others most responsible for the deaths of up to 2 million people during the Khmer Rouge-era.

Despite more than three years of operations and the expenditure of approximately US$50 million, the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia established to hold the Khmer Rouge accountable have held no trials.

"After 30 years, no one has been tried, convicted or sentenced for the crimes of one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "This is no accident. For more than a decade, China and the United States blocked efforts at accountability, and for the past decade Hun Sen has done his best to thwart justice."

The Extraordinary Chambers have been deeply flawed in both design and practice. UN reports have concluded that the Cambodian judiciary lacks independence, competence and professionalism. Yet at the insistence of Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, the Extraordinary Chambers were established with a majority of Cambodian judges and a Cambodian "co-prosecutor" and "co-investigating judge." The United Nations opposed that structure.

Prosecutors and investigating judges have conducted only limited field investigations. The Extraordinary Chambers have also been mired in allegations of corruption among its Cambodian personnel, with charges of job-selling and bribery.

Five Khmer Rouge leaders whom Hun Sen has allowed to be arrested are in detention, but no other cases have been filed against the many persons implicated in horrific crimes during Khmer Rouge rule. Human Rights Watch has called for broadening the scope of investigations beyond the five already charged.

Today, the Extraordinary Chambers published a statement in which the Cambodian co-prosecutor opposed filing additional cases. The international co-prosecutor rightly asserted in his filing with the Extraordinary Chambers that the charges fall within the court's jurisdiction and "would lead to a more comprehensive accounting of the crimes that were committed." Yet for political and policy reasons, the Cambodian co-prosecutor has opposed bringing more cases, citing "Cambodia's past instability and the continued need for national reconciliation."

"No serious observer believes there is any threat to Cambodia's stability if additional cases are filed against alleged Khmer Rouge killers," said Adams. "On the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's fall from power, the Cambodian government is playing games. This is a transparently political attempt to stop the court from doing its work."

The Khmer Rouge came to power at the end of the United States' war in Indochina. Led by Pol Pot and Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge was in power from April 17, 1975 to January 7, 1979. Estimates suggest that as many as 2 million of Cambodia's 8 million people were killed or died from disease, starvation, or forced labor during this period.

After the Khmer Rouge carried out numerous cross-border attacks on Vietnam in which hundreds of villagers were massacred, the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia. It pushed the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979. The Khmer Rouge retreated to the Thai border, where it received support from Thailand, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and others for the next decade.

To force the Vietnamese army out of Cambodia, the US then led a broad international embargo on Cambodia, depriving a population that had survived inconceivable violence, deprivation, and hardship of the assistance necessary to rebuild their health and their country.

Throughout the 1980s the Khmer Rouge conducted a violent insurgency in which tens of thousands died. For geopolitical reasons, discussions of holding the Khmer Rouge leadership accountable for their crimes while in power were blocked, principally by the US and China.

At China's insistence, the Khmer Rouge was included as a party to the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, which led to creation of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), the UN's largest peacekeeping effort up to that time, and national elections to form a new government. The Khmer Rouge withdrew from the peacekeeping force, but the elections went ahead without it. China pledged to withdraw support from the Khmer Rouge thereafter, which it apparently did. But elements in the Thai army continued to support the Khmer Rouge and deaths and injuries, many from landmines, mounted.

The Khmer Rouge movement fractured publicly in 1996 with the amnesty granted to Ieng Sary, the former Khmer Rouge foreign minister, by the Cambodian government. The movement effectively collapsed after the death of Pol Pot in 1998 and the defection to the Cambodian government of other top leaders, including Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, and thousands of Khmer Rouge soldiers.

In 1997, Hun Sen and his co-prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, sent a letter to the UN secretary-general at the time, Kofi Annan, asking for an international tribunal to hold the Khmer Rouge accountable. This effort was blocked by China, which made it clear that it would veto any UN Security Council resolution to create such a court, and by Hun Sen, who with the collapse of the Khmer Rouge, lost interest in holding its leaders accountable. Instead, Hun Sen invited Khmer Rouge leaders who defected to his government to his home, toasted them with champagne, and called for Cambodians to "bury the past."

"Hun Sen has spent most of the past 10 years trying to undermine UN efforts to establish a credible tribunal, miring it in delay and fights over jurisdiction," said Adams. "Now he is trying to stop a few more cases from being filed."

Human Rights Watch said that the impunity enjoyed by the Khmer Rouge has been matched in the post-Khmer Rouge era. The Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea, in power from 1979 until 1993, routinely violated the fundamental rights of Cambodians. During the UNTAC period in the early 1990s, the United Nations recorded hundreds of killings and attacks by forces under the control of Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party.

On March 30, 1997, a grenade attack on an opposition political rally killed at least 16 people and wounded approximately 150. Hun Sen's bodyguard unit has been implicated in the attack. In July 1997, Hun Sen staged a coup against his royalist coalition partners in which more than 100 opposition figures were extrajudically killed. In the 1998 elections, dozens more were killed. In the past decade, many opposition politicians, journalists, labor leaders and human rights activists have been killed or attacked. No perpetrator has been held accountable, in spite of the availability of evidence in many of these cases.

"Whether it is for Khmer Rouge crimes or those of more recent times, brutal, well-known perpetrators remain free men," said Adams. "Sadly, impunity remains almost complete in Cambodia."

Read more!

Cambodia creates new body to regulate foreign marriage

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- A new organization to regulate foreign marriage has been created following the lifting of a six-month suspension of such unions in 2008, English-language daily newspaper the Phnom Penh Post said on Tuesday.

The Association for People Protection (APP) was licensed by the Ministry of Interior on Dec. 12 to provide "free consultations on marriages to foreigners," the paper quoted an APP statement as saying.

The APP aims at protecting Cambodian overseas migrants, especially women marrying foreigners, said Ky Sina, president of the organization.

"The duty of the association is to help people applying for passports and visas to do this legally. Any foreigner who wants to marry a Cambodian woman will have to become a member of the APP," according to the statement.

The APP will also act as a mediator "to facilitate (dialogue) and find lawyers for both husband and wife" if they have problems later in their marriage, it added.

The foreign marriage suspension was enacted in April amid concerns over an explosion in the number of broker unions involving poor or uneducated women.

It also followed the release of an International Organization for Migration (IOM) report highlighting the plight of a rising number of Cambodian brides migrating to South Korea in marriages hastily arranged by brokers who made large profits.

Some 1,759 marriage visas were issued for Cambodians by South Korea in 2007, up from 72 in 2004, said the report.
Read more!

Elixir Gaming Enters into Agreement with NagaWorld Limited to Place and Operate Gaming Machines on Participation Basis at Leading Cambodian Casino Res

LAS VEGAS--(Business Wire)--
Elixir Gaming Technologies, Inc. (AMEX:EGT) ("Elixir Gaming" or "the Company"),
a provider of gaming technology solutions to the Pan-Asian gaming industry,
announced today that it has entered into a contract with NagaWorld Limited, a
wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong listed NagaCorp Ltd. (HKSE:3918), to
place electronic gaming machines on a participation basis at its NagaWorld, a
five-star hotel casino resort in Cambodia. The only licensed full service casino
in Phnom Penh, NagaWorld is a luxury destination resort.

Under the terms of the agreement, Elixir Gaming will place electronic gaming
machines in a prescribed area of NagaWorld`s 14-story hotel wing and will share
in the gross revenue generated by each machine. It is expected that
approximately 140 electronic gaming machines will be placed in the prescribed
area and Elixir Gaming and NagaWorld will have joint control over the operation
of the electronic gaming machines, including floor staffs and respective audit
rights. Elixir Gaming anticipates the electronic gaming machines to be in
operation in time for the upcoming Chinese New Year in late January 2009.
Subject to certain milestones and agreement between the parties, the Company
expects that the electronic gaming machines placed by it at NagaWorld may be
increased to over 200 by the second quarter of 2009.

NagaWorld is Cambodia`s only integrated hotel casino entertainment complex,
located in the heart of the nation`s capital city of Phnom Penh. One of
Cambodia`s most popular tourist destinations, NagaWorld currently has, among
others, 508 rooms, 176 table games, a premium meeting, incentive travel,
convention, and exhibition (MICE) facility, a retail shopping area, a collection
of restaurants and bars, a karaoke lounge, and a spa.

Clarence Chung, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, commented,
"We are excited to work with such a well-established gaming operator with a
proven track record of operating excellence, deep industry experience, and
extensive local knowledge and networking. NagaWorld is one of the premier hotel
casino resort destinations in Southeast Asia and its five-star amenities rival
those of many of the high-end casinos in major gaming markets worldwide.

Through Elixir Gaming`s expertise in developing full scale slot operations, as
well as collaborative marketing efforts, we believe we can drive even greater
player traffic and gaming revenue to NagaWorld`s already successful operation."

Stuart Sandon, Senior Vice President of NagaWorld Ltd., added, "Elixir Gaming`s
market knowledge and ability to develop and implement turnkey slot floor
solutions will help to solidify what is an important component to NagaWorld`s
gaming operation. We look forward to the benefit that Elixir Gaming`s expertise
and industry relationships, as well as its established and growing base of
operations will bring to the long-term success of our facility."

About Elixir Gaming Technologies, Inc.

Elixir Gaming Technologies, Inc. (AMEX:EGT) 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 and Cambodia markets. For
more information please visit www.elixirgaming.com.

About NagaCorp Ltd.

NagaCorp Ltd. (3918.HK) operates NagaWorld, the only licensed 5-Star Hotel
Casino Resort in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. NagaCorp holds a casino
license issued by the Royal Govemment of Cambodia, which gives the company the
rights to operate the casino for 70 years commencing January 1995 with 41 years
exclusivity within a 200 kilometer radius of Phnom Phen (except the
Cambodia-Vietnam boarder area, Bokor, Kirirom Mountains, and Sihanoukville.)
NagaWorld, currently has, among others, 508 rooms and 176 table games. NagaCorp
Ltd.is incorporated in Cayman Islands with limited liability and its securities
are listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning Elixir Gaming,
Elixir Group and Elixir International within the meaning of Section 27A of the
Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange
Act of 1934, as amended. Those forward-looking statements include statements
regarding expectations for the business of Elixir Gaming, its working capital
requirements and future revenue and profitability. Such statements are subject
to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual circumstances, events or results
may differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements.
Factors that could cause or contribute to differences include, but are not
limited to, risks related to Elixir Gaming`s inability to place gaming machines
at significant levels, whether the gaming machines placed generate the expected
amount of net-win, the ability of Elixir Gaming to acquire additional capital as
and when needed, the ability of Elixir Gaming to collect revenue and protect its
assets and those other risks set forth in Elixir Gaming`s annual report on Form
10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007 filed with the SEC on March 31, 2008
and our Form 10-Q for the three months ended September 30, 2008 filed on
November 14, 2008. Elixir Gaming cautions readers not to place undue reliance on
any forward-looking statements. Elixir Gaming does not undertake, and
specifically disclaims any obligation to update or revise such statements to
reflect new circumstances or unanticipated events as they occur.
Read more!

HSBC To Expand In Vietnam; Eyes Moving Into Laos, Cambodia

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- U.K. banking group HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC) said Monday it plans to expand in Vietnam and have 10 branches there by year-end, up from two currently, and is looking at setting up operations in neighboring Laos and Cambodia within the next five years.

"We will be opening in Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi and Binh Duong. We plan to have a total of 10 outlets this year," said HSBC Vietnam President and Chief Executive Thomas Tobin.

The Vietnam expansion comes after HSBC was given approval by the government to become the first foreign bank to set up a locally incorporated entity. It also forms part of HSBC's aggressive expansion in developing markets.

The change in legal status also means that it's easier now for HSBC's local operations to set up branches across the country.

HSBC's current two branches are located in Ho Chi Minh city and Hanoi.

New laws which help open Vietnam's banking sector to foreign companies have been introduced as part of the communist country's inclusion into the World Trade Organization.

Last year, HSBC hired more than 400 additional staff in Vietnam in anticipation of its expansion. This has brought staff numbers there to more than 1,000. Tobin said the new staff are being trained to man the future branches.

In Vietnam, HSBC also owns 10% of Bao Viet Holdings, an insurance company, and 20% of Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank, or Techcombank.

Tobin said HSBC is eyeing expansion into neighboring Laos and Cambodia.

"It's something that we keep an eye on. We visit there regularly, and we're in close contact with the customers and the regulators. We see tremendous potential in both those countries. So for sure, within the next five years, we'll keep an eye on it," he said.

In October, HSBC agreed to buy a majority stake in Indonesia's Bank Ekonomi Raharja for $607.5 million.

That acquisition also follows the bank's expansion into China's Dazu county and its efforts to expand in other emerging markets like Georgia, Russia, Peru and Panama.

Read more!

Monday, January 12

Today is Monday, Jan. 12, the 12th day of 2009. There are 353 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:

1543 - England's King Henry VIII marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, who outlives him.

By The Associated PressAssociated Press

1598 - Pope Clement VIII seizes Duchy of Ferrara in Italy.

1690 - Protestant forces led by William of Orange defeat the Roman Catholic army of James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.

1773 - The first U.S. museum dedicated to the preservation of knowledge is established in Charleston, South Carolina.

1848 - Revolt starts in Palermo, Italy, against corruption of Bourbons.

1862 - U.S. Congress authorizes the Medal of Honor.

1879 - British-Zulu War begins in Africa.

1932 - Mrs. Hattie Caraway becomes the first elected female U.S. senator.

1945 - German forces retreat in disorder in Battle of the Bulge in Belgium during World War II.

1953 - Yugoslav National Assembly adopts new Constitution.

1958 - Soviet Union proposes zone free of nuclear weapons from Arctic Circle to Mediterranean.

1964 - Rebellion in Zanzibar, which is declared a republic, and Sultan is banished.

1967 - China's army pledges support to Mao Tse-Tung during disorder triggered by Chinese cultural revolution.

1968 - United States and Cambodia agree on policy to keep Cambodia from becoming embroiled in Vietnam War.

1970 - Breakaway Biafra surrenders, ending 32-month-old Nigerian civil war. Biafra leader General Odumegwu Ojukwu flees with family.

1976 - Coalition cabinet in Thailand collapses with resignation of Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj.

1977 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter defends Supreme Court decisions limiting government payments for poor women's abortions, saying, "There are many things in life that are not fair."

1986 - Tamil separatist guerrillas kill seven army soldiers and wound nine others in ambush in northern province of Sri Lanka.

1988 - Soldiers and Palestinian crowds disrupt United Nations official's attempts to inspect Gaza Strip's crowded refugee camps.

1990 - Romania's interim president, Ion Iliescu, announces that the Communist Party is outlawed; Russian republic president Boris Yeltsin shocks the 28th congress of the Soviet Communist Party by announcing he is resigning his party membership.

1991 - U.S. Congress grants President George H.W. Bush authority to use force to drive Iraq from Kuwait.

1992 - Algerian government cancels second round of voting in parliamentary elections that an Islamic party looks set to win. The Islamists take to arms, and tens thousands of Algerians die in the next few years.

1993 - The leader of Bosnia's Serbs accepts peace proposals for the war-shattered country, hailed as a breakthrough toward a settlement after nine months of brutal fighting; a 7.8 magnitude earthquake strikes northern Japan, killing 196 people.

1994 - President Carlos Salinas de Gortari announces a unilateral cease-fire in southern Mexico after army troops gain control of most of the region occupied by Indian rebels.

1996 - The first Russian military contingent arrives to work alongside Americans in the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

1998 - Nineteen European nations sign an agreement to prohibit cloning of humans beings; in Ballymoney, Northern Ireland, three young brothers who had been asleep in their beds are burned to death in a sectarian attack.

1999 - Turkey's newly elected prime minister Bulent Ecevit says he will not allow Turkish bases to be used for prolonged bombing of Iraq.

2002 - President Pervez Musharraf announces new measures to curb extremism in Pakistan and groups that exported terrorism, including bans on five militant groups, and to check militancy in the disputed Kashmir region.

2005 - A woman who spent seven years on Iran's death row is reprieved after the family of the man she killed drops its demand for her to pay with her life. The death sentence imposed on the woman, who said the man tried to rape her, had provoked an outcry among Iranian women.

2006 - Thousands of Muslims surging to complete a stoning ritual before sunset, outside the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, stampede after some pilgrims trip over dropped luggage, causing a pileup that kills at least 360 people.

2007 - Ethiopian-backed government forces capture the last remaining stronghold of the Islamic movement in southern Somalia hours after warlords met with President Abdullahi Yusuf and promised to enlist their militiamen in the army.

2008 - Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party wins a landslide victory in legislative elections, boosting its policy of closer engagement with China.

Today's Birthdays:

Andrea Alicati, Italian author (1492-1550); Edmund Burke, Irish-born statesman (1729-1797); Hermann Goering, German Nazi leader (1893-1946); Paul Hermann Muller, Swiss chemist and Nobel laureate, discovered potency of DDT as insecticide (1899-1965); Rush Limbaugh, U.S. radio commentator (1951--); Howard Stern, U.S. radio/TV personality (1954--); Kirstie Alley, U.S. actress (1951--).

Thought for Today:

Being young is a fault which improves daily _ Swedish proverb. Read more!

Global trends driving 'land grab' in poor nations: activists

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations, in what activists say is a "land grab" that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.

Global trends including high prices for oil and commodities, the biofuels boom, and now the sweeping downturn, are spurring import-reliant countries to take action to protect their sources of food.

China and South Korea, which are both short on arable land, and Middle Eastern nations flush with petrodollars, are driving the trend to sign up rights to swathes of territory in Asia and Africa.

"Today's food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab," the Spain-based agricultural rights group Grain said in a recent report.

It said that some deals were targeted at boosting food security by producing crops that would be sent back home for consumption, while others were to establish money-making plantations like palm oil and rubber.

"As a result of both trends, fertile agricultural land is being swiftly privatised and consolidated by foreign companies in some ofthe world's poorest and hungriest countries," it said.

In one of the biggest deals, South Korea's Daewoo Logistics said in November it would invest about 6.0 billion dollars to develop 3.2 million acres (1.3 million hectares) in Madagascar -- almost half the size of Belgium.

Daewoo plans to produce four million tonnes of corn and 500,000 tonnes of palm oil a year, most of which will be shipped out of impoverished Madagascar -- where the World Food Programme still provides food relief.

"We will build everything from ports and railways to markets on a barren and untouched area," said Shin Dong-Hyun, general manager of the WFP's financing and strategic planning department.

Although commodity prices have fallen from their highs earlier this year, resource-poor and heavily populated countries are still concerned about securing long-term supplies.

Walden Bello, from Bangkok-based advocacy group Focus on the Global South, said the looming global recession is not likely to halt the trend which he fears will worsen the lot of landless peasants.

"In a situation where global agricultural production has become so volatile and unpredictable, I would not be surprised if the Middle Eastern countries that are engaged in this would continue to push on," he told AFP.

Bello said that many of the deals were struck in dysfunctional and corruption-ridden nations, and rejected claims the land being signed away is of poor quality, and that the projects will bring jobs and improve infrastructure.

"What we're talking about is private parties using state contracts to enrich themselves," he said. "It's an intersection of corrupt governments and land-hungry nations."

In Cambodia, where the WFP also supplies aid, oil-rich Kuwait in August granted a 546-million-dollar loan in return for crop production.

Undersecretary of State Suos Yara said Cambodia was also in talks with Qatar, South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia over agricultural investments including land concessions.

"If we do this work successfully, we can get at least 3.0 billion dollars from these agricultural investments," he said.

"With the (global financial) crisis, this is a chance for Cambodia to look to the future by pushing agriculture in order to attract foreign investments."

But opposition lawmaker Son Chhay said he was suspicious about why a wealthy nation like Kuwait needed to lease land to grow rice rather then just import the grain.

"Cambodian farmers need the land," he said, urging the government to limit the area under lease and ensure Cambodia was not plundered by foreign nations.

In the Philippines, another land lease hotspot, a series of high-profile deals has clashed with long-running demands for agrarian reform including land redistribution.

"It will aggravate the problem of landlessness, the insufficiency of land for Filipino peasants," said Congressman Rafael Mariano, who also heads the Peasants' Movement of the Philippines (KMP).

However the Philippine government is undeterred and during President Gloria Arroyo's visit to Qatar in December, officials opened talks over the lease of at least 100,000 hectares of agricultural land to the emirate.

Bello said he expected these sorts of deals to increase, forcing peasants from rural areas and into cities where together with the global downturn they will add to the ranks of the unemployed.

"It's particularly explosive in those countries where you have a high degree of landlessness, like the Philippines where seven out of 10 rural people do not have access to land," he said.

In the impoverished and corrupt dictatorship of Laos, some experts estimate that between two million and three million hectares have been parcelled off in a rampant and uncontrolled process that has now been suspended by the government.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has sounded alarm over the loss of land in a country where in rural areas, every second child is malnourished and access to land for foraging of natural resources is critical.

"If the environment is changed, with the trees cut and replaced with industrial crops," said FAO representative in Laos, Serge Verniau, "they can face serious danger".
Read more!

New bird flu cases revive fears of human pandemic

By Mary Engel

Just when you thought you could scratch bird flu off your list of things to worry about in 2009, the deadly H5N1 virus has resurfaced in poultry in Hong Kong for the first time in six years, reinforcing warnings that the threat of a human pandemic isn't over.

India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and mainland China also experienced new outbreaks in December. During the same period, four new human cases -- in Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia -- were reported to the World Health Organization. A 16-year-old girl in Egypt and a 2-year-old girl in Indonesia have died.

The new cases come afer two-year a decline in the number of confirmed human deaths from H5N1 bird flu and as fewer countries are reporting outbreaks among poultry. A United Nations report released in October credits improved surveillance and the rapid culling of potentially infected poultry for helping to contain and even prevent outbreaks in many countries.

Yet H5N1 has continued to "at the very least smolder, and many times flare up" since the chain of outbreaks began in 2003, said Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

The year-end uptick is a reminder of how quickly the situation can turn as long as the H5N1 virus is still out there, Osterholm and other scientists said. "What alarms me is that we have developed a sense of pandemic-preparedness fatigue," he said.

H5N1 already has been a disaster for poultry farmers in Asia. Public health officials estimate that as many as half a billion fowl have been killed by the virus or culled to contain its spread, causing enormous economic strain and food shortages. But the bigger fear has always been that H5N1 would give rise to a human pandemic like the so-called Spanish flu of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

It was in Hong Kong in 1997 that the H5N1 virus was first observed to jump from chickens to humans, infecting 18 people and killing six of them, raising fears of a worldwide catastrophe. Hong Kong ordered its entire poultry population, estimated at 1.6 million birds, destroyed within three days.

A more recent chain of poultry outbreaks began in South Korea in 2003 and spread over the years to 61 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.

To fuel a pandemic, a virus must be able to both infect humans and spread readily from person to person. The currently circulating H5N1 strain does neither well.

The total number of verified human cases since the 2003 outbreak began is 391, of whom 247 died. After peaking in 2006 at 115 human cases with 79 deaths, human infections dropped to 40 in 2008, with 30 deaths, according to a World Health Organization update in mid-December.

Most of the human cases were traced to direct contact with poultry, especially in Southeast Asia where many people have backyard flocks and few wear gloves or masks while handling them. The few suspected human-to-human transmissions occurred in those who were closely involved in caring for an infected relative.

But as long as the virus continues to circulate, the threat that it could mutate to pass more easily among humans remains, according to the U.N. report.

The Hong Kong poultry outbreak last month is significant because the government thought it had stamped out H5N1 in the Chinese territory after an outbreak in 2003. Since then, Hong Kong has vaccinated poultry against the virus and strictly regulated farm sanitation.

The government ordered the slaughter of 80,000 fowl at two large farms after the latest outbreak killed 60 chickens at one of the farms. Investigators are looking for the source of the infection and testing the effectiveness of the vaccine used since 2003 to inoculate chickens, geese and ducks against H5N1.

Hong Kong uses a vaccine that protects poultry against several flu subtypes. But some scientists believe that the H5N1 virus may have mutated to break through the vaccine. Flu viruses change constantly, which is why human vaccines for seasonal flu are modified every year, said Scott P. Layne, a professor of epidemiology and environmental health sciences at UCLA.

Mainland China is using a newer poultry vaccine developed specifically for H5N1. But vaccination programs there and in Vietnam have not eliminated outbreaks.

The vaccine itself could be the problem, said Robert Webster, a virologist and avian flu expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Vaccines should be used only in areas where the virus is out of control, and then only temporarily, he said. That is because routinely administering the vaccine encourages the evolution to resistant strains.

Some countries have managed to stop the virus by culling infected poultry flocks. Japan, South Korea and Malaysia are considered to be free of H5N1, according to the World Health Organization.

But the virus appears to be entrenched in Indonesia, parts of China, Vietnam, Egypt and other countries where backyard flocks are more difficult to regulate than commercial chicken farms, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

Though bird flu viruses are common, highly pathological ones such as the 1918 virus and H5N1 -- which has been lethal to 100% of chickens infected and 63% of humans known to be infected -- are rare.

Scientists have little experience with which to gauge how H5N1 will evolve.

But, Webster said, "We still have to treat this as a potentially very, very dangerous virus." Read more!

Cycle of hope

By Pat Gee

A retired Hawaii Kai couple is still recycling bottles to raise thousands of dollars to help impoverished villages in Cambodia, but now they hardly need to scavenge for throwaways because others are doing it for them.

When Florence Doi and Takeshi Terada first visited a "black and smelly village" outside Phnom Penh in 2004 with members of the University Avenue Baptist Church, they were appalled at the sight of "garbage children" picking through rubbish they would sell to survive. They were called "scavenger villages," Doi said.

"You would cry," she added.

When they returned home, Doi turned to Terada and said, "Let's be scavengers for them. Let's go out into the beaches and parks, and go into the rubbish cans."

And now the helpers have helpers. Church groups and individuals learned of their mission and are collecting bottles on their behalf.

"I couldn't have done this without all this help," she said last month. "This has been my happiest year. I want to thank everybody; all the contributions have multiplied. ... The churches offer their help. I don't call them; they call me."

Takahashi Koji of Makiki Christian Church has been collecting bottles for three years. "That's how much he feels for us," Doi said. A few days ago, a gift arrived in the mail from his church, which consists of a small Japanese congregation, she said.

"I was stunned; my feet and my heart danced when I received a check for $2,635," Doi said.

Other regular donors include Holy Nativity Church (Episcopal) in Aina Haina, First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu in Kaneohe and Kaimuki Christian Church.

This recent Christmas was the first in four years that Doi and Terada did not make the trip to Cambodia with an outreach program of the multicultural University Avenue Baptist Church, which sponsors several overseas outreach missions.

It's not that the couple is any less devoted. Doi said they decided to forgo their trip due to the uncertainty of safety conditions, and wanted to spend the holidays with their Hawaii family for a change.

She reluctantly admits that they are getting older -- Terada is 84 and Doi is 78 -- and "we're tired." It's no wonder, with all the sorting and rinsing their recyclables, taking them to the recycling center and holding a weekly garage sale.

They both used to collect bottles at Sandy Beach almost every day, but now Terada goes by himself twice a week. Since May they've noticed fewer bottles and such, perhaps because more people are recycling, too.

The couple is trying to downsize their Saturday garage sales because it's such heavy work to pick up donations, like furniture, and unload them at home. But because they have a truck and many don't, they feel obligated to pick up items that are guaranteed moneymakers, she said.

"How are we going to stop?" asked Terada, who recently set up a tent in his yard to house the furniture. "You can't say, 'Oh, don't bring anything.'"

The couple started wiring money to banks in southern Cambodia last year and have already sent about $20,000 to what they consider "the poorest of the poor," she said.

Their pet project is to help build a new church for Tes Kim, pastor of Tuol Sala Church Sreang in Kandal province. They have already sent more than $7,500 to purchase property that Doi picked. They plan to send about $10,000 more for building materials.

Then there is a new orphanage of Heritage of Jesus Christ Church under pastor Chum Sarith in Toulklong village in Kampong Speu that needs help. And the renovation of the New Family In Christ Church in Kampong Cham province, under pastor Un Vannak, who has two blind children, Doi said.

"I'm so excited," she said. "The dreams get more beautiful. ... I pray to God a lot every day. I believe in the power of the Lord. We've come this far and we can do more."

For garage sale location and arrangements for donations, call 396-0850. Read more!

Cambodian Court Must Act on Murder of Trade Union leader murder case of union Leader Chea Vichea

Amnesty International calls on the Supreme Court to dismiss the case against Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, and ensure that they are released without delay and their names cleared. In view of the human rights violations perpetrated during their detention and trial, including torture or other ill-treatment, unfounded and inadmissible 'evidence' and deeply flawed court proceedings, this is the only fair and just outcome for this case, the organization said.

Amnesty International believes that the true perpetrators of the murder remain at large, while Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun have spent almost five years in prison after a seriously flawed criminal investigation and a grossly unfair trial.

Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun had alibis for the time of the shooting on 22 January 2004. Instead of conducting a thorough, impartial investigation, police officers threatened and detained people who would provide these alibis, and intimidated other witnesses. Born Samnang repeatedly stated that police beat, coerced and bribed him into making a confession; despite this the Municipal Court accepted the confession as a central piece of evidence on the basis of which both men were convicted. On 1 August 2005, the Municipal Court sentenced them both to 20 years imprisonment for murder; on 6 April 2007, the Appeal Court upheld the decision, despite the prosecutor's acknowledgement there was insufficient evidence.

Amnesty International repeats its calls to the Cambodian authorities to conduct an impartial and effective investigation into the murder of Chea Vichea so that those responsible for it are brought to justice.

The organisation also urges the authorities to initiate a thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the conduct of the case - including allegations of torture or other ill-treatment by police during the initial interrogation of the two men, intimidation of witnesses and political interference with the judicial process.

Background
Chea Vichea, President of Cambodia's Free Trade Union (FTU), was murdered on 22 January 2004 after receiving a series of death threats. He was shot dead in an assassination style killing at a news-stand in central Phnom Penh. Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun were arrested shortly afterwards on suspicion of his murder.

Chea Vichea was a well-known trade union leader who championed workers rights in Cambodia’s burgeoning garment industry and a founding member of the main opposition Khmer Nation Party (KNP) in 1995, renamed the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) in 1998. He was elected President of the FTU, one of Cambodia’s largest trade unions, in 1999, when he left all official positions within the SRP.

Since Chea Vichea’s death another two FTU activists have been killed in Phnom Penh. In May 2004, Ros Sovannareth, FTU President at the Trinunggal Komara factory, was murdered. Thach Saveth was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his murder in a one hour trial described by observers as grossly unfair. On 24 February 2007, Hy Vuthy, FTU President at the Suntex factory, was shot dead. No one has been brought to justice for this killing, and by September 2008, a Phnom Penh court official told media that the investigation had been closed for lack of evidence. Moreover, numerous other trade union members have been victims of harassment, intimidation and violence.

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Child trafficking in Cambodia

Caring investigates child trafficking in Cambodia. Despite stricter legislation, the problem is still rampant. On one side are parents who want to foster a child, and on the other, Cambodian parents' poverty which pushes them to sell their own.

Child trafficking, a loose term with negative connotations, is essentially when young offspring are given away to wealthy foreigners in exchange for money.

For lucky adopters, the actual sum is inconsequential. Exhausted after costly and upsetting attempts in their own countries, many gratefully look to smaller, developing nations in their bid to find a child, countries like Cambodia, where widespread poverty forces many locals to consider desperate ways to make ends meet.

Dazzled by the promise of a better life for their loved ones, parents and families readily relinquish control and sign away their offspring. But an increasing number of abuses of the system by rogue adoption agencies has prompted many Western governments to immediately suspend all adoptions of Cambodian children.

In France, the government has only just recently lifted the ban that had been in place for some five years, but French authorities are enforcing stringent tests and vetting on would-be parents.

In Cambodia, there are as yet few laws against the widespread corruption and not enough incentive to make parents stop this tragic practice of selling their children.
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Cambodian gov't urged to invest more in agricultural sector

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- A well-known expert has called on the Cambodian government to devote more resources to the rural sector in efforts to mitigate the effects of the global economic crisis, the Phnom Penh Post reported on Friday.

While the tourism and garment sectors continue to struggle for access to international markets during the slowdown, Cambodia's agricultural sector holds the best hope of weathering the crisis, Kang Chandararot, president of the Cambodian Institute for Development Study, was quoted by the English-language daily newspaper as saying.

"We face a difficult situation, but the government should use most of the (nearly) 1 billion U.S. dollars of donor aid to develop our rural areas as a top priority," he said.

Greater improvements in rural development would cut poverty and reduce dependence on loans from banks or microfinance institutions, he said.

"While direct loans from banks and microfinance institutions provide necessary support, aid through the rural development and agriculture ministries should be used to modernize our agricultural methods," he said.

Such aid should be used to renovate Cambodia's aging water systems, find new seedlings and fertilizers, and improve rural markets, he said.

Cambodia used to be the major rice and some other rural products exporter in the region but years of war has made it lag behind Thailand and Vietnam in the past decades.

Currently, garment, tourism and infrastructure are the pillar industries of the kingdom.
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Cambodian monks force nation's first rock opera off air

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodian monks have persuaded authorities to ban the country's first rock opera, which features actors dressed as clergy who break into song and dance, saying it insults Buddhism.

In a letter sent to the ministry of cults and religion, as well as to the media, the Supreme Sangha Council of Buddhist Monks also demanded an apology from the show's director, writer and actors.

"Where Elephants Weep", a modern take on a traditional Cambodian love story that merges pop and rock music with more traditional and historical Cambodian tunes, played in Phnom Penh from late November through early December.

It tells the story a Cambodian-American man who returns after the demise of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime to reconnect with his roots. While he is a monk, he falls into a doomed love affair with a pop singer.

The last straw came when the show was aired by a local television station last week, prompting the monks' council to write to complain.

Cambodia is predominantly Buddhist and monks are expected to be austere and eschew worldly pleasures such as entertainment.

"Some scenes in the story insult Buddhism," the letter said in asking the ministry to "ban the performance and airing of the opera."

The council objected to many scenes, including one in which the actor "left the monkhood and slept with a woman, but a moment later (he) put the robe back on to be a monk again..." said the letter, dated December 30.

The show "oppresses Cambodian Buddhist monks, causes more than 50,000 monks to loss their honour, value and to express frustration," it added.

Religions minister Min Khin duly stepped in and the television station was ordered not to go ahead with a second broadcast planned for New Year's Day.

The show had a successful US preview last year and, after its run ends in Cambodia, it is expected to tour South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan before returning to the United States.

Organisers behind the opera were not immediately available for comment.
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Gang Rape Pervasive Across Cambodia

By Rachel Snyder

The tiny Southeast Asian country of Cambodia has seen explosive economic growth in the past five years.

Skyscrapers will soon dominate the country's skyline and predictions of oil wealth offer hope that the country is finally beginning to outgrow its grisly past.

But a chilling form of recreation — gang rape — reminds everyone that for Cambodia, the past may yet still loom.

One Woman's Story

Mao, 18, is from Pursat, a small village with a few hundred families. Through a translator at the Cambodian Women's Crisis Center in the capital of Phnom Phen, she says she is too ashamed to say her last name.

"There was a wedding in Pursat, and I went to participate," she says. "At the wedding this man asked me to dance and I went to dance with him."

The man then said he had a friend with a question for her, and he led her from the wedding to a field nearby.

"When he dragged me out, there was his two friends with him and three more were waiting in the fields," Mao says.

Two of the men raped her before others were alerted by her screams. Eight days later, she told her story from a safe house.

What happened to Mao has a name in Cambodia: bauk. Its literal translation means "plus," but it also means gang rape, a chilling social phenomenon among young men in the city.

A few years ago, a local nongovernmental organization put together a video of victims and perpetrators. In the video, one voice is distorted to hide the victim's identity. This girl says she was raped and sodomized by four men in a guest house. The next morning, she says, she called the police, but they told her she had no evidence.

'Socially Acceptable'

David Wilkinson, a consultant living in Cambodia, and his colleagues were studying condom usage among college boys in 2002 when they found that bauk was a socially accepted form of recreation for young middle-class Khmer men.

"They described it as a situation where one or two young men would procure the services of, generally, a street-based sex worker, then they would take her to a guest house to have sex, and when they got there they would have arranged for between four and 10 of their friends to be waiting," Wilkinson says. "And they would coerce or try and induce the woman to have sex with all of them. Very often she was verbally or physically abused and would then be subsequently gang raped."

Generally, bauk happens to sex workers, but it can also happen to what the men in Wilkinson's studies call "normal" girls — girls like Mao.

"There is growing indication that the groups of victims extend now beyond those involved in sex work, and we've got stories of school girls, garment factory workers, middle-class young women being gang raped," Wilkinson says.

Napsarin Sreynoth, the secretary general of the Cambodian Women's Crisis Center, says prostitutes don't seek help in their shelters because they think bauk is part of their job. But other bauk victims, like Mao, do come.

"Some victim, they are under 15 years old," says Tong Sophrach, who worked with Wilkinson on the initial research. "Every month that we receive the gang rape or rape bauk and the victim — they are from Pursat, Kompang, Chnnam. It everywhere happen in Cambodia."

Tong says they interviewed taxi drivers in rural areas and found evidence of bauk in at least 21 of Cambodia's 24 provinces. Tong adds that the young men who commit the rapes think it's funny.

Possible Explanations For 'Bauk' Proliferation

Wilkinson says there are many possible reasons why bauk has proliferated. Many believe it's a male-bonding experience: It costs about $15 to hire a prostitute for the night and paying for just one prostitute saves money. There are also few recreational opportunities for young people.

Wilkinson says the bauk phenomenon may be linked to the genocide in 1975-1979, when up to 1.5 million people died from starvation, disease or execution.

"It's difficult to say whether this phenomenon is a result of the deprivations imposed by the Khmer Rouge regime, but what you've got is a generation of young people now whose parents didn't really experience adolescence and so have no real models or norms on which to base how to be good parents," he says. "And it's possible this has had an effect on how they relate to their sons."

In addition, Wilkinson says, bauk may be triggered by the kind of pornography available in Phnom Penh, which he says is the worst that researchers have seen.

'An Aberration Of Khmer Society'

The government, however, blames outside influences.

"Rape itself is very often happening in Cambodia due to the influence of the Western culture with the illegal entry or import of pornography film," says You Ay, from the Ministry of Women's Affairs.

But many fault the government for not denouncing bauk more publicly. Tong says that while there have been arrests, he knows of no prosecutions specifically for bauk. Wilkinson, who has lived in Cambodia for a decade, says he believes a high-level government condemnation of bauk could begin to solve the problem.

"It's really just an aberration of Khmer society, and so as such, it wouldn't be difficult for the political leaders to put a stop to it," he says. "With the backing of senior levels of government this would happen."

In Wilkinson's follow-up research, he asked young people what most concerned them. The girls' responses were all about avoiding rape.

"The interview with the boys was more intriguing," he says. "They wanted to know how they could either coerce or bribe the girl afterward not to take action against them."

A famous adage in Cambodia says that men are gold and women are cloth. The former is easily cleaned; the latter easily stained. Mao says she feels this stain. She is angry and ashamed.

"Everybody, you know, none of us are perfect and I also feel it's my fault because I wanted to go to the wedding," Mao says.

For now at least, Mao says she can't go home. "I do not dare to think about the future," she says.

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The Evil Behind the Smiles

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

Western men who visit red-light districts in poor countries often find themselves surrounded by coquettish teenage girls laughingly tugging them toward the brothels. The men assume that the girls are there voluntarily, and in some cases they are right.

But anyone inclined to take the girls’ smiles at face value should talk to Sina Vann, who was once one of those smiling girls.

Sina is Vietnamese but was kidnapped at the age of 13 and taken to Cambodia, where she was drugged. She said she woke up naked and bloody on a bed with a white man — she doesn’t know his nationality — who had purchased her virginity.

After that, she was locked on the upper floors of a nice hotel and offered to Western men and wealthy Cambodians. She said she was beaten ferociously to force her to smile and act seductive.
“My first phrase in Khmer,” the Cambodian language, “was, ‘I want to sleep with you,’ ” she said. “My first phrase in English was” — well, it’s unprintable.

Sina mostly followed instructions and smiled alluringly at men because she would have been beaten if men didn’t choose her. But sometimes she was in such pain that she resisted, and then she said she would be dragged down to a torture chamber in the basement.

“Many of the brothels have these torture chambers,” she said. “They are underground because then the girls’ screams are muffled.”

As in many brothels, the torture of choice was electric shocks. Sina would be tied down, doused in water and then prodded with wires running from the 220-volt wall outlet. The jolt causes intense pain, sometimes evacuation of the bladder and bowel — and even unconsciousness.

Shocks fit well into the brothel business model because they cause agonizing pain and terrify the girls without damaging their looks or undermining their market value.

After the beatings and shocks, Sina said she would be locked naked in a wooden coffin full of biting ants. The coffin was dark, suffocating and so tight that she could not move her hands up to her face to brush off the ants. Her tears washed the ants out of her eyes.

She was locked in the coffin for a day or two at a time, and she said this happened many, many times.

Finally, Sina was freed in a police raid, and found herself blinded by the first daylight she had seen in years. The raid was organized by Somaly Mam, a Cambodian woman who herself had been sold into the brothels but managed to escape, educate herself and now heads a foundation fighting forced prostitution.

After being freed, Sina began studying and eventually became one of Somaly’s trusted lieutenants. They now work together, in defiance of death threats from brothel owners, to free other girls. To get at Somaly, the brothel owners kidnapped and brutalized her 14-year-old daughter. And six months ago, the daughter of another anti-trafficking activist (my interpreter when I interviewed Sina) went missing.

I had heard about torture chambers under the brothels but had never seen one, so a few days ago Sina took me to the red-light district here where she once was imprisoned. A brothel had been torn down, revealing a warren of dungeons underneath.

“I was in a room just like those,” she said, pointing. “There must be many girls who died in those rooms.” She grew distressed and added: “I’m cold and afraid. Tonight I won’t sleep.”

“Photograph quickly,” she added, and pointed to brothels lining the street. “It’s not safe to stay here long.”

Sina and Somaly sustain themselves with a wicked sense of humor. They tease each other mercilessly, with Sina, who is single, mock-scolding Somaly: “At least I had plenty of men until you had to come along and rescue me!”

Sex trafficking is truly the 21st century’s version of slavery. One of the differences from 19th-century slavery is that many of these modern slaves will die of AIDS by their late 20s.

Whenever I report on sex trafficking, I come away less depressed by the atrocities than inspired by the courage of modern abolitionists like Somaly and Sina. They are risking their lives to help others still locked up in the brothels, and they have the credibility and experience to lead this fight. In my next column, I’ll introduce a girl that Sina is now helping to recover from mind-boggling torture in a brothel — and Sina’s own story gives hope to the girl in a way that an army of psychologists couldn’t.

I hope that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will recognize slavery as unfinished business on the foreign policy agenda. The abolitionist cause simply hasn’t been completed as long as 14-year-old girls are being jolted with electric shocks — right now, as you read this — to make them smile before oblivious tourists.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter. Read more!