US Navy commander returns to Cambodian roots

In this photo taken Dec. 3, 2010, family members of the U.S. navy officer Michael "Vannak Khem" Misiewicz boarding the USS Mustine at Cambodian coastal international see port of Sihanoukville, about 220 kilometers (137 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Misiewicz finally returned home Friday as commander of the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mustin, reuniting with the relatives who wondered whether they would ever see him alive, and the aunt who helped arrange his adoption. His ship departs Monday.

By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press

The distant thuds of gunfire and bombs weren't nearly as memorable for Michael Misiewicz as fishing barehanded with his older brother in Cambodia's Mekong River.

In 1973, as a 6-year-old then called Vannak Khem, he was more concerned with boys' games than the deepening war - unaware, like most Cambodians, of the trauma that the Khmer Rouge would soon inflict on the country. He had no idea that after his adoption by an American woman that same year, it would take him 37 years to go home.

Misiewicz finally returned home Friday as commander of the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mustin - reuniting with the relatives who wondered whether they would ever see him alive, and the aunt who helped arrange his adoption. His ship departs Monday.

"Chumreap suor, Om," he greeted 72-year-old Samrith Sokha in the Khmer language, clutching her in a sobbing embrace on the Mustin's sea-swept walkway. "Greetings, Auntie."

The warship has a larger mission: to help the United States as it deepens ties with Cambodia and other nearby nations in a region overshadowed by China's economic and military clout.

But the ship's arrival in the port of Sihanoukville also ends an odyssey that took Misiewicz, now 43, from the poverty of Cambodian rice fields to the farmlands of the midwestern United States to the helm of a U.S. destroyer.

The process of returning has been intensely emotional, he said: sadness for the more than 1.7 million who died or were killed by the communist Khmer Rouge when they held power in 1975-1979, combined with guilt at his escape from it and joy at seeing the relatives who helped him leave it behind.

"This isn't going to wash the guilt away but I am looking to provide some sense of closure, going back to my birth country, going back to where my family suffered, and where my dad was executed, seeing it firsthand," he said in a phone interview before his ship arrived.

Born south of the capital, Phnom Penh, Misiewicz and his family were uprooted in 1969 as Khmer Rouge fighters forced villagers to join the radical communist movement. His father didn't sympathize with it, unlike many of his mother's family, and many considered him a traitor for not joining up, Misiewicz said.

They fled north, living on the streets as beggars for a time and scraping by until settling in Phnom Penh. They lived in a stilt house over mosquito-infested waters, subsisting mainly on his father's work as an herbal medicine pharmacist. His father's oldest sister, Sokha, worked for Maryna Lee Misiewicz, a U.S. Army administrative assistant with the defense attache's office at the U.S. Embassy.

Misiewicz remembers eating popcorn and watching cartoons while his aunt cooked and cleaned Maryna's home. Eventually, he said, his father decided they should ask Maryna to adopt him and Maryna and the boy left for the United States in April 1973.

"They were concerned about the Khmer Rouge. No one had any idea what would happen, but they hoped for a better life for Mike," Maryna Misiewicz said in an interview from her home in Freeport, Illinois. "We had no idea how long it would be before they would ever see each other again."

He grew up in Lanark, a town of 1,500 people just south of Freeport, most of whom had never seen an Asian before, and he said he cried frequently, thinking about his family.

Gradually, the letters to his relatives went unanswered as Cambodia spiraled into chaos. He forgot what little Khmer he knew, graduated from local high school and enlisted in the Navy. Like most Americans, he only later realized how many had died and suffered because of the Khmer Rouge's nightmarish efforts to create an agricultural utopia. Maryna Misiewicz said she initially tried to shield her adopted son from the few reports about the Khmer Rouge's brutal actions.

"You didn't have any idea it would end up like that," Maryna said. "I felt badly for Mike and his family and I wondered what was going on, what they were going through."

"As I got older it was less painful to not think about it," Misiewicz said.

It was in 1989 when he was at the U.S. Naval Academy when he was finally located by his family - and he learned of their own odyssey through refugee camps on the Thai border and in the Philippines and finally to Austin, Texas.

His birth mother, two brothers and a sister had survived but two other sisters died, most likely of disease or malnutrition. All of his mother's relatives, except for a brother, died or were killed by the Khmer Rouge, he said.

"We never knew what was going to happen," said Misiewicz's younger brother, Rithy Khem. "Thank God we were able ... to be reconnected with each other finally."

Misiewicz learned that his father, who was drafted as a medic for the U.S.-backed government that collapsed in 1975, was summoned to a meeting with Khmer Rouge officials on the anniversary of their takeover and never returned.

Misiewicz said his reunion with relatives in Cambodia would go a long way toward easing his qualms about the opportunity he had - and that his relatives did not.

"A lot of who I am is small-town America, you know, work hard trying your best at whatever you do ... but certainly the genetic thing, so many of the blessings that I've had come from my birth family," he said.

"I feel a lot of sadness for my own family, but also for so many Cambodian families," he said. "It's been a long, long time of war, genocide, civil war; my birth country and my fellow Cambodians just need a break."
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Cambodia Finds Solace in Spirituality

In the week after a stampede on a crowded Phnom Penh bridge killed 353 revelers celebrating the annual water festival, both the people of Cambodia and the country's government have been struggling to put hundreds of troubled ghosts to rest.

According to Khmer custom, the deceased believe they are merely asleep until the seventh day after their hearts stop. When they realize the truth--that they are dead forever, that they will never go home again--they grow terrified and angry.

The solution is the "seven-day ceremony," an hours-long funerary ritual to soothe the souls of the dead and placate them with offerings, speeding them on their way to the next life. On the seventh day after the stampede, the country was awash in these ceremonies, with mourners offering their dead everything from pigs' heads to fake bars of gold.

Although Buddhism is the state religion here, ancient animistic beliefs are just as important. Spirits lurk everywhere, predictable in their habits but terrifying once their anger is aroused. The ghosts of those who died in violent accidents are said to be especially restive.

The country's superstitious prime minister, Hun Sen, has already staged several traditional ceremonies designed to appease the stampede's unmoored dead. But he has been less proactive in the physical realm, presiding over an open-and-shut investigation that yielded no significant findings and refusing to concede any wrongdoing by anyone.

While Hun Sen's government has acted fast to compensate the families of victims with over $12,000, gathered from government funds and other donors, for each person killed, more than 15 times Cambodia's average per capita income, it has not even gestured toward addressing the deeper public safety concerns raised by the stampede.

The committee established to investigate the disaster was packed with government, police, and military police officials from the ruling Cambodian People's Party. One of the only exceptions was Pung Kheav Se, the wealthy and well-connected director of the company that owns both the bridge and the lavish new entertainment district it leads to, Diamond Island.

The government has a long history of closing ranks during a scandal, and an even longer history of favoring business interests over ordinary citizens. When developer OCIC pursued a 99-year lease to Diamond Island several years ago, the military summarily evicted all of the island's residents.

In a marathon two-and-a-half-hour speech on Monday, the prime minister called upon the ghosts of Diamond Island to haunt his political opposition and anyone who criticized his handling of the disaster.

"They will get back their bad deeds from the souls of the victims who died, who will do something to them," he said. "I do not know what they will do, but I pray that [the spirits] will give them backaches."

When the chief of the government's National Committee on Organizing National and International Festivals tendered his resignation, Sen refused to accept it. He said nobody would be held accountable for the stampede, which he portrayed as a freak event that could not have been anticipated, despite the frenzied crowds that pack Phnom Penh every year for the festival.

"We did not expect that people could collide with each other like motorbikes and cars," he said.

Sen's wife, Bun Rany, made the rounds of seven-day ceremonies over the weekend, delivering donations from the Cambodian Red Cross (which she leads) and pushing the party line.

"She told us that [Sen] was just trying to construct the country and make it develop but this was an accident that was impossible to predict," one mourner said.

The man was helping to memorialize his sister, 20-year-old Tay Sibuoy, at a seven-day ceremony outside a photocopy shop. A priest dumped sack after sack of fake gold bars onto a fire dedicated to her.

"She was very gentle and quiet," her brother-in-law Lao Kimchan said. "She hardly ever went out, but she went out that night."

As Kimchan spoke, he and several other men held tight to a thin white string that formed a perimeter around the family's burnt offerings.

"We make this holy line to make sure no other spirits can come to get this stuff, only her. We've burned everything--a house, a car, a box of gold. What we burn, she will receive."

When the fire had quieted into a heap of ash, they broke the thread.

"It's all over," he said.

A similar ceremony took place in an alley in central Phnom Penh, where Cheam Yoeun offered a large paper mansion to the ghost of his youngest son, Yen, who had been 19.

A chauffeur-driven gold Lexus SUV made of paper was parked in the paper garage. Two stern-faced servants flanked the front door. The mansion was accompanied by a deed and title handwritten by Yen's brother and sister.

"We're afraid that his soul doesn't have any house to stay in," Cheam Yoeun explained. "The deed and title are to make sure the home belongs to him."

With funeralgoers looking on, a holy man blessed the paper mansion, and touched a match to it. Flaming ash and fake $100 bills swirled around the alley.

"We're feeling better and more peaceful after we did the ceremony," said Cheam Yoeun.

But although he was grateful for the government's money, which made the elaborate ceremony possible, he was still searching for answers.

"I have no idea who was responsible for the death of my child, but I really want to know who should be responsible. I want the government to tell me."

Nearly two weeks afterward, the stampede is still a matter of near-unprecedented public fascination in a country where media penetration is so low--and so many people have personal tragedies of their own to deal with--that few news stories make much of a mark.

In the days after the stampede, homemade memorials--a bunch of bananas, a glass of water, a burning stick of incense--dotted driveways across Phnom Penh. The street price of bananas doubled. Telethons to raise money for the dead and injured brought in over a million dollars, a massive sum here.

The banks of the Bassac River near Diamond Bridge were covered with everything a dead soul might conceivably need: ramen noodles, lotus flowers, fake $100 bills, cups of coffee, tangerines, rice porridge, sugarcane stalks, spoons and forks, and take-out containers of pork and rice accompanied by tiny bags of chili-flecked sauce.

Doh Soeun, who had set up on the banks to sell incense sticks and lotus flowers, said 20 raw chickens were still being offered to the dead every day as mourners and curiosity-seekers continued to visit the riverside in droves.

"Some are crying," he said, "and some just come to see and some come to pray and some parents come to call their children's souls back home, performing ceremonies and then calling them back home: 'Oh, my beloved child, come home!'

Neou Vannarin contributed reporting from Phnom Penh.
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Wang students pen pals with Cambodia counterparts

The Lowell Sun

LOWELL -- The Student Council at the Wang Middle School has established a pen-pal program with a school in Cambodia, and has been exchanging letters with Cambodian middle-school students.

The Student Council hopes to continue building a partnership with the schools in Cambodia, and send its thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families.

Here's what's happening this week in Lowell's public schools.

BARTLETT CPS: All-school assembly Monday to recognize Students of the Month and middle-school honor students. Picture retakes Tuesday.

BUTLER: Parents are invited to Parent Coffee Hour on Thursday, 9-10 a.m., in the Parent Center, Room 141; Amanda Hosmer, the school social worker, will discuss bullying. Green Team is looking for donations of house plants and/or pots; donations can be dropped off in the Parent Center; for more information, contact parent liaison Carol Sutton at 978-970-5496 or csutton@lowell.k12.ma.us.

DALEY: All students recently attended a presentation about Internet safety, such as social networking, privacy and Internet predators; parents may wish to discuss those topics at home; review the Parents' Section at

href='http://www.Netsmartz.org'>www.Netsmartz.org to find ways to keep children safe while surfing the Web. Thanks to all who attended Open House, and congratulations to all Term 1 Daley Diamond award winners. Seventh- and eighth-grade boys basketball tryouts are after school Wednesday.

GREENHALGE: Fourth-graders continue to sell Smencils for $1. Greenhalge offers a free breakfast program for all students; third- and fourth-graders may arrive at 7:35 and go directly to the cafeteria; kindergartners and first- and second-graders eat in their classrooms at 7:40.

LINCOLN: Parents, please remind children to do their RAH (reading at home) every afternoon or evening as part of their homework; initial your child's RAH Log. Lincoln's branch of Washington Savings Bank will be open Friday, 8:30-9:30.

MCAULIFFE: First schoolwide RIF book distribution Monday. Encourage your child to be a "high five" reader, and remind him or her to participate in the lobby book swap on their way to class in the morning.

MURKLAND: "Bingo for Books" is Wednesday, 6-7 p.m., for kindergarten, first- and second-grade families; Bingo winners choose a book for their prize. Preschoolers take home "Raising a Reader" book bags each Tuesday and return them to school by Friday. We are challenging our students to collect 2,000 Box Tops for Education this month.

ROBINSON: Thanks to parents who attended a record-breaking Open House; more than 400 showed overwhelming support for our school. Student Council continues to collect nonperishable items for their food drive to make baskets for Robinson families in need. Family Night Bingo for Books is Tuesday, 6-8 p.m., in the auditorium; bring a snack and share a snack; drinks will be available; students must be with an adult. Picture makeup is Thursday.

STOKLOSA: Stoklosa is collecting nonperishable food items for needy families in our school; send items in with your child to place in the shopping cart by the main office; if your family could use help this holiday season, call Mrs. Robtoy at 978-446-7452. Eighth-grade Talent Search students will visit Northeastern University on Monday. Sign and return all dental forms to the school nurse by Tuesday. Sixth-graders will read As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes to practice making inferences; other poetry and independent reading will be used for the purpose of inferencing. In Social Studies, many students will begin studying the Himalayas.

WANG: First-quarter honor-roll assembly is Friday morning in the auditorium, grades 7 and 8 at 8:20, grades 5 and 6 at 8:35; each ceremony will last about 15 minutes; parents are invited.
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Scientists develop drought tolerant rice

Crop protection solutions for the forward-thinking soybean farmer BayerCropScience.ca/Soybean

A new breakthrough study by scientists has led to the development of a rice crop that is not only drought tolerant but high yielding despite the lack of water. The crop has been developed by scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the genotypes have been dispersed to other Asian countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, and the Philippines.

Originally, researchers planted different rice genotypes on two separate plots at IRRI headquarters in Los Ba¤os. The field plots were of similar soil fertility and the crops were equally managed apart from receiving different amounts of water.

IRRI scientists were able to identify 26 second-generation aerobic rice genotypes that produced significant yields compared to the first generation crops.

Initial analysis of the research found rice crops grown in drought like conditions show a decrease in plant height, harvest index, and grain yield.

The rice crops subjected to less water yielded 50 percent more than the previous generation and further gains are expected as the cycle is repeated.

"Aerobic rice is a good strategy for coping with the increasing water shortage and ensuring rice food security in tropical regions. A breeding protocol is key to the success of a breeding program in developing new aerobic rice varieties, "said Dule Zhao, one of the authors of the study.

Aerobic rice breeding studies are continuing at IRRI. Researchers are attempting to develop rice crops that are drought tolerant and also weed competitive and high quality.

The study is published in the issue of journal Crop Science. (ANI) Read more!

China gains influence with development push into Cambodia

By John Pomfret

KOH KONG, Cambodia — Down a blood-red dirt track deep in the jungles of southwestern Cambodia, the roar begins. Turn a corner and there is the source — scores of dump trucks, bulldozers, and backhoes hacking away at the earth. Above a massive hole, a flag flaps in the hot, dusty breeze. It is the flag of the People’s Republic of China.

Here in the depths of the Cardamom Mountains, where the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge communists made their last stand in the late 1970s, China is asserting its rights as a resurgent imperial power in Asia. Instead of exporting revolution and bloodshed to its neighbors, China is now sending its cash and its people.

At this clangorous hydropower dam site hard along Cambodia’s border with Thailand, and in Myanmar, Laos, and even Vietnam, China is engaged in a massive push to extend its economic and political influence into Southeast Asia. Spreading investment and aid along with political pressure, China is transforming a huge swath of territory along its southern border. Call it the Monroe Doctrine, Chinese-style.

Ignored by successive US administrations, China’s rise in this region is now causing alarm in Washington, which is aggressively courting the countries of Southeast Asia. The Obama administration has cultivated closer ties with its old foe Vietnam. It has tried to open doors to Myanmar, which US officials believe is in danger of becoming a Chinese vassal state. Relations have been renewed with Laos, whose northern half is dominated by Chinese businesses.

In an Oct. 28 speech about US policy in Asia, before embarking on her sixth trip to the continent in two years, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used military terminology to refer to US efforts: “forward-deployed diplomacy.’’

During a recent trip to Phnom Penh — the first by a US secretary of state since 2002 — Clinton, while speaking to Cambodian students, was asked about Cambodia’s ties to Beijing. “You don’t want to get too dependent on any one country,’’ she told them.

Still, China powers ahead.

China has concluded a free-trade deal with all 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, while a similar US pact is only in its infancy. It is cementing ties with Thailand, a US ally, despite recent political unrest there.

In Cambodia, Chinese firms have turned mining and agricultural concessions in the eastern part of the country into no-go zones for Cambodian police. Guards at the gates to two of them, a gold mine and a hemp plantation, shoo travelers away unless they are able to pay a toll.

“It’s like a country within a country,’’ Cambodia’s minister of the interior, Sar Kheng, quipped at a conference this year.

China’s real estate development firms have barged into Cambodia with all the ambition, obtrusiveness, and verve that American fruit and tire firms employed in Latin America or Africa in decades past. One company, Union Development Group of Tianjin, in northern China, won a 99-year concession for 120 square miles of beachfront on the Gulf of Thailand.

There, Chinese work teams are cutting a road and mapping hotels, villas, and golf courses. The estimated investment? $3.8 billion. The target market? The nouveau riche from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

In October, China pledged to support the construction of a $600 million railway between Phnom Penh and Vietnam that will bring China a major step closer to incorporating all of Southeast Asia, as far south as Singapore, into its rail network.

Across Cambodia, dozens of state-run Chinese companies are building eight hydropower dams. The total price tag for those dams will exceed $1 billion. Altogether, Cambodia owes China $4 billion, said Cheam Yeap, a member of the central committee of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

“This takeover is inevitable,’’ said Lak Chee Meng, a reporter on the Cambodia Sin Chew Daily, one of the country’s four Chinese-language dailies, serving 300,000 Khmer-Chinese and an additional quarter-million immigrants and businessmen from mainland China. “Cambodia is approaching China with open arms. It’s how the United States took over its neighborhood.’’

The perennial question about China’s rise is when will Beijing be able to translate its cash into power. In Cambodia, it already has.

Cambodia has avoided criticizing the dams under construction along China’s stretch of the Mekong River, structures that specialists predict will upend the lives of millions of Cambodians who live off the fishing economy around the great inland waterway, Tonle Sap.

Cambodia so strictly follows Beijing’s “one China’’ policy that it has refused Taiwan’s request to open up an economic office here despite the many millions of dollars’ worth of Taiwanese investment in Cambodia. Read more!

Life's too short to have the brakes on

By Carolyn Boyd


Some retirees don't want to live in the slow lane.

IN THEIR early 60s, Jeff and Sue Lovett are taking life by the bicycle handles. The couple, who live at Bangalow on the NSW north coast, have just returned from cycling in Vietnam and Cambodia.

They've barely unpacked their bags and already are planning their next trip – a bike ride across the Nullarbor from Perth to Bangalow. They intend to travel to Perth on the Indian Pacific and cycle back.

They've had plenty of practice. In the decade or so since they started travelling – after their two eldest children left home – they have done everything from walk across England to cycle around Italy for four months. Other journeys have taken them skiing in Argentina and Japan, and, closer to home, riding 1100 kilometres from Bangalow to Young to visit Sue's brother.

The Lovetts opted to do the Vietnamese trip through tour company World Expeditions.

"Vietnam and Cambodia don't use the alphabet as a general rule and it's very hard to find your way and cross borders without some help and a guide, especially when cycling," Sue says.

The Lovetts are semi-retired after building a successful real estate business. To afford to travel, Sue says they live fairly simply at home, with few meals out. On trips they often camp or opt for mid-range accommodation.

The Lovetts are just one couple heading into an active retirement. Many retirees are now taking the opportunity to live it up.

Some activities require a reasonable budget but others can be done virtually cost-free. The options are as broad as your imagination. There's everything from volunteering to playing sport, taking up a hobby or even the old favourite: gardening.

Keen gardener Christine Rethers, 70, is the secretary of the Ku-ring-gai Horticultural Society. The former high-school teacher became involved in gardening in a serious way about 10 years ago, after she retired. She says being an office-bearer allows her to use some of the skills she developed during her working life. Above all, Rethers loves socialising through the club.

"I have developed some very, very good and close friendships through meeting people of like minds," Rethers says.

"I think that's important when you get older because one of the worst things that I think happens to older people is that they lose touch.

"They're not going to work every day and they lose touch with people in the wider world and they are very much just at home and that can be not very good for older people."

Rethers places much importance on keeping active and getting out and about.

You don't need to have a huge block of land to be involved in a gardening club. "A lot of [members] . . . are people who have had to move into retirement villas who have been, in the past, great gardeners," Rethers says. "Unfortunately, time moves on and we get to the point where we're not as agile and can't maintain a big garden any more but we still want to maintain the interest in it."

Professionals winding down from paid work might want to look at goodcompany.com.au, an initiative that matches charities in need of volunteers with professional skills to those who have time to spare.

Goodcompany is targeted at professionals who have a university degree or several years of work experience. Since its inception last year, goodcompany has attracted thousands of skilled volunteers and helped provide more than $8.5 million worth of pro bono services to communities.

The internet has made searching for leisure activities much easier.

Don't stop now

Travel See worldexpeditions.com. World Expeditions has trips designed for over-55s.

Volunteering See govolunteer.com.au. Like using a jobs board, plug in your postcode and opportunities in your area pop up.

Gardening See gardenclubs.org.au. Find your local garden club here.

Sports club See ausport.gov.au/participating/find-a -sporting-club.

Services organisation See lionsclubs.org.au. Read more!

Cambodia: Silenced by a brutal past

By Neil Trevithick
BBC News, Phnom Penh

Four leaders of the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia in the late 1970s, will face trial next year accused of genocide, torture and religious persecution. But many of those affected by the country's brutal past still cannot speak about what happened.

The psychologist had agreed to be interviewed before I arrived in Phnom Penh.

But when we get to his office, beside a main road leading out of the city, where the green fields begin, there seems to be a problem.

A long, urgent discussion in Khmer ensues with our translator, Kunthi. The psychologist will talk, but only in English, and his name must not be used. "Why English?", I ask myself, but then drop it.

Replies to questions about his work with "victims" and "perpetrators" (as they are called here) of the Khmer Rouge period 30 years ago, are halting.

And I need a better feel for the internalised voices that are part of what I think of as "the great silence" here.

Older people just do not talk about the past and their mantra to the young is that staying silent is always a solution if there is a problem.

What used to be a survival strategy for them as children, in a time of unimaginable brutality, has become almost a national characteristic a generation or two on.

I rack my brains for a question that will bring our interviewee out of himself.

"Can you tell us," I ask finally, "what it is like inside the head of a perpetrator, and inside the head of a victim, now, today? Can you just be them for me?".

I hold out my arm towards him, beginning the classic radio producer's torture of the aching, extended arm, weighed down with an increasingly heavy microphone at the end.

We have turned off the air-conditioning because of the noise, sweat trickles in rivulets down my back. He lowers his eyes and begins to speak, slowly and softly in English, as a victim first.

"I can smile at you," he says, "but I don't know, one day you can kill me or, when you kill me and escape, you can be safe. You can just run away into another far-off province."

And then, in the role of perpetrator, he says: "I will try to hide my identity as much as possible, I will try not to talk about what I have done because I don't trust you.

"I want to tell the truth, I am not happy about the past, but I have no choice. I know I killed your father, but you don't know, you were small. I try to be as distant as possible in the relationship."

The psychologist talks methodically for about 15 minutes and everything slows as he paints a picture of a country of small villages in which an entire society is distorted by the tragedies and atrocities of the past.

Where everybody knows things that cannot be said, where one businessman does not deal with another businessman because he was a killer.

Where victims killed too, sometimes simply for survival.

Today, children who lost both parents live among their parents' killers. Secrets are everywhere: knowledge of where bodies were buried, who buried them, who did what to who.

Avoiding history

The next day I ask the president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, Ou Virak - a respected activist and intellectual - about the continuing bitterness of life in the countryside. He replies saying that the international community simply does not fully grasp what is going on in rural Cambodia.

This is a country, I feel, criss-crossed by invisible threads, the paths that people walk on to avoid their history.

"All we can do is try not to get closer," the psychologist concludes. And then he simply stays silent, eyes cast down, hands in his lap.

If I had not taken the battery out of his wall clock before we began the interview you would just have heard the clock ticking. We walked out into the humid heat in silence.

Later, I discover the reason the psychologist speaks in English is because the authorities do not really censor what is said in English. That's because, as the editor of the English language version of the Phnom Penh Post says to me, somewhat ruefully, they know hardly any Cambodians will read or hear it.

Time and again I am told: "We don't have a culture of reading in this country," which actually means, "we killed everyone who could read". This is old news.

Information about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is in the open. Comrade Duch who ran the S-21 prison has been found guilty, there are four more Khmer leaders in prison just down the road from here.

Later that night rain pounds fiercely on the wide leaves of the palms outside my window and lightning flashes perilously close to the Buddhist temple next door.

I am trying to write up my notes about the psychologist but somehow it all seems pointless.

There are foreign investors, NGO workers, diplomats, as well as backpackers and young travellers lured by holiday brochures describing Cambodia as an "enthralling destination" and eulogising the "warm, enigmatic people".

There are tours, temples, mountains, wonderful beaches. But all of this just seems to skate over the top of the enigmatic Cambodians who walk their own invisible paths.
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ADB, Cambodia Continue Financial Sector Reforms to Spur Growth, Cut Poverty

The FINANCIAL -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) Board of Directors on December 2 approved a loan and grant of $15 million equivalent to the Government of Cambodia to promote the development of a sound, market-based financial sector.

According to ADB, the loan and grant will finance the final subprogram of the Second Financial Sector Cluster Program, which incorporates reform actions designed to improve public confidence and financial intermediation, strengthen sector resilience, promote good governance, and enhance system efficiency.

Key actions of the program include steps to improve check clearance and settlement amongst commercial banks and the government, regulations to guide interbank transactions, the promotion of deposit-taking by microfinance institutions in compliance with new prudential requirements, and improved prudential supervision of banks and microfinance institutions. It also promotes greater transparency in the insurance industry, measures to combat money laundering, and a new integrated accounting system at the National Bank of Cambodia.

"Finance sector development helps reduce poverty by cutting transaction costs for economic activities and expanding the reach of the formal finance sector to lower income groups, including rural microenterprises," said Samiuela Tukuafu, Principal Financial Sector Specialist in ADB's Southeast Asia Department.

The immediate gains generated by the program, which began in 2007, include new and increased loans of $1.52 billion, the creation of over 12,000 jobs, and the opening of over 980 new branches of banks and microfinance institutions throughout Cambodia.

The loan of $10 million equivalent from ADB's concessional Asian Development Fund has a 24-year term, including an 8-year grace period with an interest rate of 1% during the grace period and 1.5% for the balance of the term. The grant of $5 million also comes from the Asian Development Fund. The National Bank of Cambodia is the executing agency for the overall program, with the Ministry of Economy and Finance and Ministry of Commerce the implementing agencies.

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Monks branch out into carbon market to protect forest

Sorng Rukavorn monks Sove Ui, Kea Mony Tapkea and Sou Mai in their community forest in Oddar Meanchey, northern Cambodia. Photo: Ben Doherty

A religious order aims to tap polluters to help a community.

THE forest surrounding the Sorng Rukavorn monks' pagoda in northern Cambodia has forever been ''theirs''.

They have always depended on the forest for food, for timber and for a living. They have long understood their forest's boundaries, its cycles of wet and dry, of fire and regeneration.

Advertisement: Story continues below But they have never owned it. Until now. Having spent nearly two years winning legal control of 18,000 hectares of forest, they are now able to lock it away from logging interests and other encroachments, and rehabilitate areas previously cleared.

The carbon that saves, they hope, might soon be for sale. They want to be players on a global carbon market. ''Any revenue from the forest will be important for the people here, and for Cambodia,'' monk Lee Ragana says.

''When the revenue comes in, we can use the money to build infrastructure, to build schools … and to build better roads. And we can improve the management of the forests.

''We will use the money to educate farmers in better land practices and technical improvements. We will be able to supply patrols with trucks and equipment … do more fire suppression and replanting.''

The Sorng Rukavorn monks are on the cusp of entering what is still a voluntary carbon market, in preparation for a time industrialised countries legislate to force polluters into offsetting the carbon they produce.

They aim to be a UN-recognised REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation - project, in which governments and companies in industrialised nations that cannot reduce their own carbon emissions pay communities in poor countries to cut emissions on their behalf, usually by not cutting down trees.

Already, yellow-and-green signs mark the monks' land as a ''community forest'', and regular patrols are conducted by volunteers to see that trees aren't being felled illegally or land cleared for farming.

The monks' community forest is one of 13 such sites in Oddar Meanchey province, on Cambodia's northern border with Thailand. Combined, they preserve nearly 68,000 hectares of forest land and, maintained over 30 years, are expected to sequester 7.1 million tonnes of carbon. Within months they will seek a carbon buyer.

But even before a dollar has been paid to the monks, they feel they've won a victory in taking control of land that - informally at least - they have regarded as theirs for generations.

''Before we had the community forest, people from outside would … cut down trees illegally, clear land, and the people who depended on that forest had no right to stop them,'' Mr Lee says. ''Now we feel we own this land, we have control, and we can stop it being used badly.''

Kurt MacLeod, vice-president of Pact, a non-government organisation helping Oddar Meanchey's community forests bring their carbon to market, says REDD projects will bring enormous benefits and development to the poor communities running them.

''As soon as legislation is enacted [in major industrialised countries], there are going to be private sector companies looking for validated REDD projects,'' he says. ''The demand in five years will be much higher than supply.''

Industrialised countries see enormous value in paying poorer countries to preserve forests on their behalf. Germany, France, Norway, the US, Britain, Australia and Japan pledged $US4 billion towards REDD initiatives at the last round of climate talks in May. But just how much carbon will be worth on the market of the future is still unclear.

There is also the issue of measuring the carbon sequestered in forests, and how that might be affected by its growth, climatic change or unforseen events such as fire.

And there is concern at the sellers' end about how much of the money, in a country such as Cambodia, where a notoriously corrupt government has the sole right to ''sell'' the carbon, will ever reach those on the ground.

Cambodia has a poor record in forestry. It has experienced some of the most rampant deforestation. More than 7 million hectares of forest - 39 per cent of the country's land - was sold off for logging. In the four decades since 1970, primary forest cover in Cambodia was reduced from 70 per cent to just 3.1 per cent today.

Deforestation accounts for 20 per cent of all the world's greenhouse gas emissions - some 5.9 billion tonnes a year.

Read more!

Report Links Businesses With Rights Abuses

Children sit on top their inundated homes, where Shukaku, Inc., has been pumping fill into Boeung Kak lake, in early November 2010.


Government officials and businesses, backed by a biased court system, are behind many of the most egregious rights violations in the country, a new report has found.

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights found what it called a governance gap, where the authorities are unable to protect citizens from rights violations brought about by powerful business interests.

The group also found financial ties between individuals in government and businesses responsible for rights violations, exacerbating the problem. In some situations, it was hard to tell the difference between the government and business, the center said in its report, “Business and Human Rights in Cambodia.”

Land rights violations brought on by economic motives have become endemic, the report said. And land cases and their respective crackdowns have meant curbs on land and labor rights and the freedom of expression and assembly, the report said.

“Victims of evictions are rarely given an opportunity for participation or consultation beforehand and any information which is provided to residents is often incomplete and inaccurate,” it said. “When consultations with communities facing the threat of eviction do occur, they are often manipulative or coercive. Evictions are regularly conducted by armed Cambodian troops and police, while the political and economic elite benefit from forced evictions.”

Rights activists, meanwhile, face regular threats of physical violence or criminal charges when they voice their opposition to harmful developments, it said.

Victims of land or labor violations who seek to demonstrate or protest meet “public and private forces [that] collude to deny them these rights,” it said, adding that the courts were also not free of political or financial influence.

“The judicial mechanisms in Cambodia are in practice utilized by the political, economic and social elite to ensure impunity,” the report said.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan called the report an “attack from a non-governmental organization.” Read more!

Challenges Await Newly Appointed Tribunal Prosecutor

The Khmer Rouge tribunal has named a new international investigating judge, who will step into the UN-backed court as it prepares for a complicated trial for four jailed leaders and considers more indictments.

Siegried Blunk, of Germany, will replace Marcel Lemond, who resigned in September following the end of the investigation stage in a case against four Khmer Rouge leaders.

Blunk, who was appointed by order of King Norodom Sihamoni, assumed office on Dec. 1, according to the tribunal.

Blunk will be facing tough questions at the tribunal, which is to decide on two more cases for indictments, something the Cambodian side of the court opposes. Those cases, Nos. 003 and 004, are in the hands of the investigating judges' office.

“We can say there might be new speed or new strategies in relation to the investigation” of the cases, said Long Panhavuth, who monitors the court for the Cambodian Justice Initiative. “That's what we are all waiting to see.”

The investigating judges have yet to endorse a lawyer for the defense of so far unnamed suspects in cases 003 and 004.

Meanwhile, at least one court observer said the investigating judges should move forward on those cases, following the completion of their investigation of Case No. 002 in September.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has said further indictments could destabilize the country, an opinion echoed by other Cambodian tribunal officials.

Blunk studied law at Munich University and wrote a PhD thesis in international law. He has been a judge since 1977 and has handled both civil and criminal cases, according to a tribunal statement. From 2003 to 2005, he served as an international judge at a UN hybrid court in East Timor. Read more!

Families Deal With Shock of Diamond Bridge Tragedy

Chea Channy, far right, who was also on the bridge, escaped with other siblings. She spoke along with other family members on a special edition of “Hello VOA” Wednesday.


Family members who lost loved ones in last week's Diamond Bridge stampede say they have been traumatized by the event, which claimed at least 351 lives.

“I'm still in shock,” said Chea Channy, whose 45-year-old father died on the bridge. “Even when I sleep, I still hear their voices calling for help in my ears. I don't know when I'll forget this.”

Chea Channy, who was also on the bridge, escaped with other siblings. She spoke along with other family members on a special edition of “Hello VOA” Wednesday.

The Nov. 22 bridge tragedy shocked the nation and led to an outpouring of donations and sympathy. No one has been singled out for responsibility, in what Prime Minister Hun Sen called an accident without blame.

Family members will receive up to $12,000 each from different organizations, the government, the owners of Diamond Island, and others. But the full reality of the disaster had yet to sink in for some.

Hun Ratha, a monk, lost his 19-year-old brother, Vichet, on the bridge. Vichet had been the breadwinner, and his mother, who was working abroad, has come back to mourn him.

“She is still in great shock and finds it hard to bear the fact that her son has died,” Hun Ratha said.

But he offered some comfort to other victims: “People will eventually die. Therefore, we should learn to calm our feelings of shock. Those who died did not know in advance there would be danger awaiting them. If they had, they would not have gone there. They are now at peace.”

Some family members suggested keeping the bridge as a memorial for victims and not reopening it for public use.

“It would be good if the government kept this bridge just as a memory of the dead victims, because it is very scary to cross it again,” Chea Channy said. “As for me I dare not go there to see it again. I am afraid. The incident was too bad.” Read more!

Cambodian King meets with Li Yuanchao

Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni (R) meets with Li Yuanchao (L front), a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, secretary of the CPC Central Committee Secretariat, and head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Dec. 2, 2010. (Xinhua/Lei Bosong)


PHNOM PENH, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni on Thursday met with Li Yuanchao, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, secretary of the CPC Central Committee Secretariat and head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

Li Yuanchao conveyed greetings from Chinese President Hu Jintao to King Sihamoni, and on behalf of the Chinese government and people expressed condolences to the King and the Cambodian people over the stampede tragedy happening at the Diamond Bridge on the night of Nov. 22.

Li said that the King and the King's father and mother Norodom Sihanouk and Norodom Monineath Sihanouk are old friends of China. The special friendship forged by the Cambodian Royal family and generations of Chinese leaders is a valuable asset of two countries and has played an important role in all of times in the relationship between China and Cambodia.

"Facts showed that it is a common aspiration to develop the friendly relationship between China and Cambodia, which is in keeping with the common interests of our two peoples and is always supported by our two peoples," Li said.

Li added that "China considers Cambodia as a sincere friend and reliable partner and will continue to persist in building a good- neighborly relationship and partnership with Cambodia."

China will continue to support Cambodia's independent choice of social system and development road which is accordant with the situation of a country as usual, and would like to continue to provide assistance for Cambodia's national construction and economic development within the capacity, Li Yuanchao said.

The king expressed his profoundly thanks to China for supporting generously the development of Cambodia's social and economic undertakings during the past to present, saying the Royal family attaches great importance to the development of the relations with China.

Sihamoni said that Cambodia is pleased to strengthen and expand friendship relation and cooperation on all sectors with China in order to continue moving forward the Cambodia and China friendship relations.

Vice-minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee Ai Ping and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Pan Guangxue attended the meeting.

Li Yuanchao arrived in Phnom Penh on Wednesday on a friendly visit to Cambodia and attend the 6th General Assembly of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) to be held here on Dec. 1-4.
Read more!

PM takes stage in Cambodia conference

THT ONLINE


KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal on Thursday addressed the inauguration programme of the sixth International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal is a member of the 11-member standing committee of ICAPP.

On the occasion he informed about the ongoing political situation of Nepal. He said that the government is heading towards ending the entire political impasse and reach its targeted destination i.e to take the peace process to its logical end and draft the constitution on time.

Ignoring criticism from all quarters, a team of five led by Nepal went for a 10 day tour to the capital of Cambodia as his capacity as the head of the nation at the invitation of his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen.

President Dr Ram Baran Yadav, Chairman of Constituent Assembly Subhas Chandra Nembang and other political parties had advised him not to go abroad in the wake of political impasse at home.

The PM however insisted that he would cut short his tour if the need arose and went ahead with the tour.

The political convention was first held in Manila in September 2000, before moving to Bangkok (2002), Beijing (2004), Seoul (2006), and Kazakhstan (2009), arriving now in Phnom Penh for ICAPP's Sixth General Assembly this year.

ICAPP has attracted political parties of all hues and colours – leftists, rightists and centrists – from South Asia, South East Asia, East Asia, West Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific as well, making it a truly broad-based international political forum.

After Cambodia, the Prime Minister will head for Brussels to attend the European Development Day at the invitation of European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. The two-day ceremony will kick off on December 6.

The PM is scheduled to return home on December 9. Read more!

30 Tax Agents To Face Corruption Charges

A watchdog organization says the Ministry of Economy and Finance's tax collectors are bilking the country out of at least a million dollars a year by overcharging for annual vehicle stickers.


Thirty tax officials will face the loss of their jobs, after an investigation by the new Anti-Corruption Unit.

Om Yentieng, a senior government advisor and head of the ACU, told reporters Wednesday the 30 agents from the Ministry of Finance’s taxation unit had overcharged vehicle owners as much as $1.20 per annual registration tag.

The ACU was acting on complaints filed by an NGO on behalf of more than 200 citizens who said they were routinely overcharged for vehicle registration.

The complaints were the first real test of the ACU, which was formed as part of a recently passed anti-corruption law. Some 2,700 people from 14 provinces contributed corruption complaints earlier this year.

“I will send all the evidence concerning the 30 agents to the Ministry of Economy and Finance and its general department of taxation tomorrow morning to make administrative punishments,” Om Yentieng said. “I believe that anyone who has made a serious mistake will be sacked from his or her job.”

Other administrative punishments can include the loss of promotion or suspension.

The ACU has compiled a 14-page brief, provided to reporters, that identifies the alleged corrupt agents, provides photo IDS and lists the sites were they allegedly bilked motorists of their money.

According to the brief, vehicle owners were overcharged for annual registration on “pretexts,” such as the cost of forms themselves, of filling out the forms or even for the purchase of drinking water.

San Chey, a project coordinator for the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific, which gathered the complaints, said administrative punishment was acceptable for now.

“Next year, we want to see those guilty of corruption sentenced to prison,” he said. “But for this year, administrative punishment is an acceptable act for civil society.”

Om John, deputy chief of the Ministry of Finance’s tax department, said agents would not escape punishment. Read more!

‘Centrist’ Asian Parties Establish Peace Commission

Mushahid Hussain Sayed of Pakistan, secretary-general of Centrist Democrats International Asia Pacific, right, confers with Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, center left, during a signing ceremony in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, Wednesday.


Political party representatives of nearly 40 Asian countries signed an accord in Phnom Penh Wednesday to establish a commission to deal with regional security and global stability issues.

The accord was the result of the fourth meeting of a grouping called Centrist Asia Pacific Democrats International. The CAPDI is part of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties, which is made up of 300 members.

The so-called CAPDI Peace Commission will “promote an environment of peace, stability and security in Asia by initiating and supporting negotiation and dialogue in various hot spots in the region,” said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League and of ICAPP.

CAPDI, which includes political parties from China, North Korea, South Korea, Indonesia, Russia, claims to support a peaceful resolution of Iran’s nuclear build-up and disputes on the Korean peninsula, along with peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The group also aims to prevent violence and terrorism and rejects “extremist” politics.

The establishment of the Peace Commission comes amid growing tension between the two Koreas, growing international concern over Iran’s nuclear program and an ongoing US war in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said the Cambodian People’s Party wished to participate in CAPDI “to deal with problems in different countries as well as the region.” Read more!

Bayon TV Begins Disbursement of Bridge Donations

Eighty-three families of victims from last week’s bridge stampede received a first round of donations from Bayon TV, collecting more than $5,000 each.

The TV station raised the money from its Cambodian audience following the Nov. 22 bridge disaster, which left 351 people dead and 395 injured.

Tit Thavrith, deputy director of Bayon Radio and TV, said the disbursement was a “first step” to compensate victims of the disaster and would be followed by teams making provincial trips.

Bayon TV said it collected more than $2.5 million in the week following the deadly bridge stampede, one of the worst disasters in recent Cambodian history.

Tit Thavrith said the disbursements should end speculation the TV station would not transparently issue the money.

The money will help the families of victims to reduce expenditures, such as seven-day and hundred-day ceremonies, Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema said during a distribution ceremony at Bayon TV station on Wednesday. “But this money cannot fully compensate the loss to the families.”

Chan Serey, a 45-year-old soldier stationed in Kampong Speu province, who lost his wife and three children in the stampede, said the money was more than he had seen before, but it could not make up for the death of his family.

He would use the money to open a small shop in his house in Kampong Chhnang province, he said.

Phea Chan Nara, 43, whose brother was killed on the bridge, said he would use the money to hold the 100-day funeral ceremony and help his elderly mother. Read more!

PM to tackle bilateral issues with Cambodian counterpar

KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who is currently on a Cambodia visit to participate in the sixth International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), will meet Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday.

According to Shuro Jung Pandey, a press assistant of PM Nepal, Nepal and his Cambodian counterpart will hold bilateral talks in the meeting.

Earlier, Cambodian Environment Minister and high ranking officials of the Foreign Ministry had received Prime Minister Nepal in Phnom Penh on Wednesday morning.

PM Nepal had left Kathmandu on Tuesday on a 10-day foreign tour amid criticism from various quarters. He is also a permanent and founding member the ICAPP.

The convention is also to hold separate discussions on various issues like climate change, heritage security, women's and youth's participation in politics.

PM Nepal is scheduled to address the inauguration programme of the convention. Read more!

Chinese firm seeking investment opportunity in rice exports, hotel industry in Cambodia

China's COFCO, the largest oils and food importer and exporter in China and a leading food manufacturer, on Tuesday afternoon expresses its interest to invest in rice exports and tourism in Cambodia.

"We are very interesting in rice exports from Cambodia and hotel industry in Cambodia,"Yang Hong, vice president of China Oil and Foodstuff Corporation (COFCO), said on Tuesday during a meeting with the officials at the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC).

"After the possibility study about the investment opportunity here, we will take the two sectors into investment consideration," she added.

She said that the Beijing-based COFCO Group is a leading firm in the businesses of biofuel and biochemical production, oilseed processing, rice trading and processing for exports, brewing materials production, and wheat processing, moreover, the group also engages in real estate businesses.

Vongsey Vissoth, secretary general of the Ministry of Finance, said that Cambodia has produced 7.3 million tons of rice paddy in 2010, of which the surpass quantity is 3.5 million tones of rice paddy or 2.1 million tons of processed rice that is available for exports.

"China just signed a rice inspection and quarantine cooperation agreement with Cambodia in October that is easier for Chinese investors to export rice from Cambodia,"he said.

Tith Chantha, director general of the Ministry of Tourism, said that currently Cambodia has 438 hotels with 24,239 rooms, accommodating around 2.1 million foreign tourists last year.

"Cambodia has potentials in tourism and the extent of the economy is bigger, it is estimated that Cambodia needs up to 40, 000 rooms by 2015 as the number of foreign tourists is expected around 3.7 million at that year,"he said, adding"so putting your investment in the sector from now is the right time."

The 13-member delegation consisted the officials of COFCO and ICBC.

Sok Cheda, the CDC's secretary general, said that the delegation comes to Cambodia after Jiang Jianqing, President of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) met with Prime Minister Hun Sen on Nov. 5 in Phnom Penh and expressed the bank's purpose to open its branch in Cambodia and he promised with the prime minister to attract more Chinese investors to Cambodia.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

First Cambodia doc in leak

The WikiLeaks website has released the first document in its cache of American diplomatic cables relating to Cambodia, in which eminent Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew discusses the Kingdom’s close relations with China.

In a diplomatic cable labeled “secret” and sent in May last year by the American embassy in Singapore, Lee comments on China’s increasing global economic and diplomatic reach, briefly mentioning Cambodia.

“Within hours, everything that is discussed in ASEAN meetings is known in Beijing, given China’s close ties with Laos, Cambodia and Burma,” the cable states, quoting Lee.

The cable is only one of more than 250,000 American foreign policy documents WikiLeaks has pledged to release gradually in the coming months. An initial batch of documents was released on Monday and 281 had been released in total as of yesterday evening.

US embassy spokesman Mark Wenig declined to address the content of the document.

“As a matter of policy, the Dept of State does not comment on allegedly leaked documents,” he wrote in an email yesterday. “Foreign governments should be assured that the United States Government is committed to ensuring the confidentiality of information and will continue to strengthen the security of our systems.”

Officials at the Singapore embassy did not respond to a request for comment yesterday, nor did Chinese embassy spokesman Qian Hai. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong said he would “try to check the information”, declining to comment further.

The bulk of the cable released yesterday focuses on Lee’s analysis of North Korean and Chinese politics, with Cambodia mentioned only once. None of the more than 1,000 documents in the WikiLeaks’ archive that US officials classified as Cambodia-related – including 777 cables from the American embassy in Phnom Penh – have yet been made public. Read more!

Talent lines up for Cambodia badlands drama

PRINCIPAL photography begins on Monday on Say Nothing, the new Australian film starring Teresa Palmer and Joel Edgerton.

Writer and director Kieran Darcy-Smith tells Reel Time he had "never felt more alive" ahead of cameras rolling. "I've been waiting for the pressure but I don't feel much pressure yet because it all seems to be falling into place," he says. Darcy-Smith's psychological drama and mystery tells the story of four friends on a Southeast Asian holiday, where one goes missing. The film, also starring Darcy-Smith's wife, co-writer Felicity Price, and Antony Starr, will film in Cambodia in the new year after a Sydney shoot. Darcy-Smith admits he has a love affair with the region having written his first script while travelling there after leaving drama school in 1996.

"The places we're shooting are pretty crazy, the badlands," he says of his filming locations near southern Cambodian coastal town, Sihanoukville. "It's really important to me that it's a credible world and a credible story and shooting Cambodia in Sydney just wasn't going to cut it." He says he feels fortunate the film managed to secure Palmer and Edgerton while their international careers are taking off. Edgerton, who met Darcy-Smith at drama school, later becoming his best man, is about to perform opposite Jennifer Garner in the Disney film, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, while Palmer's latest film, I Am Number Four, is expected to be one of the main sci-fi blockbusters of 2011. Angie Fielder will produce the film in association with Blue Tongue Films with funding from Screen Australia, Screen NSW and Fulcrum Media Finance. Hopscotch Films will distribute the film in Australia and New Zealand.

TWO Australian animated films have made the list of 33 films to qualify for consideration as nominees for best animated short at the coming 2010 Academy Awards. It's a hefty list that includes new shorts from Pixar (the wonderful Day and Night which preceded Toy Story 3), the Road Runner's return at Warner Bros in 3D, and new films from the legendary Bill Plympton and two other former nominees, Tomasz Baginski and Don Hertzfeldt. That said, Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing, adapted by Tan and Andrew Ruhemann, has swept all before it thus far and must be a strong chance to make the final five nominees. Reel Time is yet to see the other local contender, Chris Kezelos's Zero, but it too has a long list of awards alread and is nominated for an AFI Award.

AUSTRALIAN audiences have again ignored an Australian genre film, with the accomplished western Red Hill, starring Ryan Kwanten, only managing $110,000 in its first weekend despite warm reviews and media interest. A weekend in which the seventh Harry Potter film earned another $6.7 million (for $25.85m in 10 days) and a new Robert Downey Jr road trip comedy, Due Date, opened with $2.7m, is hard to read. But Red Hill's screen average of $1912 didn't compare so well with screen averages for independent foreign films including Monsters ($3343), Agora ($5707) and Winter's Bone ($2830). But the question is whether it will result in a sudden shift in development thinking among our film agencies though, after a rapid shift towards genre filmmaking this year.

MELBOURNE family crime drama Animal Kingdom has picked up yet another award, nabbing the best screenplay prize for David Michod at the Stockholm International Film Festival. Debra Granik's US indie drama Winter's Bone was named best film.

THE fourth Asia Pacific Screen Awards will be presented on the Gold Coast tomorrow. The awards, honouring films from the region, will choose from 31 films from 15 countries. Guests will include best actor nominees Tony Barry and Indian star Atul Kulkarni, and best actress nominees Tejaswini Pandit from India and the Chinese star of leading nominee, Aftershock, Xu Fan. The ceremony will be webcast at www.asiapacificscreenawards.com and on the Australia Network on January 9. Read more!

Cambodia PM says no one responsible for stampede

By Prak Chan Thul

PHNOM PENH — Cambodia's prime minister said on Monday no state officials were to blame for a stampede last week that killed 351 people and ruled out resignations in the aftermath of the country's worst tragedy in three decades.

Long-serving premier Hun Sen said calls for senior figures within the government and security forces to step down were politically motivated to serve opposition parties, but he said mistakes had been made and the situation was badly handled.

"No one will resign from their positions after what happened," Hun Sen said during the opening of a new government building in the capital, Phnom Penh.

"The incident happened because of carelessness and we didn't expect this thing to happen," he added. "The biggest mistake was that we had not fully understood the situation."

The stampede caused the biggest loss of life in Cambodia since the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge's regime's four-year reign of terror in the late 1970s, during which an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of starvation or disease.

The accident happened late on Monday last week when hoards of people celebrating an annual Water Festival on a man-made entertainment island crossed a narrow bridge at the same time. For some reason, the crowd suddenly panicked.

Footage showed hundreds piled on top of each other, screaming for help, wedged under bodies, dead, alive and unconscious for about three hours. Security personnel appeared disorganized and unsure of how to rescue survivors.

A government committee announced the findings of its investigation on Monday and said the panic was caused by the slight swaying of the Diamond Gate bridge -- as part of its design -- under the weight of at least 7,000 people, who thought it was about to collapse.

It also said large movements of people in both directions, along with rumors that some people had been electrocuted, added to the chaos. Investigators said there were no electrocutions and no one had died from drowning, contrary to some witness accounts, and suffocation was the cause of most of the deaths.

TIMELY RESCUE

"The panic caused the stampede," said Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, who is head of the committee. "People were jammed at all ends and the ones in the middle were the victims."

Investigators said rescue efforts were timely and the number of people involved in the operation was sufficient. People pour into Phnom Penh from the countryside for the three-day festival and investigators estimated 4 million had attended. The city has a population of up to 2 million.

The death toll was 456, but that was later scaled down to 351 when officials said many bodies had been counted twice. Hundreds were injured.

Hun Sen, whose government has promised $12,000 for the families of each victim, had been widely expected to absolve his government of blame and analysts say it is unlikely there will be any repercussions for his powerful Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which enjoys a huge parliamentary majority.

Experts attribute Hun Sen's quarter-century in office to his blend of populism and cronyism and say it is unlikely the government or the judiciary will pursue any action against the CPP's influential allies among the police and business elite.

But many Cambodians believe heads should roll and say someone should take the blame for the handling of the rescue effort.

"If they had worked faster, they might have saved many more lives," said survivor Chum Srey, 30. "They must take responsibility for this, for the sake of the families."

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) said the government was "careless and incompetent."

"With the loss of nearly 400 lives and many injuries, there must be people responsible," said party member Yim Sovann.. Read more!

Cambodia Catholics visit water festival victims

Phnom Penh Catholics have responded to last week’s Water Festival tragedy which killed at least 375 revelers by organizing hospital visits to survivors of the deadly stampede.

“We come here to share the sorrow,” said Sang Yeth, a member of the charity committee of St. Joseph’s Church.

On Nov. 26, she led a group parishioners to Preah Ketomilia Hospital in the capital where more than 40 of the injured were hospitalized.

Hundreds more injured are being treated at two other hospitals.

The parishioners also distributed 40,000 riel (about US$10) to each victim, most of whom were poor farmers who came from the provinces to celebrate the Water Festival in the capital.

Sam Sotom, who was caring for her three injured sons, told ucanews.com that she was grateful for the Church’s support.

Local priest Father Bruno Cosme added that the Catholic group wanted to show their solidarity with the victims.

“We take time to talk, to encourage people to give hope even though we don’t have much time with them,” he said.

Parishioners and students from Don Bosco schools in Cambodia are also collecting money to assist the victims.

Meanwhile, Caritas Cambodia has joined with other NGOs to provide daily meals to 450 patients in five hospitals where the injured have been admitted.

“We are doing this because the hospitals could not provide food for them,” explained Sok Sakhan, the Caritas disaster management officer.

Earlier on Nov. 25, all Catholic churches in Cambodia offered Mass and prayed for the victims of the tragedy. Read more!

Cambodia gears up to host ATF 2011 TRAVEX

ETW Staff – Mumbai

The ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) 2011 TRAVEX, to be held from January 19-21, 2011, at Phnom Penh’s Diamond Island Convention and Exhibition Center, Cambodia has recorded strong interest and rapid take-up rate early in its registration process. The 2011 ASEAN leisure travel trade event, showcasing the largest contingent of ASEAN destination products and services, is also expected to feature a larger show with 25 per cent more booths space than last year.

More than 70 per cent of the 450 available booth space has already been secured by around 240 exhibiting companies from across the 10 ASEAN countries - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. More than 600 applications received from across the world.

Dr Thong Khon, Minister of Tourism, Cambodia, and permanent vice-chairman of ATF 2011 Organising Committee explained, “Improving market optimism aside, a significant part of this year’s interest also has to do with the appeal of Cambodia as a destination. International delegates are motivated to experience the country’s rich cultural, natural, and historical heritage.”

Ministry of Tourism, Cambodia, will host the three day event’s opening and closing ceremony. ATF 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of this event since its inauguration in Malaysia in 1981. ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) is a cooperative regional effort to promote the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region as one tourist destination. Read more!

Stampede death toll rises to 351

The number of people killed in a bridge stampede during the Cambodian capital's annual water festival now stands at 351, the social affairs minister said on Sunday. The figure, which included 222 females, is four higher than previously announced, while the number of injured stood at 395, said a
statement signed by Ith Samheng, who sits on a committee investigating the disaster.

It said each of the wounded would receive free treatment and assistance from the Cambodian Red Cross as well as 1,000,000 riels (USD 244) from the government.

Cambodia's most popular festival ended in tragedy on Monday after crowds panicked on an overcrowded bridge leading to an island that was one of the main event sites.

Authorities have said a full report on the incident would be released in the coming week.

Initial findings from the investigating committee suggest the stampede occurred after rumours rippled through the crowd that the suspension bridge to Phnom Penh's Diamond Island was about to collapse.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has described the disaster as Cambodia's worst tragedy since the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 reign of terror, which killed up to a quarter of the population.

The city will continue to host the yearly festival despite the deaths, according to Chea Kean, deputy secretary general of a government festival committee, who said yesterday it was an "age-old tradition" in the country.

The three-day event, which marks the reversal of the flow between the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers, usually draws millions of visitors to the capital to enjoy dragon boat races, fireworks and concerts. Read more!

China finances restoration of historic Shiva temple in Cambodia

Nevada, US, November 28, 2010:

Hindus have applauded China for reportedly financing the restoration of deteriorating Ta Keo Hindu temple in Cambodia’s UNESCO World Heritage Site Angkor temple complex, which began on November 27.

Restoration will take about six million dollars and eight years to complete. People’s Republic of China also assisted in the restoration (2000-2008) of 12th century Hindu temple in Angkor named Chausay Tevada, costing about two million dollars, reports suggest.

Said to be built entirely of sandstones by kings Jayavarman V and Suryavarman I in late 10-early 11th century, Ta Keo (Preah Keo) is a pyramid of five levels. Fragments of pedestals and lingas are found in/around its towers. Its primary deity is said to be Shiva. At the foot of the eastern stairways, there is a statue of kneeling Nandi, which indicates that Ta Keo was a Shaivite temple.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that more needed to be done to safeguard the Angkor temple complex and its surroundings and deteriorating bas-reliefs; save it from vandalism and looting; put some controls on unchecked tourism; check the demand for water table which could undermine the stability of sandy soils under the temples.

Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged UNESCO World Heritage Convention and Cambodia government to provide more funding for the upkeep of the temple complex and spend more than half the ticket revenue on the temples. He commended China for bankrolling the restoration of historic Hindu temples.

Angkor Archaeological Park contains magnificent remains of over 1000 temples going back to ninth century, spread over about 400 square kilometers, and receives about three million visitors annually. Read more!

Boy who fled K.Rouge returns to Cambodia a US navy commander

By Michelle Fitzpatrick (AFP)

PHNOM PENH — When the destroyer USS Mustin docks in Cambodia next week it will be more than just a routine mission for the ship's commander.

Michael Misiewicz is Cambodian by birth and was just a child when he was wrenched from his family and homeland 37 years ago, to be sent away from the country to escape the civil war with the Khmer Rouge.

He has not set foot on Cambodian soil since.

"I have been fighting a lot of emotions about coming back to my native country," said Misiewicz, who was born Vannak Khem, of his impending return.

"To know that I've got relatives there that have wanted to see me for decades... I don't know if I will be able to hold back the tears," he told AFP by telephone aboard the US warship.

The 43-year-old was a small boy in the early 1970s when Cambodia was engulfed in a civil war between government troops and communist Khmer Rouge fighters.

In 1973, his father arranged for him to be adopted by an American woman who worked at the US embassy and was preparing to leave the increasingly dangerous country.

The move meant Misiewicz avoided one of the most brutal chapters of 20th century history -- the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime that caused the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and execution.

"At that age I was a happy-go-lucky kid. I really didn't have any sense of the war or bad things going on in Cambodia," said Misiewicz, recalling that he had no qualms about leaving.

"I was excited about getting on a plane, going to a new world where I could eat popcorn and have all the watermelon I wanted," he said.

But his mother's tearful goodbye is engraved in his memory. "My mom was so, so upset. I promised her I'd buy her a big house one day."

The young Cambodian built a new life for himself in his adoptive country, enlisting in the navy after graduating from high school in Lanark, Illinois.

It was while he was attending the US naval academy that he began to learn about the atrocities that had taken place in his homeland.

Misiewicz had received no news from his family and assumed the worst.

"I felt a lot of guilt. Why was I the lucky one?," he said. "I really doubted that my family had survived the whole Khmer Rouge era. I tried not to think about it."

What he did not know was that his mother and three of his four siblings had survived and managed to flee the country in 1983, ending up in the United States themselves.

They were now living in Austin, Texas, desperately trying to find him.

It took six years of searching, but finally the family learnt that Misiewicz had lived in Alexandria, Virginia when he first arrived in the US.

Combing through old phonebooks, they eventually made contact with his ex-babysitter who happened to know his current whereabouts.

After 16 years of silence, one phone call reunited him with his family.

"One day, in 1989, I got a call out of the blue. It was my older brother," said Misiewicz.

The joy of reunion was tempered by the news that his father had been executed by the Khmer Rouge in 1977 and his infant sister had died, probably of malnutrition, during the "Killing Fields" era.

Misiewicz, who has more than 300 sailors under his charge, says he often thinks about how hard it must have been to make the choice to separate him from his family.

"I am so grateful my father had the wisdom to make that decision. It was a very tough decision, very heart-breaking," he said.

Now Misiewicz is looking forward to reconnecting with relatives and exposing his sailors to the country through community outreach projects and training exercises with the Cambodian navy.

The USS Mustin, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, will be stationed in Sihanoukville, on Cambodia's southwestern coastline, for four days from Friday.

"I've been so blessed to have had these opportunities and I feel honoured and privileged to come back," the ship's commander said.

Misiewicz added that he feels "very close" to his birth mother and siblings.

"I did buy my mom that house -- in Texas," he said -- making good on a promise made nearly four decades ago. Read more!

First Vietnamese supermarket to open in Cambodia

A corner of the first Vietnam Supermarket in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which will open in the end of December.


The first Vietnam Supermarket in Cambodia will open on December 29, creating advantageous condition for domestic businesses to sell and advertise Vietnamese goods to people in this neighboring country.

Construction of the Vietnam Supermarket, in Monivong Street, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, has a total capital of US$3 million, invested by Z38 Company, a member of Vietnamese Business Association in Cambodia.

Located on 3,300 square meters, the supermarket will sell goods for Vietnamese companies with the prices set by themselves. Payment would be conducted through Agribank, BIDC Bank and Sacombank.

Seng Meng, the supermarket chairman and the association deputy chairman, said that the Vietnam Supermarket will meet demand of oversea Vietnamese living in Cambodia and the rising number of Cambodian who have loved Vietnamese goods.

In addition, the facility will help those who want to but yet expand business to Cambodia as they have been afraid of language difference and procedures, he said.

Besides having his supermarket to sell their goods, Vietnamese companies could hire stalls to do that themselves. The Vietnam Supermarket will assist them with export-import procedures and selling staff, who are oversea Vietnamese being able to speak both Vietnamese and Cambodian.

The Z38 Company has planned to open another three Vietnam Supermarkets in other Cambodian provinces including the famous tourist destination Siem Reap. Read more!

Akron natives wage campaign against sex trafficking of children

Pat Galbincea, The Plain Dealer

MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Akron natives Carl and Laurie Ralston have a strong calling to prevent the sex trafficking of children.

They've dedicated their lives to doing something about it. It was one of the reasons they recently brought 21-year-old Nhu Thanh, a sex-trafficking victim at age 12 while in Cambodia, to Grace Christian & Missionary Alliance Church in Middleburg Heights to talk about the problem.

The Ralstons were so moved by Nhu's story when they learned of her plight in 2003 that one year later -- before they ever met or saw her -- Carl Ralston sold his lucrative insurance business in Akron to establish Remember Nhu, an IRS-recognized nonprofit organization to help prevent children from entering the sex trade.

"I had heard about Miss Nhu from a missionary in Cambodia," Ralston said. "After he told his story about her, God spoke to my heart. My wife and I wanted to help this young lady."

Six-year search finally finds sex trafficking victim

The Ralstons made six trips to Cambodia over three years before they found her. They walked up and down the Mekong River with Nhu's picture, asking people if they recognized her.

They finally found someone who recognized Nhu in July 2006. The Ralstons found her working in a hair salon in Phnom Penh.

Her story, which she told earlier this month in services at Grace CMA Church, evoked tears from the congregation, according to church Senior Pastor Jonathan Schaeffer.

Carl Ralston first talked about Nhu to church members three years earlier, explaining how he hoped to establish Remember Nhu. One member wrote him a check for $5,000.

Grandmother, deep in debt to feed family, sells girl into sex trade

Nhu, who spoke with The Plain Dealer at the church Tuesday, said her mother abandoned her when she was only 3 days old. She has seen her mother only three times in her life.

She was raised by her grandmother, but by the time she was 12, her grandmother had to borrow money to feed and clothe the family -- with interest at 10 percent per week on the unpaid balance.

Nhu said that since there was no work in Cambodia, her grandmother sold her to a woman who in turn demanded Nhu satisfy the sexual desires of a man who was 30 years older. She spent three days with him in a hotel.

Nhu was sold into sexual slavery two more times before she begged her grandmother to stop for fear she would be sold next to a brothel.

"I went to school to learn cosmetology when I was 13," Nhu said, "and I cleaned at the school because I couldn't afford the tuition. When I completed one year of school, I went to work when I was 14 -- working 12 hours a day with one or two days off a month."

Instead of intervention, giving children a home -- and hope

That's when the Ralstons found Nhu and were able to assist her. Carl Ralston decided to build a home in Cambodia to educate and shelter children like Nhu who were at risk of being sold into sex trafficking.

"My wife and I decided to focus on preventing sex trafficking rather than intervening," he said. "Intervention hasn't worked well. We researched and found it takes $6,000 a year to try and get a child out of the sex trade . . . and found 75 percent of them fall back or relapse into it.

"But the cost of prevention is only $700 a year to care for and train and educate these children, and only 3 percent of them end up in the sex trade."

The Ralstons' first home was built in Phnom Penh in January 2007, housing 18 children. Nhu became the home's first employee, helping train the children and then opening up a hair salon. Most children came via word-of-mouth seeking a haven from sex trafficking.

From this origin, Remember Nhu now has eight homes in five countries -- Cambodia, the Philippines, India, Thailand and Myanmar (formerly Burma) -- with about 200 children. The Ralstons have rescued 300 children.

"We teach the kids English, get them computer literate and send them to public schools," Carl Ralston said. "We want to get them into college, but if they're not college bound, we get them vocational training.

"We keep these kids safe from sex trafficking . . . and that can be up to age 22. We keep them until they are no longer at risk."

Caring for a child costs $60 a month

The Ralstons said they can care for each child -- giving them food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care -- for $60 a month. The last home they built in Thailand cost $120,000 and houses 60 children and young adults.

Nhu and the Ralstons have received major help from 3,500-member Grace CMA Church. There are 70 individuals sponsoring 70 girls at risk, Schaeffer said, and 41 families are sponsoring the building of another Remember Nhu home next March in Thailand.

Carl Ralston, who is 49, and his 42-year-old wife plan to fight sex trafficking overseas until the problem is eradicated. They, along with Nhu, moved to Thailand in May.

"We're committed to stop this until the day we die," he said. "We figure sex trafficking became a big problem in a 10-year period of time, so maybe we can stop it in a 10-year period."

As for Nhu, her plans are to improve her English so she can speak eloquently on behalf of the organization named after her.
Read more!

Survivors Recall Horrifying Hours on Bridge

From left to right: Ros Kong, Bun Sophal, and Math Seila. The Diamond Bridge survivors were guests on Hello VOA, on Thursday.


On Monday night, there were sounds of joy, as revelers spent the last few hours of the three-day Water Festival on Diamond Island. But as they crossed the bridge, those sounds were replaced by groans, as more and more people packed onto the structure.

People were pressed from all sides, three survivors of the tragedy, which claimed 347 lives, told “Hello VOA” on Thursday.

“When the crowd became more and more narrow, with people pushing in, it was hard to breathe,” said Ros Kong, who was stuck among the mass of people that would eventually panic and stampede. “People then tried to push upwards to breathe. The whole crowd became like trees bent in a gust of wind, to the left or right, as the wave of pushing surged.”

Authorities have not found a definitive moment when the overcrowding devolved into something more dangerous, but an investigative committee official said Wednesday he suspected people thought the swaying suspension bridge was close to collapse.

As panic ensued, people began to climb over each other. Those who could not stand fell beneath the feet of the others. Health officials say most of the casualties were crushed or suffocated.

For survivor Bun Sophal, the stampede led to an arduous wait on the bridge, as police and medical responders fought a heavy crowd to reach the bridge.

“I almost made it to the end of the bridge,” Bun Sophal said. “But because it was too narrow, I got stuck right there. I had to wait until I almost died for police to come.”

The survivors spoke live following a national day of mourning that brought some comfort to relatives of the victims. But serious questions remain as to who was responsible for allowing thousands of people to crowd onto the bridge.

Callers to “Hello VOA” said they wanted to know what caused the panic and who was to blame for the deaths. So far there have been few answers. The government’s inquiry is expected to issue results next week.

“I don’t know if there were police at both ends, because I was trapped in the middle of the bridge,” Math Seila, a third survivor said. “Had there been, they would have been able to save us on time.”

She eventually jumped from the bridge, escaping the crush of people but injuring herself in the process.

Ros Kong said it took almost two hours for police to reach the bridge.

“I could only see the authorities coming to help us after people started fainting and died,” Math Seila said. “Had there been security forces close by, they would have helped us long before. I just wonder why.” Read more!