PM heads to Brunei on her first trip

Yingluck begins Asean tour at the weekend to cement relations; Indonesia and Cambodia also on travel itinerary


Prime Minister Yingluck Shina-watra will make her first trip overseas, beginning with Brunei, this weekend aimed at cementing ties with Asean countries, a government source said yesterday.

Yingluck will make a one-day visit to Brunei on September 10, to Indonesia on September 12 and to Cambodia on September 15.

Foreign Ministry officials had recommended that Prime Minister Yingluck and Foreign Minister Surapong Towichukchaikul visit Asean members in alphabet order but the schedules of counterparts in foreign countries did not make this possible.

The Asean members in alphabetical order are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myan-mar (Burma), the Philippines, Singa-pore, Thailand and Vietnam. Although visiting the countries in alphabetical order was not possible, Yingluck has made Brunei her first foreign destination as PM.

Brunei is the country which her brother and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra often visited while in exile. Thaksin openly met former prime minister Banharn Silpa-archa, who is de-facto leader of the coalition Chart Thai Pattana Party, in Brunei recently to discuss a portfolio quota in the Yingluck cabinet.

Yingluck's next stop will be Indonesia, which currently holds the rotating chairmanship of Asean. Jakarta is also playing a crucial role in facilitating peace efforts between Thailand and Cambodia following a border dispute at the Hindu temple of Preah Vihear.

Indonesia planned to dispatch an observer team to assess the situation and observe troop withdrawal from the disputed area adjacent to the temple in accordance with the order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The court ordered Thailand and Cambodia to withdraw their troops from the court-determined demilitarised zone near the temple pending interpretation of the 1962 judgement on the Preah Vihear case. The court wanted the two countries to welcome an Indonesian observer team for the troop-withdrawal process. Cambodia decided to fully comply with the ICJ injunction. The previous Thai government under Abhisit Vejjajiva did not take any clear position on the order and Yingluck also has not yet announced her stand.

She will visit Cambodia on September 15, to introduce herself to the government in Phnom Penh while also attempting to improve bilateral relations after the boundary conflict.

Foreign Minister Surapong said he would be accompanying the prime minister to Phnom Penh and seek the opportunity to meet his Cambodian counterpart Hor Namhong to discuss various issues that have been at the core of the conflict between the two countries. The minister said he would seek ways to secure the release of the two Thai nationalist activists - Veera Somkwamkid and Ratree Pipatanapaiboon - who are serving jail sentences in Phnom Penh on espionage charges.

Defence Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapha plans to visit Cambodia on September 23-24 to discuss troop arrangement along the border and the possibility of activating a meeting of the General Border Committee.

Meanwhile, in a separate event, the Kanthalalak court yesterday sentenced to two years' imprisonment a Thai national Suchart Muhammad, a Cambodian Ung Kimtai and a Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Don.

They were arrested on June 7 in Si Sa Ket's Kanthalalak district while driving a pickup truck to see the military outpost in the area. The court convicted them of spying on the locations of the military bases and bunkers of civilians along the border. Read more!

Artist Vann Nath, Khmer Rouge Survivor, Dies at 66

Paintings by human rights icon and artists Vann Nath depicting how torture devices were used hang on the walls of Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, June 2011.


Family members say Cambodia's Vann Nath, one of only seven survivors of a vast and notorious Khmer Rouge torture center, died Monday at age 66.

The human rights icon and artist was hospitalized late last month after suffering heart problems and has been in a coma for days. His son-in-law told the French news agency Agence France Presse his death was "a big loss for the history of Cambodia."

Vann Nath was one of only a handful of people to emerge alive from the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, where more than 12,000 people died in the 1970s under Khmer Rouge rule. In later life he became a leading advocate for victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities.

His 1998 memoir - A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge's S-21 Prison - is the only written account by a survivor of the prison.

News of Vann Nath's death comes as an international tribunal prepares to begin the long-awaited trial of the four most-senior surviving Khmer Rouge leaders - all charged with atrocities during the group's 1975-1979 rule. The defendants, including the nominal Khmer Rouge head of state, 79-year-old Khieu Samphan, face charges of religious persecution, torture and genocide in the deaths of as many as 2 million people.

The tribunal also is deliberating an appeal by convicted war criminal Duch, the one-time chief of Tuol Sleng prison. Duch was convicted of war crimes and imprisoned earlier this year for 30 years - a sentence later reduced to 19 years because of time served in detention. Read more!

Land rights acrimony in AusAID Asian project

A TAXPAYER-FUNDED development project is mired in controversy after the Cambodian government launched a crackdown against land rights organisations critical of the compulsory resettlement of families.

The Cambodian government has cautioned a small group of foreign organisations against stirring up unrest among those being forced off their land and has banned land rights organisation Sahmakum Teang Tnaut from operating for five months.

AusAID first assistant director general Richard Moore told The Australian the agency was concerned and had co-written a strongly-worded letter with the Asian Development Bank to the Cambodian government on August 17.

AusAID has contributed $US21.5 million ($20.3m) towards the $US141m project to renovate Cambodia's decrepit rail system, with the Asian Development Bank providing $US84m in concessional loans.

The Cambodian government is responsible for resettling and compensating people who are forced off their land.

But STT has accused the Cambodian government of ripping people off by downgrading the value of land being compulsorily acquired through the project.

Mr Moore conceded there were problems with the project and that the Department of Foreign Affairs was working through more than 300 complaints.

"We knew that managing the resettlement issues was going to be complex," he said.

STT program co-ordinator Ee Sarom said his organisation did not want to stop the development, but wanted problems highlighted. Project partners should "address anomalies and ensure the affected people are aware of their rights".

"This type of work is important in ensuring development projects are equitable, sustainable, and beneficial to all Cambodians."

AusAID and the development bank came under fire from STT and other land rights groups in May after two young children drowned at a resettlement site for residents displaced by the project.

The Cambodian government cautioned staff from the NGO Forum, an umbrella organisation, over letters it sent to AusAID and ADB officials alerting them about the situation at resettlement sites.

It also summoned staff from Bridges Across Borders Cambodia, another land rights group, to warn them about making "false" claims. Read more!

US companies find Asean market increasingly important

KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 5, 2011): American companies expect the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) market to become increasingly important for their businesses, according to the findings of the Asean Business Outlook Survey 2011.

The majority of companies or some 73% of the survey respondents said they expect Asean's importance to their business will increase over the next two years, with 85% of them planning to expand their business in Asean.

No company is planning on any cutback, it said.

The survey also revealed that the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement was vital for US businesses, with 80% of respondents saying that their companies used the tariff benefits of the FTAs Asean has completed with its trade partners.

"The Asean-China FTA was also highly rated with 49% of companies using its benefits," the survey revealed.

The Asean Business Outlook survey, which is now in its 10th year, seeks to understand the outlook on business growth and perceptions of doing business in Asean.

It interviewed 327 senior executives from US companies in Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, The Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The survey was conducted by The American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (AmCham Singapore) in collaboration with many other related associations and chambers.

Meanwhile, on Malaysia, the survey said Malaysia improved in a number of local business factors, such as the availability of raw materials and low cost labour in 2011.

"However, new concerns have appeared, including the availability of trained personnel for some positions and problems with laws and regulations.

"Corruption, a long-standing issue, has greatly improved, with only 35% dissatisfaction this year compared to 63% in 2010," the survey said, adding that overall, 80% of the respondents still predicted that their business will expand in Malaysia.

The survey also revealed that all respondents had predicted an increase in the housing cost as well as living cost and three quarters of the respondents expect an increase in the interest rate.

Vice President of AmCham Malaysia, Datuk Tim Garland said the American companies' positive business forecast and expansion in Malaysia were great testaments to the effective implementation of Malaysia's Government Transformation Program (GTP) and Economic Transformation Program (ETP).

"AmCham Malaysia is excited to be part of Malaysia corporate expansion in Asean and we will be working closely with all key stakeholders towards reducing regulatory barriers and improving the ease of doing business locally and in Asean, for existing and potential American investors as they share in Asean growth," he said.

The majority of respondents, he said, are satisfied or neutral towards the government’s guidelines and the fairness of their applications, and with local government institutions. – Bernama
Read more!

Cambodia makes 7th troop withdraw from border with Thailand

PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Monday pulled out another 500 troops from the border area with Thailand, marking the seventh of such withdrawals since the two neighboring countries' military tension began to ease in July.

The troops in the Battalion No. 408 stationed along Cambodian and Thai border, some 32 kilometers west of the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, moved back to their barracks in Siem Reap province.

The troop pullback ceremony was held on Monday with the participation of Gen. Kun Kim, deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Force, and Gen. Chea Dara, deputy commander-in-chief of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces for Preah Vihear Direction.

Kun Kim reiterated that the pullout was made at the behest of Prime Minister Hun Sen, adding the withdrawals have been made only outside the provisional demilitarized zone (PDZ) defined by the International Court of Justice.

"The pullout from the PDZ of about 17 kilometers surrounding the Preah Vihear temple must be done simultaneously with Thai troops," he said.

On July 18, the International Court of Justice ordered Cambodia and Thailand to immediately withdraw their military personnel from the provisional demilitarized zone on the disputed border near Preah Vihear temple and allow ASEAN observers access to the provisional demilitarized zone to monitor ceasefire.

The conflict between Cambodia and Thailand broke out just a week after the Preah Vihear temple was listed as World Heritage Site on July 7, 2008.

Thailand claims the ownership of 4.6 sq km of scrub next to the temple.

However, the military tension has eased since former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party won a landslide victory in July's general election.
Read more!

US broadcaster stands by its reporting in contempt of court row

Phnom Penh - US broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) on Friday shrugged off a contempt of court citation by judges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, describing it as 'unwarranted.'

VOA added that it was concerned the citation could have a 'chilling effect' on coverage of the UN-backed court.

Investigating judges at the war crimes court said Wednesday that they had started proceedings against VOA after its Cambodian language service, VOA Khmer, quoted from a confidential court document and showed the document in two broadcasts in August.

The document, which was leaked this year, is the prosecution's file detailing crimes allegedly committed by three suspects in the tribunal's fourth case. The investigating judges are currently examining those allegations. 

'The careful use of confidential sources and documents that provide important insight into critical issues is a well-established practice by independent journalists the world over,' VOA argued in a statement.

'Furthermore, the documents in question have been used by other news organizations,' the broadcaster said.

The court estimated that 1.7 million to 2.2 million people died during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule of Cambodia. The three suspects in case four are under investigation for their alleged roles in some of those deaths.

On Thursday, tribunal spokeswoman Yuko Maeda said the investigating judges would not disclose any details of the contempt investigation, but she said judges were pursuing VOA Khmer because 'they had already given a public warning in June [about quoting from the case four file, and VOA still quoted from that confidential document.'

Legal experts said this week that it was unclear how the court would proceed against VOA Khmer not least since the staff involved are based at VOA's headquarters in Washington.

The investigating judges office was widely criticized this year for closing its third case, which was against two former Khmer Rouge military officers, without interviewing the two suspects or investigating crime sites.

Its decision to close that case, which the international prosecutor has appealed, led to a number of foreign staff resigning from the office.

The investigating judges later denied accusations they were bending to the will of the Cambodian government, which has stated repeatedly it would not permit any prosecutions beyond case two. Observers said they fear case four would also be scuttled.

Case two, testimony in which was expected to start next year, sees the four surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The elderly defendants have denied all charges.

In its first case, the court last year sentenced the regime's security chief, Comrade Duch, to 30 years in prison after finding him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Duch has appealed his conviction.

This week, the tribunal's Supreme Court chamber said it would try to rule on Duch's appeal by the end of this year.
Read more!

Suthep reaffirms no secret talks with Cambodia

BANGKOK, Sept 3 - Former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban on Saturday denied Cambodia's claims over alleged secret talks on overlapping oil and gas-rich maritime territories during the tenure of Abhisit Vejjajiva administration, while challenging the Thai government to speed up investigation of the matter.

Mr Suthep made remarks following a statement by the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA) claiming that secret meetings between him and his Cambodian counterpart Sok An were held several times in various locations such as Cambodia’s Kandal province, China’s Kunming city in Yunnan, and Hong Kong, to deal with overlapping claims to the offshore area believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra also assigned Foreign Minister Surapong Towichakchaikul to look into the case.

Mr Suthep, former deputy premier who supervised national security, reasserted that it was Cambodian deputy prime minister Sok An who contacted him for unofficial meetings, before an official meeting on maritime demarcation would be officially held.

"After the unofficial talks, I reported the outcome to concerned agencies, with about 30 to 40 people being informed of the meeting results," stated Mr Suthep. "So it was not a secret."

The Democrat MP said that an official meeting however was not held due to the ongoing tensions between Thailand and Cambodia stemming from a border dispute.

"If the government will set up a committee to probe the case, I have no problem, and I challenge them to speed up the investigation and reveal the results to the public no matter who may benefit from the outcome," reaffirmed Mr Suthep.

Following allegations by the foreign minister saying Mr Suthep, former defence minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan and Cambodian deputy premier Sok An jointly opened an energy investment firm, Mr Suthep asserted he has never invested in any energy business with anyone, while urging those who have evidence that he formed such a company to disclose the details.

Mr Suthep said he was willing to divest the business for public benefit if it was found that he had such a business.

Foreign minister Surapong earlier said he would send a letter to Cambodia seeking more details on the allegations regarding Mr Suthep, while defending there was no hidden agenda over the Cambodian move, as Phnom Penh has affirmed that it wanted to improve relations with Thailand.

The Phnom Penh Post earlier reported a CNPA statement saying meetings between high ranking officials including Prime Minister Hun Sen, Deputy Minister Sok An, former Thai deputy prime minister Suthep and former defence minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan took place between June 2009 and July 2010 at various locations, and that Mr Suthep at the time “indicated a strong preference to resolve this issue during the mandate of the Abhisit government.”

As Mr Abhisit earlier accused deposed premier Thaksin Shinawara of having secret interests with Cambodia, the CNPA statement said it needed to reveal the truth “to protect the interests of Cambodia and H.E. Thaksin Shinawatra against baseless allegations made on the part of the Democrats.” (MCOT online news) Read more!

FM: Dems must explain 'secret talks'

Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul has demanded that former Democrat prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his deputy Suthep Thaugsuban clarify the alleged secret talks about oil and gas interests in the overlapping marine area with Cambodia during their government's tenure.

Mr Surapong said on Friday he will investigate the case openly to ensure all sides are happy and that the investigation will not yield benefits to the current administration.

"When Mr Suthep was assigned to negotiate with Cambodia, the Democrat-led government had not revoked the Thai-Cambodian memorandum of understanding [on an overlapping maritime border area]," the minister said.

The Cambodian government had no hidden agenda when revealing the alleged secret talks, he said.

Mr Surapong said he will visit Phnom Penh on Sept 14 to discuss ways to help yellow-shirt activist Veera Somkwamkid and his secretary Ratree Pipatanapaiboon, who were convicted of illegal entry and espionage and jailed in Cambodia.

The newforeign minister said he had decided to arrange his Asean tour schedule in alphabetical order and will travel to Brunei first on Sept 11.

The regional tour will encompass all the nine other member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

"I will start with Brunei as it is first alphabetically, but Indonesia will come second because it's currently chairman of Asean," he told reporters.

The alphabetical order will then resume with a trip to Cambodia, on Sept 14, and then Laos.

Mr Surapong, whose appointment last month attracted criticism because of his lack of real experience in foreign affairs, said he would visit all other Asean nations -- Malaysia, Burma, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam -- during September but gave no specific dates for each country.
Read more!

Thai Foreign Minister to visit Cambodia Sept 14

BANGKOK, Sept 1 - Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Towichakchaikul said on Friday he would visit Cambodia on Sept 14, as part of his introductory trip among the members countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and at the same time will seek additional information on the alleged secret talks on overlapping oil and gas-rich maritime area between the previous Thai government and Cambodia.

The foreign minister said he planned to visit the other nine members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in alphabetical order, beginning with Brunei.

Mr Surapong said he will visit Cambodia on September 14 and he will seek the opportunity to help secure the release of two activists of Thailand's Patriot Network, Veera Somkwamkid and Ratree Pipattanapaiboon, now being detained in a Cambodian jail for illegal entry and spying charges.

Regarding the allegation of the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA) that secret meetings between former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban and his Cambodian counterpart Sok An were held several times to deal with overlapping claims to the offshore area believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves, Mr Surapong said Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has assigned him to look into the case.

The foreign minister urged Mr Suthep to come clean to the public as the meetings were allegedly held secretly without acknowledgement of the Thai foreign ministry and other concerned officials.

"I will send a letter to Cambodia seeking more details on that and will inform the public if any evidence or facts are established," Mr Surapong said, assuring the public that there is no hidden agenda over the Cambodian move as Phnom Penh has affirmed that it wants to improve its relations with Thailand.

"In the statement, Cambodia insists it needs to disclose the information as Mr Suthep had been assigned by Mr Abhisit to discuss the matter secretly several times and the Thai public may be curious about it," Mr Surapong said.

“I also doubt why the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the maritime conflict of interest was cancelled by a Thai cabinet resolution on Nov 10, 2009, but not made official, and then a year later Mr Suthep was re-appointed to chair a committee on the matter,” he added.

The Cambodian statement said that meetings between high ranking officials including Prime Minister Hun Sen, Deputy Minister Sok An, former Thai deputy prime minister Suthep and former defence minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan took place in June 2009 and July 2010 in various locations including Cambodia’s Kandal province, China’s Kunming city in Yunnan, and Hong Kong.

The statement claimed Mr Suthep at the time “indicated a strong preference to resolve this issue during the mandate of the Abhisit government.”

As Mr Abhisit earlier accused deposed premier Thaksin Shinawara of having secret interests with Cambodia, the CNPA statement said it needs to reveal the truth “to protect the interests of Cambodia and H.E. Thaksin Shinawatra against baseless allegations made on part of the Democrats.”

Meanwhile, former Thai prime minister and the opposition Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva explained that he assigned Mr Suthep to oversee the matter as talks between the sides were needed to fine-tune some information before bringing the case to Parliament. All moves however were suspended after Phnom Penh appointed the fugitive ex-premier Thaksin as its adviser.

Mr Suthep has clearly clarified the issue and there was nothing unusual, Mr Abhisit said, “If there was something wrong, why did we have to suspend the 2001 MoU?"

Mr Abhisit also commented that the statement of Cambodian government casting his government in a bad light is clear in itself that his government had no vested interests with the neighbouring country.

The Democrat leader added the foreign ministry advised him to put the 2001 MoU on hold as it affects the maritime demarcation. He urged the public to closely monitor the cooperation between Cambodian government and the current Thai government, which he says is preferred by Phnom Penh. (MCOT online) Read more!

Boy, 3, readied for open-heart surgery

LOS ANGELES - An impoverished Cambodian boy in need of an open-heart operation met with hospital staff Thursday and appears set for the procedure.


Bunkek Song holds her 3-year-old brother, heart patient Bunlak Song, in the Cambodian New Year Parade in Long Beach on Saturday. (Jeff Gritchen / Staff Photographer)


Children's Hospital Los Angeles has set Sept. 23 as the tentative date for surgery for Bunlak Song, according to Peter Chhun, whose Long Beach-based nonprofit is sponsoring the boy.

Before the boy can have the heart procedure, he needs dental work done. That will be done Tuesday, which had initially been the the proposed date for the surgery. Bunlak had been scheduled to meet with heart surgeon Cynthia Herrington, who will perform the operation, but she was unavailable.

The 3-year-old boy from a small village in Cambodia suffers from a large hole in his heart called a ventricular septal defect and several other less severe heart ailments.

Because of the hole, blood is shunted backward through the heart and sends oxygenated blood into the lungs, damaging them. Left untreated, it becomes irreversible. In the United States, the defect is usually treated in the first year of life.

Bunlak has been unable to receive treatment in Cambodia and was brought to the United States by Chhun and his nonprofit, Hearts Without Boundaries.

The boy is the fourth heart patient the group has sponsored. The other three, Davik Teng, Soksamnang Vy and Socheat Nha, all had successful surgeries and have returned to their homeland.

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, Read more!

Climate Change Poses Major Threat to Cambodia’s Rural Poor

The Cambodian economy faces major problems for its predominantly rural population in the event of more erratic climate shifts, according to the United Nations Development Programme’s 2011 Cambodian Human Development Report.

“This is an agrarian economy that depends very much on weather. And we are among the poorest countries in the world,” said Dr Tin Ponlok, deputy director general of the Ministry of Environment’s Climate Change Department, in a press conference, as quoted by the Phnom Penh Post.

About 80 percent of Cambodia's 14 million people live in rural areas, and rely mainly on agriculture as their primary source of livelihood. According to some studies, rice production – a key agricultural product – could decline significantly if the temperature rose by just one degree Celsius.

"Seasonal practices are now changing and the growing cycle for rice is changing more and more," said Richard Friend, co-author of the report.

"Many farmers lose their seedlings when the rains are delayed," he said. "The rains appear to be coming later than usual in line with climate change projections for Cambodia and the region."

Dr Ponlok added that the country’s economic structure had made it particularly susceptible to climate change.

“We have very limited adaptive capacity… so climate change poses additional threats to efforts to develop the country,” he said.

The poorest Cambodians are expected to experience the worst effects of climate change. As a result, the report suggests that it is important for the country to it alleviate poverty by “ensuring universal access to health care, improving disease monitoring and surveillance, and establishing social safety nets”.

“By strengthening these critical areas of vulnerability and poverty, the likely impacts of climate change can be reduced,” the report says.

“At the same time, the human capital of the country can be strengthened and directed to the kinds of actions needed to make positive, longer-term development changes.”

According to Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon, addressing the effects of climate change is now one of the government’s highest priorities. However he warned that future action had to be thoroughly incorporated into strategic policies across all sectors at the national and sub-national levels in order to build future resilience.

"This needs to be done particularly in the sectors that are the backbone of the national economy such as agriculture, water resources, fisheries, forestry, energy and physical infrastructure," he said.

Dr Ponlok supported his views and stressed the importance of developing any future national development strategies with climate change in mind.

“We are at the early stages of our development, so it’s quite important to design the most appropriate development pathway. We call it the green growth economy, that takes climate change into account,” he said. “It’s not very easy, because no such model is in place.” Read more!

FEATURE-'Land grabs' mar Cambodia's boom, rattle investors

 
* As economy grows, forced evictions rise

* Lack of documents cause of land disputes

* EU concerned; duty-free deal may be withdrawn on some produce

By Prak Chan Thul

PHNOM PENH, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Kong Song's farmland was his family's livelihood for three decades until the bulldozers moved in and tore down his home in rural Cambodia to make way for a multimillion dollar foreign-led business.

His family was one of 253 forcibly evicted five years ago in southern Koh Kong province to accommodate a $90.6 million sugar project by a firm lured by duty-free exports to the European Union that were designed to help the world's poorest countries.

This is the flip side of a foreign investment boom in which the rich and powerful cash in at the expense of what rights groups estimate is about 30,000 Cambodians forcibly evicted from their homes a year.

The evictions and so-called "land grabs" have angered donors, putting at stake hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid as well as a trade scheme that gives Cambodian produce tariff-free access to the European Union.

Kong Song is fighting back. He and his neighbours have filed a lawsuit against the Koh Kong Sugar Industry Ltd, a joint venture with Thailand's Khon Kaen Sugar and Taiwan's Vewong Corporation. But, as with most legal challenges against Cambodia's business elite, it has gone nowhere.

"We're demanding that Cambodia's development is development for all, not the kind that makes its people shed tears," Kong Song said during a visit to the capital Phnom Penh.

Neither Koh Kong Sugar nor Khon Kaen Sugar responded to interview requests when contacted by Reuters.

Kong Song's story is common in Cambodia. He survived the 1975-1979 "Year Zero" revolution by the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime and rebuilt his life, cultivating a small plot of land in the countryside.

But land ownership was abolished under the brutal regime and most legal documents were destroyed, leaving Kong Song and millions of Cambodians without title deeds.

That leaves him and others in a legal grey-zone, particularly during a wave of development led by politically connected businesses and foreign firms, mostly from China, that line up to buy up disputed land to start agriculture, mining or real estate projects.

International donors and lenders such as the World Bank have criticised the government and threatened to halt loans until a solution is found. The government's response has been to cancel its annual meeting with donors, citing global economic uncertainty and Western countries "mired in crisis".

ALARMING TREND

The trend has raised questions about whether Cambodia should be entitled to an initiative by the European Union, which allows 48 of the world's poorest nations to export any produce other than weapons to EU states, without paying tariffs.

Foreign firms have capitalised on the deal, known as the Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative, and many more are showing interest in Cambodia, including sugar, rice and rubber exporters from neighbouring Thailand.

The subsequent foreign investment has created thousands of jobs, especially in garment manufacturing, which employs 300,000 of Cambodia's 13.4 million people and is the third-largest revenue source for its fledgling $11 billion economy.

It has also elevated Europe as a crucial export destination. The EU was Cambodia's second-largest export market last year after the United States, generating some 930 million euros ($1.3 billion) up 29 percent from 2009.

The most-recent EU data shows the revenue generated in the first five months of this year is already double that of the whole of 2010. Rice exports are expected to swell further after doubling to 40,000 tonnes in 2010 from the previous year.

The EU's Charge d'Affaires in Cambodia, Rafael Dochao Moreno, said tax incentives had made the country an attractive destination for investment and said the EU was "seriously concerned" about land disputes and evictions.

"Thousands of families have been expelled from their land. We want the government to take the necessary steps to avoid this kind of eviction especially when they are done by force and with violence," he said.

Cambodia's government needed to conduct proper consultations before granting future economic land concessions, he said, adding that certain projects could have privileges withdrawn if found to have been involved in unlawful evictions.

"There are indeed provisions ... outlining the procedure of temporary withdrawal of certain products originating in a country benefiting from the EBA," he said.

Such penalties could undermine Cambodia's efforts to position itself as one of Asia's most-promising frontier markets and instead highlight its struggle to tame corruption.

Alexandra Herbel, head of the French-Cambodian Chamber of Commerce, said Western companies looking to do business in Cambodia were keen to "invest correctly" and most would avoid projects associated with disputed land or evictions.

Cambodian Commerce Secretary of State Mao Thura said steps should be taken to ensure EBA privileges were not withdrawn, but he declined to provide specifics.

"The people who benefit from the EBA are a few million," Mao Thura said during a recent forum on the EBA. "We're not just talking only about the garment sector, millions of our people are farmers." (Editing by Martin Petty and Jason Szep) Read more!

CAMBODIA-THAILAND: Men trafficked into "slavery" at sea

PHNOM PENH, 29 August 2011 (IRIN) - Taing Ky* and his cousin were told they would be gardeners in Thailand, but instead they were forced to work on Thai fishing boats.

Each year, hundreds of Cambodian men, many impoverished farmers, are lured from their homes with the promise of better-paying jobs in Thailand, only to find themselves on Thai fishing boats plying the waters of the South China Sea.

"We were told we would earn good money," Taing Ky, 37, a father-of-five from Cambodia's Kampot Province, about 200km southwest of Phnom Penh, told IRIN. After six months, they managed to escape while the boat was offloading on Benjina island in northern Indonesia. There they were picked up by local authorities.

Thousands of Cambodian men are now believed to be working against their will in exploitative working conditions on long-haul trawlers well beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies, and often alongside Burmese men.

"It's slavery. There's no other way to describe it," Lim Tith, national project coordinator for the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), told IRIN.

Thousands exploited
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), about 125,000 Cambodians are registered as working legally in Thailand, including more than 25,000 in the fishing sector.

But with formal migration costs becoming prohibitive and limited economic opportunities for Cambodians at home, it is widely believed the number of undocumented Cambodians in Thailand is significantly higher; many are trafficked.

Of the 89,096 Cambodians deported from Thailand in 2009 for illegal migration, more than 20,000 (23 percent) were reportedly trafficked, according to a 2010 UNIAP Human Trafficking Sentinel Surveillance.

And while about 31 percent of Cambodian fishermen deported from Thailand reported being trafficked, those on fishing boats far from Thai shores for up to a year at a time are more difficult to track and regularly drop off the radar.

"This is a big problem, but the cases we actually receive are really just the tip of the iceberg," said Lim Tith. "The true number of men being trafficked in this manner is much higher."

In addition, the problem appears to be shifting from Malaysia to Indonesian waters, where more and more men are now being reported, 25 this year alone, he said.

Traumatized
Those lucky enough to escape report 20-hour work days, food deprivation, regular beatings and threats at the hands of the crew, many of whom are armed.

"The captain had a gun. We had no choice but to work," said one survivor.

So bad are conditions that those deemed expendable are tossed overboard.

"Many of these men have been badly traumatized by what's happened to them," Mom Sok Char, programme manager for Legal Support for Children and Women (LSCW), a local NGO and one of the first to monitor the trafficking of men, explained. "After months of forced labour, that's understandable."

Culturally, most men do not seek psychological support, he said, making follow-up and adjustment back into the community particularly difficult.

"More and more men are falling victim and this is a genuine concern of the Cambodian government," San Arun, chairwoman of the Cambodian Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT) taskforce, agreed. "It's not just women and children any more," she said, calling for greater regional cooperation on trafficking.

Thai action urged
Earlier this month, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, called on the Thai government to "do more to combat human trafficking effectively and protect the rights of migrant workers who are increasingly vulnerable to forced and exploitative labour.

"Thailand faces significant challenges as a source, transit and destination country," said the UN expert at the end of her 12-day mission to the country.

"The trend of trafficking for forced labour is growing in scale in the agricultural, construction and fishing industries," she said.

While commending the Thai government with the enactment of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2008, she warned that the implementation and enforcement of the law remained "weak and fragmented", often hampered by corruption, especially among low-cadre law enforcement officers at provincial and local levels.

"Thailand must do more to combat human trafficking effectively," Ezeilo concluded.

Thai authorities say there is little they can do about the trafficked Cambodians working on Thai fishing boats, particularly when the alleged crimes occurred outside Thai waters, if they do not report it.

According to UNIAP, most of the deportees who were exploited choose not to report their cases due to fear of their broker, employer, or the police; a lack of understanding of their rights; and/or inability to speak Thai.

*not his real name Read more!

The China Alternative: Cambodia

The China Alternative is our series covering other manufacturing destinations in emerging Asia that may start to compete with China in terms of labor costs, infrastructure and operational capacity. In this issue we look at Cambodia


By Kaitlin Shung

Aug. 29 – Tourists to Cambodia often take similar routes, discovering the wide and stately streets of Phnomn Penh before taking a dusty six hour bus ride to Siem Reap, home of the beautiful Angkor Wat. Among the ruins of the ancient Khmer Kingdom at Angkor Wat, local Cambodian children can often be seen calling out flattering phrases, usually in Chinese and English, looking for a crisp American dollar or a few pieces of candy.

Cambodia boasts a rich and more recently, bloody, history. An underdeveloped country of roughly 14.7 million, Cambodia was set back significantly in the 1970s under the extremist rule of the Khmer Rouge. It was estimated that nearly 20 percent of the population died under the leadership of Pol Pot due to starvation, torture, and executions, and the economy was completely dismantled.

As a result of its short time under French rule, the official languages spoken are Khmer, French and English, although French appears to be scarce except among the older generations. The majority of the population is within the 15-64 age range and the country has a respectable 73.6 percent literacy rate.

Cambodia operates as a multi-party democracy under a constitutional democracy, and the long-serving prime minister has a considerable amount of power. The head of State is King Norodom Sihamoni, who was sworn in on October 29, 2004 while the prime minister is Hun Sen.

The Cambodian currency is the riel (KHR), which traded, on average, at KHR4,145 to US$1 in 2010. In addition to the riel, U.S. dollars are also commonly accepted and according to the New York Times, almost 90 percent of deposits and credits in the banking system are denominated in U.S. dollars. With a large portion of capital and savings in the greenback, the Cambodian government ultimately has less ability to influence the economy and thus less control.

EconomyBefore the global financial slowdown, Cambodia was one of the strongest economic performers in Southeast Asia, posting annual growth of around 10 percent over the previous decade. Cambodia’s economy is focused in four key industries: tourism, clothing, construction and agriculture. The lack of diversification in the economy impacted on the country hard when the Global Financial Crisis hit and since then, the government has begun efforts at initiating reforms to encourage the development of emerging industries.

Within its labor force of 8.8 million, roughly 70 percent work in agriculture which constitutes roughly one-third of Cambodia’s GDP. The country’s GDP grew 6 percent year on year in 2010 to US$11.63 billion, which is comparatively about one-fiftieth the size of China’s economy. After agriculture, services account for 45.2 percent of GDP while industry contributes 21.4 percent.

Exports totaled US$3.687 billion in 2010, with primary export partners being Hong Kong, the United States and Singapore. Comparatively, imports were US$6.005 billion and primary import partners were China, Vietnam and Hong Kong. Key exports were clothing, timber, rubber, rice and fish while key imports were petroleum, cigarettes, gold and construction materials.

FDI inflows totaled US$532.5 million in 2010, with the majority of capital coming from China. Chinese investment is often preferred because it is generally unconditional, as opposed to Western investment which is usually tied to political and economic reform. In the first half of 2011 alone, Chinese investors had already put in place plans for 360 projects worth US$8 billion in Cambodia, which is nominally the equivalent of all Chinese investment in Southeast Asia in the previous year.

As previously mentioned, Cambodia has access to a number of natural resources, but the country often does not have the infrastructure in place to take advantage of those resources. For example, nearly 70 percent of the country is covered with trees, but the lumber industry falters under illegal logging, costing vast amounts of missed revenue.

Oil and natural gas were found in Cambodia in 2005, the exact amount of which has not been released, but commercial extraction is expected to begin in 2012.

Investing in Cambodia“We welcome investments in all sectors, including banking, insurance, and telecommunications. Investors can own 100 percent of their business here, in most countries 100 percent foreign ownership is not allowed,” Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has been quoted as saying.

Key industries for investment include agriculture (an industry which has an ample labor supply in Cambodia but lacks investment in physical infrastructure), technology to increase yields, and the country has a gaping hole where a processing and packaging industry should be. Furthermore, light industry and manufacturing are relatively underdeveloped, despite the low labor costs in the country. More information on investing in Cambodia can be found through the web site – www.investincambodia.com.

Taking the lead from China’s successful Special Economic Zones (SEZs), Cambodia has also begun to build SEZs, primarily along the country’s borders with Thailand and Vietnam. There are a total of 21 approved SEZs – of which five have already commenced operations and two are under construction. Cambodia’s SEZs offer tax and VAT benefits and strong government support has simplified importing and exporting into these areas.

Administratively, the government has set up two boards responsible for managing the country’s SEZs: the Cambodian Special Economic Zone Board and a separate trouble shooting committee. Both are headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and if managed properly, will help bring foreign investment into the country through these economic zones.

Investing in Cambodia has certainly been helped by the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2004 (Cambodia was the second least developed country to join the WTO through the full working party negotiation process). As a member of the WTO, Cambodia has taken steps to meet international trade and regulatory standards, including the implementation of a number of new legal reforms. Examples include: the Law on Commercial Enterprises (2005), the Law on Commercial Arbitration (2006) and the Law on Secured Transactions (2007).

In addition, Cambodia is also a member of ASEAN and the World Intellectual Property Organization.

The 2011 Index of Economic Freedom, a joint effort by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, ranked Cambodia 102 out of 179 countries or 17 out of 41 in the Asia-Pacific region. This is an improvement over the previous year’s ranking, attributed to improvements in monetary control, labor freedom and a reduction in corruption. Cambodia’s ranking suffers largely because of weak property rights and cumbersome bureaucracy.

Comparatively, the 2011 World Bank Doing Business Rankings ranked Cambodia as 147 out of 183 countries surveyed. A slight decrease from the 2010 rankings, Cambodia still has significant barriers in starting and closing a business as well as enforcing contracts.

Why invest in Cambodia?Cambodia is an attractive investment opportunity for a few key reasons. First, the country has an income tax rate of 20 percent and because of its desire to attract foreign investment, also offers additional tax incentives. For example, eligible projects can receive tax holidays of between six and nine years from initial investment.

Unlike ownership requirements in neighboring countries like China, Cambodia allows for 100 percent foreign owned businesses. The lack of price controls on goods and services and no restrictions on repatriation of funds, free up investors in terms of downgrading investment risk.

Its status as an undeveloped country also works to the benefits of investors through tariff-free exports, which Cambodia has when trading with partners like the United States, Canada and Europe. Entrance into Cambodia is a gateway to the rest of the ASEAN market and domestically, the signs of an emerging middle class are appearing. With that comes the increased local consumption of goods and services.

Furthermore, as a part of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), Cambodia is strategically located in a hotspot for both economic and political influence. The GMS includes Yunan Province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China, as well as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Currently, over US$10 billion has been pledged for infrastructure projects which will build economic corridors between countries in the region.

The positives aside, Cambodia’s business environment is not without problems and areas of concern. The most prevalent problem for foreign investors is corruption, which is reinforced by weak governance and a lacking legal framework.

In 2010, Transparency International ranked Cambodia 154th out of the 178 countries surveyed. Lack of transparency and abuse of power by government officials have drawn scrutiny to this Southeast Asian country. For example, a story came out this year about government action against two NGOs who were highlighting the negative effects of a US$84 million railroad investment, funded in part by the Asia Development Bank, on displaced families. Pressure on these groups opened the government to criticism and highlighted problems related to free speech in Cambodia.

High reliance on imported goods and services also do not speak well to the sustainability and strength of Cambodia’s economy.

Poor infrastructure in the country has impeded the development of local and global linkages between Cambodia and the world economy. The government has prioritized building roads, airports, telecommunication networks and has received support from foreign sources like the Asia Development Bank and the governments of Australia and China.

In 2010, the government passed the National Strategic Development Plan which focused on the country’s development from 2009 to 2013. A highlight of the plan was an estimated US$1.1 billion in development assistance, which was expected to be spent in 2010.

On a final positive note, Cambodia opened its own stock market earlier this year. At the time of its opening, there were no companies prepared to go public and this was largely indicative of Cambodia’s weak financial sector and a lack of confidence in regulatory bodies’ ability to enact and enforce corporate governance and accounting laws. However, three state-owned companies are in the process of preparing to list later this year and hopefully the establishment of its own stock market will bring stability to the Cambodian economy.

Geopolitical concernsCambodia’s close ties with neighboring China have proven to be unnerving for American leaders, as China attempts to expand its dominance in the area. In 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Cambodia and warned of an overly intense dependence on China.

“I think it is smart for Cambodia to be friends with many countries… It’s like our relationship with other countries. You look for balance. You don’t want to get too dependent on any one country,” Clinton said.

U.S. concerns aside, friendly relations between China and Cambodia are evidenced by high level meetings between government officials. Last year, powerful CCP member Wu Banguo attended the signing of a contract between Cambodia’s largest mobile phone company, CamGSM, and the Bank of China in the largest financing project to ever take place in Cambodia. Wu Banguo was quoted as referring to Cambodia as a “reliable neighbor, friend and brother.”

In 2011, Zhou Yongkang, a member of the CCP’s Standing Committee Politiburo, traveled to Cambodia to talk economic and political cooperation.

Complicated relations with neighboring Thailand have proven to be dire enough to come to arms and it is worth continuing to observe how relations improve or deteriorate in the future. The conflict stems from a border dispute which has come to repeated fighting between both sides’ armies at a contested site. Furthermore, Cambodia’s appointment of Thailand’s former prime minister (who was charged with corruption-related crimes) as an economic advisor has accelerated tensions between the two countries.

Future outlook“In the next 20 years, I expect Cambodia will be one of the world’s best performers in terms of improved income and living standards, better infrastructure and a lifestyle on par with middle income countries,” Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has said in an optimistic forecast.

At the 4th Cambodia Economic Forum held in February of this year, Prime Minister Hun Sen highlighted key areas the government hoped would expedite the modernization of Cambodia’s economy. The government’s strategies focused on figuring out ways to diversify the economy, reforming the nation’s SEZs, increasing investment in human capital, establishing the state’s place in industrial development and establishing the industrial sector’s position in the local and global economy.

Rising costs in China are turning eyes southward for new, inexpensive manufacturing hubs and less developed countries like Cambodia are stepping up to the plate. Cambodia is a particularly interesting investment opportunity, given benefits extended to it as a result of its development status and its simultaneous membership in the WTO. If the government can continue to effectively battle corruption and diversify its economic pillars, Cambodia could potentially rise from poverty and development aid to become a powerhouse in emerging Asia. Read more!

Thaksin leaves Japan, denies Cambodian trip plan

By The Nation

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who ended his six-day visit to Japan yesterday, said he had no immediate plan to visit neighbouring Cambodia, where a business interest of his is in doubt.

 The former premier, who was in the media spotlight last week for his high profile visit, left Japan for Macao after meeting with senior Japanese lawmakers and visiting areas hit by the March earthquake and tsunami.


Thaksin headed for Macao on his way back to Dubai, where he has lived in exile since being toppled by a military coup in 2006.

During an interview with Kyodo news agency, Thaksin denied a report he would visit Cambodia shortly.

He reportedly cancelled his plan to visit Phnom Penh after criticism in Thailand over personal business dealings involving oil and gas concessions in the overlapping area in the Gulf of Thailand claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia.

Thaksin's travelling has been controversial and could pose political implications for the government led by his sister Yingluck Shinawatra.

The opposition Democrat Party last week began an impeachment process to remove Foreign Minister Surapong Towichukchaikul from his post for abuse of authority in asking the Japanese to allow Thaksin a special visa to visit their country.

The former PM needed Thai government support as Japanese immigration laws prohibit entry to any foreigner who has been sentenced to more than a year in prison.

Thaksin was given a two-year term on a charge of abuse of power, but fled Thailand before serving his sentence.

The Democrats claimed Surapong, by supporting Thaksin's visa claim, helped fugitive Thaksin to avoid the court's ruling.

Surapong denied the allegation, saying that granting of a visa was the responsibility of Tokyo and his government had nothing to do with Thaksin's travels. Read more!

Cambodian activists attending Climate Change/Social Change conference

By Viv Miley

With less than a month until the 2nd Climate Change/Social Change conference, around the theme “World at a Crossroads”, in Melbourne, the list of confirmed speakers and sponsors is growing.

The conference is being organised by Green Left Weekly, Socialist Alliance and Resistance at the University of Melbourne over September 30-October 3. It aims to promote recognition that in order to solve the global climate crisis, radical social change is required.

To tackle a crisis that threatens to make the Earth uninhabitable for the vast majority of humans and other species, those involved in the campaigns to change society need to unite.

As part of GLW’s coverage of this important conference, it will be profiling some of the activists from around Australia and the globe that will attend.

In this issue, we look at three women from Cambodia from Social Action for Change (SAC).

SAC is an independent team of Cambodians working to build, strengthen and support grassroots movements, workers and women activists in Cambodia by providing technical assistance and advocacy assistance for social, economic and political change.

Sao Sopheap
Sao Sopheap began working at Womyn’s Agenda for Change (WAC) in 2004, as part of the general supporting staff. She continued there until 2009 when the WAC was phased out.

In 2010, Sopheap worked as a technical assistant to support The Messenger Band — a grassroots musical group initiated by WAC made up of women working in the garment industry.

The aim of The Messenger Band is to compose and perform songs that reflect the daily lives and struggles faced by working people — and to advocate for better living and working conditions through their songs and performances.

Using original songs composed by women themselves, the group works with drop-in centres and other community institutions to provoke discussion around problems and issues faced by marginalised communities of women. These include women workers, sex workers, rural farmers, women living with HIV/AIDS and landless female-headed households.

The aim is to unite them and let them know they are not alone in their daily struggles to survive.

Sopheap is now working with SAC — an informal network created to support three community based organisations: Women’s Network for Unity, a sex workers group; the Workers’ Information Center, a garment workers group; and the Messenger Band.

Beside this work, she is also a local consultant for the McKnight Foundation to assist Cambodian grantees, which most of who work on natural resource management and indigenous rights.

Chrek Sophea
A former garment worker, Sophea had been working in a factory until 2005. Then, she began working for the Womyn痴 Agenda for Change (WAC).

In 2009, when WAC was phased out, Sophea began working for SAC.

Sophea痴 main role in the SAC is leading the healthcare campaign called "Pay or Die".

One of the major outcomes of this campaign was a documentary called Pay or Die about the health care system in Cambodia.

Pay or Die has been used to educate Cambodian exploited and poor about health issues, especially farmers, sex workers and garment workers.

Sophea is also a founder and member of the Cambodian Women's Movement for Social Justice (CWMSJ).

CWMSJ is an independent, voluntary initiative raising concern around women痴 issues, especially women's rights, the role of women in politics, the judicial system in Cambodia and demanding freedom of expression.

Sophea will be presenting a workshop on Climate Change & Health in Cambodia at the conference.

Ly Pisey Pisey started working as a young activist with the Womyn’s Agenda for Change in 2004. In 2007, Pisey was selected to participate in a four month Human Rights Advocates Program at Columbia University in New York.

Today, Pisey is passionately working for SAC. Her main role is working with the Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), a sex workers' collective advocating for the right to work and improve their livelihood.

Pisey also volunteers in other areas of civil society, such as land and gay rights networks.

Pisey will be presenting a workshop on on Climate Change and Sex Work at the conference.

[World at a Crossroads, the 2nd Climate Change Social Change conference, is organised by Green Left Weekly, Resistance and the Socialist Alliance and sponsored by the Office of Environmental Programs, Melbourne University.

It is co-sponsored by: Friends of the Earth (Melbourne), ClimateandCapitalism.com, Links International Journal for Socialist Renewal, Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), Sydney University Political Economy Society, Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM), Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM -- Philippines), Australia-Asia Worker Links, Left Unity Adelaide, Adelaide Climate Emergency Action Network (CLEAN), Community Radio 3CR and Action Aid International.

Registration and other information, including the latest list of confirmed speakers, can be found at http://www.climatechangesocialchange2011.wordpress.com/ .]

. Read more!

1st Chinese animal feed mill launches in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- The first Chinese animal feed mill officially inaugurated here on Sunday, bringing the number of the same kind of factories in the country to five, said Cambodian Minister of Agriculture.

"The factory is a new achievement of good cooperation between the governments and the peoples of Cambodia and China," the minister Chan Sarun said during the inauguration of the Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia), situated in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone, some 18 kilometers west of the central Phnom Penh.

"The mill is very important to boost the development of the country's animal feeding industry," he said.

The minister said that currently the demand of animal feed is about 700,000 tons per year, but the four full-functioning factories can produce only 170,000 tons a year, so the rest is imported.

The Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia) would be capable to produce about 57,000 tons a year, so it would increase the supply of animal food locally and can reduce the reliance on the imports, he added.

Meanwhile, Jin Yuan, Economic and Commercial Counselor of Chinese Embassy to Cambodia, said that the inauguration of the factory reflected closer relation between China and Cambodia on trade and investment.

He added that China is the largest investor in Cambodia with the accumulative investments of more than eight billion U.S. dollars so far.

The Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia) is a joint-venture between China's New Hope Group holding 90 percent stake and Japan' s animal feed Sojitz Corporation owning the remaining stake, Deng Xiaohua, a manager of China's New Hope Group, said at the inauguration ceremony.

China's New Hope Group is one of China's largest animal feed producers.

The construction of the Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia) mill had been started early this year on the land of 33,500 square meters and completed last month, costing six million U.S. dollars.

The factory employs about 100 Cambodian workers.

"The mill has been equipped with sophisticated technologies and is capable to produce a good quality of animal food for pigs and poultry," he said.
Read more!

Local acts part of Cambodian celebration in Millersylvania

The fourth annual Cambodian Cultural Celebration will be held Sept. 10 at the Millersylvania State Park near Olympia.

Members of the South Puget Sound Cambodian community perform traditional and contemporary Cambodian music and arts. Traditional food is available for purchase.
Among the artists and performances will be Cambodian Classical and Folks Dance of Tacoma and the Cambodian Heritage Society of Seattle, Somleng Tro Khmer Musical of Tacoma and the Watanakpeap Dontrey band of Olympia.

The festival also offers hands-on Cambodian crafts instruction for kids, face painting, a look into the history of Cambodia, and artifact and costume viewings. Vendor booths feature Cambodian arts and crafts.

The festival runs 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at the park’s Environmental Learning Center, 12245 Tilley Road S., Olympia, off Interstate 5 at Exit 99 (Scott Lake).

The Discover Pass is not required for those attending the event. Read more!

Buddhists celebrate new Temple in Elyria

ELYRIA - A community of Buddhists celebrated the opening of a new temple on the city’s north side with food, music, meditation and the joyous “Money Flower” procession Saturday night.

About 100 people from several states, mostly of Cambodian descent, took part in the ceremony as several Buddhist monks dressed in orange or brown robes looked on.

“I feel happy,” said templegoer Yenn Yon as she offered monetary support for the temple.

Families carried offerings of money in flower arrangements as they circled the temple, which is decorated with colorful panels depicting scenes from the life of the Buddha.
Born Nai, a Buddhist monk at the temple, said this is a very big moment for the Cambodian community in Northeast Ohio.

He said the temple was cramped at its smaller facility in Cleveland, so it purchased the former Grace Brethren Church building at 1305 Nash Ave. for $180,000 and sank additional money into renovations.

Temple member Bunrith Leng, a machinist from Middleburg Heights, said the temple members want to be good neighbors.

He said they have told nearby homeowners about their services, which involve music and chanting.

Among those attending the ceremony was Dave Hribar of Avon Lake, who said the new temple is larger and more family-friendly than the group’s former temple in Cleveland.

Today at 9 a.m., the temple will have a ceremony honoring the Triple Gem and observing the Five Precepts.

The Triple Gem consists of the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the teachings of the Buddha, and the community of Buddhists called the Sangha, according to Hribar.

The Five Precepts are to refrain from taking any life, refrain from stealing, refrain from sexual misconduct, refrain from false speech and refrain from taking intoxicants, he said.

The Cambodian Buddhists can be shy, but they are kind and welcoming, Hribar said.

“They’ve been through hell in this life,” Hribar said, referring to the terror wreaked on Cambodia by Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia until his death in 1998.

An estimated 1.7 million to 2.5 million people - or about 21 percent of the Cambodian population - died under the Khmer Rouge.

Nai, the Buddhist monk, said his uncle was a casualty of the terror during the reign of Pol Pot.

One person who is wholeheartedly welcoming the temple to Elyria is David Arredondo, director of international student services at Lorain County Community College.

A number of Buddhists attending LCCC over the years have inquired about nearby temples, and Arredondo said the closest ones were in Cleveland before the Nash Avenue facility opened.

Nai said he will be attending classes at LCCC himself.

This weekend’s dedication is bittersweet. It comes a month after tragedy struck the fledgling temple when a 17-year-old member, Darryl Phoeur of Cleveland, drowned in Lake Erie on July 30 when he was apparently drawn into strong currents.

IF YOU GOWhat: Buddhist ceremony honoring the Triple Gem and observing the Five Precepts.

Where: Watt Buddhavacanarama, the Cambodian-American Buddhist Temple at 305 Nash Ave. in Elyria.

When: 9 a.m. today, followed by a luncheon at noon.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com . Read more!

Brangelina hire a therapist for their son, Pax

Vietkid is still having Vietcong gene to attack American Troops, doesn't matter where he's landing at, bad Gene

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s middle son has aggression issues.

Many of us would happily give a limb (or at least a few fingers) to earn a place in the Jolie-Pitt pack. The glamourous lifestyle, the glorious chateaux, the built-in play group. But it seems that at least one of Brad and Angie’s brood has been rebelling against his famous family, so much so that his parents have hired a therapist.

Pax Jolie-Pitt is couple’s second-oldest child, although he was the third to join the gang because he was adopted from Vietnam when he was three. Generally speaking, he seems to sort of fly under the radar — not as old as Maddox, not as sassy as Zahara, not as jaunty as Shiloh… but if the latest issue of In Touch is to be believed, Pax does have an identity of his own: The bully.

“He picks on Shiloh, and even his big brother, Maddox. He’s having a tough time getting along with his siblings,” a source tells In Touch, adding: “He’s having a difficult time with the constant schedule changes, and with the fact that people stare at him whenever he’s with his parents.”

The In Touch piece also mentions his traumatic early childhood in Vietnam as the possible root of Pax’s agression issues, which sort of makes sense. And then there’s the fact that the kid can’t leave his house without the attack of the killer paparazzi. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the J-P kids end of with issues of some sort.

Anyway, always the proactive parents, Brange have hired a psychiatrist to join their travelling circus. At the very least I imagine he or she will suggest putting the kibosh on the war-themed b-day parties, and maybe have a word with Shiloh about that weird monkey she's always carrying around. Read more!

Assumption students and stuff bringing supplies to Cambodian sister school this fall

BELLINGHAM - The last time Assumption Catholic School teachers Betsy Gottschalk and Jill VonFeldt went to visit Assumption's sister school in Cambodia, there was no water, only a few books on the shelves, and charts on the walls were hand-drawn.

But when they venture there again this November, five years after their first trip, they expect to see a successful vegetable garden, students using a computer, the only well in the area and classrooms filled with students.

For the last six years, Assumption Catholic School has been raising money to help support Bellingham Community School No. 253 in Preah Vihear Province in northern Cambodia. The sister school is the creation of Ham Hayes and Gloria Harrison, who worked through the nonprofit organization American Assistance for Cambodia to open the first middle school in the region.

It officially opened its doors in 2006, the last time Gottschalk and VonFeldt were in Cambodia.

Assumption's parent-teacher organization pays for most of the salary of the Cambodian school's English and computer skills. But the support for the school goes beyond that; students and staff have helped raise money for the school to purchase a computer, install solar panels and dig a well for a vegetable garden.

After the first trip to Cambodia, Gottschalk and VonFeldt started small fundraisers to collect money for the school, which features five classrooms in a cement block building for nearly 130 students. But it wasn't until second-grade teacher Liberty Sponek started a vegetable garden at Assumption a few years ago that the biggest fundraising efforts for the sister school took off.

Every Sunday from spring through the school's fall harvest festival, produce from the school garden is sold at Assumption Catholic Church, with all proceeds going to support the "dream things" at the Cambodia school, Sponek said. The garden, which is part of the Whatcom County School Garden Collective, is planted, tended to and harvested by students and parents. So far, a slow Sunday brings in about $65, while on a good day, they may collect $300.

But Assumption's garden does more than raise money for the Cambodian school - it also provides a connection between Assumption and Cambodian students. When the Cambodian school added a well to its property, that enabled those students to create a vegetable garden to help provide food for the school.

"We can make that connection now because we're both digging in the dirt," Sponek said.

The main reasons for this year's trip are to bring 10 bikes and two computers and to assess the school to see what other items are needed. But this trip is also a chance for a few Assumption students to become student ambassadors to Cambodia.

"It's important for kids from here to meet people and see what's going on in other parts of the world," Gottschalk said.

As the sister-school relationship continues and more Assumption families get involved, Gottschalk hopes they can some day build dorms for teachers and students who must travel several miles to attend the Cambodia school, and maybe even pay for some Cambodian students to come to the U.S. to receive a college education.

"It's core to who we are as a Catholic school," said new principal Monica Des Jarlais about raising money for a sister school in Cambodia. "We teach students that Jesus is calling on us to make a better life and we need to look at what we can do to transform other people's lives. ... Students have a responsibility of going out and improving lives, both locally and globally."

HOW TO HELP

Assumption Catholic School students, staff and families are raising money to support Bellingham Community School No. 253 in Cambodia and travel costs associated with students and staff bringing supplies to the school this fall.

Students will be selling hand-made crafts at the Bellingham Farmers Market on Saturday, Aug. 27. Items include garden art, windsocks and cards.

Produce from the school garden will be for sale from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. every Sunday at Assumption Catholic Church, 2116 Cornwall Ave., until Assumption Catholic School's Harvest Festival in mid-September.

Reach KIRA M. COX at kira.cox@bellinghamherald.com or call 715-2266. Visit her School Days blog at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/schools or get updates on Twitter at twitter.com/BhamSchools.

Read more!

Cambodia's rice export scheme sees good omen with Chinese investments

By Nguon Sovan

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has seen a positive sign towards achieving its self-imposed target of one million-ton- rice exports by 2015 as the sector has been attracting a number of large investments from China.

In last August, the government launched the rice export policy in a bid to boost the exports of one million tons of milled rice by 2015.

"The main challenges to achieve this target are the shortages of sophisticated post-harvest technologies and capital to buy rice paddy from farmers," Kong Putheara, director of the Commerce Ministry's Planning and Statistics Department, told Xinhua in an interview on Friday.

However, the issues have gradually been broken through as a number of large Chinese firms have signed up to build a hi-tech rice processing plant and to purchase Cambodian rice for Chinese market.

Among those firms is the China Grain Reserves Corporation ( Sinograin) Guangzhou Branch.

The firm signed up on Aug. 16 to buy up to 200,000 tons of milled rice per year from Cambodia and has put its initial investment of 20 million U.S. dollars with a local T.T.Y Corporation to buy rice paddy from farmers to process for the exports to China.

And the China's Yunnan Overseas Investment Co., Ltd. signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a local Soma Group of Cambodia to build a high-tech rice processing plant to process rice for China.

Also, China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO) signed a deal with Cambodia's Angkor Rice this week to buy Cambodian rice.

"A lot of foreign investors have been looking at Cambodian rice potentials, especially China," said Putheara.

"Chinese investors have been leading investments in Cambodian rice sector for now," he said. "Moreover, I believe that China will also be the largest purchaser of Cambodian rice in the future. "

Besides China, he said the Philippines, Brunei, Senegal, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bangladesh has also approached Cambodia for rice purchase despite no deal signed yet so far.

Phou Puy, president of the Federation of Cambodian Rice Millers Associations, said Saturday that currently the country has had only a few modern post-harvest technologies and also had a few large-scale rice storage.

He added that the country's sophisticated rice processing plants are capable to process only about 200,000 tons of rice per year at the moment, so to meet the target of exporting 1 million tons a year by 2015, it needs to be invested other four or five times in modern rice processing plants.

"Therefore, Chinese investment in the rice processing plant is on the right time," said Phou Puy, who is also Chairman of the rice exporter Baitang Kampuchea Co., which invested in a modern post-harvest technology in Battambang province.

The company had exported nearly 20,000 tons of processed rice in the first half of this year, double rise compared to the same period last year.

Puy said the Baitang Kampuchea had also signed a MoU with a Chinese firm for the supply of 10,000 tons of milled rice to China per year and the exports will be starting from next year.

He said his plant is capable to process an average of 130,000 tons of rice per year.

Chan Sophal, president of Cambodia Economic Association, said on Saturday that European countries and China will definitely be the big markets for Cambodian good quality rice in the future.

Cambodian government has simplified procedures for rice exporters; however, the high cost of electricity and transport compared with its neighboring Vietnam and Thailand is still a concern for investors, he said.

Currently, Cambodia has about 35 rice exporters; the country had exported 80,442 tons of good-quality milled rice in the first half of this year, 369 percent increase from 17,144 tons at the same period last year, showed the statistics from the Ministry of Commerce.

However, this country can export only small amount of its milled rice so far due to the lack of sophisticated post- harvesting technologies, storage, and capital to buy rice paddy from farmers; therefore, most of the rice paddies have been sold to Vietnam and Thailand without recycling.

In a year, Cambodia lost about 600 million U.S. dollars from rice production that exported without recycling, Prime Minister Hun Sen said last year during the launch of rice export policy.

Chan Sophal said that the government's rice export policy would broaden and strengthen the foundation of economic growth while accelerating poverty reduction and improving the people's livelihoods through job creations when more rice post-harvest technologies have been built in Cambodia.

With a series of Chinese investment plans in the sector, it's believed that Cambodia will be able to achieve its target of exporting one million tons of milled rice by 2015. Read more!

Lack of Research Among Academics a ‘Problem’: Lecturer

Cambodia’s higher education would do well to include more research and critical thinking demands on its professors, a university lecturer said Thursday.

         Peou Chivoin, a lecturer of media theory and research at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

“When [academics] do research, it is like they are exercising and it requires them to think critically, thus boosting the overall quality of their abilities and work,” said Peou Chivoin, a lecturer of media theory and research at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. “When people conduct research, they get to know social phenomena and try to determine problems that arise and come up with solutions.”

In much of Cambodian academics, the focus is on teaching, but not on research, he said.

Peou Chivoin is a Fulbright scholar and a PhD candidate of sociology at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

“At universities in developed countries like the US, Australia or Singapore, they have already turned primarily to research,” he said. “That means professors have their own research projects and try to publish their work, whereas Cambodian professors only teach.”

Not only are they not researching, he said, but Cambodian lecturers and professors work more than one job, thanks to pitifully low salaries. That creates a problem, because research would mean less time spent earning money.

Government subsidies could help, but no such support currently exists. A lucky few are able to take on research through the funding of grants or other outside help.

The problem is then passed on to the pupils, he said.

“When most professors do not do research themselves, it’s a problem when they lead their students to do research,” he said. “So there must be strengthened institutions to ensure more attention is paid to research.”
Read more!

CAMBODIA: H&M investigates mass faintings at factory

H&M has said that it has not found any plausible causes for a series of mass faintings that have taken place in a Cambodian factory making its clothes.

The statements follow local press reports that a total 284 workers at an M&V International Manufacturing site fainted on Tuesday and Thursday. According to the reports, workers smelled something bad coming from the shirts.

A spokesperson for the retailer told just-style today (26 August) that it was aware of the incident and that the "government, local authorities and International Labour Organisation have done investigations and have not found any plausible causes so far".

The spokesperson said H&M has also carried out an initial probe, with local staff immediately visiting the affected factories for an inspection and interviews with workers, but said the cause is "difficult to establish".

It said it has partnered with external experts and is in "close contact with the Better Factories Cambodia and the Employer Association GMAC" to figure out the root causes and solutions to these "discomforting incidents".

Inneke Zelderust, co-ordinator of the Clean Clothes campaign, said this is not the first time that there have been mass faintings in a Cambodian garment factory, citing a similar situation at a Puma factory in April.

An investigation following that incident found that overtime, poor chemical storage and heat were the causes for the faintings.

Zelderust described as "nonsense" M&V's excuse in the local press that the faintings were a "psychological phenomenon."

She suggested that high inflation levels are eroding salaries so that workers are not earning a living wage. "Workers are foregoing meals and doing lots of overtime which is leading to low nutrition levels," said Zelderust.

Zelderust called for other brands to be "proactive" in investigating worker health and occupational health and safety in their factories following the incidents, suggesting that it might be difficult to "pinpoint one cause" driving these mass faintings. "Take these as indicators of a broader problem," she emphasised.

According to a report released last week by the ILO's Better Factories Cambodia initiative, while working conditions in Cambodian garment factories are continuing to improve, there are still persisting worries over discrimination, overtime and occupational health, and safety. Read more!

Donor governments asked to review Cambodia aid if NGO law is passed

Human rights groups call on UK, US and Australia to apply pressure on Cambodia if severely restrictive draft law is adopted

Cambodia's PM Hun Sen is under fire from human rights groups over a proposed law requiring NGOs and associations to register. Photograph: Rolex Dela Pena/EPA


Human rights organisations are calling on donor governments to reassess their aid programmes to Cambodia if the country passes a law that can be used to muzzle local and foreign NGOs.

Ten groups have written to William Hague, the foreign secretary, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Australia's foreign minister Kevin Rudd, sounding the alarm on a draft law now before Cambodia's council of ministers.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Global Witness and others say the draft law, if passed in its present form, threatens to severely restrict civil society's right to freedom of association and expression.

"As such, the law will limit the ability of Cambodia's development partners to ensure that programmes reach their intended grass-roots beneficiaries," the letter says.

The letter urges the foreign ministers to make it clear to the Cambodian government that, if the proposed changes are adopted, they will reassess their aid programmes and urge multilateral aid agencies to review their assistance.

The key concern for human rights groups is a provision under the law which states that associations and organisations cannot operate in Cambodia unless complex registration applications have been formally approved by the government.

"The draft law will effectively authorise arbitrary decision-making by officials as it fails to adequately define terms or set clear guidelines, and it creates burdensome and expensive registration and reporting processes that will particularly disadvantage grassroots citizens' associations and groups," the letter says.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of HRW's Asia division, said the Hun Sen government was seeking to stifle the one clear source of opposition to the government, having reduced the opposition to rump status and cowed the international community.

"Hun Sen is growing increasingly sensitive to critical NGO voices which are working with local people facing dispossession of their land for commercial use for cash crops such as sugar cane," said Robertson. "There has been a plague of land seizures and it is an issue that goes to corrupt governance."

An estimated 30,000 people are driven from farmland or urban areas every year to make way for property developments or mining and agricultural projects.

The World Bank earlier this month suspended new lending to Cambodia in a dispute over the eviction of thousands of poor landowners to make way for a property development in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Two thousand people have been evicted already and another 10,000 face eviction to make way for the project in the Boeung Kak lake area. The development is led by China's Inner Mongolia Erdos Hongjun Investment Corp, an unlisted firm that has pledged to spend $3bn in Cambodia on property, metal processing and power generation, and which has close ties to Hun Sen. Robertson said the Cambodian government has since agreed to put back on the table an onsite resettlement plan, which showed that international pressure can work.

"The lesson is when push comes to shove, when development partners threaten to take action, that kind of thing makes the Cambodian government sit up and take notice," he said.

The Cambodian government recently suspended a local NGO, the Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, which has been working with communities affected by major projects in Phnom Penh, including the Asian Development Bank/USAid-funded railway rehabilitation project, and the Boeung Kak lake development.

The suspension, say human rights groups, shows how the Cambodian government may use the draft associations and NGO law if it is passed.

In other recent moves against critics, the government earlier this month closed down two newspapers reproachful of the Cambodian ruling party – the Water & Fire News, and the World News. Their publishing licences were revoked because of "a perceived insult to the ministry of information".

Five men have also been convicted of "provocation" for distributing pamphlets critical of the state. They revealed the Cambodian government's ties to the Vietnamese government and accused Hun Sen of selling land to foreign countries, calling him a "traitor" and a "puppet of Vietnam".

One of Asia's poorest countries, Cambodia receives between $50m and $70m a year from the World Bank. It is looking increasingly to China for aid and development. China is Cambodia's biggest source of foreign direct investment, with stated plans to spend $8bn on 360 different projects during the first seven months of 2011. Read more!