Pushed by higher prices, immigrants in US stocking up on rice

RICHMOND: Shoppers surveyed shelves loaded with rice at the Ranch 99 Asian supermarket, chatting in languages from Mandarin to Portuguese as they hunted for their favourite varieties and compared prices before heaving 23-kilogram bags into their carts.

Skyrocketing prices and media reports of a rice shortage are driving many people in the US, including Asian, Hispanic, and Indian immigrants, to stock up on rice - a once inexpensive staple that is reaching record-high prices across the country. In Indian corner markets and warehouse-sized supermarkets specialising in Asian goods, customers who usually take home a 9-kilogram bag are taking two, or even reaching for the 23-kilogram bag.

"It's all in the news, on TV and newspapers," said Grace Yap, originally of China, who was shopping at Ranch 99.

Emphasizing that there is no rice shortage in the United States, economists and commodity traders blame the price hikes confronting US consumers on everything from the weather in producing countries to the increased buying power of countries such as China. Chief among those factors was the decision by India, Vietnam, China, Egypt, Cambodia and Brazil to curtail exports to protect prices at home, said Nathan Childs, an economist and rice expert with the US Department of Agriculture.

"People are so worried, everything is going up so much. It's so crazy," said Mahinder Parmar, owner of Milan, a Berkeley, California store selling everything from Indian music to sweets, instruments and spices.

Seeking to tame rising rice prices, which have more than tripled since January, Thailand proposed an OPEC-style cartel yesterday with major rice exporters Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam to give them more control over international rice prices.

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Democrats and the Killing Fields

By ARTHUR HERMAN

Most people have never heard of Operation Frequent Wind, which ended on April 30, 1975, 33 years ago. But every American has seen pictures of it: the Marine helicopters evacuating the last U.S. personnel from the embassy in Saigon, hours before communist tanks rolled into the city. Thousands of desperate Vietnamese gathered at the embassy gate and begged to be taken with them. Others committed suicide.

Those scenes are a chilling reminder of what happens when a great power decides to cut and run. Two of the three presidential candidates are proposing to do just that in Iraq. We need to remember what happened the last time we gave up on an unpopular foreign policy, not only in humanitarian terms but in terms of American power and prestige.

Actually, the U.S. had won the war in Vietnam on the battlefield, just as the surge has done today in Iraq. Over Easter 1972, South Vietnamese forces, backed by U.S. airpower, crushed the last communist offensive, killing nearly 100,000 North Vietnamese troops.

The North was forced to sign peace accords in Paris recognizing the Republic of South Vietnam. The last 2,500 U.S. support troops went home. What they left was a fragile but sustainable peace, and an elected government in Saigon that was growing stronger every month.

But with 160,000 North Vietnamese soldiers still in South Vietnam, keeping the South free was going to require continued U.S. help, especially air support and military equipment if the North ever attacked again.

Democrats and American public opinion, however, had had enough. Much like Iraq today, the vast majority of South Vietnam had been pacified. Its government was taking on difficult but essential political changes, including land reform. The Democratic-controlled Congress, however, did not want to hear about success. They assumed failure in Vietnam would complete their rout of the hated Richard Nixon, who was already out of office thanks to Watergate, and position them for victory in the 1976 presidential election.

Meanwhile, the American public had been conditioned by the media to see Vietnam as a failed policy, and taught that America had gotten itself in the middle of a "civil war" which the Vietnamese had to sort out themselves. Once the last American troops left Vietnam, public opinion would never tolerate re-entry into a war widely seen as a blunder and endless quagmire.
In early 1975 the communists launched a massive attack. President Gerald Ford asked for $1 billion in supplemental funds to help the South Vietnamese, and Congress refused. They had already pulled the plug on the U.S.-supported government of Lon Nol in Cambodia. Ford had no choice but to order the evacuation of remaining U.S. personnel.

After nearly two decades of devastating war and 58,000 American combat deaths, the U.S. left Southeast Asia. As the last helicopter lifted off from Saigon, the New York Times's Sydney Schanberg wrote an article with the title, "Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life." And the Times's columnist Anthony Lewis asked, "what future could possibly be more terrible than the reality" of a war that had cost so much in lives and treasure?

With the North Vietnamese Communists and the Khmer Rouge taking over, the world was about to find out.

At least 65,000 Vietnamese were murdered or shot after "liberation" – the equivalent in terms of Vietnam's population at the time, of killing three-quarters of a million people in today's U.S. The new communist regime ordered somewhere between one- third to one-half of South Vietnam's population to pass through its "re-education" camps, where perhaps as many as 250,000 died of disease, starvation, or were worked to death (the last inmates were not released until 1986).

That number does not include the thousands of "boat people" who tried to flee the totalitarian nightmare of communist Vietnam, and perished at sea.

Cambodia's fate was even worse. At least one and a half million innocent Cambodians were butchered or starved to death in the Khmer Rouge's killing fields and re-education camps, put to death by a fanatical regime that believed that anyone who wore eyeglasses must have "bourgeois intellectual tendencies" and be shot.

The scale of moral collapse and suffering went beyond Indochina. The pullout had a ripple effect on U.S. power and prestige, just as the proponents of the so-called "domino theory" had warned. American foreign policy, crippled by remorse and self-doubt, stood helplessly as others rushed into the power vacuum.

Marxist-Leninist regimes emerged not only in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but in Ethiopia and Guinea Bissau (1974), Madagascar, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Angola (1975), Afghanistan (1978), and Grenada and Nicaragua (1979). Soviet troops were welcomed in Fidel Castro's Cuba for the first time since the 1962 missile crisis. Cuban troops traveled freely to Africa to prop up Marxist regimes there.

In 1979 the Ayatollah Khomeini was able to establish his brutal theocratic rule over Iran, confident that America, having learned "the lessons of Vietnam," would never intervene.

The judgment of history, as Raymond Aron once remarked, is without pity. History will judge how America and its leaders handle global responsibility in Iraq and the Middle East in the next decade.

As Winston Churchill said of the appeasement of Hitler at Munich, in 1975 Americans were "weighed in the balance and found wanting." We have a responsibility to the Iraqis – and to the memory of those we left behind – not to let that happen again.

Mr. Herman is the author, most recently, of "Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed An Empire and Forged Our Age," just published by Bantam.

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Golden Tulip Hospitality's Asian Subsidiary to Expand

A management subsidiary of Swiss-based Golden Tulip Hospitality Group, Golden Tulip South East Asia, is to undergo an expansion.

Three different brands- the 5-star Royal Tulip, 4-star Golden Tulip, and 3/3+-star economy business Tulip Inn are to be launched, and Mark van Ogtrop is to head the group, which is responsible for ten countries: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.

The first five projects include a 140-room Tulip Inn hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 4 in Bangkok, to debut in July 2009; a 100-room resort on Samui's Maenam Beach, to be reflagged in July 2008 as the Golden Tulip Resort Samui; a 350-room new project to debut in 2010; a 110-room Tulip Inn in Phuket to be launched in July 2009; and a 170-room Tulip Inn hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to open in May 2009.

According to Hans H.W.R. Kennedie, president & CEO of Golden Tulip Hospitality Group, 'In 2007, the Golden Tulip Group generated around EUR108 million of total revenue, with a profit of EUR1.8 million. In the same year we invested more than EUR4.4 million, while we earned approximately EUR8.4 million from a lease agreement with hotel owners. We believe in the amazing diversity of South East Asia, in particular Thailand. That's why we are investing more than EUR508 Million for the initial development of four years. With a regional office, management and marketing strategies in place we aim to achieve the targets as set.'

Mr. Mark van Ogtrop, managing director and senior vice president of Golden Tulip South East Asia, stated, 'We will expand throughout South East Asia by management contracts, lease agreements, acquisitions and joint ventures. We have had very positive feedback on economy business hotels, not only from customers, but also investors. We believe that this sector offers real potential and opportunity for us to grow in the hotel industry in the region.'

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Vietnam, Cambodia diplomats agree to hold annual meetings

VietNamNet Bridge – Foreign ministries of Vietnam and Cambodia have agreed to hold annual meetings at their first meeting in Hanoi from April 28-May 1.

The two sides during their talks on April 29 also agreed that the second meeting will take place in Phnom Penh in 2009.

On their own countries’ situation and bilateral cooperation, they noted the development of the two countries’ friendship and comprehensive cooperation, bringing practical benefits to both countries’ national construction and development.

The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry delegation is led by Deputy Minister Pham Binh Minh, and the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation delegation, by Secretary of State Long Visalo.

They proudly spoke of their close ties, which contributed to the bilateral relations as well as to improving the two countries’ positions in the region and the world arena.

The two delegations agreed to intensify cooperation in exchanging information and experiences, setting up a hot line to deal with urgent problems, and training personnel.

They also agreed to serve as links to foster cooperation agreements between ministries, agencies and localities, and coordinate in regional and international cooperation projects.

The Cambodian delegation was received by Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem on the same day.

At the reception, Deputy PM Khiem stressed Vietnam and Cambodia need to exchange more high-level visits, and hold meetings between their ministries, agencies and mass organisations.

According to Deputy PM Khiem, these activities would help tighten the two countries’ friendship and create new changes in their trade and investment ties.
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LABOUR-CAMBODIA: US Recession May Hit Anti-Sweatshop Campaign

By Andrew Nette

PHNOM PENH, Apr 30 (IPS) - Recession in the United States is endangering a unique experiment that has seen Cambodia become a leading player in the campaign to eradicate sweatshops in the textile industry.

"I think that the industry is going through a tough time," said Ken Loo, until recently secretary of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia and still closely associated with the sector.

"We export 70 percent to the U.S., so with their economy in recession we expect spending on clothing to drop."

Even a minor downturn in the textile industry will have major economic implications for Cambodia.

The industry makes up approximately 80 percent of the country’s total exports and employs a large number of people. Some estimates claim that up to a million people --out of a population of 13 million -- are either directly or indirectly dependent on the industry.

"What happens in the garment industry in Cambodia matters far beyond the country’s borders," argues Phnom Penh-based author Rachel Louis Snyder. "Whether it succeeds or fails is important because this is the one country that has tried to eradicate sweat shops in an organised way."

"If it does not work here, where is the impetus anywhere else?"

Snyder is the author of ‘Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade’, which was recently published in the U.S.

The Cambodian chapters focus on the situation that arose when Phnom Penh and the Clinton administration inked a trade deal that linked Cambodia’s export quota for the textiles to the U.S. to efforts to eradicate sweatshops.

Under the deal, Cambodia had to rewrite its labour laws, welcome the formation of trade unions and allow the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to monitor factories and publish their findings.

"This made Cambodia a giant experiment," said Snyder. "The big question was whether it would work and it did. The industry grew and labour and social conditions improved enormously."

The trade deal expired in January 2005 when Cambodia joined the World Trade Organisation.

A series of transitional quotas, what Snyder calls ‘the quota system lite’ where then put in place by Washington to ensure that China could not export more than a certain volume of textiles in certain categories.

These measures, designed to safeguard Cambodia’s textile industry, will finish at the end of 2008, provoking fears that the industry, still young by international standards, could be swamped by power houses such as China and Vietnam where labour and social conditions are not as good.

"These are expiring at a time of potentially global recession when consumers will be looking for cheaper gear," said Snyder.

"Wherever you have economic pressure, the first things to go are labour laws and social conditions. This is a crucial time for Cambodia. They are at risk of losing this incredible experiment."

Observers agree that linking trade quotas to labour standards was the major impetus for Cambodia to work on improving labour conditions. Another has been an innovative programme run by the ILO called ‘Better Factories Cambodia’.

In order to get an export permit textile factories must sign up to the programme and agree to be monitored by ILO teams on a regular basis.

This monitoring process, which the employers help pay for, includes surprise spot checks and in-depth audits that assess the factory’s performance in up to 500 areas.

Although the detailed reports are confidential factories will release at the request of buyers.

According to Tuomo Poutiainen, Chief Technical Advisor for Better Factories Cambodia, the programme currently monitors 298 export garment factories and involves buyers representing approximately 60 percent of Cambodia’s textile exports.

While Poutiainen admits that they do not get everyone, particularly smaller sub-contractors that are not covered by the programme, he stresses that it "is enforced (by the government) quite rigorously, there are some time delays but all exporters get drawn in."

"When the quota system was in place the increased incentives for factories to be involved were explicit," said Poutiainen. "Cambodia’s share of exports to the U.S. was conditional on progress made on working conditions."

He believes the leverage now comes from the buyers, who request the detailed reports, including big name brands such as Nike, Columbia, Gap and Levi Strauss.

"Labour conditions are now part of the reputation niche of Cambodia," particularly for companies keen to prove their socially responsible credentials," said Poutiainen. "Ignore this and the industry will suffer."

As the assassination of high-profile labour leader Chea Vichea in 2004 graphically demonstrated, there is still a long way to go in terms of upholding labour standards in Cambodia.

Cambodian Union leaders list a number of issues that need attention, including failure to payment of entitlements and politically motivated attacks on union representatives.

Poutiainen agrees, adding issues such as double book keeping, unpaid overtime and occupational health and safety.

"It is obvious that we don’t think backsliding on labour conditions is a solution to the problem," said Loo. "Rather we want to increase productivity."

Most observes agree that the ILO programme has helped stave off the crisis that many believed would happen after the original U.S. trade deal signed by the Clinton administration expired in 2005.

It has also helped Cambodia to build a solid base in the face of significant disadvantages facing the industry.

Cambodia has to import virtually all raw materials relating to the textile industry. Power costs are high, there is a lack of extensive port facilities and corruption adds significantly to overheads.
Loo agrees that while selling Cambodia as a niche market on labour conditions has been important, the main factors for international buyers remain price, lead times and quality.

"The ILO programme is definitely a plus in that it has brought Cambodia to the surface and given us a lot of visibility to buyers all over the world."

"But compliance alone is not enough to sustain the industry. If compliance were really that important everyone would be in Cambodia. The image has its advantages. It is one of many things the buyers look at but it is not the only thing that buyers look at."

While business is supportive, publicly and privately, of the ILO’s monitoring programme, Loo says they do have concerns about how it is administered.

In the lead-up to 2010, when the ILO is scheduled to reconfigure and possibly reduce its involvement in the Better Factories programme, GMAC wants the government to make monitoring voluntary.

"If it was a purely voluntary system, most manufacturers would not sign up to it," he admits. "But the manufacturers would face pressure from the buyers. You would also weed out factories and buyers whose priority is not compliance. Those that remained would be fully supportive of compliance."

He says that GMAC has put the argument to government. "They have made it clear they want it to be compulsory.’

"One cannot expect that the industry will grow but what appears likely to happen is a consolidation, smaller, less productive producers will suffer, others will prosper," said Poutiainen. "This will effect the industry but it is not a crash."

"The buyers have worked for a long time with this programme and have invested a great deal of time and social capital in Cambodia and have a lot of relationships. They have an interest in continuing to invest in Cambodia."

"No growth in the garment industry this year in fact the industry will see a slight shrinkage of 5-10 percent," is Loo’s blunt assessment.

"I would say that in our existing state we are not well placed to compete but one factor that could turn this around is our efforts to get duty free access to US markets,’’ Loo said. "The U.S. has given this to all least developed countries except those in Asia, I don’t know why."

The Cambodia government and textile industry has been lobbying the U.S. on this issue for a number of years. Loo is hopeful that an agreement will be reached this year. "The impact of the recession will be worse this year if duty free does not happen,’’ Loo said.
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Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge rebels face malaria epidemic

Phnom Penh - Impoverished former Khmer Rouge fighters in north-western Cambodia have reported a spike in malaria infections, raising fears of a new epidemic along the Thai border, police said Tuesday. A senior police officer in Samlot who declined to be named said by telephone that the Thai border area had recorded 92 new cases of the mosquito-borne disease last month and 93 this month.

"The cause is heavy rain, and we are trying to educate people to go to the hospital as soon as they detect fever and not believe the cause is just a bad spirit or ghost," he said.

Samlot's rebel fighters held out against the outside world until the late 1990s, and most of its almost 14,000-strong population now eke out a living as subsistence farmers.

In October, a World Health Organization report warned that drug-resistant strains of the disease were increasingly being detected along the Thai-Cambodia border.

Experts blamed such infections on inappropriate use of anti-malarial drugs and other factors, including a postwar population boom. Children are particularly vulnerable to malaria.

Cambodia reported around 60,000 cases of the endemic disease last year with 241 deaths.

Police said no malaria fatalities have been reported in Samlot so far but they feared it was only a matter of time if the number of new infections continued to rise with the peak of the monsoon season still months away.
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Cambodia hoping to lead world rice exports

Cambodia is seeking to become one of the world's leading rice exporters, with the country's agriculture minister, Chan Sarun, saying he hopes to produce enough rice to export some eight million tonnes annually by 2015.

This follows an announcement by Thailand's prime minister that his country, the world's leading rice exporter, will not cut down on exports.

Fears of rice shortages have led to dramatic increases global prices in the price of rice have forced major producers and exporters like India, Vietnam and China to adopt protectionist measures by imposing limits on exports, further exacerbating the problem.

Although Cambodia remains one of Asia's poorest countries, the head of the Cambodian centre for the study and development of Agriculture, Yang Saing Koma, has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program the prospect of becoming a leading rice exporter is a distinct possibility.

"There is the potential to increase the rice production of Cambodia," he said.

"Of course, we still have big land areas and the rice productivity in Cambodia is still low in those areas, and there is still the potential to expand the cultivated area."

Cambodia's ambitions to increase exports follows Sunday's announcement by Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej that his country, won't cut down on rice exports.

A spokesperson for the International Rice research Institute in the Philippines Duncan Macintosh welcomes the initiatives by both government, and says such moves could help quell the panic that has gripped the international rice market.

"Clearly both ... responses by Thailand and Cambodia to try help stabilise the market - they make good sense and seem to be very good decisions," he said.

"I think most governments in Asia are looking to calm things down, because there's every reason for the markets to be stable."
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Chinese company completes restoration of Cambodia's National Road No. 7

STUNG TRENG, Cambodia, April 29 (Xinhua) -- National Road No. 7in northeastern Cambodia totally opened Tuesday, after an over-three-year restoration work by the Shanghai Construction Group of China.

The 186.648-km-long road, running through Kratie and Stung Treng provinces and directly leading to Laos, was refurbished brand new, thanks to the interest-free loan provided by the Chinese government and its construction team.

"It is the latest achievement during the 50 years of diplomatic relations between China and Cambodia," Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen told the inauguration ceremony on Tuesday at the end of the road bordering Laos.

The restoration of National Road No. 7 will help improve the economic development of northeastern provinces including Kratie, Stung Treng, Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri, Hun Sen told the ceremony attended by hundreds of officials and local residents.

After it has enough infrastructures, the northeastern provinces of Cambodia will be a region of development from 2015 to 2020, he said, adding there are various mines here, which are a very important factor for investment.

It will also help advance the internal integration of the road network of the neighboring countries, especially the triangle are of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, he said

It is part of the road linkage for the ASEAN countries and also perfects Asian Highway No. 11, he added.

Also at the ceremony, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jinfeng said that the Cambodian-Chinese friendship bore another fruit, as the road is renovated to provide convenience for the local people, upgrade the regional road network and help materialize China's will to consolidate ties with its neighboring country and strive for common development with them.

Later at the ceremony, Hun Sen presented National Construction Medals to Zhang, some Chinese experts and Cambodian government officials.

The restoration of National Road No. 7 started on Nov. 8, 2004.It has 13 bridges, including the 1,057-meter-long Cambodia-China Friendship Bridge over the Sekong River near the border with Laos.

Currently, China is still helping Cambodia build National Road No. 8 and two bridges respectively over the Mekong River and the Tonle Sap River.
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A new political breeze in Cambodia

By Brian McCartan

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - A gathering coalition of smaller parties could give Prime Minister Hun Sen's now dominant Cambodian People's Party (CPP) an unexpected run for its money at National Assembly elections scheduled for this July.

The CPP has ruled the country either alone or in tandem with rival parties since the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1993 and in recent years has strongly consolidated its grip on political power. With its comparatively strong grassroots network, firm control over the national media, and recent successful economic policies, the CPP is widely expected to win the most seats at this year's polls. But perhaps not by the landslide many analysts had until now predicted.

To be sure, Cambodia's other main political parties are still generally in disarray. The Funcinpec party has recently been undermined by internal divisions, leading party founder Prince Norodom Ranariddh to cut ties and start up a new small political party bearing his name. Meanwhile, the major opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) still lacks the numbers and resources to alone represent a real democratic challenge to the CPP. The SRP party has likewise in recent years been plagued by internal discord over strategy and leadership.

Now, faced by the near certainty of another CPP election victory, talks have begun among medium- and small-sized parties of forming a coalition to contest the elections on the same ticket. Some political analysts believe there is some hope of success for such a coalition considering that the CPP received less than half the popular vote during the last general election in 2003 and the more recent commune elections held in 2007.

The 2003 polls resulted in a political stalemate, as neither the CPP nor Funcinpec managed the two-thirds majority constitutionally required to form a government. After a full year of political wrangling and paralysis, both sides agreed to change the rules to an over 50% majority and a new coalition government was formed in July 2004, which the CPP now dominates.

An estimated 23 parties contested the general elections in 2003; as many as 57 different political parties could contest the next polls, around 20 of which are expected to officially announce their candidacy during the April 18 and May 12 registration process. The three main opposition parties now negotiating the formation of a possible coalition include the SRP, the Human Rights Party (HRP) and the Funcinpec breakaway Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP). A united opposition would increase the individual parties bargaining power vis-a-vis the CPP and in an electoral upset could together form the next government.

The HRP, formed in July 2007 by human rights activist Kem Sokha, founder of the once influential and foreign-funded Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), cuts a particularly compelling contrast to the CPP. Sokha was jailed for publicly criticizing Hun Sen's policies and has successfully ridden that controversy, along with the CCHR's strong grassroots network, into politics.

The party claims over 10,000 supporters attended its opening congress and several well known political figures have joined its ranks, including Pen Sovann, a former prime minister of the early 1980s communist government. Kem Sokha has a grassroots reputation for fighting corruption and human rights abuses earned as a lawmaker in the dissolved Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party and later as a senator for Funcinpec before he left to create the CCHR in 2002.

With those political forces coalescing, there are already signs of a CPP rearguard defensive. Several of the newly created parties are allegedly in league with the CPP and have been launched strategically as political Trojan horses to penetrate and disrupt a possible united opposition front.

Democratic dirty tricks
The CPP has a long history of running rough and tumble election campaigns and there are growing accusations that the party is again using intimidation and threats against opposition supporters in the run-up to the polls. Senate elections held in January 2006 were criticized by local election monitoring organizations as undemocratic and slanted in favor of CPP-affiliated candidates. For the upcoming elections, 7,000 local election observers and 40 international monitoring bodies have registered to observe the elections.

Ou Virak, the current president of CCHR, believes that while overall the election environment will be better than previous polls, by international standards they still will not be free and fair. He claims that in recent months opposition activists have received threats and that a few have even been killed under mysterious circumstances.

Although there is not yet any hard evidence to indicate any political motivation behind the murders, Ou Virak sees the upshot in killings as "worrisome", particularly considering one of the main opposition parties is running under a human rights banner.

There has also been growing pressure on opposition members to defect to the CPP, particularly among SRP candidates. Where that doesn't work threats have been made against certain SRP commune chiefs and at least one, Tout Saron from Kompong Thom province, was jailed on March 18 on the some say trumped up charges of allegedly preventing an SRT activist from defecting to the CPP. The arrest of two other SRP officials is also being sought in connection with the case.

The arrest and warrants are already drumming up bad publicity for the CPP. Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a March 23 statement, "Dubious arrests of opposition officials months ahead of an election should set alarm bells ringing. This divide-and-conquer strategy is a well-known tactic of Prime Minister Hun Sen to subdue his opponents."

In the same statement, the US-based rights advocacy group said it believes that the CPP is conducting a "concerted campaign to coerce SRP members to defect to the CPP and punish those who refuse to do so, with the intention to split and weaken the opposition party before the national elections".

Hun Sen's CPP has long harassed the SRP, according to rights groups. In 2005, SRP member of parliament Cheam Channy was convicted to seven years in prison for what many considered an unsubstantiated charge of creating a rebel army. He served one year and was released after receiving a pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni. SRP leader Sam Rainsy, meanwhile, was convicted that same year for defamation of government leaders and fled the country. That intimidation follows on the bloody and still unresolved grenade attack against a Sam Rainsy rally in 1997 which killed 16 and injured 150 people. Human Rights Watch has alleged the attack was carried out by Hun Sen's own bodyguard unit, charges the premier has strongly denied.

Faced with such strong-arm tactics, few expect the opposition to actually win the July polls. Amendments to previous election laws mean that the CPP can form a government as long as it wins over 50% of the vote, rather than the previous constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority. In 2003, inconclusive poll results meant that neither the CPP nor Funcinpec could form a government until several months later an agreement to amend the rules was reached.

With an opposition coalition in the offing, it's unclear if the CPP will need to reach out to one of the medium or several of the small parties to form the next government. After a major split and a number of defections, the CPP's current coalition partner, Funcinpec, is not expected to win as many seats at the upcoming polls as it managed in 2003. The party currently holds 20 of the National Assembly's 123 seats.

Due to their historical antagonistic relations with Hun Sen, it seems unlikely for now that the leaders of any of the other major opposition parties - including the SRP, HRP and NRP - would be keen without major concessions to join a CPP-dominated coalition government. Whether their party representatives, many as in the case of the SRP now in the opposition for over a decade, share those views after this July's polls will represent the success or failure of a united opposition.
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Unesco calls off joint talks

Separate meetings now on Preah Vihear listing

THANIDA TANSUBHAPOL


The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation has cancelled a meeting with Thailand and Cambodia in Paris over efforts to put the Preah Vihear temple on Unesco's World Heritage list.

The meeting was supposed to be this Friday and Saturday, with Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama leading the Thai side in the talks.

The meeting has been tentatively rescheduled for May 13, Mr Noppadon said.

The talks will concentrate on Cambodia's proposal to register the ancient ruins, which are right on the border with Thailand.

The only easy access is through Thailand, and some of the border is not demarcated and claimed by both sides.

Unesco will now send its representative, Francesco Caruso, for separate talks with the Thai and Cambodian governments.

The UN agency gave no reason for the change.

Mr Caruso has been appointed by Unesco as a special coordinator between Thailand and Cambodia on the issue and is due in Bangkok next month.

"The Thai government welcomes the proposal and is ready to meet and discuss in good faith with Cambodia the outstanding issues so as to facilitate the process of registration of the temple," the ministry said.

Thailand and Cambodia have agreed in principle to jointly manage Preah Vihear and other ruins in Thailand in the area, but will not allow the project to affect the plan to demarcate the border there.

Preah Vihear, called Khao Phra Viharn in Thai, is on the Cambodian side of Si Sa Ket's Kantharalak district.

But it does not look like the issue will be easily settled.

On April 10, the government handed an aide-memoire to Cambodian ambassador Ung Sean to protest against the deployment of Cambodian troops at the ancient temple.

The government said the troop deployment violated Thailand's territorial sovereignty in the disputed areas along the border, and was also against the spirit of a memorandum of understanding in 2000 concerning the area around the temple.

The Cambodian government countered by summoning Thai ambassador Viraphand Vacharathit to deny all the allegations a day later.

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Cambodia to hold first ever Khmer Chess tournament

PHNOM PENH, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The Olympic Committee of Cambodia (OCC) and the Cambodian Chess Association (CCA) will jointly hold the First Khmer Chess Tournament from May 3 to 4 in order to standardize and highlight the national game.

Cash prize for champion is 1,000 U.S. dollars, and those for the second place and the third 700 U.S. dollars and 500 U.S. dollars, said CCA chairman Ly Hout here on Sunday.

Other top 10 winners can respectively win 100 U.S. dollars as well as trophies, he added.

Participating teams can be established on provincial or municipal basis and each team should include no more than five members, two or three of them chess players, he said.

Meanwhile, he raised 10,000 U.S. dollars to mobilize all the Cambodians to find and submit historical relics that can tell the real origin of the centuries-old sport.

Khmer Chess is a popular game among the Cambodians, but there had been no national match for it the its rules not officially certified until OCC and CCA got them done recently, said Ly Hout.
With these actions, OCC and CCA want to preserve and develop the national gem and thus benefit the coming generation, he added.
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Last Breakfast in Cambodia

CAMBODIANS and other Theravada Buddhists celebrate their New Year in mid-April. They were not always able to do so. Under Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese rule, those ancient traditions were forbidden, impossible. But now Cambodia is free again and the festivities are in the open. As I wander the country of my youth, I see people spending the long holiday praying at temples and visiting relatives.

And I remember. My family used to hold a reunion on April 13 to mark both the New Year and my mother’s birthday. In 1975, we had no idea that it would be our last. We were all apprehensive about the future, and my mother was distraught because I had missed the American evacuation.

The day before, an officer of the United States Agency for International Development had told me that I had to be at the embassy within an hour if I wanted to be airlifted out of Cambodia. (I was a manager for the American relief agency CARE and had been selected for the evacuation.) Instead, I went to a meeting to find a way to help 3,000 families stranded in an isolated province.

“Maybe I can make the meeting and get to the embassy in time,” I thought.

But as I returned to Phnom Penh, the traffic became heavily congested. Thousands of people on ox carts and overloaded bicycles were making their way to the capital to seek shelter and safety. When I finally reached the American Embassy and gave my name to the security officer, he looked puzzled.

“They are not coming back — they are gone!” The guard shouted his answer to emphasize the hard truth. And he added: “The war is over. We will have peace!”

Speechless, I went to the riverbank and looked at the horizon to see if I could spot the helicopters. The sky was blue and cloudless. I saw nothing. Years later, I learned that I had been looking in the wrong direction. The helicopters had flown westward toward the Gulf of Thailand. And I was looking east.

I was 30 minutes late. My life was going to change forever.

Everyone in the city was in a very somber mood. We prayed that our beloved country would return to the peaceful and stable life of the 1960s. What would happen to us now that the United States had closed its embassy? Two days earlier, President Gerald Ford had announced: “The situation in South Vietnam and Cambodia has reached a critical phase requiring immediate and positive decisions by this government. The options before us are few, and the time is very short.”

Five days later, on April 17, I stopped at a street-side restaurant to have a bowl of Phnom Penh noodles. A waiter took my order in Khmer and shouted in Cantonese loudly enough to be heard all the way to the kitchen: “One bowl of Kuytiev Phnom Penh, no MSG, no fat, blanched bean sprouts, hot tea for the skinny guy with glasses, white shirt, dark pants, table 13!” A different waiter brought my noodles in less than three minutes. Not once had they got the order wrong. It was going to be my last proper breakfast in Cambodia.

I had read gruesome descriptions of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge against enemies of their revolution: babies thrown into the air and caught with a bayonet, children smashed into trees, villagers having their throats cut with the thorns of palm branches, merchants clubbed to death with the back of a hoe. I did not believe them.

The street was lined with city residents, a few still wearing the kramas and sarongs they had slept in. One was brushing his teeth. But all were looking north, waiting for something. They looked fearful.

I spent all day in a temporary emergency room in the Hotel Le Royal doing what I could to help. I came out for fresh air and saw the Khmer Rouge being welcomed. People seemed genuinely happy that the war had ended.

Later that day, the first day of “peace,” I and 15 of my family members left our home after the Khmer Rouge had ordered all cities immediately emptied, and walked to Pochentong, the village where my siblings and I were born. Our house was occupied by strangers, so we went to the temple. The monks were already gone and there were bodies lying around. Mother was sobbing. The women and girls in our family were choking back tears. The boys and men were all silent.

Shortly thereafter, I was separated from my family by the Khmer Rouge. After a year in slave labor camps, where I survived two death sentences, I escaped to Thailand. Following a few months in a Thai jail, in a Buddhist temple and in a refugee camp, I arrived in Wallingford, Conn., with $2 in my pocket. I later learned I was the only survivor in my close family. The Khmer Rouge had killed everyone else.

Cambodia today is not unlike the Cambodia of my youth — there is deep poverty and enormous wealth, side-by-side. There is unrest beneath the surface, the unrest that helped to make the horrors of the last century possible. And so, as I walk from one memory-filled place to another, I pray for a new year in which Cambodia’s leaders will find a way to bring about peace and stability. And, of course, I pray for my family.

Sichan Siv, a former United States ambassador to the United Nations, is the author of the forthcoming “Golden Bones.” Read more!

Cambodia hopes to export 8 mn tonnes of rice by 2015: minister

PHNOM PENH (Xinhua): Cambodia expects to be able to export eight million tonnes of rice per year by 2015, Khmer-English language newspaper the Mekong Times on Friday quoted Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Chan Sarun as saying.

"We will encourage farmers to crop twice or three times a year and further strengthen irrigation systems in order to increase rice production," the minister told an exhibition of natural agricultural products held on Thursday in Kampong Chhnang province, stressing that the country has three million hectares of agricultural land.

Yang Saing Koma, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, agreed that the harvest could be boosted.

"Cambodia has vast tracts of land and current rice output is still low. We believe that Cambodia can achieve the goal, " he said, adding that the government must invest more in the agricultural sector so that farmers have resources and techniques to increase rice yields.

In fact, he said, the kingdom could produce up to 10 million tonnes of rice in the next four or five years.

According to official statistics, Cambodia had a surplus of over two million tonnes of paddy rice from a total harvest of 6.72 million in 2007. High-quality rice sells around one U.S. dollar a kilogram currently in Cambodia.

Last month, the government imposed a ban on rice export and released its stockpile to the market to curb spiraling rice prices.

The inflation occurred reportedly as a result of world food shortage and over purchase of Cambodian rice by Vietnamese and Thai businessmen.

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Audit says management of Cambodian tribunal has improved after calls for reform

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia's Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal is making significant progress in improving management problems that led to accusations of corruption, donors said Friday after a new audit.

Allegations of kickbacks and malpractice have dogged Cambodian members of the tribunal. An earlier audit initiated by the U.N. found shortcomings in its management.

The long-delayed U.N.-assisted tribunal to judge former Khmer Rouge leaders has also been plagued by political wrangling and inadequate financing.

Trials are scheduled to start later this year for atrocities committed during the 1975-79 rule of the communist Khmer Rouge, who are blamed for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

The tribunal has Cambodian and international staff who work jointly at every level, including prosecutors, defenders and judges.

A new audit scrutinizing the Cambodian side's operations shows reforms have been effective, two diplomats from the United Nations and the European Commission said.

"This special review has shown that we (now) have a system that can work," Rafael Dochao Moreno, charge d'affaires of the European Commission's mission to Cambodia, told reporters.

Jo Scheuer, country director for the U.N. Development Program, said the audit showed "significant improvements."

He said various audits since 2006 on management of the funds for the Cambodian side have shown "no questionable financial transactions, no misallocated resources and no incomplete or missing documentation in support of disbursements" of money.

He also added that previous auditors have found "no conclusive evidence" to support the allegations of kickbacks being paid by Cambodian personnel in exchange for their jobs.

Scheuer and Moreno are members of a committee made up of representatives of the nations and agencies funding the tribunal. It commissioned the independent review by a private Indian auditing firm to look into hiring and recruitment practices, salary scales, project assurance and a code of conduct for the tribunal's Cambodian staff.

The tribunal has been seeking additional funds for operations through March 2011. It told donor countries in January it would need US$170 million (€108 million), a sharp increase from the originally budgeted US$56.3 million (€36 million).

Rama Yade, the French minister of state for foreign affairs and human rights, told a news conference Friday that her government has pledged an additional US$1 million (€630,000) to the tribunal for this year. Read more!

Cambodia's tonle sap in distress

Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The Nation
Global warming and economic exploitation destabilise key lake's ecosystem

The Great Lake of Tonle Sap has always been Cambodia's spring of life. Abundant fish stock and seasonal flooding to fertilise rice fields have blessed the region long before the builders of Angkor Wat arrived 900 years ago.

But economic development policies are having the reverse effect. Locals are finding it more difficult to survive, a trend that may only worsen as climate change continues to take hold.

Tonle Sap is Southeast Asia's largest lake, and the source of protein-rich food for Cambodia's 14 million people. As such, the government has sought assistance to aggressively exploit its fisheries under the banner of poverty reduction. But Cambodian sociologist Mak Sithirith of the Fisheries Action Coalition Team said it is not the poor who are benefiting.

Under the scheme, the Cambodian government built infrastructure and introduced market economy to Tonle Sap communities. This has resulted in the end of interdependence between fishing and farming communities, Mak said. The traditional barter system between those growing rice and those catching fish disappeared after an industry of middlemen evolved to wander from village to village, exchanging rice and fish for cash.

"Neighbouring communities who used to rely on one another now compete for material consumption and accumulation obtained by cash and loans," Mak said.

The traditional small-scale fishermen are losing out entirely. The Cambodian government sold fishing concessions to large fishing businesses, banning villagers from the waters that ensured their livelihoods.

Scientists also suspect that changes of water flows caused by dam construction on the lower Mekong River and tributaries may affect the delicate relationship between the Mekong and Tonle Sap. During the rainy season, water flows from the Mekong to fill the lake, with the reverse occurring as the dry season settles in.

Climate change is adding a new level of anxiety. A coalition of Thai and Finnish scientists will soon begin a project to examine the potential climate-change impacts that those around Tonle Sap might experience in the next 50 years.

"Tonle Sap's topography makes the lake very sensitive to changes," Suppakorn Chinvanno of the Bangkok-based Southeast Asia Start Regional Centre said. "A water-level rise of just 0.3 metres can mean a kilometre more flooding on land because of the flat landscape."

This article is based in part on a presentation by Mak Sithirith at the third International Conference of the Asian Rural Sociology Association in Beijing.

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Lawyer they call the Devil's Advocate in court tirade

By Susan Bell
THE controversial French lawyer defending the former president of the Khmer Rouge stormed out of Cambodia's genocide tribunal yesterday – because thousands of pages of documents had not been translated into French.

Jacques Vergès is defending Khieu Samphan, 76, in his appeal against pre-trial detention on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Mr Vergès, who earned the nickname "the Devil's Advocate" for the notoriety of his client list, which ADVERTISEMENThas included the Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal and the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, declared: "French is an official language of the tribunal. There is not one page of the case file against Mr Khieu Samphan translated into French. I should be capable of knowing what my client is blamed for."

He told journalists that judges at the Phnom Penh hearing had asked Khieu Samphan to find a new lawyer. "This is a scandal," he said. "This never happens, except in dictatorships."

The Khmer Rouge leader, who has been held by the tribunal since 19 November, is charged in connection with the period his movement held power, from 1975 to 1979. About 1.7 million people died from starvation, disease, overwork and execution as a result of the Khmer Rouge's radical policies in trying to build a classless society.

The flamboyant 83-year-old lawyer is a natural choice to defend Khieu Samphan, whom he has known since both were active in left-wing student activities in Paris in the 1950s.

Biographies have documented Mr Vergès' links to the Khmer Rouge, including his meeting with Pol Pot, whom he befriended in 1949 when the lawyer was president of the Association for Colonial Students.

But there is mystery over his "missing years" – an eight-year period from 1970 to 1978 when he disappeared from public view, cutting all professional and family ties and leaving many to assume he was dead. Most of his associates now believe he had been in Cambodia during this period, a rumour that Pol Pot denied.

Born in Thailand in 1925 to a French diplomat father and a Vietnamese mother, Mr Vergès was brought up in the then French colony of Réunion. He joined the Communist Party there and in 1942 sailed to Liverpool to join the Free French Forces under Charles de Gaulle and participate in the anti-Nazi Resistance.

After the war, he did his legal training in Paris before embarking on a highly controversial career which has been shaped by his anti-colonialist communist beliefs. During the Algerian civil war, he defended many accused of terrorism by the French government, likening their independence struggle to French armed resistance to the Nazi German occupation in the 1940s.

Later, he worked on primarily political cases and has defended some of the most notorious figures of the past 50 years, including both left- and right-wing terrorists, war criminals and militants. When asked if he would have defended Hitler, he once replied: "I'd even defend Bush, but only if he agrees to plead guilty."
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German charge with aggravated beating of Cambodian wife

Phnom Penh - A German man was facing 10 to 20 years in a Cambodian jail after police allegedly rescued his wife in what they claimed Wednesday was one of the worst cases of domestic violence they had seen. Alvin Gossnol, 37, was arrested after police received complaints from his 38-year-old wife's family that she was being held against her will in their home and had been badly beaten.

Cheung Prey district police chief in the eastern province of Kampong Cham, Heing Vuthy, said the woman had managed to escape a room she had been locked in for two weeks but had been unable to scale the locked gate because her hands were broken.

"She managed to attract the attention of a boy who was passing and he ran to tell her relatives, who called the police," Vuthy said by telephone.

"After we pulled her over the wall, she told us when they married in 2001, her husband had made a special stick to beat her with. If she got the stick for him herself, he didn't beat her as badly, but if he had to get the stick, he beat her very seriously."

Police said Gossnol was at the home when they arrived but refused to open the gate. He only left the woman alone long enough for her to escape when their 8-month-old baby began crying.

"When we came back with a warrant, we found the stick, exactly as she had told us and it was still covered in her blood," Vuthy said.

The baby was rescued and returned to the mother, police said.

Gossnol, a pig farmer whose exact place of birth in Germany was not available, was jailed pending trial. Under Cambodian law he can be held up to six months pretrial.

"It is safe to say this man seems to have treated his pigs much better than his wife," Vuthy said.

Earlier this month Cambodia temporarily banned marriages of its nationals to foreigners, saying they feared often poor and under-educated women were especially vulnerable to abuse.

Divorce is still frowned upon in Cambodia, and the women also frequently feel a financial obligation to their families to stay with their foreign husbands no matter how bad it gets.
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Asia limits rice exports as prices and uncertainty rise

By David Montero

sia, home to many of the world's top rice suppliers, accounts for 76 percent of the 30 million tons of the staple food exported each year. Prices are shooting up worldwide, in part because many of those countries have cut back on exports due to fears of shortage. The food-price crisis has underscored that, as a region, Asia is divided into "rice haves" - where domestic production is enough to feed the population - and "rice have-nots," which consistently rely on imports. Correspondent David Montero provides a snapshot of rice supplies around the region:

HAVES

Thailand

Thailand is the world's largest exporter of rice, with 31 percent of the global market. In 2007, it exported 9.4 million tons of rice, out of a total 20 million tons produced. Unlike many Asian countries, it has not imposed any export restrictions, and this year it expects to export between 8.75 million and 9 million tons.

Yet prices of rice have doubled in the country since the beginning of the year, fueling fears of inflation and hoarding. But the government has stockpiled 2.1 million tons of rice, and no shortages are expected.

Vietnam

Vietnam is the second largest exporter of rice in the world, with about 20 percent of the global market. It has said it will limit exports of rice to 3.5 million tons, down from 4.5 tons last year. The announcement contributed to global prices of rice doubling since January. Consumer prices in Vietnam, meanwhile, increased by 20 percent in March, a 12-year record.

India

India exports about 4 million tons of rice a year, making it the world's third-largest exporter. But because food prices have risen by 8.3 percent in the past year, it has also imposed restrictions on exports of rice. That is putting a considerable strain on world prices and supplies, experts say.

Pakistan

Pakistan exported 3.3 million tons of rice last year, making it the fifth-largest exporter just behind the United States. But exports this year are expected to fall by 15 percent to 2.8 million, mainly due to power shortages, according to Pakistani officials.

Since rice is not a staple food in Pakistan - wheat is - the government has not placed the same kind of restrictions as other Asia countries. With rice in tight supply, many countries are pinning their hopes on Pakistan's exports.

China

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of rice, with annual supplies large enough to feed its population. It exported 1.4 million tons of rice last year. But food prices jumped 21 percent in March alone, and consumer prices reached an 11-year high in February of 8.7 percent. To dampen price increases, China imposed strict export restrictions on rice, which is expected to result in a drop of 300,000 tons to the global market. This week it also imposed a six-month tariff on fertilizer exports, to help shore up domestic supply.

Cambodia

Cambodia produced 3.6 million tons of rice last year, according to official estimates. Two million are needed for domestic consumption, leaving Cambodia with about 1.6 million tons in surplus. Last year it exported 450,000 tons of rice, according to the US Department of Agriculture. But this year it may not: In late March, Prime Minister Hun Sen imposed a two-month ban on all exports, hoping to curb the spiraling domestic price of rice. The rate of food inflation reached 24 percent in March, the highest level in a decade.

Indonesia

Indonesia, one of the world's leading consumers of rice, usually imports large quantities of the grain to feed its 233 million people - making it particularly vulnerable to the rice crisis. But this year it expects to harvest 32.6 million tons, about 1.2 million more than it needs for domestic consumption. The surplus comes thanks to an expansion in the harvested farmland area and improved yields. Accordingly, rice prices have only increased by 7 percent this year, much less than in the rest of Asia, which has seen a rise of about 50 percent.

Japan

Unlike the rest of Asia, there is actually a rice glut in Japan, and rice prices are falling, according to the Wall Street Journal. Last year, Japanese farmers produced 8.71 million tons of rice, against a demand of 8.33 million tons. Japanese consumers pay two to three times more for rice than other Asian consumers do, as part of a program to generously subsidize rice production.

South Korea

South Korea looks prepared to weather the current crisis. Last year it produced 4.68 million tons of rice, more than enough to meet the 4.16 million tons of demand. Still, rice prices have shot up 75 percent in the past two months.

Australia

Australia used to produce 700,000 tons of rice and export around 600,000 annually,

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Kep is Cambodia or the whole country is Vietnam

Crabs...we watched them go straight from the trap to the grill to our plates....YUM! (seafood is Kep's only industry)

Kep was once a seaside resort. Then the Khmer Rouge came to town (see the pattern developing?). Kep and Kampot were one of their last holdouts, so the town is just starting to see tourists rolling through. We spoke to some locals who said there weren't even guest houses in Kep 5 years ago. For that matter, there weren't any Cambodians. The locals were too scared (smart) to live there and moved out. In 1994, there was actually a very well documented account of foreigners getting kidnapped by the KR on the road between Kep and Kampot. None of them survived. (Don't worry, Mom, that's why we're avoiding Burma (and now Tibet) this trip).

We took an 18km bike ride around the mountain range that looms over the town and the effect of their recent history was tough to miss. As we tend to do, we rode off the beaten path of the main road and biked around a little further inland. There were seaside mansions, one right after another. Back in the day, Kep was THE beach-side resort town and only the wealthiest of Cambodians (i.e. government officials) could afford to live there. These places were massive. As we rode past them, however, they were no longer inhabited by Cambodia's elite. Life is nothing, if not ironic and the mansions are now inhabited by Cambodia's impoverished. During the KR years, most of the mansions were shelled by mortars, riddled with bullets and bulldozed with tanks. What were seaside mansions are now seaside ruins. So Kep's poor put up a tin wall here, threw up a plastic sheet there and are now squatting in some of the nicest homes in the country.

Having caught the Indiana Jones bug, I desperately wanted to park our bikes and explore some of the homes that were still vacant. Unfortunately, I saw one too many one-legged and no-legged Cambodians begging in the streets. Putting on my Indy fedora wasn't worth the risk of stepping on an undetonated land mine.

Sadly, Kep was our last stop in Cambodia.

Now we're waking up and screaming GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM!

Cambodian Cultural Difference - HALLO! : Okay, so this is more of a traveling phenomenon than a Cambodian phenomenon, but the kids are so cute there, I had to throw it under Cambodia. No matter where we've traveled, we are always bombarded with waves and greetings from the local children. Particularly during our 18km bike marathon, we would here a high-pitched "HALLO!!!!" coming from out of nowhere, only to see a naked 4 year old running out of his house chasing after us, arm frantically waving in there air. Tracy...err I mean Miss America... likes her Southeast Asian celebrity status so much that if somehow a child DOESN'T see us, SHE will scream out to them. She will do anything for her HALLO! fix.

Funnily enough, as we rode on the back of the tuk tuk to the Vietnamese border, the HALLOS! changed to BYE BYE!!!'s.
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Soccer-Cambodia to beef-up national team to stem goals tide

By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, April 22 (Reuters) - Cambodia is on a drive to recruit bigger players for its struggling soccer side after years of being hammered by more physical teams, the country's soccer chief said on Tuesday.

Soccer federation president Sao Sokha said the impoverished country's diminutive players had little chance against bigger, stronger opponents so it was time for a complete overhaul.

"We need to have bigger and taller players to play against tough foreign players," he told Reuters.

"The new recruits must meet the requirement of (being) at least 1.7 metres tall, young, strong and able to run fast."

Cambodia's team of labourers, security guards and policemen have conceded 21 goals in their last four matches. The team has never qualified for a tournament outside of Southeast Asia.

Introduced to soccer in the 1960s by French colonialists, Cambodia were fast improvers before a brutal civil war, which included genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime, curtailed their progress and led to a 23-year absence from the game.

Sao Sokha said 30 players had so far been recruited and would be paid up to $250 a month -- eight times the salary of a civil servant.

"Lots of people like to watch the game, but it is difficult to find qualified people to play it," he said.

"I urge all parents to let their children play soccer so that it will help us to find good players -- players who can attract spectators like rock bands do." (Editing by Martin Petty and Greg Stutchbury)


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