New York, Mar 24: It seems that everyone is not as lucky as Hollywood beauty Angelina Jolie, whether it is about being the sexiest woman in Hollywood or having Brad Pitt as a lover, or even adopting kids.
Band-Aid heiress Casey Johnson, who claims to be in the process of adopting a baby girl from Kazakhstan, is still sad she wasn't able to adopt a baby from Cambodia, as Angelina Jolie did. "I went to Cambodia almost two years ago [and] fell in love with this little girl, a 21/2-year-old named Lavissa," Johnson, was quoted by the New York Post, as saying.
But then she got the bad news that an adoption wasn't possible because of tight new adoption laws."I was devastated because I had bonded for three weeks with this child. I was buying her clothes in Cambodia. I was videoing her. I was doing everything," she added .
In 2001, Jolie adopted her first child, Maddox, from Cambodia with then-husband Billy Bob Thornton, but the Third World nation later cut off adoptions by foreigners amid accusations by child-welfare advocates of corrupt, babies-for-cash scams.
Johnson says she finally cheered up when her godmother, Diandra Douglas, the ex-wife of Michael Douglas, adopted a baby girl from Kazakhstan. "She's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. She's blond-haired, blue-eyed, looks just like Diandra, and I thought, 'Oh, my gosh! This is what I'm going to do.' " Johnson says that when her own adoption goes through, she plans to name her baby Ava Monroe after her idol Marilyn Monroe.
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Saturday, March 24, 2007
Band Aid heiress bemoans failed Jolie-like Cambodian adoption attempt
Japan to help Cambodia develop power project with 22 mln USD loan
PHNOM PENH, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Japan will provide some 22 million U.S. dollars of low-interest loan for Cambodia to implement the Greater Mekong Power Network Development Project, local media said on Saturday.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hor Namhong and Japanese Ambassador Fumiaki Takahashi signed the exchange of notes here on Friday in presence of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
According to the notes, the Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC) will offer the loan at an annual interest rate of 0.01 percent with a payment period of 40 years.
The loan will serve the construction of two power transmission cables between Sihanoukville and Kampot, improvement of the kingdom's electricity equipment, construction of power transmission network among Phnom Penh and its neighboring provinces and some other projects. .
So far, the Japanese government has provided some 132,519,000 U.S. dollars of loans for the Cambodian government, according to a press release from the Japanese Embassy. .
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Friday, March 23, 2007
Pope's Representative To Cambodia Meets With Hun Sen
The Pope's representative to the region has met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen ahead of the opening of a new children's hospital set up by US-based Catholic mission movement group Maryknoll, local media reported Thursday.
Apolistic Nuncio Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio visited Hun Sen at his home in a low-key visit and thanked him for the spirit of religious tolerance that Cambodia showed, reported Khmer-language daily, Kampuchea Thmey.
Hun Sen in turn promised continued cooperation with Maryknoll and other missionary organizations dedicated to improving standards of health and education in the country, the paper said.
An apostolic nuncio is a Vatican ambassador or representative of the pope in different countries. Countries with large Catholic populations are awarded their own nuncio but Cambodia, with only 5,000 Khmer Catholics, shares a nuncio with Thailand, Laos, Burma, Brunei, and Singapore.
The meeting was held last week ahead of the scheduled opening of the new hospital in south-western Takeo province next week, the paper said. Maryknoll oversees a number of health-orientated programmes in Cambodia, including providing palliative care for AIDS patients.
© 2007 DPA.
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Roundup: Japan asked to invest in agriculture, industry, tourism in Cambodia
Cambodian government officials have told a senior 28-member Japanese delegation to explore business opportunities in agriculture, industry and tourism in the kingdom, local media said on Thursday.
While meeting the delegation on Tuesday, Phnom Penh Chamber of Commerce President Kith Meng suggested that the investors prioritize projects in the sectors of agriculture, industry and tourism.
Investment in steel production will be particularly beneficial as Cambodia currently imports steel, which is in growing demand, Cambodian daily newspaper the Rasmei Kampuchea quoted him as telling the delegation headed by ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) -Japan Center Director Vong Sam Ang.
Meanwhile, Cambodia has vast areas of land free for growing industrial crops, the government has land with a 96-year concession for investors interested in crop cultivation, and the country can also construct factories to produce electronic appliances for export, Kith Meng told the delegation, which arrived here on Monday for a week-long mission to explore Cambodia 's business potential.
Japanese firms should also engage in commercial activities in the growing tourism sector in Cambodia, which benefits from the world famous Angkor temple complex, he said.
During another meeting on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An assured the Japanese delegates that the Cambodian government is paying particular attention to the fight against corruption and land disputes.
In addition, the country's current high electricity prices will go down, another Cambodian daily newspaper the Kampuchea Thmey quoted him as saying.
"In the future we hope that the price of electricity will decrease because at the present time we are also building power and hydroelectricity plants in many locations in Cambodia," said Sok An.
Also on Tuesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen, who plans to officially visit Japan in June, met with the Japanese delegates, emphasizing that his planned visit is designed partly to attract Japanese investors and tourists.
The prime minister also plans to propose that Japan provide Cambodia with more soft loans, accelerate the implementation of Japanese grant already approved for the construction of the Neak Leoung Bridge, according to Cambodian daily newspaper the Koh Santepheap.
In recent months, Japan and Cambodia have been holding meetings to discuss a bilateral investment agreement, which aims to enhance Japan to be a major investor in Cambodia.
Japan has been the kingdom's largest aid donors for years, but lags behind other countries in the sector of investment.
Source: Xinhua .
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WATER DAY-CAMBODIA: Asian Developement Bank Project Fails Fishermen
BANGKOK, Mar 22 (IPS) - A planned survey to check the economic pulse of fishing communities living on the banks of South-east Asia's largest freshwater lake -- the Tonle Sap in Cambodia -- threatens to expose serious shortcomings in an Asian Development Bank (AsDB) anti-poverty initiative.
The survey, to commence late April, stems out of the critical view a Cambodian non-governmental organisation (NGO), Fisheries Action Coalition Team (FACT), has of a ‘development' project that the Manila-based AsDB launched in October 2002. The five-year-long Tonle Sap Initiative (TSI), set out, among other things, to improve the lives of the communities that depend on the lake's fish for their livelihood.
But four years later, the AsDB's flagship ‘pro-poor development initiative' in one of the region's poorest countries is still stuck in the mud of basic details. ‘'Most of the people living around the Tonle Sap still don't know what this project is really about. Some only have heard of it by name,'' says Raingsey Pen, project leader of ‘Tonle Sap Watch' at the Phnom Penh-based FACT.
This ignorance is due to a lack of participation by the people from the beginning of this project, he said in telephone interview from the Cambodian capital. ‘'NGOs who have been monitoring this initiative have complained to the AsDB that most of the documents have not been translated into the local language and are only available in English.''
The information gulf between the bank and the Tonle Sap's poor has been noted by Oxfam, the international development agency. ‘'There is a general lack of awareness about the TSI,'' says Jessica Rosien, who authored a study last year for Oxfam's Australia office on this body of water. ‘‘Can the AsDB save the Tonle Sap from poverty? There has been too little involvement of the people who were supposed to benefit,'' she told IPS.
The AsDB concedes that some of the criticisms by NGOs are relevant. ‘'We have heard some of the concerns by NGOs and they are valid,'' Mahfuz Ahmed, senior agriculture economist at the bank, said in an interview from Manila. ‘'Running this project from Phnom Penh is not easy. People's participation is a core feature of this project. We have got to be more aggressive.''
Even at a formal meeting this month in Phnom Penh between the regional bank and Cambodian government officials, the AsDB let slip the difficulty it was facing in being more inclusive just as the TSI enters its final year. ‘'There is a risk that some of the poor and marginalised could be increasingly left behind,'' Urooj Malik, director of the agriculture, environment and natural resources division at the Bank, said during the mid-March forum. ‘'It is vital to involve them more in the process of formulating policies designed to improve their conditions.''
The Tonle Sap, which receives water from the Mekong river, plays a central part in feeding Cambodia with its rich supply of fresh-water fish. Fishing on this lake, which expands from 2,500 sq km to 13,000 sq km during the May - October flood season, provides food and incomes to about one million Cambodians. .
The poor living along the banks of the Tonle Sap are part of the nearly 40 percent of Cambodia's 13.8 million population living below the poverty line.
These were the communities that the bank hoped to aid as part of the TSI. This initiative aimed to be ‘'a partnership of organisations and people working to meet the poverty and environment challenges of the Tonle Sap,'' states the AsDB on its website.
In July 2003, the bank added the ‘Tonle Sap Basin Strategy' to the TSI as part of its broader Cambodia country programme to meet a 2007 deadline. This was deemed ‘'consistent with AsDB's water policy and worldwide trend towards managing land, water and biotic resources within a framework of basin units,'' adds the bank.
In fact, the second pillar of the TSI was singled out as the ‘Tonle Sap Sustainable Livelihoods Project,' which was estimated to cost 19.7 million US dollars, with 15 million dollars coming from the Asian Development Fund and 4.7 million dollars from the Finnish government. The project aimed to improve the economy of the fishing communities by assuring the locals a role in choosing, planning and managing small programmes for their benefit.
Yet, as the Oxfam report revealed, public participation is ‘'low in proportion to the number of projects of the AsDB's Tonle Sap Basin portfolio.'' Further, it is also ‘'difficult to trace whether and how the recommendations from community members were or were not incorporated into the final project design.''
And for AsDB watchdogs like FACT, nothing conveys the bank's distance from its intended beneficiaries more than the departure from its original promise of creating new fishing communities in addition to strengthening existing ones. ‘'The project sought to improve the fishing communities by establishing 500 more around the Tonle Sap,'' says Pen. ‘'But until now we have not seen a new fishing community that was promised.'' (END/2007) .
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Cambodia Winning the Fight Against AIDS
By Rory Byrne
Phnom Penh, March 22, 2007
On the face of it, Cambodia should be devastated by AIDS. Brothels are commonplace in the impoverished country, illegal drugs are widely available, and government spending on health care is only about two dollars a person each year. But the rate of new AIDS infections has dropped during the past decade. Rory Byrne reports for VOA from Phnom Penh on how Cambodia is turning the tide against AIDS.
In 1997, 3.2 of Cambodians were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The United Nations office dealing with AIDS, UNAIDS, says that among sex workers the figure was almost 40 percent.
Today, UNAIDS says only about 1.6 percent of the general population is infected, with about 20 percent of sex workers believed to be infected.
Dr. Mean Chhi Vun is the director of Cambodia's National Center for HIV, AIDS, Dermatology and Sexually Transmitted Infections. He says the key to Cambodia's success has been a multi-faceted plan in which government and aid groups work together at all levels to fight the disease.
"As you may know, Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world," he said. "So we work together with all partners - including bilateral, multilateral, the international finance agencies like World Bank, ADB, the academic institutions, and the civil society including NGOs and community-based organizations."
Cambodia is still recovering from decades of conflict. Thousands of women see no choice but to become sex workers, and the country has a young, migrant population. All of these factors can contribute to rising HIV infection rates.
The U.N. AIDS co-coordinator in Cambodia, Tony Lisle, says the government deserves great credit for having the political will to tackle the disease.
"The Cambodian government basically has opened the space for all the key players to play their role," he said. "The government has essentially, for example, in terms of the sex work and client environment, the government approved and the prime minister basically established a policy for the 100 percent condom use program in brothels, so it opened the door for a scaled response."
Encouraging the use of condoms has been an important part of the strategy. The government sponsors safe-sex ads on billboards, television and radio. Activist groups distribute condoms and make sure that people how to use them.
"We try to normalize the condom use in Cambodia by educating them through the CUP (100 percent Condom Use Program) campaign," said Dan Borapich, a spokesman for Population Services International, the largest distributor of subsidized condoms in Cambodia. "You know, use a condom, and also increase the visibility of condoms through our distribution channel, like we try to make sure that condoms available at even supermarket, mini-market, stall, you know, pharmacy, everywhere."
Another important part of the strategy is treating those infected with cheap or free anti-retroviral drugs.
Tony Lisle of UNAIDS says that about 25,000 patients are receiving treatment in Cambodia - nearly 80 percent of all those who need treatment. The bulk of the life-saving drugs are
provided by the Global Fund for Tuberculosis, AIDS and Malaria.
"I think Cambodia, of all countries in the region, is a major success story in terms of getting all of those who need to be on treatment, on treatment," said Lisle.
Despite the progress, experts warn there remains a chance the infection rate could still rise, particularly among those groups engaging in high- risk behavior. Studies show, for example, that new infections among men who have sex with men and those who use illegal injected drugs are still increasing in Cambodia.
The infection rate also is increasing among so-called indirect sex workers - women working in beer gardens, karaoke clubs and hostess bars.
AIDS experts say these women often have a steady partner and do not use a condom with that man, although neither the woman nor the man may be faithful.
HIV infection rates also are high among men who have moved to Phnom Penh from the countryside to work. These men often become infected at brothels and then take the virus home to their wives.
For many of those infected with HIV, life is difficult. Cambodia's health-care system is basic at best. Conditions are unhygienic. Modern medical equipment is almost non-existent.
And discrimination against AIDS sufferers is commonplace, despite efforts being made to stamp it out.
Mony is HIV positive and works for the Cambodian Community of Women living with HIV/AIDS.
"In the community, stigma and discrimination is still happening. Nobody wants to talk to the PLHA - people living with HIV and AIDS - nobody wants to buy their products," said Mony.
"So, it is still very hard ... even the stigma and discrimination in the health center and also at the national level ... it is still happening, yeah."
Despite these problems, Cambodia has become an example of how to fight the disease. AIDS experts say the lesson from Cambodia is that if the political will is there from the top, the disease can be contained, even in the poorest nations.
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Thursday, March 22, 2007
Cambodian police chief cleared in kidnapping
Phnom Penh - A Cambodian court Wednesday acquitted disgraced former police chief Heng Pov on a charge of kidnapping four South Korean businessmen. Phnom Penh Municipal Court took just a few hours to throw out the charge against the former chief of the capital's police, who is already serving 18 years in prison for the murder of former senior judge Sok Sethamony in April 2003.
Pov, 47, was sentenced for that murder in absentia in September and jailed on his return to Cambodia after being deported from Malaysia last December. Police had alleged that Pov was responsible for the four Koreans being abducted and locked up in an extortion attempt gone wrong dating back more than two years.
Pov appeared in a blue prison uniform but looked jovial and relaxed throughout the hearing, telling the court in his final address to feel free to jail him for the maximum term if it felt the evidence warranted it. The court decided it did not, and found Pov and co-defendant, former anti-trafficking police chief Meng Say, not guilty. The charge carried up to 20 years imprisonment if they were convicted. However Pov and a scree of high ranking police alleged to have been in his employ still face a number of other charges and are being investigated for a series of serious crimes including extortion, murder and kidnappings.
Pov and his co-defendant were returned to Phnom Penh's Prey Sar prison after the hearing, which was marked by tight security. The fall from grace of Pov and his cohorts last year shocked Cambodia and undermined public faith in a police and judicial system already viewed as corrupt and tainted by many Khmers. - Sapa-dpa.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Asian rivers top WWF risk list from pollution, climate change
Also on the list are the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo and La Plata in Latin America, the Danube in central Europe, the Nile-Lake Victoria in Africa and the Murray-Darling in Australia.
For example, "as governments become concerned about climate change reducing water run-off, they build more dams to store more water, which then results in more water being extracted from the rivers and so builds up more ecological problems," Pittock said.
"The Chinese government has been very active globally consulting with a range of experts.
Workshop set for Khmer Rouge trials in Cambodia
The Asian International Justice Initiative (‘AIJI’), a collaboration between the East-West Center, Hawaii and the War Crimes Studies Center at the University of California, Berkeley will hold a week-long workshop in international criminal law for Cambodian lawyers. The workshop will be held March 26 through 30 in Phnom Penh.
Working with the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Defense Support Section of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (‘ECCC’), the AIJI workshop will primarily provide Cambodian defense counsel with the opportunity to focus on the key legal issues likely to play a central role in the upcoming trials. This will include an intensive overview of the international crimes contained in the ECCC Law, including crimes against humanity (such as murder, extermination, forced labor and deportation, and sexual violence) as well as genocide. The format, developed by the AIJI in close collaboration with the Principal Defender of the ECCC, Rupert Skilbeck, will be interactive and conducted in seminar style, in order to ensure participation from all parties and to foster a close working relationship between the faculty and participants.
David Cohen, director of the War Crimes Studies Center and the AIJI and EWC adjunct senior fellow, will chair the workshop. He will be joined by a distinguished international faculty of individuals with significant experience at other ‘hybrid’ national/international tribunals. Among those joining Cohen are Alan Gutman, former defense counsel at the Special Panel for Serious Crimes in East Timor; and Chief Justice of the Massachusetts State Court of Appeals and former Coordinating Judge at the Special Panels, Phillip Rapoza.
A workshop for the Khmer Rouge trials’ prosecution teams will be conducted by the AIJI in August.
Funding for the workshop comes from a grant to the East-West Center from the British Embassy in Phnom Penh.
The EAST-WEST CENTER is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. The Center contributes to a peaceful, prosperous and just Asia Pacific community by serving as a vigorous hub for cooperative research, education and dialogue on critical issues of common concern to the Asia Pacific region and the United States. Funding for the Center comes from the U.S. government, with additional support provided by private agencies, individuals, foundations, corporations, and the governments of the region.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2007
CAMBODIA: Khmer Rouge genocide trial back on track
The Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal looks like it might finally be on track. International and Cambodian judges have now agreed on a draft for the internal rules of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
Presenter/Interviewer: Barbara Gruber
Speakers: Vann Nath, survivor of Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng prison; Sara Colm, Human Rights Watch Cambodia; Son Chhay, opposition parliamentarian.
GRUBER: Vann Nath is one of only three survivors of Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng prison. It's where more than 14,000 people were tortured and executed during the Khmer Rouge regime. Today the 62 year old runs a small restaurant to support himself and his family.
VANN NATH: I was very fortunate to survive. I was an experienced painter. And when I was in prison they needed me as a painter.
GRUBER: Vann Nath's experience as an artist saw him paint official portraits of brother number one, Pol Pot - the head of the Khmer Rouge. Since then, Vann Nath has been waiting for justice.
VANN NATH: Everyday I look to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, this is my biggest hope because I want to know if there will be justice for those who've already died and for those who are still alive.
GRUBER: The tribunal has suffered many delays and one of the causes has bee dispute over the court's internal rules, including the issue of foreign defence counsels. It's now been agreed that they should take part. But they could face a registration fee. The Cambodian Bar Association plans to charge international lawyers US$2,000 to work in Cambodia. Sara Colm of Human Rights Watch in Cambodia says the move could make international lawyers stay away, so it needs to be resolved.
COLM: In order for these trials to be credible the defendants need credible defence, so if the defendants want international defence they should get that right.
GRUBER: There'll be a plenary meeting in April to formally approval the internal rules. But four international judges have already threatened to boycott the meeting if the fee dispute is not resolved. Sara Colm says the agreement on Internal rules gives the illusion of progress when in fact there is no clear political will for fair and independent trials. She is concerned that the tribunal is not a true international tribunal, but an extension of the Cambodian judicial system.
COLM: The Cambodian judiciary is notorious for being very susceptible to political interference and corruption and there are many, many examples we can point to over the years and the fact that sitting on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal are judges and prosecutors that have been involved in some of the most famous show trials is cause for great concern.
GRUBER: Son Chhay, an opposition parliamentarian, says he believes the Cambodian government has interfered in the work of the tribunal at every stage. He says the majority of the Cambodian judges have no experience in international law and are not independent..
SON CHHAY: We want to have a proper trial of the Khmer Rouge, I am a person who suffered under the Khmer Rouge myself. We have suffered too much under the Khmer Rouge, now this tribunal will not bring us justice, only bring another suffering. I doubt that anything will happen, and if it happens it will only be a showcase, it's not going to be real.
GRUBER: Back in Vann Nath's restaurant, the 62 year old says he is determined to testify.
VANN NATH: I still dream of my effort to survive every night. I believe in the future, not just the past. We can't forget the past, but we have to think of how to avoid brutal regimes in the future. That's why I must live on.
GRUBER: The wrangling over the internal rules of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal has consumed almost a third of the tribunal's three-year life span, and time is running out. Close to two million people died of overwork, starvation and execution under the Khmer Rouge. Any more delays will mean that the victims and perpetrators might never see justice before it's too late.
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Monday, March 19, 2007
One big happy family in Cambodia
By Bertil Lintner
PHNOM PENH - Cambodia's rough-and-tumble politics have long been bloody, marred by frequent political assassinations and violence. But never before have they been quite so blood-linked.
The English-language fortnightly Phnom Penh Post published without comment in late February a family tree it had compiled, revealing how the top leaders of the ruling Cambodia People's Party (CPP) have become more intimate through an old-fashioned Cambodian custom: arranged marriage. And the growing family ties run all the way to the top of Cambodia's political pyramid, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Southeast Asia's longest-serving leader.
For instance, there is Hun Sen's brother, Hun Neng, currently serving as governor of Kompong Cham, whose daughter, Hun Kimleng, is married to the deputy commissioner of Cambodia's National Police, Neth Savoeun. Meanwhile, Hun Neng's son, Hun Seang Heng, is married to Sok Sopheak, the daughter of Sok Phal, another deputy commissioner of the National Police.
Hun Sen's 25-year-old son, Hun Manith, is married to Hok Chendavy, the daughter of Hok Lundy, the National Police commissioner. Another of the premier's sons, Hun Many, 24, is married to Yim Chay Lin, the daughter of Yim Chay Li, secretary of state for rural development. One of Hun Sen's daughters, Hun Mali, 23, meanwhile, is married to Sok Puthyvuth, the son of Sok An, Hun Sen's right-hand man and minister of the Council of Ministers.
The friendship between Hun Sen and Sok An dates back to the early 1980s, when Hun Sen was foreign minister and Sok An director of the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Now those personal ties run blood deep as in-laws. And that's just a sampling of the connections at the highest echelons. Heng Samrin, who was Cambodia's head of state from the Vietnamese invasion in January 1979 to the United Nations intervention in 1991, and now serves as president of the National Assembly and honorary CPP president, has a daughter named Heng Sam An, who is married to Pen Kosal, an adviser to Sar Kheng, deputy prime minister and minister of the interior - as well as brother-in-law of Senate and CPP president Chea Sim. Heng Samrin's adviser, Cham Nimol, is the daughter of Cham Prasidh, minister of commerce. Another of Cham Pradish's daughters, Cham Krasna, is engaged to Sok Sokann, another of minister Sok An's sons.
Sar Kheng's son, Sar Sokha, meanwhile, is married to Ke Sunsophy, daughter of Ke Kim Yan, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. And Hun Sen's wife, Bun Ramy, currently serves as president of the Cambodian Red Cross, while its second vice president, Theng Ay Anny, aka Sok An Anny, is Sok An's wife.
Family traditionsThere has been no official reaction to the Phnom Penh Post's revealing study. Intermarriage among members of the ruling political and business elites is not uncommon in Asia. In neighboring Thailand, Field Marshal Phin Choonhavan's son, Chatichai Choonhavan, became prime minister of Thailand, while his daughter, Khun Ying Udomlak married Phao Sriyanond, director general of the Thai police.
Another high-ranking Thai army officer, Thanom Kittikachorn, was the brother-in-law of fellow military dictator Praphas Charusathien, while his son, Narong Kittikachorn, also became a military strongman, while his sister Songsuda married Suvit Yodmani, who has served with several Thai governments. Sino-Thai tycoons are known to have arranged their children's marriages to members of other top business families to progress their commercial interests. But in Cambodia's case, where many of the political elite were wiped out during Khmer Rouge-led purges between 1975 and 1979, the number of political marriages is extraordinary. And these new family ties between the children of ministers and top officials potentially set the stage for the CPP's grip on power to continue for generations.
Significantly, the CPP's family connection is emerging simultaneously with a waning of the royal family's influence over national politics. Ever since Hun Sen and his inner circle of friends and advisers ousted former prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh in a 1997 coup, the royalist Funcinpec party's political fortunes have waned. Ranariddh was forced into exile after the bloody putsch that killed many of his party members, but later returned to Cambodia to become president of the National Assembly after inconclusive general elections in 2003, when the CPP was unable to garner enough votes to form a one-party government and after much squabbling joined with Funcinpec in a wobbly coalition.
One of the sons of former king Norodom Sihanouk and half-brother of the present monarch, Sihamoni, Ranariddh resigned that post last March and subsequently left the country again. While he was away, he was dismissed as co-chairman of the Council for the Development of Cambodia as well as the National Olympic Committee. He later returned to Cambodia - and was ousted as president of Funcinpec, the main opposition party, amid an internal power struggle in October that many political analysts believe Hun Sen had a hand in. Not surprisingly, perhaps, several of Funcinpec's original leaders were also related.
Ranariddh's uncle and former king Norodom Sihanouk's younger half-brother, Norodom Sirivudh, served as foreign minister in a Funcinpec-led government in 1993. Ranariddh's half-brother, Norodom Chakrapong, meanwhile, helped found Funcinpec but later defected to the CPP. Their half-sister and Sihanouk's eldest child, Norodom Bopha Devi, has served as minister of information and culture, while her latest consort, Khek Vandy, was elected to the National Assembly on a Funcinpec list in 1998. But Funcinpec's family pride has waned considerably since it emerged as the biggest party in the UN-supervised elections in May 1993, when it captured 45% of the popular vote and outpaced the CPP, which came in a close second with 38%. Many political observers think Ranariddh's recent ouster from Funcinpec may represent his last political gasp. His former Funcinpec colleagues recently sued him on allegations that he embezzled US$3.6 million from the sale of the party's headquarters last August.
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court found the prince guilty and sentenced him - in absentia - to 18 years in prison. Ranariddh had recently set up a new party, aptly named the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP). Funcinpec, the NRP and the opposition Sam Rainsy Party will be among 10 different political parties standing against the CPP juggernaut in upcoming commune council elections, which are scheduled for April 1 and widely viewed as a bellwether indicator for next year's general elections. It may well be an April Fool's election, with the opposition fractured and vulnerable and the CPP allegedly pursuing a campaign of violence and intimidation against opposition candidates and their supporters in rural areas.
Khieu Kanharith, CPP minister of information, predicted on February 22 that his party would win about 97% or 98% of the positions in the commune councils, and 95% of the vote in the general elections next year. That may well be the case, as Cambodia is fast morphing into a one-party state dominated by the CPP.
The Phnom Penh Post in its February 9 edition quoted a foreign diplomat as saying: "The CPP controls the government, the National Assembly, the Senate, 99% of the village chiefs, the provincial governments. Their influence goes through the judiciary, through the police ... Practically everything is controlled by one party." That assessment would appear to jibe with 55-year-old Hun Sen's January 9 pronouncement that he does not intend to stand down from the premiership until he is at least 90 years old. By then, a third generation of CPP family-tied politicians and officials, if everything goes according to the apparent plan, will just be coming of political age.
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Sunday, March 18, 2007
New Digs for ‘Queen of the Fish’
Cambodian actresses and karaoke singers — the country’s equivalent of pop stars — have immigrated to those cities, Mr. Vandy said, but Ms. Veth is the first to settle in New York, which has a relatively small Cambodian community.
“I still miss Cambodia very much, but I’m happy that my movies help people who also miss Cambodia,” said Ms. Veth, who says she prefers traditional roles based on Khmer folk tales to the racier material that appears in Cambodian cinema.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
ADB, Cambodia cooperate in conserving resources of Tonle Sap Great Lake
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Cambodia are working together to conserve the resources of Tonle Sap Great Lake while pursuing pro-poor development initiatives in the area, said ADB in a news release Friday.
ADB and the Cambodian government jointly held a forum in Phnom Penh this month to address the issue, said ADB.
"The forum helped build a stronger sense of ownership of the Initiative among a wide cross section of people involved in this important effort," said Arjun Goswami, ADB country director for Cambodia. "This is a vital step in the effort to restore the environment and improve the livelihood of communities in the Tonle Sap Great Lake."
The Tonle Sap, located north of Cambodia's capital, is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. The ecosystem around the lake is a direct and irreplaceable source of livelihood for more than 1 million people, and an area of environmental biodiversity of global significance, said ADB.
The forum on the Tonle Sap Initiative, which ended on March 6, brought together more than 200 people from ADB, Cambodia, development partners and members of communities living on and around the lake.
Forum participants examined the challenges ahead to achieve equitable development of the Tonle Sap basin and discussed the policies and legal framework that will be needed.
"There is a risk that some of the poor and marginalized could be increasingly left behind," said Urooj Malik, director of the Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Division of ADB's Southeast Asia Department. "It is vital to involve them more in the process of formulating policies designed to improve their conditions."
A major need identified at the forum was for closer coordination of government policies, laws and regulations related to the Tonle Sap Basin, including "harmonization of those concerning natural resources management, zonation of land and water use, and infrastructure development such as roads, water and sanitation and irrigation," said ADB.
Source: Xinhua .
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Chief defense lawyer vows to prevent collapse of Khmer Rouge tribunal
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: The chief defense lawyer for the long-delayed Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal said Saturday he will try to resolve a key sticking point over fees for foreign lawyers that threatens to derail the trials.
Rupert Skilbeck, the head of the defense support section for the U.N.-backed tribunal, said he wants to meet with the Cambodian Bar Association in the coming days to "see if we can find the way to resolve the problem." He said he was confident an agreement could be reached.
The impasse involves a recent decision by the Cambodian Bar Association to charge foreign lawyers hundreds of dollars (euros) to represent defendants or victims in the long-awaited tribunal, which was scheduled to begin later this year.
The issue became public Friday after Cambodian and international judges finished a 10-day meeting to thrash out differences over draft internal rules for the genocide trials, but said the legal fee dispute had prevented their adoption.
Ky Tech, president of the Cambodian Bar Association, declined comment Saturday. He also refused to discuss details of the legal fees.
The Cambodia Daily newspaper reported Saturday that the bar has decided that foreign lawyers wishing to participate in the tribunal must pay a US$500 (€375) membership application fee to the bar.
If chosen to work with a client, they must pay an additional US$2,000 (€1,500) and a US$200 (€150) monthly fee, the newspaper said..
The international judges may boycott a plenary meeting next month if the fee issue is not resolved, the tribunal office said in a statement Friday.
It said the judges discussed, during their meetings, "in exhaustive detail many points and resolved all remaining disagreements, although some fine tuning remains to be done."
But it indicated that the international judges believed that the proposed fee was an obstacle to adopting the agreed rules, while the Cambodia judges believed the fee was irrelevant to the package of rules.
"It is unacceptable to the international judges, who consider that it severely limits the rights of accused and victims to select counsel of their choice," the statement said.
The radical policies of the now-defunct Khmer Rouge, who held power in 1975-79, led to the deaths of about 1.7 million people from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition. But none of the communist group's leaders has been brought to trial.
Squabbling over details about the rules to govern the trials has eaten up nearly a third of the tribunal's three-year planned life span. Further delay could mean that former Khmer Rouge leaders — now old and ailing — will never be brought to trial.
Prosecutors are expected to indict about 10 defendants, including the few surviving top Khmer Rouge leaders.
The tribunal was created by a 2003 agreement between Cambodia and the United Nations after years of difficult negotiations.
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Friday, March 16, 2007
Vietnam eyes more overland trade with Cambodia
It imported rubber, forest, and agricultural products worth around $170 million from Cambodia.
Vietnam-Cambodia trade is expected to grow by 27 percent annually to reach US$2.45 billion by 2010.
Campaigning in Cambodia's local elections begins
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Election campaigning began Friday for new local governing councils across Cambodia, an apparent effort to transfer more political power from the central government to the countryside.
But some observers said the polls are more likely to consolidate the power of Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party.
The election, scheduled for April 1, will choose councils to administer 1,621 communes and sangkats, which are clusters of villages and urban neighborhoods.
Twelve political parties fielding a total of 102,266 candidates are competing in the elections, which are held every five years. Trucks carrying party supporters and draped with political banners wound their way through the streets of the capital Phnom Penh. Supporters chanted their campaign messages through bullhorns to woo voters.
The first local election was held Feb. 2002. Until then, the communes were ruled by chiefs appointed by the Interior Ministry..
Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party, which has maintained a firm grip on power during the last three decades, won overwhelmingly in the last local election and is expected to emerge victorious again.
The countryside has traditionally been dominated by Hun Sen's party followers.
Although the election is meant to decentralize power, Hang Puthea, executive director of Cambodian nonprofit election monitoring group Nicfec, said that it will not lead to any fundamental changes.
"This election is merely going to strengthen the current ruling party. And as already expected, the Cambodian People's Party will (again) lead in the number of local governing councils," he said.
Citing the proportional Cambodian electoral system, where candidates are appointed by their parties, Hang Puthea said elected candidates usually carry out their duties with political loyalty rather than public interest, in mind.
"I do not know how many more generations (it will take before) decentralization can fully function" in Cambodia, he said.
On Thursday, Hun Sen called for peaceful campaigning and ordered security forces to ensure safety and security until the election is over.
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Maha Ghosananda, Called Cambodia’s Gandhi, Dies
By then, Maha Ghosananda had already trekked from one refugee camp to another along the border with Thailand, establishing Buddhist temples and training new monks. He continued that work throughout the country after the ouster of Pol Pot.
CAMBODIA: Ousted Prince Ranariddh condemns conviction
Cambodia's Prince Norodom Ranariddh has condemned his fraud conviction in a Phnom Penh court this week, describing it as a grave injustice and politically motivated. And he's accused his long time nemesis Prime Minister Hun Sen of playing a direct role in ensuring the guilty verdict.
Presenter/Interviewer: Linda LoPresti
Speakers: Cambodia's ousted leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh
RANARIDDH: I feel personally a great sense of injustice against myself and it is clearly politically motivated. I think that what Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia did against me is to put pressure on me and to prevent me in particular from having political activity, and in particular, during the upcoming elections.
LOPRESTI: Indeed, this conviction keeps you out of the country. It means you can't take part in both next month's local elections or national elections to be held in 2008. So what of your political career in Cambodia?
RANARIDDH: Oh, I think madam, I can have a party which bears my own name. There is no doubt about it and so I will continue to have my party, my canidates, who very, very eager now to compete in the elections. As for my political career, I think that the national community will realise once again that we cannot talk about democracy, about liberalism, about pluralism if Norodom Ranariddh and his party are not allowed to participate in the next general elections.
LOPRESTI: Your own political organisation, the Norodom Ranariddh Party which you formed after being ousted from Funcinpec. Your party though, how can it make any headway in these elections without you at the helm?
RANARIDDH: I think that on the contrary, the injustice that let's say the tribunal against me, on the contrary instead of discouraging my followers, it has provided to them a sense of great courage, determination, to fight in render justice to me.
LOPRESTI: So, you're saying that because of this trial which you've described as politically motivated, it will make people, it will gather more support for your party, for the NRP?
RANARIDDH: Absolutely, absolutely madam, you are right.
LOPRESTI: Prince Ranariddh, what are your plans now? There are reports that you will write to your brother, King Norodom Sihamoni in a letter detailing the trial's irregularities. Is that something you will do?.
RANARIDDH: Absolutely, absolutely. I will write to him, not in his capacity as my younger brother, but in his capacity of president of the Supreme Council. I like to show to him that the justice in Cambodia is that everything else but not justice at all. Why Hun Sen said that he would not ask my brother, he must be the king to give me amnesty. He has no right to say that. Because on the one hand, the king has the full right without consulting anyone to grant any amnesty to anyone.
LOPRESTI: Well, in 1998, after you were sentenced to 35 years in prison for allegedly plotting a coup with the Khmer Rouge a year earlier, you were saved by a royal parden from your father, former King Norodom Sihanouk. Will you be seeking a royal pardon this time round?
RANARIDDH: I think that I will wait for one or two more days to have a clearer picture. I think that the first thing is to mobilise my people and on the otherhand to send as I mentioned earlier, a letter to his Majesty the King.
LOPRESTI: Just finally Prince Ranariddh, you live in Paris these days. Do you think you're ever going to return to Phnom Penh and have a successful political career?
RANARIDDH: I hope that like in 1998 I will be allowed to go back and to continue my political career.
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Thursday, March 15, 2007
B.C. man charged under sex tourist laws
VANCOUVER - A British Columbia man has been charged under Canada's sex-tourism legislation, the RCMP said Tuesday.
Kenneth Robert Klassen, 56, of Burnaby was arrested Friday and is charged with 35 sex offences allegedly involving 17 victims in Colombia, Cambodia and the Philippines.
The international art dealer remains in custody and is scheduled to appear Monday in Vancouver provincial court.
It's only the third time in Canada that a man has been charged under the sex tourism law, which aims to protect children in foreign countries from sexual exploitation by Canadians.
The law was introduced a decade ago, but was recently amended to make such crimes easier for police to investigate by eliminating the need for them to seek consent of the foreign country where the crimes allegedly occurred.
The first prosecution was Donald Michel Bakker of Penticton, B.C., who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2005 after police discovered videotapes showing him sexually assaulting Vancouver prostitutes and young girls in Cambodia.
The 2.5-year investigation began at Vancouver's International Airport on Aug. 27, 2004, when officers with Canada Border Service Agency identified a suspicious parcel found to contain undeclared DVDs, which contained child pornography images.
The parcel, destined for a home in Burnaby, was turned over to the RCMP for investigation. The parcel was monitored and was allegedly picked up by Klassen, who was arrested at the time.
Search warrants were executed on his home and a storage locker, where police seized a video camera and 21 DVDs that allegedly containing video clips of Klassen having sex with 92 girls in three countries.
Police allege the DVDs contained images of the accused allegedly having illegal sex with girls ranging in age from nine- to 18-years-old.
The 35 charges involve 17 alleged victims - six Colombians, eight Cambodians and three in the Philippines.
RCMP Cpl. Pierre Lemaitre credited Foreign Affairs and international police agencies for co-operation, including help from the FBI and police in Colombia and the Philippines.
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Cambodian tribunal mired by dispu
PHNOM PENH (AP) -- Bickering between Cambodian and international judges has all but paralyzed the effort to bring members of the Khmer Rouge regime to justice for their murderous rule in the late 1970s.
The first trials had been expected this year, but the special tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia, has been bogged down by infighting that many say could cripple the proceedings entirely.
Cambodian and UN-appointed judges wrap up a 10-day meeting Friday aimed at thrashing out their differences on how to integrate Cambodian and international law. The tribunal was set up to operate with the Cambodian judicial system, but with protections against corruption and political manipulation. Squabbling over details about the rules to govern the trials has eaten up nearly a third of the tribunal's three-year plan. Further delay could mean that former Khmer Rouge leaders will never be brought to trial for turning Cambodia into the bloody land of "the Killing Fields."
"It's a race against time," said Theo Kidess, charge d'affaires of the German Embassy, whose country has contributed more than $3 million to the tribunal's $56.3 million budget.
"There's a growing impatience and definitely a sense of urgency that we need to get this done with," he said.
The radical policies of the now-defunct Khmer Rouge, who held power in 1975-79, led to the deaths of about 1.7 million people from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition. But not one of the communist group's leaders has ever been brought to trial.
Pol Pot, the movement's leader, died in 1998. Ta Mok, its military chief, was imprisoned pending court charges, but died last July. Kaing Khek Iev, who headed the infamous Khmer Rouge S-21 torture center — also known as Tuol Sleng, and now a genocide museum — is the only leader now in custody awaiting trial.
Pol Pot's top lieutenants Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan are alive but aging, with serious medical problems. There's a fair chance that death will put a claim on them ahead of any judge.
The tribunal was created by a 2003 agreement between the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen and the United Nations after six years of difficult negotiations and would-be withdrawals by both sides.
Vann Nath, one of the handful of survivors among the more than 14,000 prisoners who passed through S-21, said he is losing hope.
"Frankly speaking, the hope I have nurtured all along is rotting away now," said the 62-year-old artist, who is battling chronic kidney disease. He said he desires "only partial justice, not an ultimate one, and if we cannot even get that, our lives seem worthless."
Patching up the differences "is not 'mission impossible,'" said David Scheffer, a former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues.
But there "is certainly a possibility that the international judges, or some of them, might quit if the negotiations collapse on the internal rules," said Scheffer, who helped negotiate the creation of the tribunal in the early stages.
"Hun Sen wants to keep control, and that's the bottom line," said Brad Adams, director of the Asia division of New York-based Human Rights Watch, referring to Cambodia's prime minister.
The prime minister's critics have long speculated that he would not like to see too extensive a list of defendants, which could include former middle-ranking Khmer Rouge members who later became his allies. Hun Sen himself was a junior Khmer Rouge cadre who defected from the group before it was overthrown in 1979.
Muddying the waters further has been an allegation that Cambodian court personnel, including judges, had to kick back a significant percentage of their wages to Cambodian government officials in exchange for their jobs. Cambodian judges have dismissed the accusation.
The United Nations Development Program, which is managing some of the tribunal's funds, also has raised concerns about the transparency of the tribunal's hiring process. Scheffer warns that without the trials and their official record, Cambodian society "will never fully recognize the significance of what occurred and of the nation's responsibility to prevent such crimes in the future."
On the Net: Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia: http://www.eccc.gov.kh United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials: http://www.unakrt-online.org
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