Cambodia urges unity among poor nations on trade

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday poor countries like his must continue speaking with one voice in the Doha round of global trade talks to ensure their competitiveness with developed countries.

He also lashed out at wealthy nations for maintaining trade barriers that hurt poor countries, such as farm subsidies and high food safety standards.

"Poor countries are always open to products from developed countries, but when we try to enter developed countries, we often are faced with very strong trade barriers," Hun Sen said.

He spoke in a speech opening a two-day conference of industry and trade ministers from 49 so-called least developed countries in Siem Reap province, Cambodia's tourist hub.

Hun Sen called on the countries "to bind together in solidarity and a united voice to lead us to our common success in negotiating" a revival of global trade talks.

The World Trade Organization's Doha Round talks that began in 2001 broke down in July because of a dispute among India, China and the U.S. over tariffs to protect farmers in developing markets.

Hun Sen called for a "win-win" solution to all but said poor countries "must send another clear message" to key players in the negotiation process to ensure "the principle of free and fair trade of the WTO, which is the heart of the development."

Protectionism will only cause more pain to the development prospects of poor countries that are now facing "profound and possibly prolonged effects" from the global financial crisis, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said at the conference.

"They will be left with no means to resort to, especially after the initial squeezes of a general economic slowdown," he said in a speech.

He urged WTO members to agree by the end of the year on methods for settling disagreements on agriculture and industry in order to provide "a stepping stone" toward the conclusion of the Doha Development Round in 2009.
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Khmer Rouge photo exhibition opens in Cambodia

In Cambodia, a unique photography exhibition is touring the provinces. The photographs were taken by Sweden's Gunnar Bergstrom in 1978, when he was a guest of the Khmer Rouge. At the time Mr Bergstrom was a committed Maoist who believed Pol Pot was embarking on a project to create a perfect society. It was only after he arrived home that Mr Bergstrom decided he'd been used as a propaganda tool and, far from creating social perfection, the Khmer Rouge was systematically destroying Cambodia's people.

In 1978 Gunnar Bergstrom thought the Khmer Rouge represented a glorious future. One in which inequality and injustice would be eradicted. When he and four colleagues from the Sweden-Kampuchea Friendship Association were invited to visit Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea he saw happy villagers and a flourishing society. But he also saw things which caused him disquiet. It took him six months to talk about them and thirty years before he could return to the country and fully face his mistake.

GUNNAR BERGSTROM: In Sweden and some of these countries the Maoist faction of the left was quite strong. I guess all leftist people had this vision but especially for me the Maoist version of equal society, no oppressors, we were told that the leaders were a cooperative group and no personality cult like Mao Tse-Tung took or Kim il-Sung because we didn't like that. They were the persons that we had worked for to support during the whole war with the Americans and when Khmer Rouge won the war I didn't think it came to our minds that they could become the new oppressors.

BILL BAINBRIDGE: So then you went to Cambodia in 1978, what did you see there?

GUNNAR BERGSTROM: Well, we were taken on the tour that I think today was a fake, arranged propaganda tool. At the time I think I was impressed. We were taken on a 14-day trip to cooperatives, farming, factories, we were taken to exceptions and fakes and given a positive picture of this period.

BILL BAINBRIDGE: You've said though that you did have some what you called forbidden thoughts at the time. What were those?

GUNNAR BERGSTROM: For instance, when we were forbidden the first day to go outside of the room in Phnom Penh, except for a few areas, we complained and then they let us moved around but I thought at that time that maybe the whole, all the rumours maybe are true, this is a concentration camp. So those thoughts crept around in my mind but I didn't share them with the rest of the group. They didn't fit the Maoist picture.

BILL BAINBRIDGE: And so at what point did you begin to realise that you'd been so wrong about the Khmer Rouge?

GUNNAR BERGSTROM: Six months after we came home, maybe eight months. I wrote an article in a paper in Sweden that we had been wrong. It's just that I thought that I could write that article and then move on to other things. I didn't realise the magnitude of the misjudgment, I didn't realise the whole gigantic picture, that took a longer time, but I left the group and the movement there about half a year after I came home.

BILL BAINBRIDGE: So now you're exhibiting some photographs that you took at the time. What is it that you can see in those photographs that you couldn't see in 1978?

GUNNAR BERGSTROM: I think you have to realise that some of the things I see in the photographs are because I have information now that I didn't have then. I know that masses of killings occurred - that colours the pictures today. But I can also let some of the forbidden thoughts come up now and some of these things I can see just because, you know, the mind is liberated from Maoist glasses.

BILL BAINBRIDGE: And so this is your first trip back in 30 years?

GUNNAR BERGSTROM: Yes.

BILL BAINBRIDGE: What have you found? What kind of reception have you had there?

GUNNAR BERGSTROM: The reception has been mainly positive, you know. But I think that I have to tell Cambodian people I'm sorry and then another part is talking about that period again and learning from it and I hear that there are young Cambodians who don't believe that it was that bad. So I think I had, you know, for these three days mostly positive reactions. There are also other reactions, you know, it wakes memories for survivors of Tuol Sleng and people who lost everyone during this period but I'm still prepared for someone who would maybe be very angry at me or upset or something, but so far it has it's been quite OK. And more than OK. Read more!

Global Challenges | Global HIV Testing Campaign Launched in Cambodia, Uganda

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Cambodia last week launched the first phase of a program that aims to test 10,000 people in the country for HIV, the Phnom Penh Post reports. The campaign is part of an AHF program to test one million people worldwide for HIV by World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. Mam Sophal, president of the HIV/AIDS program at the Municipal Health Department in the capital of Phnom Penh, said that 579 people have been tested so far. Chhim Sarath, country program manager for AHF Cambodia, said HIV testing is "very important," and that people who test positive are provided with counseling, prevention education and care services. Sophal said that positive responses from people being tested eased his initial concerns that the campaign would not be successful. "I thought people would be afraid of the results and would not join the program, but when it started, people came to the test with smiles on their faces," he said.

Sarath said that the campaign is an "opportunity to reach people and teach them about HIV/AIDS," adding that an estimated 1,000 people daily were educated through the campaign during a recent festival. The testing campaign also will expand to eight provinces in Cambodia. Government statistics show that HIV prevalence in the country among people ages 15 to 49 has decreased from 1.9% in 2003 to 0.9% in 2007, the Post reports. AHF officials say that HIV/AIDS has spread from high-risk groups such as injection drug users and commercial sex workers to the general population (Shay/Chakrya, Phnom Penh Post, 11/14).

Uganda To Participate in Testing Campaign
In related news, the AHF campaign recently was launched in Uganda and plans to test at least 10,000 people for HIV by Dec. 1, Uganda's Daily Monitor reports. Emmanuel Ziraba, the event's coordinator, announced last week that testing centers would be established at strategic sites throughout the capital of Kampala. Event coordinators also are working with stakeholders in Kampala who have "agreed to intensify their daily work to capture more people during the week," Ziraba said. He added that people who test HIV-positive will be put in contact with care providers and given information on living with the virus. Ziraba added that people who test negative for HIV "will be equipped with knowledge on keeping away from infection."

According to the Monitor, estimates show that about one million Ugandans are living with HIV/AIDS but less than 20% are aware of their status (Kirunda, Daily Monitor, 11/15).

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Fake drugs worth 6.6 million dlrs seized in Asia: Interpol

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Police across Southeast Asia have arrested 27 people and seized 6.6 million dollars worth of counterfeit anti-HIV drugs, antibiotics, and other medicines, Interpol said Tuesday.

The global police organisation said 16 million fake pills, also including anti-malaria and anti-tuberculosis drugs, were netted in Operation Storm, a five-month sting that ended in September.

Nearly 200 raids were carried out in Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam with the support of Interpol and the World Health Organisation, it said in a statement.

The crackdown targeted individuals and groups involved in the manufacture and distribution of four classes of counterfeit medicines identified as posing "a significant public health risk," Paris-based Interpol said.

The operation "will provide a blueprint for future actions in targeting this type of criminal activity which affects every corner of the globe," Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said in the statement.

The results of the operation were released Monday at the start of an international law enforcement training seminar on combating counterfeit drugs in Cambodia, Interpol said.
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Is Pakistan Obama's Cambodia?

by George C. Wilson

President-elect Obama has committed himself to stepping up the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is not an overstatement to say that he will risk his whole presidency, and perhaps even unwittingly put nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists who might use them to attack the United States, if he leaps too far into neighboring Pakistan in pursuit of elusive victory.

The rub, as the Vietnam and Iraq wars showed us all, is unintended consequences. Our military leaders can, and almost certainly will, make a strong case to Obama that there is no way to defeat the Taliban and their allied tribes in Afghanistan without cleaning out their sanctuaries just over the Afghan border in Pakistan.

I can hear frustrated U.S. commanders on the ground in Afghanistan making the same kind of argument to Obama’s team tomorrow that I heard yesterday in Vietnam when I was a combat correspondent there.

I could empathize with this lament, for example, that I heard in 1968 from a 9th Division infantry battalion commander, whose mission was to rid his area — South Vietnam’s rice bowl, the Delta — of the stealthy Viet Cong guerrillas:
“I can have my kids chase the Viet Cong all day and all night. But whenever they catch up to a good number of them, they just run over the border into Cambodia where we can’t go. All I’m really doing down here is buying time with my kids’ lives for the diplomats to settle this thing.”

His was among the impressive military arguments I heard for either invading Cambodian border sanctuaries or getting the United States out of the otherwise unwinnable Vietnam War.

President Lyndon Johnson resisted invading Cambodia. He had concluded that this would only widen the war, infuriating an already skeptical Congress. Early on in Johnson’s presidency he confided to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, but not the public, that he saw the war as a no-win. Secret tapes of Johnson’s conversations, since made public, document him saying this to McNamara on Feb. 26, 1965: “I don’t think anything is going to be as bad as losing, and I don’t see any way of winning.”

His successor, Richard Nixon, who took office in 1969 after the Vietnam War had ruined Johnson’s presidency, including his dream of building a Great Society, rushed into Cambodia where Johnson had feared to tread.

First, Nixon authorized, without telling the public, secret bombings of Cambodia, which had tried to stay neutral. Then on April 30, 1970, Nixon announced he had ordered the invasion of Cambodia with U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to “clean out” the enemy’s border sanctuaries.
Now think “Pakistan” to hear the same ring. Four days later — on May 4, 1970 — National Guardsmen killed four student anti-war protesters on the campus of Kent State in Ohio.

Those two events, coming right on top of each other, mobilized anti-war lawmakers in Congress to curb the president’s war-making powers and to cut off the money the South Vietnamese army needed to continue fighting the war after U.S. troops left the field under Nixon’s Vietnamization strategy.

The military defeat Johnson had feared all along, without saying so publicly, came in 1975 when Communist North Vietnam conquered capitalist South Vietnam.

Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, even though his announced purpose was just to clean out the border sanctuaries, contributed to Cambodia’s political turmoil.

The invaders also failed to achieve the military objective of finding and destroying the Communist headquarters in Cambodia known as COSVN for Central Office for South Vietnam.

The Communist Khmer Rouge in the aftermath of the invasion toppled the pro-American leader of the country, Lon Nol, and wiped out the upper classes in a bloodbath that some reports estimated murdered 2 million Cambodians. Again, unintended consequences.

Fast forward to Pakistan today. President Asif Ali Zardari, husband of Benazir Bhutto, a Muslim moderate who was assassinated in December while campaigning in parliamentary elections, is already complaining about U. S. military strikes against alleged al Qaida and Taliban targets in Pakistan’s border regions.

An American-led ground invasion of Pakistan under the same “clean out” rationale Nixon used could cause such political turmoil that the bad guys might get their hands on one or more of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates Pakistan has at least 60 nuclear weapons.

Imagine a worst case scenario of terrorists sneaking just one nuke into New York City and setting it off at lunch hour. Thousands of people could be incinerated, skyscrapers toppled and the air poisoned for years.

The Bush administration, Congress and the media have been rightly faulted for not worst-casing the American invasion of Iraq before it was ordered in 2003. History warns that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Obama needs to look long and hard at the worst unintended consequences of leaping into Pakistan. While he’s at it, the new president should consider what would happen if U. S. forces captured or killed Osama bin Laden. Osama’s deputies would feel compelled to retaliate against the United States in a spectacular way. Does Obama want another 9/11? Better to keep American fingerprints off the deed if it is done.

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Cambodia's inflation rate declines in October

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia's consumer price index grew by 18.12 percent from October 2007 to October 2008, marking a decrease of inflation rate this year, national media said on Tuesday.

The inflation rate stood at 22 percent in August and 20 percent in September, according to official figures.

While prices remain high compared with last year, some price changes that occurred month to month recently have slowed or reversed compared with previous trends, English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily quoted official report as saying.

The financial crisis and the falling value of U.S. dollars have take a toll on the Cambodian economy, it quoted experts saying.

The high inflation seems to be decreasing in Cambodia, it quoted a bank source as saying.

From 2005 to 2007, Cambodia experienced double-digit economic growth and inflation became apparent at the beginning of this year.

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CAMBODIA: Arsenic in Mekong putting 1.7 million at risk

PHNOM PENH, 17 November 2008 (IRIN) - Arsenic contamination of the Mekong River and groundwater is putting millions of residents at risk of severe illness due to arsenic poisoning, the UN and NGOs warned.

After surveying wells along the Mekong, which flows through Lao PDR, Cambodia and Vietnam, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and governments concluded that as many as 1.7 million people were at risk of arsenic poisoning, whose long-term symptoms include skin lesions and cancer.

Twenty-one percent of the Vietnamese population is exposed to arsenic above the World Health Organization's acceptable level of 10ppb (parts per billion). It is found not just in groundwater but in bottled water, tap water, even fish, according to the Vietnam Ministry of Health.

In Cambodia and Laos, the precise numbers of people exposed to arsenic contamination is not yet known, though UNICEF and government agencies are compiling a report to be released later this year.

In some provinces along the Mekong River in Vietnam and Cambodia, residents are exposed to 30 times the acceptable level of arsenic, according to data from the Vietnam Ministry of Health.

Water containing arsenic above 300ppb could cause cancer within three to four years, the Health Ministry said.

Arsenic has no taste or smell, and can take years of slow build-up before symptoms are revealed, making it especially hazardous and hard to detect.

Contamination caused by sedimentation

"Arsenic contamination in the Mekong is understood to have been caused by recent sedimentation," Thowai Sha Zai, chief of UNICEF's water, environment, and sanitation (WES) division in Vietnam, told IRIN.

Sedimentation refers to the process whereby sediment accumulates, often with the side-effect of accumulating naturally occurring arsenic through chemical interactions.

In the 1990s, a lot of poorly planned NGOs built wells for villages and did not fully understand the long-term situation after they left.

"It is not known if this has been caused by other reasons as well, such as industrial pollution, since there has been no scientific study or evidence on that," he added.

Clearing arsenic from water supplies is costly, so authorities in Cambodia instead paint contaminated wells red and instruct residents to use them only for washing clothes and dishes.

In Vietnam, UNICEF and the government have provided rural residents with special filters to strain the water to reduce their exposure.

Yet some villagers remain scared of poisoning, even if only using the water for washing clothes. "We have abandoned many wells," Le Giau, a Vietnamese Mekong resident at the Vietnam-Cambodia border, told IRIN, adding that they were afraid of what could happen to them if they wore clothes with arsenic residue.

Since clean drinking water is hard to come by, some residents collect rainwater.

"In the 1990s, a lot of poorly planned NGOs built wells for villages and did not fully understand the long-term situation after they left," said one Cambodian NGO employee in Phnom Penh, who asked not to be named. "Many were short-term volunteer programmes that didn't teach people about the dangers of arsenic from their wells."

Arsenic poisoning became a public health crisis in India and Bangladesh at the time, and later gained more attention in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and China, which all depend on the Mekong.

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Buddha-shaped termite nests in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH--Hundreds of devout Cambodians have flocked to see five unusually shaped termite nests that look like seated figures of Buddha, witnesses said Sunday.

The iconic insect homes appeared on the cement floor of 56-year-old Kuong Keo Ry's house near Phnom Penh, shortly before a traditional death festival held in October when she was mourning her late husband.

"I am happy that my house has been chosen. After other people and I pay respect to the Buddha shapes, we all feel content," the widow told AFP by telephone.

She said she first became curious about the nests in October because she would sweep them away every day -- but that the wood-munching bugs would rebuild them overnight.

Over the past month around 50 to 60 people had come to her house every day to view the Buddhas, Kuong Keo Ry said.

A journalist who went to see the termite Buddhas said he was "thrilled" by them.

"It's like a miracle to me," said Sok Samnang, who hosts a Cambodian television show.

"One night after we put jasmine ornaments around the five Buddha shapes, they became higher. Each of them is 50 centimeters (19 inches) tall and looks exactly like a seated Buddha," he said.

Cambodian Buddhist scholars have said that the Buddha shapes represent apparitions of deities.

"I've never seen anything like this before in my life. I believe the termites are trying to bring us a message from God," said devout Buddhist San Son, 60, who visits the nests regularly to pray.

Buddhism permeates all aspects of culture in Cambodia, despite attempts to eradicate it by the former Khmer Rouge regime.
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Forgotten for 400 years, Angkor is a tribute to civilization and nature

SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- For something so ancient, the rock face looked as content as a man who's just eaten a big slice of peach pie.

"Who made you?" I whispered. "Were you lonely when nobody came to visit for 400 years?"

No answer. Just a smile.

That is the fascination of Angkor, the mysterious temple complex of Cambodia. As at the pyramids of Egypt or the temples of the Maya, visitors here must infer the nature of a civilization from the astounding architecture left behind.

A stunner in the jungle
Angkor, located in the city of Siem Reap in central Cambodia, probably should have been a winner in last year's New Seven Wonders of the World contest.

In scope and beauty, it easily beats Mexico's Chichen Itza and possibly even Peru's Machu Picchu. It likely lost because fewer people have seen it than the other attractions.

Although 2 million tourists a year visit Angkor now, the site was basically covered by the jungle from 1500 to 1900, then off-limits to visitors due to war and political instability in Cambodia from the 1960s to 1998. Its masterpiece is Angkor Wat, a funky temple built in the 12th Century in honor of the Hindu god Vishnu.

Stunningly original, the temple's five towers were built using porous clay foundations and sandstone exteriors. Put together with an unknown mortar, stones were stacked like a Jenga puzzle, each piece fitting atop the other into tall spires.

Yet Angkor Wat is only one of 72 major temples, and the Angkor ruins area is more than 1,000 miles square.

There are ways to tour Angkor responsibly, says the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property. Don't touch and don't take anything except photographs. Wear soft-soled shoes so sharp heels don't leave marks. Don't brush backpacks or bags against the monuments. Avoid climbing on them except where allowed. Don't leave graffiti or litter, and talk softly.

Especially, I'd add, when talking to the carvings.

Riches to ruins
The rise-and-fall story of Angkor is dramatic enough to fill 10 history books.

Between the 12th and 15th centuries, the great Khmer Empire spread over what are now parts of Laos and Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Its center was Angkor, the home of the kings, temples, fountains and gold.

A series of attacks by the Siamese and exhaustion of the land by overfarming led to the abandonment of the city in the early 15th Century, historians believe.

That's when most of Angkor fell victim to the jungle for 400 years. There it sat, while nations rose and fell, while America was discovered, while Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet."

When French archaeologists in the late 19th Century rediscovered Angkor and started pulling the vines away and looking at what remained, they were astonished. We still are.

Ancient art gallery
It takes all day for even a bare-bones tour. You can start before sunrise and watch the sun come up over the towers of Angkor Wat, stay all day, then watch the sun go down from a hill nearby.

Some of the ruins have been sufficiently restored so that you can wander the halls and climb the steps. Yet most are only partly put back together, giving the ruins a tumbledown feel, as if you'd just stopped by after an earthquake.

Angkor Wat, built in the early 12th Century by King Suryavarman II, is the star of Angkor. But I preferred the Bayon, a nearby temple with 49 towers emblazoned with nearly 200 huge carved images of a pleasantly smiling face. Historians believe the images represent either King Jayavarman VII, who built the temple in the late 12th Century, or the Buddhist "compassionate being" Lokesvara, or both.

Yet, the Bayon is not just a happy-face ruin. It's also an ancient art gallery, with wonderful bas-relief murals depicting the ordinary life of the Angkor people -- gambling, in childbirth, dancing, cooking, playing, hunting and fishing. These murals not only are a kind of Facebook posting of daily life back then, they illuminate the high standard of living at Angkor in its heyday, when people had enough to eat, safety, leisure and time to create such art.

Locals and tourists
You don't need a guide to visit the Angkor complex, but I would recommend it. The complex is so huge that it helps to have someone show you high points you might miss on your own.

Many tourists get around by tuk-tuk, a cart with an awning pulled by a motorcycle driver. Other sightseers visit by car, van, tour bus, bicycle or even by elephant, depending on what kind of tour they book.

Inside the complex, it's not just sightseers. Local people gather sheaves of rattan, the reed used to weave baskets. Cattle wander amid the chaos. An ice cream truck parks in a field. At most of the popular temples and sites, persistent children sell sticky rice, baskets, scarves, bracelets, guidebooks, bananas, pineapple chunks and Fanta Orange.

The average tourist needs at least two days to see Angkor, but archaeology buffs will want to stay longer.

One of the most photo-friendly sites is Ta Prohm, a temple-monastery. Today, visitors can see the temple much as it was found in the early 1900s, with giant kapok tree roots winding through the doors and windows, so that the stone temple appears to be part of the natural landscape. Also lovely is Neak Pean, a pond with a fountain as elegant as anything you'd find at Versailles.

Too popular?
Today, the Angkor Wat complex is in no danger of fading away. Huge luxury hotels have opened pell-mell outside the park just in the last three years. About 3,000 new hotel rooms are about to be added to the 7,000 already here.

Naturally, environmentalists aren't happy about the unregulated hustle and bustle right next to a UNESCO World Heritage site. They worry about the water table under Angkor being sucked dry by hotel wells. They worry that the site's fragile ruins can't handle the traffic.

Still, I keep thinking that the kings who built Angkor would probably love all the attention.

From the 1960s to 1998, Cambodia was either at war, crippled by the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime or unstable. Now, the fledgling democratic nation is trying to make up for lost time in expanding tourism at a frenetic pace in Siem Reap/Angkor, the destination for half of all tourists to Cambodia.

Ready or not, Tourism Cambodia expects up to 3 million tourists at Angkor by 2010.

Contact ELLEN CREAGER at 313-222-6498 or ecreager@freepress.com.

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Cambodian FM names 9 new ambassadors

PHNOM PENH, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong has named new ambassadors to nine countries, including Kuwait, which is to receive Cambodia's first diplomatic posting there, and Japan, where the minister's son Hor Moniroath is expected to head the Cambodian mission, state media reported Saturday.

The Japanese government had been notified of the appointment, which is awaiting the approval of the Cambodian and Japanese governments, Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong was quoted by the Cambodia Daily as saying.

"We have notified the Japanese government but we haven't received any response yet. We need the agreement of the host country first before sending the new ambassador," he said.

Hor Namhong's son Hor Nambora is currently serving as Cambodia's ambassador to the United Kingdom, making Hor Moniroath's appointment the second top diplomatic posting in the minister's family.

Japan is Cambodia's largest bilateral aid donor, according to the Cambodia Daily.

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Thailand protests Cambodia over religious ceremony at disputed temple

BANGKOK, Nov 15 (TNA) - Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a protest against Cambodian authorities who performed a religious ceremony at a temple located in Thai territory.

In an Aide-Memoire dated November 13, the Thai government protested Cambodia’s Kathin ceremony which was held at Keo Sikha Kiri Savara pagoda on November 12.

Thai officials in the border province of Si Saket reported seeing around 500 Cambodian people at the temple.

"Such action was considered a blatant and willful violation of Thailand’s sovereignty as the crowd had entered Thai soil without permission from the Thai government," said the aide-memoire.

The statement also mentioned Thailand still maintained its standpoint in working constructively and closely with Cambodia within the existing framework of the Thai-Cambodian Joint Boundary Commission on Demarcation for Land Boundary or JBC to resolve their border conflict in a peaceful manner. (TNA) Read more!

A reason for the little ones to smile

MediaCorp DJ Carol Smith joins Operation Smile mission to Cambodia to help less fortunate children

FOR the first nine years of his life, the people in Thanh’s village called him “Sut” — which means “split lip” in Vietnamese — as a result of his cleft lip. On his first day of school, he was teased so badly by the other children that he refused to go back.

All this changed, however, after he received cleft lip surgery from medical specialists during an Operation Smile mission trip to the southern Vietnamese city of Vung Tau.

Thanh is just one of more than 115,000 children and young adults who have received free surgeries for facial deformities such as cleft lips, cleft palates, facial tumours and burns since Operation Smile was founded in 1982. Every year, the international medical charity coordinates medical missions to 26 countries in Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Operation Smile Singapore serves as a resource centre for the Asian region, covering Cambodia, China, the Philippines, India, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. It is also the adopted charity of MediaCorp radio station Class 95FM for 2008.

This November, as part of a partnership between MediaCorp and DBS, Class 95FM DJ Carol Smith will join an Operation Smile mission to Cambodia as a non-medical volunteer, where she will accompany beneficiaries and their families through the entire process.

Explaining why she “jumped at the opportunity” to be a part of this mission, the 33-year-old radio personality said: “The child beneficiaries of Operation Smile have been through a lot of discomfort, fear and anxiety. All of us know what it’s like to be ostracised for being even a little different, so imagine what these children go through.”

In developing countries, one in 500 children are born with correctable facial deformities, which can be life-threatening and emotionally traumatising. Around the world, 200,000 children are born every year with a facial deformity and tens of thousands remain untreated. Many of these children have difficulties eating or speaking, and some are kept out of school.

On a typical two-week Operation Smile mission, approximately 300 to 500 patients receive free medical evaluations, and an average of 100 to 150 are given free surgical treatment.

Besides changing these children’s lives through surgeries which can take as little as 45 minutes, Operation Smile provides education and training to medical volunteers in its partner countries, and provides key medical equipment – laying the groundwork for sustainable healthcare systems.

Carol — who is currently single, although she half-jokingly revealed that she hopes to have enough children for “a football team one day, if not more” — said: “I get a lot of joy from interacting with children because of their innocence, charm, and purity. I think Operation Smile brings hope to each child, and I’d like to be there to comfort them, and be their friend on their journey of hope.”

In addition to helping to “put a smile on the children’s faces” this November, Carol hopes to accomplish two other key goals: To better understand their circumstances, and to bring their plight to the attention of others.

She said: “I’d like to be part of the journey of the beneficiaries while I am there, to get a real feel of life as seen through their eyes, and to listen and bring back their stories to share with fellow Singaporeans – who will, hopefully, be moved to help in their own way.” LYNETTE KOH MediaCorp DJ Carol Smith joins Operation Smile mission to Cambodia to help less fortunate children

FOR the first nine years of his life, the people in Thanh’s village called him “Sut” — which means “split lip” in Vietnamese — as a result of his cleft lip. On his first day of school, he was teased so badly by the other children that he refused to go back.

All this changed, however, after he received cleft lip surgery from medical specialists during an Operation Smile mission trip to the southern Vietnamese city of Vung Tau.

Thanh is just one of more than 115,000 children and young adults who have received free surgeries for facial deformities such as cleft lips, cleft palates, facial tumours and burns since Operation Smile was founded in 1982. Every year, the international medical charity coordinates medical missions to 26 countries in Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Operation Smile Singapore serves as a resource centre for the Asian region, covering Cambodia, China, the Philippines, India, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. It is also the adopted charity of MediaCorp radio station Class 95FM for 2008.

This November, as part of a partnership between MediaCorp and DBS, Class 95FM DJ Carol Smith will join an Operation Smile mission to Cambodia as a non-medical volunteer, where she will accompany beneficiaries and their families through the entire process.

Explaining why she “jumped at the opportunity” to be a part of this mission, the 33-year-old radio personality said: “The child beneficiaries of Operation Smile have been through a lot of discomfort, fear and anxiety. All of us know what it’s like to be ostracised for being even a little different, so imagine what these children go through.”

In developing countries, one in 500 children are born with correctable facial deformities, which can be life-threatening and emotionally traumatising. Around the world, 200,000 children are born every year with a facial deformity and tens of thousands remain untreated. Many of these children have difficulties eating or speaking, and some are kept out of school.

On a typical two-week Operation Smile mission, approximately 300 to 500 patients receive free medical evaluations, and an average of 100 to 150 are given free surgical treatment.

Besides changing these children’s lives through surgeries which can take as little as 45 minutes, Operation Smile provides education and training to medical volunteers in its partner countries, and provides key medical equipment – laying the groundwork for sustainable healthcare systems.

Carol — who is currently single, although she half-jokingly revealed that she hopes to have enough children for “a football team one day, if not more” — said: “I get a lot of joy from interacting with children because of their innocence, charm, and purity. I think Operation Smile brings hope to each child, and I’d like to be there to comfort them, and be their friend on their journey of hope.”

In addition to helping to “put a smile on the children’s faces” this November, Carol hopes to accomplish two other key goals: To better understand their circumstances, and to bring their plight to the attention of others.

She said: “I’d like to be part of the journey of the beneficiaries while I am there, to get a real feel of life as seen through their eyes, and to listen and bring back their stories to share with fellow Singaporeans – who will, hopefully, be moved to help in their own way.” LYNETTE KOH MediaCorp DJ Carol Smith joins Operation Smile mission to Cambodia to help less fortunate children

FOR the first nine years of his life, the people in Thanh’s village called him “Sut” — which means “split lip” in Vietnamese — as a result of his cleft lip. On his first day of school, he was teased so badly by the other children that he refused to go back.

All this changed, however, after he received cleft lip surgery from medical specialists during an Operation Smile mission trip to the southern Vietnamese city of Vung Tau.

Thanh is just one of more than 115,000 children and young adults who have received free surgeries for facial deformities such as cleft lips, cleft palates, facial tumours and burns since Operation Smile was founded in 1982. Every year, the international medical charity coordinates medical missions to 26 countries in Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Operation Smile Singapore serves as a resource centre for the Asian region, covering Cambodia, China, the Philippines, India, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. It is also the adopted charity of MediaCorp radio station Class 95FM for 2008.

This November, as part of a partnership between MediaCorp and DBS, Class 95FM DJ Carol Smith will join an Operation Smile mission to Cambodia as a non-medical volunteer, where she will accompany beneficiaries and their families through the entire process.

Explaining why she “jumped at the opportunity” to be a part of this mission, the 33-year-old radio personality said: “The child beneficiaries of Operation Smile have been through a lot of discomfort, fear and anxiety. All of us know what it’s like to be ostracised for being even a little different, so imagine what these children go through.”

In developing countries, one in 500 children are born with correctable facial deformities, which can be life-threatening and emotionally traumatising. Around the world, 200,000 children are born every year with a facial deformity and tens of thousands remain untreated. Many of these children have difficulties eating or speaking, and some are kept out of school.

On a typical two-week Operation Smile mission, approximately 300 to 500 patients receive free medical evaluations, and an average of 100 to 150 are given free surgical treatment.

Besides changing these children’s lives through surgeries which can take as little as 45 minutes, Operation Smile provides education and training to medical volunteers in its partner countries, and provides key medical equipment – laying the groundwork for sustainable healthcare systems.

Carol — who is currently single, although she half-jokingly revealed that she hopes to have enough children for “a football team one day, if not more” — said: “I get a lot of joy from interacting with children because of their innocence, charm, and purity. I think Operation Smile brings hope to each child, and I’d like to be there to comfort them, and be their friend on their journey of hope.”

In addition to helping to “put a smile on the children’s faces” this November, Carol hopes to accomplish two other key goals: To better understand their circumstances, and to bring their plight to the attention of others.

She said: “I’d like to be part of the journey of the beneficiaries while I am there, to get a real feel of life as seen through their eyes, and to listen and bring back their stories to share with fellow Singaporeans – who will, hopefully, be moved to help in their own way.” LYNETTE KOH
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68,000 poor families of Cambodia receive emergency food assistance from ADB

PHNOM PENH, Over 68,000 poor families of Cambodia have received emergency food assistance following the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Board of Directors' approval of the project last month, said an ADB press release here on Friday.

"This assistance is making a very real difference in the lives of Cambodia's most vulnerable, particularly its children," said ADB Country Director Arjun Goswami.

"Putting food on the tables of Cambodia's poorest families, just one month after the project's approval, is a commendable accomplishment by the government," he said, adding that food distribution has been supervised by independent NGO monitors.

One of the primary objectives of ADB's emergency food assistance is to help support Cambodia's efforts to ameliorate the food price inflation shock on the poorest and most vulnerable families in the seven provinces around the Tonle Sap Lake, and in three urban slums around Phnom Penh, said the release.

The project targeted the poorest 20 percent of poor families in 200 selected communes, it added.

The ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in the Asia and Pacific region through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration.

Established in 1966, the ADB is owned by 67 members, 48 from the region. In 2007, it approved 10.1 billion U.S. dollars of loans, 673 million dollars of grant projects, and technical assistance amounting to 243 million dollars, according to the release.


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EU blacklists Cambodia's Siem Reap and all Angolan carriers

By David Kaminski-Morrow

Cambodia's Siem Reap Airways International and all carriers from Angola have been added to the European Commission's 'blacklist' of banned airlines.

But the update, released today, gives no specific information on whether the Commission has acted against any carriers from the European Union.

Phnom Penh-based Siem Reap Airways does not operate directly to Europe, but the European Commission states that the carrier "does not operate in compliance" with Cambodian safety regulations, nor does it meet ICAO standards.

"Significant concerns have also been expressed by ICAO with regard to the ability of the Cambodian civil aviation authorities to implement and enforce the international safety standards," says the Commission in a statement.

Angolan flag-carrier TAAG had already featured on the blacklist but the Commission has extended the ban to all airlines from the southern African state.

It says the blanket ban on Angola is based on "significant safety concerns" brought up by ICAO in an audit last month. The Commission adds, however, that it will continue "close consultation" with Angolan authorities with a view to completing a plan of corrective measures.

Angola is one of several countries - among them Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan and several African states - on which an all-inclusive prohibition on European services has been imposed.

Ukrainian carriers Ukraine Mediterranean Airlines and Ukraine Cargo Airways remain on the blacklist for failing to prove that they have implemented corrective actions on safety deficiencies.
"The Commission, together with member states, will visit both carriers before considering any modification of the operating ban," says the EC, which adds that it is pressing the Ukrainian authorities to strengthen safety standards.

Gabonese operator Nouvelle Air Affaires similarly stays on the blacklist, because there is "no evidence" of progress on corrective measures. All Gabonese carriers, except for Gabon Airlines and Afrijet, are blacklisted.

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Cambodia to unveil hybrid rice to interest investors

PHNOM PENH, A newly developed Cambodian high-yielding hybrid rice variety will be presented in Kampong Thom province on Monday to interest investors in large-scale cultivation, national media said on Friday.

Louis Kek, director of Malaynesia Resources, part of the Malaysian-Cambodian joint venture responsible for the new variety's development, said that his company is holding discussion with foreign investors to cultivate 50,000 hectares of this kind of rice in the province.

Singaporean and Middle Eastern investors had been invited to inspect the first harvest of a 2-hectare test plot of the Cambodian Super Hybrid Rice, he was quoted by English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily as saying.

The project will enlarge its production area in the province to200 hectares in the next growing season, he said.

"We are ready for large-scale implementation. I expect it to become widely accepted because of the increase in yields," he said, adding that 7 to 8 tons of yield of rice variety per hectare over the traditional 2.5 tons of yield of other types.

Cambodia used to lead the Southeastern Asian countries in exporting rice, but later lagged behind due to years of war. The government in recent years has established plans to improve its rice production for export and foreign currency income.
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The end of an NGO era in Cambodia

By Craig Guthrie

PHNOM PENH - With an overwhelming electoral mandate, robust economy and a potential bounty of oil and gas revenues, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen feels in a strong enough position to move against the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have been a perennial thorn in the strongman's side since he took power more than two decades ago.

In late September he called for the revival of a controversial law which would require the country's more than 2,000 associations and NGOs to complete a complex registration process and submit to stringent financial reporting requirements. The draft law is expected to be passed by Hun Sen’s Cambodia People's Party (CPP)-dominated National Assembly in the coming months.

"Cambodia has been heaven for NGOs for too long," he said in a speech broadcast on national radio on September 26, adding that he had given up hope of reading any positive reports written by international or local NGOs. "The NGOs are out of control ... they insult the government just to ensure their financial survival."

By enacting the law, Hun Sen could recalibrate the government's terms of engagement with the Western-led aid community, on which his government has heavily relied for decades to finance its budget. The move comes as private-led foreign investment has fueled the country's economic rise, led in the main by China and South Korea.

"Many of the services provided by NGOs today will one day either be privatized or the revenues of the government will grow to such an extent that the functions currently being done by NGOs will be taken over by the government," said Brett Sciaroni, chairman of Cambodia's International Business Association.

The NGO law's enactment would be a symbolic power shift between Hun Sen's CPP-led government, further emboldened by its landslide victory in this year's general election, and the Western-backed NGOs which have long chastised it over human-rights abuses and corruption allegations.

International aid agencies have for decades held the purse strings on the aid which has sustained the national economy since it emerged from the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Maoist regime which systematically attempted to transform Cambodia into an agricultural utopia between 1975 and 1979, and a subsequent decade-plus of civil war.

Some contend it was the Khmer Rouge's economic failures, including a devastating countrywide famine that killed many and stalked the regime's traumatized survivors, which set the stage for Cambodia's now decades-long dependence on foreign aid.

The British aid agency Oxfam began programs soon after the Khmer Rouge's 1979 ouster, despite incurring the wrath of the United States and the United Kingdom governments for helping the Hanoi-sponsored regime put in place by the invading Vietnamese.

Jacques Beaumont from the United Nations Children's Fund, and Francois Bugnion from the International Red Cross (IRC), who both arrived in Phnom Penh in 1979, were pivotal players in that humanitarian effort. They finally persuaded the IRC, which was fearful of being seen as compromising its political neutrality, into launching what turned into its most significant relief operation since World War II.

But the comprehensive aid experiment did not begin in earnest until after the signing of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, which by and large ended the country's debilitating civil war. Since then myriad NGOs have come to Cambodia to work on everything from demining to microfinance, orphanages to agri-business, public health issues to snaring globe-trotting pedophiles.

The demining NGOs in particular made great progress, clearing an estimated 25,000 hectares of mined territory between 1992-2003. Cambodia has also been hailed as a global success story in fighting HIV/AIDs transmission, led by NGO-organized education programs and health aid. Prevalence rates have fallen by nearly half, from 3% in 1997 to 1.6% in 2006.

Fractious relations
But Hun Sen's government's relationship with NGOs and international aid agencies has often been fractious, epitomized by its tumultuous interactions with the environmental watchdog Global Witness over its consistent accusations of high-level government links to illegal logging, and with the UK-based rights lobby Amnesty International for its criticism of state-sponsored forced evictions across the country.

The World Bank also suspended US$11.9 million in funds in 2006 for seven sanitation projects when it found evidence of rampant extortion, bribe-taking, bid-rigging and procurement manipulation, leading Hun Sen to claim the multilateral lender was trying to tarnish his government's credibility. The bank only agreed to unfreeze the projects' funding in 2007 after the government promised to strengthen anti-corruption measures.

Despite Cambodia's recent economic boom, including a skyrocketing average 11% gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past three years, a sizable portion of the nation's real income still derives directly from donor nations in amounts wrangled out each year at annual Consultative Group meetings.

The meetings were for years characterized by vague promises from the Cambodian government in response to weak demands by donors for reform, including the long-delayed adoption of an anti-corruption law. But in the past two years these demands have become less relevant with the surge in aid from China, which typically has less good governance or transparency conditions attached.

While Chinese aid is generally funneled through vast infrastructure projects - including hydropower and road projects - usually contracted to Chinese companies, Western nations' share of the average US$600 million in annual aid arrives through international aid agencies and NGOs. The process has been widely cast as a corrupt, inefficient gravy train, giving some traction to Hun Sen's complaints.

"In the 1980s, there was a popular T-shirt satirizing US Army recruitment commercials with the slogan, 'Join the army. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And kill them'," Brad Adams, executive director for Human Rights Watch's Asia Program, was quoted saying to Action Aid in 2005. "In the new millennium, it could be rephrased, 'Join the aid community. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And make a killing'."

This is still the case in Cambodia, Adams told Asia Times Online. "You can start with all the foreign consultants making more than $10,000 per month, almost always tax free. This is a huge drain on the aid budget for Cambodia and in many cases the consultants produce nothing of value for the country."

Many analysts and expatriates agree that NGOs and their workers suffer from an image crisis among the Cambodian public, partly due to their comparatively high salaries and lifestyles, which are far adrift from the 35% of the population which lives on less than $0.50 a day.

Country directors for prominent international aid agencies typically receive a $250,000 annual package, which includes a spacious villa in the capital's upmarket "NGO-ville" area, a four-wheel-drive vehicle - usually emblazoned with the logo of their donor agency or charity - and fees paid for the capital's better international schools.

The aid watchdog Action Aid estimated in 2005 that the 700 or so international consultants working for NGOs in the country earned more than Cambodia's 160,000 civil servants put together. "In 1993, yes, 99% of foreign consultants were justified; now, 5% are justifiable. The others are embedding and enabling the mentality of dependency," Center of Social Development director Theary Seng said in June.

Arne Sahlen, a founding member of the Cambodia Support Group, a 25-year-old volunteer organization, echoes Hun Sen's comments that fundraising has overtaken the focus on the actual progress of several NGO projects. According to Sahlen, "vast" resources are being swallowed up on pursuing donors that could be invested on direct project needs. "The need to please donors has warped the focus to not necessarily what is best for the project but what may look best on an application," said Sahlen.

Others contend that several NGOs are actually impeding the development of a self-sustaining private sector, mainly through the alleged abuse of their not-for-profit status to pursue business opportunities. That status helps them avoid taxes and other unofficial costs that private businesses pay, giving non-profit an unfair competitive advantage in the market, they say.

Cambodians now understand the word NGO, especially in the local context, to be a for-profit enterprise, said Sophal Ear, the author of The Political Economy of Cambodia, Aid and Governance. "It's all a business and this is just another way to avoid taxes," he said. "When not covered by donors, capital costs for NGOs have largely been privatized, through an extensive network of 'donations' to the ruling party by Oknhas [politically connected tycoons] politicians, and civil servants."

Discretionary powers
The NGO law, known formally as the Law on Organizations, was first written over a decade ago and aims to address such complaints. It would require NGOs to submit for government approval documents detailing their structure, goals, funding resources, properties and even logos. It also entails fines and imprisonment for any NGO which fails to submit annual reports to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Many fear the discretionary powers the law will give the government in monitoring and sanctioning NGOs - rather than vice versa. Hun Sen no doubt had his one good eye on the anticipated bounty of future oil and gas revenues when calling for the controversial law's revival. Chevron, the US energy giant, discovered oil off Cambodia southwestern coast in 2005 and analysts have predicted the find could generate anywhere between $200 million and $2 billion in annual revenues for the government when full-scale production begins in 2010.

The government is still awaiting a key assessment from Chevron of the supposed find, and both sides have more recently played down expectations. Nonetheless, NGOS are already warning of a possible "resource curse" similar to places like Nigeria, where corrupt governments pilfered and wasted earnings derived from energy exports.

"NGOs are trying to tell us how to use the oil money, but this is of no interest to us. What is important is how to make our resources profitable," Hun Sen said in a recent radio broadcast speech.

Despite his criticisms, there are reasons for concern. A new NGO coalition has begun work to oversee the transparency of the management of future oil funds. Led by the NGO Forum, it has given little information on its structure, but has said it plans to ensure the potential financial benefits from the windfall are managed in a socially responsible manner, and that benefits filter down to the impoverished grassroots.

The World Bank, which also aims to monitor the government's oil revenue management, noted in May that international aid is often poorly managed in key sectors, with the problem of "fragmented" assistance especially acute in health and education.

In the health sector, 22 donors are currently working with over 100 NGOs to deliver $110 million in Official Development Assistance (ODA) per year through 109 projects - yet use of the national system remains at just between 13% to 18%, said the bank. The vast majority of rural Cambodians are forced to use an expensive yet rudimentary private healthcare system which is more reminiscent of poorer African than neighboring Asian nations.

The education system is also beset by severe underfunding, with thousands of graduates churned out from poorly regulated "international" universities with degrees that often leave them ill-prepared to enter the job market. Until now, the only paying option for many graduates was to work in donor agencies and international NGOs. But if Chinese and South Korean private investment flows hold up and the country's hoped-for energy bonanza is realized, that may all soon change if Hun Sen has his NGO-curbing way.


Craig Guthrie is a former reporter for the Mekong Times newspaper in Phnom Penh. He has covered Cambodian affairs since 2004. Read more!

Cambodia to host ministerial trade conference of least developed countries

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia will host a meeting of ministers of industry and commerce from around 49 of the world's poorest countries described as "least developed" on Nov. 19-20 in Siem Reap province to discuss issues related to international trade, a press release said Thursday.

The conference aims to search for solutions to common problems faced by the poorest nations in their integration to global trade, the press release from the office of Cambodian government said.
One of the main topics of discussion is "Aid for Trade" (AfT), a package of incentives designed to help overcome structural and resource constraints of least developed countries in exchange for more speedy trade reforms, it said.

South-South Cooperation for Poverty Reduction is also on the agenda of the meeting, it added.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is to open this event, the release said.

The Cambodian government, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are jointly organizing this conference.
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'Progress' in Thailand-Cambodia row

The foreign ministers of Thailand and Cambodia say they have made progress in resolving a festering border dispute, and have agreed on steps to begin demarcating disputed territory that sparked a deadly military clash last month.

Following talks in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, the two sides said they had also tentatively agreed to redeploy their troops and clear land mines in the area near the ancient Preah Vihear temple.

"We have made a big practical step forward," Hor Namhong, Cambodia's foreign minister, said at a press conference after the meeting.

It is not yet clear, however, when the redeployment would begin, because the Thai side will first have to submit to parliament documents it negotiated with Cambodia.

"We have achieved 99 per cent, but there still remain a few points on which I need to seek approval from the Thai parliament first," Sompong Amornvivat, Thailand's foreign minister, told reporters.

In October three soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in a brief but intense exchange of gunfire between Thai and Cambodian troops.

The clash had raised fears of a war between the neighbours who have argued over the disputed stretch of jungle for decades.

In 1962 the World Court awarded ownership of the 14 century Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia, but sovereignty over the surrounding land has never been clearly resolved.
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Monks see Buddha in wasp nest

By Matt Russell

Experts are skeptical, but the Cambodian Buddhist community is abuzz over what they believe is a miracle at their temple in southeast Rochester: A wasp nest in the shape of a seated Buddha.
The nest, which is nestled in the eaves high above the entry to the Buddhists' one-story gathering hall, was spotted last week during a large celebration in which community members give monks new robes.

"Instead of the celebration we were having, we were paying attention to the beehive," said 35-year-old monk Sokunthea Thun.

Elder members of the Cambodian Buddhist community said they have never seen an apparition of the Buddha in their lifetimes.

"The Buddha is trying to tell everybody to seek peace in their lives," said 70-year-old Voeun Sor of Rochester, a Cambodia native who has lived in the United States for 20 years.

The location of the nest is typical for paper wasps, said Kirk Payne, a naturalist at Quarry Hill Nature Center in Rochester.

"They'll make a comb that can be kind of be wave-like," he said. "I can imagine how they could make a shape like an undulating, Buddha-like figure."

The Buddha-shaped formation could actually be made of four different nests formed over the last two to four years, said Robert Jeanne, an entomology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"If you want to read miracles into that, that's your privilege, but I wouldn't be inclined to do that," he said.

Beehives appear to have a special significance in Cambodian Buddhism: Honey collecting is a common activity in Cambodia, where Buddhist temples feature honeycomb-shaped towers.

Indeed, a beehive is prominently featured in a colorful painting on the temple grounds in Rochester, a fact that 76-year-old monk Moeun Ngop pointed out Monday afternoon while asserting the wasp nests were a miracle.

The Buddha wasn't trying to send a message with the nests, but the insects were trying to communicate a Buddhist message, Thun said.

"Bees can do this kind of miracle, so humans can also do miracles," he said. "Everywhere in this world, we humans need to follow in the bees' path to make peace and serenity."

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Cambodia, Vietnam to build processing plant to boost trade

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and Vietnam have agreed to build a new industrial processing factory aimed at boosting the two countries' agricultural exports, national media reported Wednesday.

The factory will promote cooperation between the two largely agricultural countries and raise quality standards on export goods such as beans, corn, palm sugar and cashew nuts, the Phnom Penh Post said.

Officials say the products would be aimed at the local and export markets.

"The factory will be constructed near the border between both countries in order to capitalize on each country's resources," HorNamhong, Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, was quoted as saying.

News of the partnership follows Prime Minister Hun Sen's return from a state visit to Vietnam, where he signed a trade agreement to increase cross-border commerce.

Trade between Cambodia and Vietnam reached 1.7 billion U.S. dollars through the first eight months of this year, Hor Namhong said, up from 1.19 U.S. dollars billion in 2007.

"Vietnam has more modern technology, capital and human resources than Cambodia, so (the new factory) will offer a significant tool to develop our economy," he said.

Le Bien Cuong, the commercial counselor at the Vietnamese embassy in Cambodia, said hopes were high that the factory would be completed soon, and that the plant would raise the quality of local products to international export standards.
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