Sichuan Trade Mission Due Next Week

A Chinese delegation from the province of Sichuan will travel to Cambodia for the first time next week in search of investment options, on the heals of deepening ties between the two countries.

The delegation, led by Sun Yuan, president of the Sichuan Chamber of Commerce, will meet with National Assembly President Heng Samrin, lawmakers and trade officials.

The five-day visit is a fact-finding mission for Sichuan business leaders, who hope to build ties, especially in the trade of commercial goods, said Korm Kosal, Heng Samrin’s cabinet chief.

Nguon Meng Tech, secretary-general of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce, said Cambodia has no Sichuan companies. However, he said, he hopes to convince investors on the visit to build agricultural businesses, expand tourism and bring construction and mining companies.

“If we receive investment from Sichuan, it will help push our economic growth through investment and trade exchange,” he said.

The visit comes follows an announcement last week that Cambodia will expand consular services to six cities in China and a $1.2 billion development pledge from Beijing in December 2009.

In October 2009, Prime Minister Hun Sen took more than 100 Cambodian companies to Sichuan province in an effort to woo investment.

Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker Cheam Yiep said Heng Samrin will explain to the delegation the investor-friendly laws of Cambodia, which include tax incentives, land concessions, zero import duties for construction materials and zero export tariffs on some products.

Economist Kong Chandararoth said the visit marked a “new step” in Chinese-Cambodian investment.

“Cambodia will be able to strengthen its economic growth if Sichuan comes to invest,” he said.
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Sand dredging threatens Cambodia's coasts

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, May 12 (UPI) -- Sand dredging in Cambodia, fueled by Singapore's expansion and land reclamation projects, poses a huge risk to Cambodia's coastal environment, says a new report.

In its "Shifting Sands" report, environmental group Global Witness estimates that as much as 796,000 tons of sand is being removed from saltwater estuaries in Cambodia's Koh Kong province each month -- enough to cover all of Phnom Penh nearly a half-inch deep in just eight months.

Singapore, with a population of 4.9 million people, has increased its land surface by 22 percent since the 1960s, mostly through land reclamation projects using imported sand. This appetite for sand is fueling a "corrupt and environmentally disastrous" sand industry, the Global Witness report states.

The Cambodian government in May 2009 imposed a ban on sand exports. Yet two prominent Cambodian senators had been awarded sand extraction licenses, Global Witness said, and there is no trace of any revenues benefiting the state.

The London-based watchdog group estimates the annual value of the sand shipments is $28.7 million in Cambodia and $248 million once the sand reaches Singapore.

Cambodia's sand-dredging industry poses a "huge risk" to its coastal environment, threatening endangered species, fish stocks and local livelihoods, the report states.

Hundreds of fisherman from the Koh Kong and Kampot provinces have protested repeatedly against the sand dredging, The Phnom Penh Post reported, quoting a fisherman from Koh Kong as saying that fish catches had decreased about 40 percent since last year.

The process of sand dredging has also "wreaked havoc" on the region's coastlines, the Global Witness report said, noting that Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia each have banned dredging sand for export because of environmental concerns.

Emphasizing that Singapore prides itself as being a regional leader on environmental issues, "the country's failure to mitigate the social and ecological cost of sand dredging represents hypocrisy on a grand scale," George Boden, campaigner at Global Witness, said in a release.

"Cambodia's natural resource wealth should be lifting its population out of poverty," he said, noting that nearly 70 percent of the population subsists on less than $2 a day.

In a statement, Singapore's Ministry of National Development rejected the findings of the Global Witness report, saying "we do not condone the illegal export or smuggling of sand, or any extraction of sand that is in breach of the source countries' laws and rules on environmental protection."

"We have not received any official notice on the ban of sand exports from Cambodia," it added.

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Civil Coalition Slams ‘Unlawful’ Sugar Concessions

Villagers in Kampong Speu protest against Phnom Penh Sugar Company for land grabbing.

The government has granted tens of thousands of hectares of unlawful land concessions to a small group of companies, some of them owned by the same person, a coalition of rights groups said Wednesday.

The concessions violated portions of the land law and a sub-decree on economic land concessions, according to the coalition, comprised of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, NGO Forum and Housing Rights Task Force.

The law says that each concession must be below 10,000 hectares for any individual owner of a company.

But an investigation into the deals found “that although different locations are granted as land economic concessions to different company names, they are of course run and owned by only the same physical person with the size bigger than 10,000 hectares,” according to the coalition.

The coalition specifically named the Koh Kong Sugar Industry Company, granted 9,700 hectares in 2006; the Angkor Sugar Investment Company, granted 9,863 hectares in 2007; and the Phnom Penh Sugar Company, granted 8,343 hectares in 2010.

All three companies are owned by Ly Yong Phat, a powerful senator for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party who is currently engaged in an ongoing land dispute for the 2010 concession, in Kampong Speu province’s Omlieng commune, Thpong district.

“Such provision of land concessions is clearly contradicted to…Article 59 of [the] Land Law,” the coalition said in a statement.

Omlieng villagers say the Phnom Penh Sugar Company has pushed them from their farms, and they have staged multiple protests in the commune and provincial capital, including the burning of several company buildings and a bulldozer.

The coalition said the unlawful concessions “do not really contribute to a sustainable national development of Cambodia” and instead create a negative reputation for the country. The groups called on the government to cease new concessions, publicly review current ones and cancel those that are not in line with the land law.

They also recommended the government return land to people that was lost in unlawful concessions.

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Kent man charged for reportedly having sex with child prostitutes in Cambodia

By KENT REPORTER

A 59-year-old Kent man is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court Monday in Seattle to face charges he engaged in illicit sexual conduct with underage girls in Cambodia.

The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Craig Thomas Carr, of Kent, was accompanied by ICE agents May 7 as he boarded a plane in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the return flight to the United States, according to an ICE media release. The charges against Carr are detailed in a five-count criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

According to affidavit in the case, the investigation into Carr's activities began in December 2009 when the Cambodian National Police, acting on information from the French National Police, learned that a taxi driver in Phnom Penh, identified by the initials S.M., had advertised on the Internet that he could procure minors for the purpose of child prostitution.

Carr responded to one of S.M.'s advertisements in November 2009 and they subsequently exchanged approximately 20 e-mail messages.

In the e-mails, Carr and S.M. discussed Carr's desire to have sex with girls around 12 years of age. S.M. told Carr that he could arrange for the age and appearance of girls Carr described.

Court documents describe how Carr traveled Jan. 13 to Cambodia via San Francisco International Airport and Taipei, Taiwan. The next day, S.M. met Carr at his hotel and transported him to a local guest house where he met a woman who appeared to be managing the brothel.

ICE's investigation revealed that, for the next seven days, Carr had sex multiple times with three girls. All fees were pre-negotiated prior to his departure from the U.S.

According to the affidavit, Carr told ICE agents that he paid S.M. $3,000 when he arrived in Cambodia and had made two additional payments of $3,000 and $1,800 to the woman who operated the brothel. Carr also admitted to paying each young girl $20 for allowing him to take sexually explicit photographs of them.

The Cambodian National Police arrested Carr on Jan. 22. He remained in the custody of Cambodian authorities until he was removed from that country and escorted back to the U.S. by ICE. S.M. was also arrested by the Cambodian police in January and he remains in Cambodia.

"Pedophiles who believe they can escape the detection of law enforcement and travel overseas to commit heinous crimes against children should take note," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of ICE's office of investigations. "ICE and its law enforcement partners around the globe will pursue those who subject children to this type of crime and bring them to justice."

The probe into Carr's activities was conducted by ICE's Office of Investigations in Seattle, ICE's Office of International Affairs that oversees the agency's Attaché Office in Bangkok, the Cambodian Police Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection offices and the French National Police.

Carr is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington under the Protect Act. The Protect Act, which went into effect seven years ago, substantially strengthened federal laws against predatory crimes involving children outside the U.S. by adding new crimes and increasing the penalties for these charges.

The investigation is part of Operation Predator, an ongoing ICE initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers.

ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-347-2423. The hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators.

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Leading Indicators: Off-the-Radar News Roundup

Judah Grunstein

- China's central bank promised to maintain a "basically stable" exchange rate and a "moderately easy" monetary policy, in its first-quarter report released yesterday. The language has some analysts expecting an imminent shift toward a stronger yuan. Meanwhile, China posted double-digit trade growth in April, and first-quarter economic growth of 11.9 percent, but weak global demand has analysts skeptical that Beijing will move quickly to let the yuan rise. Got that? It would seem the only safe bet is that China will do something about the yuan, as long as you accept that "doing nothing" also qualifies as "doing something."

- China and Cambodia agreed to strengthen bilateral military ties following a meeting in Beijing between China's defense minister and Cambodia's chief of staff. Nothing new here, Cambodia has been steadily slipping into China's orbit for a while now.

- Just when you thought that Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's handling of the Futenma base relocation couldn't get any worse, government sources said that he has now given up on his self-imposed deadline to resolve the issue by May 31. No Coke!! Pepsi!!

- South Korea confirmed that a Pakistani man arrested for illegally entering the country is a member of the Taliban, raising security concerns for the G-20 summit scheduled in Seoul for November. The more globalization diffuses power -- and the symbols of power -- the more it diffuses the threat of anti-globalization backlashes, like Islamic terrorism.

- Meanwhile, and perhaps not unrelatedly, South Korea formally launched the 320-troop unit that will be deployed to Afghanistan in July and outlined its equipment: four helicopters, armored vehicles and a mini-UAV.

- India's army said that there had been no "intrusions" by China along the Line of Actual Control that defines their border, instead calling various incidents reported last year "transgressions" that resulted from "a matter of perception of the borderline."

- India's home minister ruled out military operations against Maoist Naxalite insurgents due to "ethical considerations," saying, "Sri Lanka might have used the military to tackle the LTTE, but we in India can't do that." Interesting that he referred to Sri Lanka, instead of to the Pakistani army's campaign in North Waziristan. Perhaps it has to do with not stepping on Islamabad's toes in advance of the July 15 meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers, announced today.

- Following a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Spain's foreign minister promised that the EU would open an unspecified number of new chapters in Turkey's EU accession negotiations before the end of the Spanish EU presidency in July. I'm not quite sure what the Spanish foreign minister is doing speaking on behalf of the EU on common foreign policy, given that there's now an EU foreign minister -- a role that was created for that express purpose.

- Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev met with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal during his visit to Syria. The two were joined by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This will probably raise hackles in all the usual places, but I think it's worthwhile having someone of Medvedev's stature able to sit down and cut to the chase with Hamas leaders. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been trying to do just that for a while, but faces constraints based on both the U.S. and EU listings of Hamas as a terrorist organization.

- Israel was invited to join the OECD after a 16-year effort. The bid was supported by Turkey over strenuous Palestinian opposition, signaling a potential thaw in recently testy relations between the two allies.

- Egypt's prime minister asked parliament to extend the Emergency Law, in force since 1981, for another two years,a lthough promising to limit certain aspects of it. The lifting of the state of emergency has been a prominent demand of the Egyptian opposition. The extension, which parliament is expected to approve, is meant to be the last before an anti-terror law replaces it in 2012.

- Uruguay's local elections, which saw the opposition take most of the regional governments amid a record proportion of "blank ballot" abstensions, served as a "wake-up call" for the country's ruling coalition.

Research by Kari Lipschutz.
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Cambodia's Preap Sovath

By RFI

Cambodia’s best-known celebrity is actor and singer Preap Sovath. Immensely popular in his home country, Sovath has a talent for keeping his audience interested. Above all, he's a singer, but few will doubt his talent on the big screen.

Appearing in everything from music videos, to film, Sorvath's exploits in 2007 earned him the top honour at the Cambodian Film Festival. For Sovath, the biggest challenge was not simply becoming a celebrity, but remaining one - he confided to RFI.

In Cambodia, new stars appear every day: They are born at nightfall and then disappear as soon as the sun rises, making way for those to come the night after. It’s rare for an actor to survive longer than three years. As a result, they tend to adopt a similar, rigid, style and find it difficult to adapt to the tastes of the public.

Sovath, to the contrary, knew how to conserve his popularity. He’s been the country’s highest-billed star for almost 20 years. It all started when he began singing in 1990, at a time when Cambodian cinema was not yet developed.

Apart from foreign films, karaoke music clips were all the graced screens in Cambodia. Sovath, a singer but also a talented actor, quickly joined Hang Meas, the biggest producer of music video clips in Cambodia.

Year after year, Sovath knew how to evolve along with the changing tastes of his fans. He did not hesitate to reinvent the style of his songs, nor the way he sang them. Moreover, he sang everything (from rock and pop to Khmer folk) and ensured everyone could see themselves in these clips – the young, the less young, the townsmen and the countrymen.

It was in 2005 when Sovath decided to dedicate himself to the big screen. He rediscovered himself in the film The Crocodile Hunter, playing nothing less that the hero. It was his film debut – but it was also his greatest cinematic success.

Today in Cambodia, the film market is in decline, largely because intellectual property rights are not respected: from the date of their release, and sometimes even before, films are copied and sold at an unbeatable price. As a result, cinemas are closing one after another and the producers are profiting less and less.

At 35 years of age, a married father of three, Sovath is continuing on his journey, all the while enchanting his public.

His success is not just thanks to his voice and acting prowess, but also to the manner in which he manages his private life. A stable and solid married life is paramount in a traditionally conservative society such as Cambodia's.

While most Cambodian celebrities are often tainted by sex scandals, Sovath is known to be a family man.

For his part, Sorvath hopes to continue his career along the same trajectory – at least for now. “I love art - and I love my career my as an artist, as it has allowed me step out of the void and become a celebrity.”

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Businesswomen Find a Friend in Facebook

Around six month ago, Lim Viriya had abandoned her products distribution business—twice. The 29-year-old businesswoman from Siem Reap province nearly closed down her tour company, as she faced tight competition and thin profit margins.

Facebook saved her businesses.

“In the past, I was defeated many times,” she told VOA Khmer recently. “But afterward, I read information posted on Facebook, talking about the commitment and persistence of a restaurant owner to pursue her business, despite being defeated many times. She advised that with any kind of business, no matter how little we earn, as long as we persist, we will not fail.”

The site’s Cambodia Women in Business page encouraged her to carry on with her ventures, she said, and, since December 2009, things have been looking up.

The Facebook page was the initiative of the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, which thought social networking could help Cambodian women looking to start their own businesses.

Cambodian women face a number of challenges starting or expanding their businesses. With often lower educations, they must make sense of regulatory information, and they have an uphill struggle against family values that disapprove of women in business.

Now the page has more than 300 members, many of them owners of small- or medium-sized businesses. There are female students, employers and researchers. Men are not excluded.

The page includes photographs of various businesses run by women and discussions about the challenges they face, such as difficulties with registration. It has suggestions on ways women can gain the support of their husbands. It includes market research, product prices and business management strategies. Members post articles on national and international businesswomen.

The page does have limitations. It is run in English, on the Internet, excluding many Cambodian women who can’t read English or don’t have access to the Web.

Still, IFC project manager Lil Sisambat says she’s confident it is helping.

“Facebook creates energy and a lot of ideas about how to do more business, to do better business and to have a way to solve the problems women are facing,” she said. “If one woman who starts a business faces difficulties, other women can help her online. So I think it is a very good source of support to make the environment easy to do business.”

Seng Stephene, an employee of a private business in Phnom Penh who wants to open a communication company, only joined Facebook a month ago. With it, she said, she learned how to start her own business and how to study the market.

Women who already have successful businesses, meanwhile, share their experiences.

“The moment that women face harder problem in their businesses, it will make them become stronger and be successful,” said Heng Chenda, manager of KNN Handicraft. “So, please, all women, behave with a strong commitment.”

Women play an important role in economic growth, and private enterprise is the main driver of economic development in Cambodia. It accounts for 92 percent of total jobs in the country, according to a 2008 study by the IFC. In those, women accounted for 55 percent of all business owners, mainly with micro- or small-sized ventures.

With Cambodian men the primary owners of medium and large businesses, women do not fulfill their potential as job creators, nor as developers of human resources—nor as taxpayers.

A network site like Facebook can help them put their voices together, said Veronique Salze-Lozac’h, the regional director of economic programs for the Asia Foundation.

“If they can actually find enough women to say, ‘Yes, this is really a problem,’ then they can come together and try to contact to the government to improve their situation,” she said. “So Facebook can be a very useful tool for businesswomen to push for some reforms.”

However, because of its unofficial nature, Ty Makara Ravy, an active member of the sight, thinks the government may not take it seriously.

That may not be so. Minister of Women’s Affairs Ing Kantha Phavy, after all, reads the page. She told VOA Khmer the concerns and challenges she finds there could help steer government policy.
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The dangers in trafficking Cambodian men

Tens of thousands of Cambodians cross into neighbouring countries each year in search of work. But agreeing to work abroad illegally can be dangerous not least for men who are generally not seen as being at much risk.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael
Speakers: Louise Rose, victim protection officer, The Asia Foundation; Manfred Hornung, legal adviser at human rights NGO Licadho

CARMICHAEL: The phrase 'human trafficking' commonly conjures up images of women and children sold into servitude, bonded labour or brothels.

But men are of course trafficked too, although until recently the issue of male trafficking in south-east Asia was ignored and unstudied.

But at this hotel in Phnom Penh, delegates have gathered for a conference on the issue of regional migration, with a particular focus on Cambodia.

Louise Rose works as a victim protection officer for The Asia Foundation, an NGO, and spoke to delegates about male trafficking.

She says in recent years the issue of Cambodian men being trafficked onto fishing boats in Thailand and Malaysia has gained some attention, but information about the scale of the issue is limited.

Rose says the most comprehensive study to date is of 258 men who were returned to Cambodia through the southern province of Koh Kong. Most of the men had worked on fishing boats in Thailand.

She says the men - who represent just a fraction of more than 100,000 Cambodian men, women and children deported from Thailand each year - were asked about their motivations for migrating.

Researchers found that debt drove half to leave Cambodia and look for work. Two other factors were even more significant.

LOUISE ROSE: Lack of food was a huge one. Three-quarters of the men reported not enough food being a motivator for migrating. And the other one that was even higher again - no source of income.

CARMICHAEL: No jobs, no food, low skills, limited land, and few opportunities for the 350,000 young people entering the job market each year mean there is a large supply of ready labour in rural Cambodia.

Manfred Hornung is a legal adviser with human rights NGO Licadho. Over the past three years Licadho has interviewed more than 60 men brought back to Cambodia who were trafficked onto Thai fishing vessels.

He says the men's stories have a common thread, starting at the point where an agent turned up in their home village with promises of work.

MANFRED HORNUNG: So in most cases this broker won't tell these youngsters that they have to work on a fishing boat. They'll tell them he will find work for them in the construction sector or on a plantation in Thailand. In most cases they are promised well-paid jobs.

CARMICHAEL: The men are smuggled across the border into neighbouring Thailand, and then down to Pak Nam fishing port 30 kilometres south of Bangkok.

There they are locked in guesthouses until they are sold to the captains of vessels in Thailand's multi-billion dollar fishing industry.

Hornung says conditions on board the fishing boats can be horrific. And since the captain and Thai crew are often armed, press-ganged fishermen from Cambodia, Burma or Laos have few options.

MANFRED HORNUNG: A very typical story then is that once they are on the boats they have to work long hours - in most cases these young fishermen tell us that they have maybe two to three hours rest per night; that they receive very meagre rations of food, that they are constantly beaten; they are drugged because they have to work long hours; we have had reports that men who fell sick were thrown overboard.

CARMICHAEL: In some cases, matters are so bad that the men jump overboard at night and try to swim to land. That's what three Cambodians did off the coast off East Timor in February this year. Luckily they were rescued by local fishermen and are awaiting repatriation.

You might think it would be easy enough to jump ship when fishing boats reach port. But the decline in fish stocks means some boats stay at sea for months, and make contact only with mother-ships onto which they offload their catch.

The solution will require better cooperation among governments in the region, improved services for migrants, and education about the risks involved.

But until that happens, unscrupulous agents, corruption, poverty and a lack of jobs mean more of Cambodia's youth will experience this version of 21st century slavery. Read more!

PM wants more trade with Cambodia

PHNOM PENH: Malaysia hopes to increase the number of goods involved in its trade with Cambodia, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

The Prime Minister said Malaysia trade base with Cambodia was very narrow and confined to a few products.

Red carpet treatement: Najib inspecting a guard-of-honour in Phnom Penh yesterday. accompanying him is Hun Sen. Bernama

“Malaysia’s main export to Cambodia are chemicals, machinery, appliances and electrical products while imports consist of textiles, clothing, raw rubber and logs from Cambodia,” he said at the Malaysia-Cambodia business forum luncheon here yesterday.

Najib said there was plenty of opportunities for both countries to expand the scope of products and services.

He said businessmen from both nations must continue to find ways and work together to enhance the bilateral trade and form strategic partnerships that would take advantage of the opportunities arising from the greater regional economic integration.

He said it was important for both nations to continue to work closely to improve trade relations through bilateral cooperation and active participation in Asean integration initiatives.

“The governments of both countries have taken steps to establish a framework for sustained cooperation in all economic and political areas and now is the time to mobilise our resources collectively for the economic development of Asean as a whole,” he added.

Najib said Cambodia had the potential to play a prominent role in Asia’s expansion.

Earlier, Najib held bilateral talks with his counterpart Hun Sen at the Council of Ministers.

He said Malaysia and Cambodia agreed to expand its two-way trade commitments and one of the topic discussed was Cambodia’s 3.5 million tonnes of rice surplus.

The country has invited Malaysian companies to set up mills to process the padi for export.

Najib said Cambodia was satisfied with the training provided under the Malaysia Technical Corporation and the number of scholarships provided by Petronas and other companies to Cambodians.

He said the Cambodian government has given an approval-in-principle for CIMB to open in the country after its application was submitted to the National Bank of Cambodia.

He said that with the approval, Malaysia would have five financial institutions operating in the country.

In the morning, Najib also attended the wreath-laying ceremony at the Independence Monument.

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Sand exports to Singapore harm Cambodia: watchdog

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Cambodia is engaged in destructive sand exports to fuel Singapore's rapid expansion despite a supposed government ban on the practice, an environmental watchdog said Tuesday.

London-based Global Witness said Cambodia was making a "mockery of the government's supposed May 2009 ban on sand-dredging", risking devastation to its coasts, endangered species, fish stocks and local livelihoods.

"There is no evidence that basic environmental safeguards have been applied, with boats reportedly turning up and dredging sand, often in protected areas, with no local consultation," said its new report, entitled "Shifting Sands".

The group, which has made many allegations of Cambodian cronyism in recent years, said Mong Reththy and Ly Yong Phat -- senators known to have close ties to premier Hun Sen -- have been covertly awarded licences to dredge sand.

"This situation highlights the continued failure of Cambodia's international donors to use their leverage to hold the small elite surrounding the prime minister to account," said George Boden, campaigner at Global Witness.

The report said investigators tracked sand-filled boats from Cambodia to Singapore, estimating concessions from southwestern Koh Kong province alone netted 20 million dollars per month for some 796,000 tonnes of sand.

Global Witness added that figures from other concessions along Cambodia's coast were not known, and there was no way to track whether revenues from sand exports reached the national treasury.

"In addition, Global Witness has seen Cambodian sand dredging and export licences which bear the stamp and signature of a representative of the Singapore Embassy in Cambodia," the report said.

Singapore has expanded its surface area by 22 percent since the 1960s, said the report, requiring vast quantities of imported sand from neighbours in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam have halted sand exports to the city-state over concerns the practice depleted fish stocks and caused erosion.

The Cambodian government has banned past reports by Global Witness, which also accused donors of ignoring graft among elites who have allegedly been involved in illegal logging as well as shady oil and mining deals.
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CIMB given bank licence in Cambodia

CIMB Group (1023), Malaysia's second largest banking group by assets, has obtained the approval of Cambodia's central bank to offer banking services in the country.

It said the in-principle approval allows its commercial banking arm, CIMB Bank, to operate a wholly owned subsidiary in the country of 14 million people.

The group is required to set up its operations within six months.

"The group plans to establish its headquarters in Phnom Penh as soon as possible," its group chief executive Datuk Seri Nazir Razak (picture) said in a statement yesterday.
CIMB's entry into Cambodia means that it now has a presence in eight of the 10 countries in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean).

"This move further cements our position as a leading Asean franchise. We are excited about the long-term prospects for the Cambodian economy and believe we can contribute to the development of the domestic banking market and facilitate more trade and investment flows between Cambodia and other Asean markets," Nazir said.

Other Malaysian banks with a presence in Cambodia include Malayan Banking and Public Bank.
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Najib arrives for official visit to Cambodia

PHNOM PENH May 9 – Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak arrived here this evening to begin his three-day official visit to Cambodia.

The premier and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, were greeted upon arrival at the Phnom Penh International Airport here at 6.50pm (Malaysian time: 7.50pm) by Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman and Malaysian Ambassador to Cambodia Datuk Pengiran Mohd Hussein Mohd Tahir Nasruddin were also present at the airport to welcome them.

This is Najib”s first official visit to this country after assuming office in April last year, and the visit, among others, is aimed at enhancing the bilateral ties and trade between the two countries.
He is scheduled to begin the second day of his visit by attending the wreath-laying ceremony at the Independence Monument before calling on his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen, and hold bilateral talks at the Council of Ministers here tomorrow.

Najib will then hold a dialogue with Malaysian investors and businessmen in Cambodia at a hotel here, before Hun Sen joins him at the Malaysia-Cambodia Business Forum and luncheon at the same hotel.

Both leaders will then witness the signing of six business agreements worth US$1 billion (US$1 ~ RM3.27) there.

The five business agreements are between private sectors from both countries while another is between a Malaysian company and a Cambodian government agency.

Najib is also scheduled to visit the Hello Axiata Operation Centre here, a Malaysian-Cambodian telecommunication joint-venture company, and later visit the construction site of the new complex of the Malaysian Embassy here.

Meanwhile, in a separate function here tomorrow, Rosmah will visit the Kuntha Bopha IV Hospital and the Bun Rany Hun Sen High School.

The prime minister and his wife will conclude their second-day visit by attending the official dinner hosted by Hun Sen and wife Bun Rany at a hotel here.

On the final day, Najib will have an audience with King Norodom Sihamoni at the Royal Palace here in the morning.

The visiting premier will also call on the President of the National Assembly Heng Samrin at the National Assembly here, and President of the Senate Chea Sim at the Senate House here.

Najib and wife are scheduled to leave Phnom Penh International Airport for home at 11.30am (Malaysian time: 12.30pm) on Tuesday.

— BERNAMA

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Pakistan Ranked 108 In World Competitiveness

According to information during the survey in 2008 it was found that out of 125 countries Pakistan ranked 108 in competitiveness. In order to improve its ranking it has to take positive measures. On Saturday concerning to this Karachi National Productivity Organization’s (NPO’s) office was inaugurated. It was decided to allocated fund of Rs. 55 million for hiring technical expertise. With the help of technical assistance productivity will be improved.

The first target is to improve present use of energy. The essential need is to increase its productivity with less use of resources and electricity. Dr Soomro said many industrial units are misusing their resources and production level is also very low that is a main reason behind the low ranking in world competitiveness. MOI&P is providing assistance in research and study to device new ways of increasing production with low energy use. NPO has opened his operation in Multan and Karachi and their two new offices have been inaugurated. In 1961 APO was established. The main reason of founding Asian Productivity Organization was to increases the productivity in region. Pakistan was the founding member of this organization.

Japan, Republic of Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, India, Taiwan, Nepal, Malaysia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Fiji, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Islamic Iran, Mongolia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Laos are the members of APO. Read more!

Kent and Jackson State: protest and death; hope and defeat

I was 17 and a college dropout in May, 1970, the month of the Kent and Jackson State killing of protesting students. For me, these events came at the end of two years of active engagement in, and many years of passive support for, the anti-war and other social movements of the time. I had attended innumerable demonstrations, been chased by police with batons at the ready, handed out leaflets, read nearly every radical publication I could get my hands on, and believed that radical social change was on the agenda.

In Vietnam, millions were being butchered by our county's desperate attempt to hold onto every outpost of its empire, no matter what the imperial subjects wanted. At the end of April, 1970, I watched with hundreds of others in an MIT lecture hall as President Nixon announced that he was further exporting U.S.-sponsored death and destruction as he radically expanded the U.S. attacks on Vietnam's neighbor, Cambodia. Then, on May 4th the bullets flew at Kent State, killing four students.

The killings brought home to millions across the country that our country's violence overseas would not spare the citizens at home. Across the country, students went on strike in the millions. These included students at traditional radical centers like Columbia, Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. But it also included those attending community colleges and thousands of high schools.

In Boston, we planned for a citywide demonstration. One faction wanted to invade and occupy the Massachusetts State House, seeking to broaden the confrontation with the forces of authority. I was in the faction that resisted that action, a position I've wondered about ever since.

As we planned for the rally, it was not just students who expressed support. We met with delegations from many work places - I can no longer remember precisely which these were - where workers, who still had unions in those days, expressed opposition to the war and support of our protest. Some unknown thousands joined our protests, as did many professionals.

The demonstration came. There were 100,000 people out on a weekday, protesting the murder of U.S. citizens and the murder of Vietnamese and Cambodian citizens. Across the country, there were similar demonstrations. It seemed that the Southeast Asian war could not survive this militant rejection by an aroused and active citizenry.

But then the next day came. Gradually, students returned to their classrooms. After all, there were final exams to be prepared for. And the workers returned to work; there were paychecks needing to be brought home. When, 10 days after the Kent State shootings, two students were killed at Jackson State, there was little expression of outrage. For one thing, the dead were poor Black - "African-American" didn't exist yet - students in the South, where murders of protesting blacks was no stranger, who did not arouse quite as much identification as did the white students of Kent State. But, alas, the movement had already died over that week and half. When school resumed in the fall, the movement was but a shadow of its former self, gradually fizzling out over the next several years.

We did not realize it yet, but the Kent State protests were the beginning of the end of the sixties protest movements. In the national student and worker strikes encompassing millions, we activists had exceeded many of our dreams. Yet, the empire didn't stop. It didn't even hiccup. The bombs continued raining death and destruction on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos for another five long years. The protests declined. And there was no accountability for the deaths in Kent State, at Jackson State, or in Southeast Asia.

We didn't know it yet, but the lesson learned by all too many of the post-Kent State protesters was that the opinions of people in our country hardly matter, that the forces of law and order will continue on regardless. Protest movements lost their force and power. Cynicism ultimately reigned supreme. Political and civic engagement became largely a spectator sport, as we watched the Watergate hearings on TV. We saw the culmination of this de-fanging of social movements when, in 1981, the newly-elected Ronald Reagan easily crushed the PATCO air traffic controllers strike with mass firings of thousands of strikers, dealing the labor movement in the U.S. a blow from which it has never recovered.

In the decades since, there have been important social movements, such as the nuclear freeze movement, the movement against U.S. intervention in support of murderous regimes in Latin America, or that against the reckless expansion of nuclear power. There have been some successes. But the basic disempowerment of ordinary people has continued apace, reinforced as it was so recently by a corporatist politician claiming that a vote for him was a vote for a vacuous "hope," a hope that became synonymous with business as usual once the election was over.

In the decades since the Kent and Jackson State killings, the message that the rich and powerful can rule as they wish has become ever stronger, as we have seen the most rapid expansion in inequality ever seen in this country, with the wealthy waging unceasing class warfare against the majority. Millions of poor, largely people of color, have been thrown into horrific prisons resembling those in the most infamous human rights offenders in the world, with systematic brutality, beatings, and rapes arousing hardly any outrage. The American empire continues to inflict death and destruction to those in poor countries around the world. And the impunity with which traditional taboos against openly-expressed support for torture have disappeared, as its organizers and supporters flood the airwaves with explicit defenses, showing that there is no longer much of a pretense of civility for the ruling powers.

But the protests after Kent State also remind us that there are times when millions of people become fed up with the lies, the deceit, and the brutality of the powerful forces that rule. Difficult as it is to believe that these voices will overcome their lethargy and again become aroused and challenge the powerful, we cannot give in to the cynicism which those powerful rely upon.

We may not know when, but we can be assured that moments of radical social protest will again sweep our country, perhaps sooner than we think as we enter a long period of massive unemployment that may eventually shake the sense that the status quo, however bad, is good enough. When that moment comes, we must do what we can to help the movements challenge and transform the forces which are bringing misery to millions. As Joe Hill said before his firing squad death, "Don't mourn. Organize!"

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Najib to witness six MoUs in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is expected to witness the signing of six business agreements worth US$1bil during his three-day official visit to Cambodia beginning Sunday.

The five business agreements will be between the private sectors of both countries while another agreement will be signed between a Malaysian company and a Cambodian government agency.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will join the visiting premier on Monday to witness the inking of all agreements covering education, ICT security, halal industry, agriculture, training and retail sectors.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman told Malaysian journalists here that Najib’s first official visit to the country, after assuming office April last year, was very significant in further cementing bilateral ties between both countries.

Malaysian Ambassador to Cambodia Datuk Pengiran Mohd Hussein Pengiran Mohd Tahir Nasruddin disclosed that total trade volume between the two countries amounted to US$150mil last year.

About 90% of the trade involved Malaysian exports of textile, palm oil, food and beverage while the remaining 10% constituted Malaysian imports of rubber, textile and rice, he said.

Mohd Hussein said there were vast opportunities for Malaysians to explore Cambodia’s services sector such as education, healthcare, construction, halal industry, tourism and, oil and gas.

Malaysia, with an investment of US$1.8bil, is currently the fourth largest investor in Cambodia after China, Korea and Vietnam.

The ambassador said Malaysian investment in Cambodia included the manufacture of sports apparel, hotels, education, banking and fast food chains.

“Trade and investment between both countries are expected to be intensified as the region moves towards becoming an Asean Economic Community by 2015 which allows the free movement of goods, capital and people,” he added.

Mohd Hussein called on Malaysian businessmen to consider Cambodia seriously as it was also located in the Mekong basin comprising Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam with a population of 100 million people.

Najib and his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor are scheduled to arrive at the Phnom Penh International Airport, here, at 7.05pm (Malaysian time: 8.05pm) on Sunday.

A total 117 Malaysian businessmen will join the Malaysian delegation during the official visit.

On Monday, the prime minister is expected to attend the wreath laying ceremony at the Independence Monument, call on Hun Sen and later hold bilateral talks at the Council of Ministers, here.

Najib will then hold a dialogue with Malaysian investors and businessmen in Cambodia before he is joined by Hun Sen at the Malaysia-Cambodia Business Forum and Luncheon. Both leaders will then witness the signing of the six business agreements.

Najib is also scheduled to visit Hello Axiata Operations Centre here, a Malaysian-Cambodian telecommunication joint venture, and later visit the construction site of the new complex which will house the Embassy of Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Rosmah will have a separate function on Monday by visiting the Kantha Bopha IV Hospital and the Bun Rany Hun Sen High School.

Najib and Rosmah will conclude their second-day visit by attending the official dinner hosted by Hun Sen and wife Bun Rany.

On the final day, Najib will have an audience with King Norodom Sihamoni at the Royal Palace. The visiting premier will also call on the President of the National Assembly Heng Samrin and President of the Senate Chea Sim.

Najib and Rosmah are scheduled to depart Phnom Penh International Airport for home at 11.30am (Malaysian time:12.30pm) on Wednesday. -- Bernama
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Namibia, Cambodia to establish diplomatic ties - by Staff Reporter

WINDHOEK – Namibia is to establish diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Cabinet has approved the establishment of diplomatic relations between Namibia and Cambodia.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been directed to empower Namibia’s Permanent Representative to New York in the United States to sign the necessary documents on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

After many years of civil war, the Cambodian conflict came to an end and an election was organised by the United Nations under the auspices of the UN Transitional Authority of Cambodia.

Elections took place in 1993. In the same year, a new constitution was promulgated, establishing the Kingdom of Cambodia.

In 1998, another round of elections took place and Cambodia experienced peace and stability for the first time in 30 years. The country’s economy has improved, tourism has rebounded and improvements are taking place on infrastructure.

Namibia was one of the countries that sent a sizable contingent to join the UN peacekeeping mission in Cambodia in 1993.
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US Cambodians Urged To Join Census

As the US completes a new national census, one group in California is working to have more Cambodian-Americans participate and gain the benefits of better representation.

Sara Pol-Lim, executive director of the United Cambodian Community, a group based in Long Beach, told “Hello VOA” on Thursday Cambodians can benefit politically, economically and socially by taking part in the census.

An estimated 300,000 Cambodians live in the US, but only about 100,000 show up on the census, she said. That means they lose a voice within their communities and government.

For instance, the US government looks at the numbers of immigrants from different countries when it determines budgets, and having more people on a census can also mean better representation in the House of Representatives, she said.

A more accurate census can lead to more jobs and attract businesses and investment targeted to specific communities. In California, that can mean benefits for a high percentage of Asians, from China, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, as well as Cambodia.

“That’s why we are working hard to make all our brothers and sisters understand the importance, especially those elderly who have received money [like welfare and social security] since they came to the US,” she said.

The United Cambodian Community has been operating since 1977, when it was formed to help Cambodians adjust to life in the US.

The US Census Bureau says 72 percent of households participated in the 2010 census, but census-takers are now going door-to-door to retrieve responses from households.

Sara Pol-Lim said now is the time to return forms to the census-takers if they have not been sent in already. She also said the census-takers are not to be feared, as they will not ask for confidential information. People should remember to have an ID ready, she said.
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Dallas theaters showcasing director Francesca Zambello — while she’s far away in China

By Arnold Wayne Jone


Francesca Zambello is well represented on the stages of Dallas ... which is a strange thing, because she’s not in Dallas. Not even close.

Try China.

“I’m directing Carmen at National Center for the Performing Arts here,” she says in an interview via Skype. “That’s the big theater that looks a giant egg. This is the first time a Westerner has ever directed a production in the theater and the first big production of a Western opera. There’re a lot of difficulties but I think the pros outweigh the cons — it’s such a unique experience.”

But Zambello sincerely wishes she could be in Dallas. After all, she has two shows opening here this week.

The first is the Dallas Opera’s season closer, a revival of her production of Madame Butterfly (playing five dates from May 7-May 23 at the Winspear Opera House), which she originally staged a decade ago for the Dallas Opera. Zambello’s concept for the show is being recreated by her on-site assistant, with whom she has been in daily e-mail communication.

Then across town, the national tour of Little House on the Prairie (playing at the Music Hall at Fair Park from May 11-23), which Zambello conceived and directed before it hit the road, arrives courtesy of Dallas Summer Musicals. It’s an embarrassment of riches for the East Coast girl who secretly pines for Texas.

“I’m a New Yorker who loves working in Texas,” Zambello says. “And I want to see the beautiful new [Winspear] theater. I do check on the tour with Little House and Dallas would have been the city I would have stopped in.”

For now, she’ll have to settle for being an internationally in-demand theater artist — one who, unconventionally, straddles the worlds of both musical theater and grand opera. And as one of the few openly gay women at her level, her achievements are rarer still.

“I started in theater and just gravitated to opera,” she explains. “The last number of years I have been doing more of both, which in Europe is very accepted but less common [in the U.S.].”

Her career path raises the issue: With the expansion of musicals from spritely revues to bombastic epics, is there a great dividing line between opera and musicals anymore?

“It’s very much blurring,” she says. “A lot of people will raise their hackles at me for saying this, but for me, musicals are American opera — our popular musical art form, the way people in Europe might whistle Verdi on the street. They have entered our popular culture and are our big contribution to musical history, a fusion of Vaudeville and operetta and opera. And it’s amazing to think they aren’t even 100 years old!”

It’s that approach that lets Zambello effortlessly flit between serious, deeply psychological classic operas like Butterfly and small, prosaic new musicals like Little House — with some Disney’s The Little Mermaid thrown in. (Zambello directed the live-action musical on Broadway, which she worked on with Dallas native Doug Wright. “I love, love, love working with him and he is a fantastic collaborator,” she says.)

But it all works together for her.

“The irony of the job is that your reputation is made in larger, more prestigious venues, but the work that satisfies you more is often in the smaller, out-of-the-way places. Of course, you want to be at the Met and at the Royal Opera House and the West End, but sometimes the pressures of these places are not as conducive to your best work. Little House we developed as a production based on the imagination of the audience. Little Mermaid is certainly more lavish.

“To be truthful, I think opera productions are very much like musicals in that you have to tell stories in highly dramatic and embellished ways, different from a straight play,” Zambello says. “One thing much better about theater than opera is you have so many performances and previews. But the great unknown is always the audience.”

That’s even more an issue when she finds herself overseas in places like China, and her recently completed tour of Cambodia. But she goes it alone there.

“My partner stays at home — she has no interest to come to Cambodia,” she drawls. “She’s the editor-in-chief for arts & culture for Bloomberg News, so she travels enough herself.”

The couple will settle in a little more next year, now that Zambello has accepted the choice assignment as general and artistic director of the Glimmerglass Opera Festival, one of North America’s most acclaimed opera programs. But she keeps coming back to Texas.

“I’m really upset I’m not coming,” she interjects suddenly. “You don’t know, I have a lot of friends there. There are certain cities where I know a lot of people. I love audiences in Texas because they definitely let you know what they think.” Read more!

US Exhibition Broadens Tribunal Awareness

The UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal has put the atrocities of the regime at the forefront of much public discussion, but it has also created the space for reconciliation and education.

The Documentation Center of Cambodia has taken advantage of that space to hold a series of lectures and events in the US to explain the court, the Khmer Rouge and other facets of the process. The most recent was at Ohio University, in Athens, which included lectures and an exhibition of Khmer Rouge-era photographs.

The trials can bring about a sort of reconciliation that is “about personal healing and about spiritual, moral, emotional, psychological,” John Ciorciari, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, told a group during a recent lecture at the Ohio exhibition. “But it is the type of reconciliation that can only come at a deep, grass-roots, personal level.”

The tribunal is “a sort of watershed” that can “create space for education, for reconciliation activities,” he said.

The hybrid tribunal, which combines UN-appointed and Cambodian prosecutors and judges, has already tried Kaing Kek Iev, the Khmer Rouge torture chief better known as Duch, and it is now preparing to try four more senior leaders. Court proceedings have allowed thousands of victims come forward and contribute testimony.

As it continues, the court has spurred events like this one in cities across the US, where many Khmer Rouge survivors escaped or where Americans may be unaware trials are underway.

So Farina, a staff member for the Documentation Center of Cambodia and a graduate student at Ohio University, said she coordinated the exhibition and discussion here to broaden awareness of the tribunal and the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.

“The event is a way to prevent genocide from happening again because we can speak out, we participate, and we discuss the topic,” she told VOA Khmer at the exhibition. “We chose Ohio University because there are students from every part of the world, a lot of international students. In addition there is a Southeast Asian studies program, which is relevant.”

Drew McDaniel, a professor at the university’s School of Media Arts and Studies who is also an expert on Southeast Asia, said the tribunal is still not well understood. The court rules are complicated, and there was a long run up to the creation of the court.

Exhibitions and talks can help people understand it, and understand the plight Cambodians faced when the Khmer Rouge came to power, McDaniel said.

“So, it has value to enlighten the intellectual community, the scholars on our campus, and in general to raise our awareness of what’s going on there,” he said. “I think this is a way of calling American attention to an important period in history, and making [the public] understand how the international community is responding to this important event. Even though it’s years and years later, it’s still very important.”

For Jeffery Shane, a librarian at Ohio University’s Southeast Asian collection, the discussions engendered by the tribunal show the process is ongoing, but they can also touch on international relations, law and human rights.

“First of all, Athens, Ohio, in particular is a very isolated, very small town, and events like this make people more aware of problems well away from Athens, Ohio, opens their eyes to event in the world at large,” Shane said. “In fact, we have a Southeast Asian program here. I think it allows students who might not learn about this at this depth in the classrooms to get a broader perspective on Southeast Asia, especially contemporary history, contemporary politics.”

Joanie Kraynanski, at the university’s Center for International Studies, said such presentations help explain the sophisticated circumstances surrounding the court.

For example, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith have all been charged with genocide, along with other atrocity crimes. But the genocide question is not that simple. Kraynanski said she did not consider the mass brutality of the Khmer Rouge genocide, but rather a severe atrocity.

Such discussions can also help researchers advance their studies. Cambodia has become an example of transitional justice, said Bruce Douglas, a graduate student at the university who is studying post-Khmer Rouge Cambodian history. Cases tried in Cambodia could help define future international law, he said.

“I learned something that I didn’t know from books, and I got a much better perspective on how the tribunal came about, what the politics are, the composition of the court, and some other issues going forward,” he said.
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