Films rock a new generation
A film festival screening Khmer cinema classics draws a huge response from youngsters, with hundreds gathering for the rock’n’roll closing party.
Showing posts with label Khmer news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Khmer news. Show all posts
Happy 10 years Anniversary for the Auckland Cambodian Youth and Recreation Trust
Leader of The Auckland Cambodian Youth and Recreation Trust
Join by the singers from Cambodia Mr. York Doung DAra and Miss Chea Channy
A Reason for Hun Sen’s Contempt for Thailand
7 October 2009
Last Friday (October 2), Pheu Thai MP Chalerm Yoobamrung admitted to have given to Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen an audio clip that features Foreign Affairs Minister Kasit Piromya criticizing him. He explained that as some people were trying to root out exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, he could do the same to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva....
What I saw on the news the next day was the picture of the Cambodian prime minister exchanging greetings and pleasantries with the Thai foreign affairs minister in the second meeting of foreign ministers from Japan and five countries on the Mekong River, held in Siam Reap province of Cambodia.
Earlier, Hun Sen said with strong words that he had ordered his troops to shoot Thai trespassers if they illegally crossed the border to Cambodia’s territory. He also threatened to withdraw from the ASEAN summit to be held in Thailand at the end of October.
However, just a few days after Hun Sen’s declaration, a source at the Thai Foreign Ministry revealed that the Cambodian leader would definitely attend the summit.
I recounted these events in order to show how crafty Hun Sen is and that he could use the Preah Vihear dispute as political ploy at will.
And while Chalerm was bragging about his secret delivery of Kasit’s clip, I could imagine Hun Sen sitting on his prime minister chair and enjoying the Thai government and the Opposition fighting each other
In Hun Sen’s eyes, Chalerm is perhaps a bit like a mischievous kid, an image that is a stark contrast to a prior impression that the Thai politician was respectable and, most of all, mature.
Chalerm’s move is quite embarrassing to the nation considering Hun Sen had long gotten his hands on the clip complete with a Cambodian subtitle. It is said that he had ordered his men to check on the background of anyone who spoke about his country.
It is not surprising at all that the Cambodian prime minister would be well informed of what happened in Thailand as he has an embassy and many news sources here.
Can you imagine what Hun Sen would think after he received the clip with the sender’s name of Charlerm?
What would you say if a member of your rival approaches you and offers to sell information to you?
If that occurred to me, as a good citizen who has every conscience to protect the interest of his own country, I would ask myself, how in the world could this guy be disloyal to his country?
And that might explain why Hun Sen is always looking at Thailand with disdain.
Cambodia's trade with Hong Kong down 24 pct to end July
PHNOM PENH, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Bilateral trade between Cambodia and China's Hong Kong dropped 24.39 percent in the first seven months year-on-year, local media reported Wednesday.
Citing the data released by... the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the reports said trade between the two sides fell to 288 million U.S. dollars from 380.94 million dollars last year.
Hong Kong's total exports to Cambodia fell to 279 million dollars from 375.5 million dollars, while Cambodia's shipments in return increased to 9 million dollars from 5.44 million dollars during the year up to the end of July.
The figures were released Tuesday at a press conference to attract Cambodian companies to hold trade exhibitions in Hong Kong.
"The drop was because of the global financial crisis. However, now trade between Cambodia and Hong Kong is becoming stable because the economy is not so bad; it may not drop further," Johnny Wan, senior exhibitions manager at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.
Cambodia's main exports to Hong Kong were food items, garments and footwear, and gemstones, he said. "Cambodia has so many good products, but foreigners may not know much about them, so Cambodia should promote more ... through trade shows and marketing," Wan said.
Citing the data released by... the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the reports said trade between the two sides fell to 288 million U.S. dollars from 380.94 million dollars last year.
Hong Kong's total exports to Cambodia fell to 279 million dollars from 375.5 million dollars, while Cambodia's shipments in return increased to 9 million dollars from 5.44 million dollars during the year up to the end of July.
The figures were released Tuesday at a press conference to attract Cambodian companies to hold trade exhibitions in Hong Kong.
"The drop was because of the global financial crisis. However, now trade between Cambodia and Hong Kong is becoming stable because the economy is not so bad; it may not drop further," Johnny Wan, senior exhibitions manager at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.
Cambodia's main exports to Hong Kong were food items, garments and footwear, and gemstones, he said. "Cambodia has so many good products, but foreigners may not know much about them, so Cambodia should promote more ... through trade shows and marketing," Wan said.
Infant Saved After H1N1 Claims Mother
By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 October 2009
Cambodian health authorities operated to save the life of a premature child taken from its 25-year-old Cambodian mother, who died of H1N1 flu on Tuesday, officials said...
She was seven months pregnant, and officials at Calmette hospital saved the child through a cesarean operation, Minister of Health Mam Bunheng told reporters.
"The baby is lucky after doctors operated on its mother," he said. "The baby was born healthy."
The woman's death brings the toll from the disease to three in Cambodia, with an estimated 120 infections. A 47-year-old Cambodian man died of the virus, sometimes called swine flu, on Monday.
"We should strengthen people's health, because the epidemic of sine flu virus is fast," Mam Bunheng said.
The World Health Organization estimates more than 340,000 confirmed cases of A H1N1 worldwide and more than 41,000 deaths.
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 October 2009
Cambodian health authorities operated to save the life of a premature child taken from its 25-year-old Cambodian mother, who died of H1N1 flu on Tuesday, officials said...
She was seven months pregnant, and officials at Calmette hospital saved the child through a cesarean operation, Minister of Health Mam Bunheng told reporters.
"The baby is lucky after doctors operated on its mother," he said. "The baby was born healthy."
The woman's death brings the toll from the disease to three in Cambodia, with an estimated 120 infections. A 47-year-old Cambodian man died of the virus, sometimes called swine flu, on Monday.
"We should strengthen people's health, because the epidemic of sine flu virus is fast," Mam Bunheng said.
The World Health Organization estimates more than 340,000 confirmed cases of A H1N1 worldwide and more than 41,000 deaths.
From Killing Fields to Fields of Dreams
Joe Cook (L) (Photo: LA Time)
Cambodian baseball playersOctober 6, 2009
John Perra
Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org)
Cambodia is an unlikely place for baseball. There is chronic poverty, lingering post-war trauma, and rampant human trafficking. Children are more likely to work or rummage through the fetid muck of the Steung Meanchey dump than go to school or play.
But for the last seven years, Joe Cook, a Cambodian refugee, has been teaching the game in his homeland, building Cambodia's first ball field. Last year, he even managed to put together a national team. In March, they finally won their first game, playing a short series against a team from Vietnam. Considering the violent history the two countries share, just playing the game was an accomplishment beyond any scorecard.
Becoming Joe Cook
For Joe Cook, playing games came to an abrupt end in August 1975. He was Jouret Puk then, the son of a high-ranking Cambodian official who commanded nearly 3,000 troops. "My little sister and I were playing behind our house," Cook remembers. "All of a sudden we saw people dressed in black and red marching toward us. We were scared and we hid behind a tree." Those people were the Khmer Rouge and they invaded his village, burning homes to the ground. "They got us all in one place," he recalls, "then they forced us to march to a camp," he says. Cook's father was killed, and his family was split up and forced into labor camps. Cook's youngest sisters were among the 2 million executed by Pol Pot's regime. In 1978, Cook, then eight, escaped his camp with his mother and oldest brother, trying to reach the Thai border.
For a week, they made their way barefoot. "It was only 18 miles to the border but it turned into 80 because we had to keep moving back and forth, criss-cross because landmines were everywhere. So were the Khmer Rouge, and the Vietnamese who had just invaded." The three refugees had only a small cup of rice between them, so to survive they ate crickets, grass, leaves, and tree bark. "I can remember catching frogs and eating them alive," Cook says. The pools of water they came across were polluted with the dead bodies of pigs, cows, and people. "I tried to brush the blood back to drink," he recalls, "It was so thick and bitter." Bodies lined the roads and when they ran into other people escaping from the camps, they would barter for food.
Finally, they made it to the Thai border and then to a series of refugee camps. In the Philippines, they found a sponsor through the U.S. embassy and arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee in May 1983. "We couldn't even pronounce Tennessee. And we thought America must be near France because you had to take a plane to both of them," he says.
In America
There, everything was new. "I thought it was like a dream," Cook says, "A stove, a toilet, a TV. It was fascinating." And then there was the game he saw being played near his home.
"All I knew was that it was some kind of sport," he says. It was baseball. "I watched them behind a fence," he recalls, "I saw them having fun. I saw happy faces. As a kid in Cambodia, there was never happiness. But I knew in baseball is happiness. I kept going back every day. Finally I got the guts to go onto the field."
Through a combination of limited English and gestures, he made it clear to the coach that he wanted to play too. "When he gave me a glove so I could play catch, it felt like he had given me the whole uniform. I was like the other kids," he recalls. It was the start of a deep passion.
Baseball was also a way to assimilate. He became "Joe Cook," a chef in a Japanese steakhouse in Alabama, listening to Atlanta Braves baseball on the radio in his kitchen. He married and had two children.
In 2002, Cook's older sister Chamty, who he thought had perished, called from Cambodia. After years of brutality in the labor camps, she had been released in 1990 and used the Internet to track down members of her family. Cook agreed to reunite with her in Cambodia.
As a way of honoring him, Chamty wanted to travel to the airport to meet him. But the transportation costs were more than she could afford. She made a difficult decision. So as not to lose her brother again, she sold her son to traffickers. "When I arrived and found out, I was devastated," Cook says, choking up, "She didn't understand that I could've met her anywhere. I never would've wanted her to do that." The first thing he did was buy back his nephew, Chea Theara, for $86.
Bringing Baseball Home
"He was so happy, so proud that his uncle had the ability to do that, he wanted to show me his town and also share his town with me," says Cook. Chea showed Cook his school in Baribo, a village in Kampong Chhang province about 68 miles west of Phnom Penh, and near it an open field. Cook thought it would make a good spot for a baseball diamond. "What's baseball?" Chea asked. "It's a crazy game that I love," Cook told him, "I'll come back and bring equipment and teach you."
And he did. Eventually he built Cambodia's first baseball field in Baribo and began instructing kids there in the fundamentals of the game. Soon he was feeding them, teaching them English, and establishing the national team that includes Chea on its roster.
For several years, Cambodia's government wanted to shut down baseball in Cambodia. It was too American for them, according to Cook. "They kept saying, 'how about soccer?'" he says.
Although also a product of Western influence when the French brought it to Cambodia in the 1930s, soccer has been a hugely popular sport in the country for decades. The skill of Cambodia's players was the envy of much of Southeast Asia until the Khmer Rouge all but put an end to the sport. It wasn't until the 1990s that Cambodian soccer began to regain its strength, with teams competing and winning in international tournaments.
Likewise, Pradal Serey, an ancient boxing style best known for its martial arts roots and kicking technique, has begun to reemerge as a national sport. It too was nearly lost to history when the Khmer Rouge banned traditional martial arts and executed its boxers.
But Cambodia has spent more than a decade now regaining its athletic prominence. It returned to the Olympics in 1996 after a 24-year absence and has participated in those games ever since.
Coming Around to Baseball
Despite the national focus on soccer, Cook kept baseball in Cambodia going, supporting the game out of his own pocket and getting some help with equipment and coaches from Major League Baseball. Then this year, the national team started winning, beating Vietnam in that friendly series and gaining professional bragging rights by besting Malaysia in May in an official game between the countries. A governor donated land for another field after that.
Cambodia's people are starting to come around to the game. Other baseball clubs and organizations have sprung up in the past few months, including one in the capital city of Phnom Penh. The organizer of that group is a young man in his earlier twenties who calls Cook "Bong," the Khmer word for "brother," a sign of respect. That pleases Cook and he laughs, "I am baseball's big brother." In reality, Cook is now president of the Cambodia Baseball Federation.
In August, Cook developed the first regional leagues within Cambodia. The Braves, representing the west, and the Royals, in the east, play each other nearly every day. "Someday I want to build a stadium here," says Cook. The image of a stadium leaves even him, baseball's true believer here, awestruck. "Can you imagine a baseball stadium in Cambodia?" he asks.
John Perra is a journalist, a contributor to Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S. Thompson (Da Capo 2009), and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.
Cambodia: BarCamp Phnom Penh 2009
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
By Tharum Bun
Global Voices Online
More than 800 tech-inclined Cambodians gathered at the second annual BarCamp Phnom Penh on October 3-4, 2009 at Paññasastra University of Cambodia.
Last year's success inspired this small, growing technology community in Cambodia to discuss openly issues important to them. BarCamp Phnom Penh has now become an annual technology conference in this nation's largest capital city, inviting some participants from across the country and the region, many are tech enthusiasts from Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.
Last year's success inspired this small, growing technology community in Cambodia to discuss openly issues important to them. BarCamp Phnom Penh has now become an annual technology conference in this nation's largest capital city, inviting some participants from across the country and the region, many are tech enthusiasts from Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.
In a blog post on CNNGo, technologist and traveler Preetam Rai, who visited this year's participatory workshop-event, wrote about Cambodian women in technology that:
It should be said that women are very prominent at Cambodian Barcamp events, and seeing such large numbers of women at tech meetings still surprises their male attendees. But the women aren't just showing up — they're running the show.
How BarCamp Phnom Penh ‘09 is run, organized and contributed is uniquely interesting. It does introduce Cambodians a new way, if not a breakthrough, in which learning, collaboration, sharing and networking can take place here in Cambodia.
A prolific Vietnamese blogger, Nguyen Anh Hung, who participated Cambodia's BarCamp last year, is traveling to the Cambodian capital with more of his fellow friends for this BarCamp Phnom Penh ‘09.
“It’s here again. We (the folks in Ho Chi Minh City) will be flocking to the capital of beautiful Cambodia once again to attend the largest technology unconference in the country to date. Last year it was a greatly successful event attended by some 300 people from around South East Asia.”
Not only this annual event plays a role to foster open communication in Cambodian society, but it helps build a strong foundation for Cambodia's future in the area of Information and Communication Technologies.
Going to conferences is about getting inspired. It’s about getting some new ideas swirl around in your head. During that event, we will see skilled speakers with a lot of experiences and confidence on stage giving a talk on a topic that they really want to share, wrote Samnang Chhun, a Phnom Penh-based Software Developer.
Like many other developing countries, debate on free/open source software as an alternative to propriety software will not end any time soon. Despite the two-day conference offered mixed results to every participant, online discussion has not finished yet.
Michael Smith Jr., from Yahoo Inc., wrote in an email:
[it] looks like a good turnout. I would hope that for any future ones Yahoo Inc. can get more involved to sponsor and maybe have a session.
A-two-minute video clip (taken by German new media consultant Thomas Wanhoff) of Cambodia's BarCamp can be viewed here.
BarCamp, an innovative “impromptu” gathering that began in 2005 in Palo Alto, California, helps “open source” enthusiasts share information about technology in an informal setting. The idea quickly spread from California to the rest of the world, arriving in Bangkok in 2007 and now in Phnom Penh.
Police, FBI Bust Seven in Major Drug Raid
Chhay Sinarith shows the seized heroin packages and other paraphernalia (Photo: Bunry, Koh Santepheap)By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
06 October 2009
Cambodian police working with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested seven people and seized 16 kilograms of heroin, following three months of investigation, officials said Monday. Police also found counterfeit US dollars in the Oct. 2 raid.
“In the operation, we did an investigation and tracked [the suspects] down for almost three months, with the support of the FBI representative in Cambodia,” said Chhay Sinarith, chief of the Interior Ministry’s security department.
Suspects were arrested in Phnom Penh and Stung Treng province. The raid included the arrest of Lam Sokha, a suspected trafficker who has been arrested and released in recent years, police and court officials said.
The seven suspects were sent to Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday and would be questioned by prosecutors this week, officials said.
Police said the heroin moved through neighboring countries through Stung Treng, which borders Laos.
The discovery of heroin, crystal methamphetamine, or “ice,” drug production and counterfeit money made the raid a major case, Chhay Sinarith said.
The US State Department praised Cambodia for its anti-drug efforts in 2009, but said the country faces increasing problems of consumption, trafficking and the production of dangerous drugs.
The State Department warned that crackdowns on trafficking in Thailand and China had made Cambodia an attractive route for traffickers, while internally, use of amphetamines, including ice, was escalating.
3 Cambodians die of flu A(H1N1)
PHNOM PENH, Oct. 6 — The Cambodian Health Ministry said on Tuesday that two more Cambodians died of A(H1N1) virus so far, raising the total death number to three in Cambodia.
A 24-year-old pregnant woman and a 41-year-old Cambodian man became the second and third person that died of the flu A(H1N1) after a 40-year-old woman died late last month.
"We all regret for those persons who died of the disease," Mum Bun Heng, health minister said in a news conference at the Calmette Hospital here.
He also appealed to all local people to take care of themselves from this flu and to observe proper hygiene and sanitation.
"We should be cautious in the upcoming Royal Water Festival which falls on Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 because people are crowded at that time," he said, calling on people who have been infected with the flu not to go to the festival to avoid spreading it to other people.
Usually, in the water festival, millions of Cambodian people across the country will rush on to Phnom Penh to celebrate the boat racing.
And so far in total, about 120 people have infected with the flu in Cambodia. The ministry said that it will update the information on website in each week. (PNA/Xinhua) vcs/utb
A 24-year-old pregnant woman and a 41-year-old Cambodian man became the second and third person that died of the flu A(H1N1) after a 40-year-old woman died late last month.
"We all regret for those persons who died of the disease," Mum Bun Heng, health minister said in a news conference at the Calmette Hospital here.
He also appealed to all local people to take care of themselves from this flu and to observe proper hygiene and sanitation.
"We should be cautious in the upcoming Royal Water Festival which falls on Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 because people are crowded at that time," he said, calling on people who have been infected with the flu not to go to the festival to avoid spreading it to other people.
Usually, in the water festival, millions of Cambodian people across the country will rush on to Phnom Penh to celebrate the boat racing.
And so far in total, about 120 people have infected with the flu in Cambodia. The ministry said that it will update the information on website in each week. (PNA/Xinhua) vcs/utb
Goods and tourists now moving more quickly between Vietnam and Cambodia
06/10/2009
(Post by CAAI News Media)
VietNamNet Bridge – A Vietnam and Cambodia border agreement is boosting exporting and tourism and making the future existence of a three-country visa a possibility.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Photo: AP)
Following the agreement, which took effect on September 30, goods consignments carried overland between Vietnam and Cambodia will be able to cross borders without having to change vehicles as before.
According to Pham Xuan Thu, head of the supply division of HCM City-based Saigon Paper Company, the changes make it much faster for his organisation. Before it meant considerable delay and borders and a change of vehicle.
Now, Thu says, the company is planning to carry goods directly from Vietnam to Cambodia and further lower time and cost.
It is expected that with the new road transport agreement, it will take Vietnamese businesses 15-30 minutes only to fulfill administrative procedures at the border gate.
One director explained that previously businesses had to spend two days and one night to carry goods from HCM City to Cambodia through Moc Bai border gate in Tay Ninh province, 70km northwest of HCM City, including half a day to load and upload goods. In order to bring goods to the centre of Phnom Penh, he had to pay $2,500-$2,800 as a transport fee for every 12 metre-long vehicle which is equal to a 40 feet container vehicle.
A sales agent of a plastics company, said that as vehicles can now go straight to Cambodia across the border - the risks in cargo carrying are minimised. He says that the changing of vehicles at the border gates often led to the theft of goods on the way.
The road transport agreement has been welcomed not only by producers and traders, but by tourism firms as well.
Currently, Vietnamese tourists mostly go to Cambodia through Moc Bai international border gate. As most of Vietnamese vehicles are not allowed to enter Cambodian territory, tourists have to walk through the border gate to fulfill administrative procedures and then take Cambodian vehicles to continue the trips, which is really inconvenient to tourists.
Nguyen Van My, director of Lua Viet Travel Firm, said that most tourists want to stay in the same vehicle throughout their trip. It’s hoped the agreement will also boost tourist numbers.
So Mara, a senior official of Cambodian Ministry of Tourism, emphasised that the road transport agreement is an important step in applying the one-visa scheme for three countries, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Deadly Typhoon Heads Toward Taiwan
Poor planning blamed for Philippines flooding
PHOTO
Houses destroyed by flooding after Typhoon Ketsana passed through Marikina City, east of the Philippines capital Manila. [ABC]
Wires
(Post by CAAI News Media)
Philippine officials are blaming poor urban planning for the extreme flooding caused by two recent typhoons that killed nearly 300 people.
President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman, Cerge Remonde says lapses in urban planning saw housing estates and shantytowns spring up near reservoirs and lakes.
He says widespread devastation by Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma shows the urgency of re-planning Metro Manila.
Mr Remonde says problems that need solving include insufficient drainage, clogged waterways, uncontrolled housing development, and the proliferation of slums along riverbanks.
Ketsana dumped a month's worth of rain over Manila within a few hours on September 26, triggering the country's heaviest flooding in 40 years.
Flood water has been slow to recede in the capital.
Parma, hit Luzon eight days later, boosting the stagnant flood waters and ruining vast areas of rice fields.
Relief effort
Meanwhile, the American military says hundreds of its troops are involved in the flood relief effort in the Philippines.
Officials say marines and sailors posted in the Manila area have been helping to clear roads, deliver supplies and provide basic medical care.
Gwendoline Pang, of the Philippine Red Cross, says continuing bad weather is hampering progress.
"In the evacuation centres, it's so congested, and they've been there for more than a week already, almost two weeks. Also the clean-up effort is becoming very challenging, because before we can clean up the area, another typhoon is coming again," said Ms Pang.
Cambodia death toll
The death toll in Cambodia is at least 17 after Typhoon Ketsana swept through the country.
But the National Committee for Disaster Management believes that number is likely to increase still further.
Ketsana caused widespread flooding in Cambodia, destroying homes and crops, and displacing thousands of families.
Cambodian boy has affection for cold-blooded python pal
SETBO VILLAGE, Cambodia - Being responsible parents, rice farmer Khuorn Sam Ol and his wife might not be expected to be keen on having their child play with a 16-foot-long, 220-pound snake.
Yet they are unflustered that their 7-year-old son, Uorn Sambath, regularly sleeps in the massive coil of a female python, rides the reptile, kisses it and even pats it down with baby powder.
"There is a special bond between them," Khuorn Sam Ol explained. "My son played with the snake when he was still learning to crawl. They used to sleep together in a cradle."
The boy and his snake have become a tourist attraction in Setbo village, about 12 miles south of the capital Phnom Penh, as well as a source of wonder to the locals.
"People sometimes call the boy and the snake husband and wife," said Cheng Raem, a 48-year-old neighbor. "Maybe they were a couple from a previous life."
Boy and snake grew up together, ever since the python slithered into the family home when Uorn Sambath was three months old. His 39-year-old mother, Kim Kannara, discovered the reptile, then about the size of a thumb, coiled beneath a woven mat on their bed.
Khuorn Sam Ol took the snake away, releasing it in some bushes by a local river, but one morning two weeks later, found it back inside the house. He decided to keep it and named it Chamroeun - Progress, in English.
He came to believe the snake possesses a magical spirit that understands what he says and protects the family from illness.
The snake has its own 7-by-10-foot room with a spirit house at which Khuorn Sam Ol prays for the python to keep his family happy and healthy.
The snake is so familiar with his son - one of four children - that it would never hurt him, he said.
According to Nikolai Doroshenko, a Russian snake expert living in Cambodia, it's true that pythons rarely attack humans unless provoked.
But there is still an element of danger in allowing any young child to play with a large python with a grip powerful enough to break bones, said Doroshenko, who runs the Snake House guesthouse in the southwestern city of Sihanoukville, with its own collection of snakes and other reptiles.
Chamroeun - whom it takes three adults to carry - eats about 22 pounds of chicken meat every week, posing a heavy financial burden on the family, said Khuorn Sam Ol.
His meals used to be a spiritual burden as well, when they fed him live rats and chickens. Uneasy that they were breaking the Buddhist injunction against killing living things, Khuorn Sam Ol said the snake eventually answered his prayers for it to stop eating live animals.
Wildlife and police officials used to come by to try to take the snake away and put it in a zoo.
But they relented after seeing Uorn Sambath lovingly cuddling the reptile. They left with some pictures they took of the boy and the snake together, Khuorn Sam Ol said.
"I will not let anyone take her away from me, either. I love her very much," declared his son, Uorn Sambath, kissing his pet on the head.
PHNOM PENH: Uorn Sambath, a 7-year-old Cambodian boy, sleeps on his female python. The boy has built a deep bond of affection with his five-metre long python for the past seven years. ap Older photo: 
Cambodian Students Debate with EU on Co-op Relations
Dignified and senior representatives of the European Union and European Commission on Tuesday led a debate with some 300 Cambodian students on relations between the EU and Cambodia.
In a statement released Tuesday by the European Union, it said the debate was led by British Ambassador Andrew Mace, representing the European Union Presidency, and Mrs. Michelle Labeeu, the Charge d'Affaires of the European Commission's Delegation to Cambodia.
The debate, which took place at the University of Cambodia, one of the leading private universities in the country, touches on topics like development cooperation, political and commercial relations and the regional context provided by the ASEAN.
The debate also marks the launch of the fifth edition of the EU 'Blue Book', the annual report detailing the EU development cooperation activities in Cambodia. This edition shows the EU provided an estimated 214 million U.S. dollars of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2008, making the EU the largest grant donor of ODA in Cambodia.
The EU 'Blue Book' provides comprehensive information on EU support to help Cambodia achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
According to the statement, EU development partners are providing support for education, health, human rights and democracy, rural development, natural resource management, decentralization and de-concentration, legal and judicial reform, public financial management, as well as trade and private sector development.
"The Blue Book aims to put information about what the EU is doing into a more accessible form. I welcome the opportunity of its launch to discuss with young Cambodians the contribution of the EU to Cambodia's development and to hear their views on our work here," said Ambassador Andrew Mace.
Mrs. Michelle Labeeu, who also emphasized the importance of open discussion with students, said that "these young people will play an important role in Cambodia's future. It is very important to provide them an opportunity to debate the multi-faceted relations that their country has with the European Union," she added.
From: http://english.cri.cn/
Critics decry demonstration law
Police question protestors from Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak community at a demonstration last year. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)
"Broadcast and print media, and public forums can exercise their freedom of expression - demonstrations, too. The organisers just need permission." - Phay Siphan, Hun Sen's parrotThe draft legislation, which could be approved next week, will limit freedom of expression, they say A DRAFT law regulating peaceful demonstrations that opposition lawmakers and civil society groups say will infringe on people's freedom of expression could be adopted as early as next week, according to Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Son Chhay. The draft law would require demonstrations to take place between 6am and 6pm, and to be held in a designated zone or so-called "freedom park" if they have over 200 participants. In addition, the law would make the organisers of demonstrations responsible for any damage of violence done by participants, Son Chhay said. The president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, Ou Virak, added that the draft law goes against the spirit of the Cambodia's Constitution and will heighten political repression and control. "That version of the new law on demonstrations will allow the government to take legal action to control every demonstration and restrict the freedom of expression in order to keep the hot issue of land grabbing silent," he said. "If people have the freedom to express their opinion about land grabbing it will bring trouble to the government," he added. Rong Chhun, the president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, which was prevented from staging a demonstration during the visit of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said that new law would move Cambodia closer to a single-party dictatorship. "If the draft law is not revised, we will lose our freedom of expression," he said. But Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said that the government has never restricted freedom of expression so long as it does not affect national security, safety and public order. "Freedom of expression is not as wonderful as in the United States, but it is acceptable for this society," he said. "Broadcast and print media, and public forums can exercise their freedom of expression - demonstrations, too. The organisers just need permission."
[Royal Thai Army] Plane hitch delays Thai PM's return from Cambodia
Royal Thai Army plane used by Abhisit to visit Cambodia
Asia should rebound next year: ADB president
.
Growth in the region was expected to fall to 3.4 per cent this year from 6.3 per cent last year and record growth of 9.5 per cent in 2007, Kuroda said
"With strong national and regional efforts and a mild recovery expected in the global economy next year, developing Asia should bounce back to 6 per cent growth in 2010," Kuroda said at the opening of the bank's annual meeting.
"Therefore, this should not be a time of despair," he said. "Our region continues to grow and will remain the touchstone of dynamism and hope, contributing substantially to global growth and poverty reduction."
The two-day annual meeting on the resort island of Bali was being attended by ministers, central bank governors and officials from the bank's 67 member countries.
On Sunday, Japan, China and South Korea agreed with the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to set up a $120 billion currency reserve pool to counter the global crisis.
Japan and China each committed $38.4 billion, or 32 per cent, to the fund, while South Korea would provide $19.2 billion, the ministers said.
The remainder would come from the ASEAN members - Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Brunei, Cambodia and Laos.
Officials said the fund was not intended to replace the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"The region will have a major financial facility supplementary to the major international funding institution, the IMF, which is responsible for that kind of thing," ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said on Sunday.
Japan also said it would establish an emergency fund of up to $60 billion in the event of an Asian financial crisis, a scheme separate from the ASEAN pool.
The ADB has warned that the crisis would keep more than 60 million people in developing Asia trapped in poverty this year and nearly 100 million more in 2010.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that social and political unrest could erupt in many countries if the crisis went unchecked.
"We have no clear indication whether the worst is already behind us or whether there is more bad news around the corner," Yudhoyono told the opening session of the meeting.
"But we can all safely assume that 2009 will be a difficult year for many economies," he said.
The bank plans to set up a $3 billion fund to provide emergency loans to crisis-hit member countries faster and more cheaply than under the bank's existing programmes.
The fund would help increase total loan disbursements by the bank by $10 billion to $32 billion over the next two years.
Kuroda said Asia would need to rebalance growth, placing more emphasis on domestic demand and consumption rather than exports.
"While the challenges are huge, I believe the crisis is also an opportunity ... for our region - and the world - to fundamentally restructure our approach to development and bring about a more sustainable global balance," he said.
The new approach must also include greater attention to combating climate change as the region needs energy to grow and its share of global carbon emissions could reach 40 per cent by the end of 2030, Kuroda said.
4 May 2009
IST, AGENCIES
Growth in the region was expected to fall to 3.4 per cent this year from 6.3 per cent last year and record growth of 9.5 per cent in 2007, Kuroda said
"With strong national and regional efforts and a mild recovery expected in the global economy next year, developing Asia should bounce back to 6 per cent growth in 2010," Kuroda said at the opening of the bank's annual meeting.
"Therefore, this should not be a time of despair," he said. "Our region continues to grow and will remain the touchstone of dynamism and hope, contributing substantially to global growth and poverty reduction."
The two-day annual meeting on the resort island of Bali was being attended by ministers, central bank governors and officials from the bank's 67 member countries.
On Sunday, Japan, China and South Korea agreed with the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to set up a $120 billion currency reserve pool to counter the global crisis.
Japan and China each committed $38.4 billion, or 32 per cent, to the fund, while South Korea would provide $19.2 billion, the ministers said.
The remainder would come from the ASEAN members - Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Brunei, Cambodia and Laos.
Officials said the fund was not intended to replace the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"The region will have a major financial facility supplementary to the major international funding institution, the IMF, which is responsible for that kind of thing," ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said on Sunday.
Japan also said it would establish an emergency fund of up to $60 billion in the event of an Asian financial crisis, a scheme separate from the ASEAN pool.
The ADB has warned that the crisis would keep more than 60 million people in developing Asia trapped in poverty this year and nearly 100 million more in 2010.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that social and political unrest could erupt in many countries if the crisis went unchecked.
"We have no clear indication whether the worst is already behind us or whether there is more bad news around the corner," Yudhoyono told the opening session of the meeting.
"But we can all safely assume that 2009 will be a difficult year for many economies," he said.
The bank plans to set up a $3 billion fund to provide emergency loans to crisis-hit member countries faster and more cheaply than under the bank's existing programmes.
The fund would help increase total loan disbursements by the bank by $10 billion to $32 billion over the next two years.
Kuroda said Asia would need to rebalance growth, placing more emphasis on domestic demand and consumption rather than exports.
"While the challenges are huge, I believe the crisis is also an opportunity ... for our region - and the world - to fundamentally restructure our approach to development and bring about a more sustainable global balance," he said.
The new approach must also include greater attention to combating climate change as the region needs energy to grow and its share of global carbon emissions could reach 40 per cent by the end of 2030, Kuroda said.
Thailand guarantees security for postponed ASEAN summit
Mon, 05/04/2009
DPA
"Every person in Phuket guarantees there will be an ASEAN summit on June 13-14," Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Tuebsuban said.
A summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its six main partners - Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea - had to be cancelled on April 11 after red-shirted anti-government demonstrators stormed the summit's hotel venue at Pattaya beach resort, 100 kilometres south-east of Bangkok.
Suthep was in charge of security for the Pattaya summit fiasco, blamed on poor coordination between the police, military and pro-government thugs. It was the first ASEAN summit to be canceled because of protests in the group's 42-year history.
The military will be soley responsible for security at the Phuket summit, officials said Monday.
Thai Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan said the government will place the summit venue and a 5-kilometre radius under the National Security Act, prohibiting all protests and allowing authorities to arrest unauthorized gatherings of more than five people.
Phuket, an island resort 600 kilometres south of Bangkok, is a political stronghold of the Democrat Party, which is led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
Suthep, a deputy leader of the Democrats, originally wanted the summit to be held in Phuket instead of Pattaya, because he felt more confident about the security situation on the pro-Democrat island, government sources said.
However, Phuket hoteliers were not keen on hosting the summit because of lack of rooms, forcing the government to shift the event to Pattaya.
Thailand's political instability has made ASEAN summit planning difficult for more than a year.
The 14th ASEAN summit plus sessions with its main partners was originally planned for mid-December last year, but was cancelled after anti-government protestors shut down Bangkok's two international airports for a week.
The ASEAN summit was then held in Hua Hin beach resort, 130 kilometres south of Bangkok, on February 28-March 1, but the side-summits with ASEAN's main partners had to be postponed until April because of scheduling difficulties.
Thailand, which is chair of ASEAN throughout 2009, will host yet another summit near the end of the year, politics permitting.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Cambodia trials begin amide controversy
As trials begin, question shadow Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal. March 29, 2009 By Brendan Brady Special to GlobalPost PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Thirty years after the fall of the ultra-Maoist regime known as the Khmer Rouge that ruled Cambodia in the late 1970s, trials are set to begin to hold a handful of its leaders accountable. Under their fanatical regime, an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died from overwork, starvation and murder. After years of delays, testimonies begin Monday in the trial of Kaing Khev Iev, the chief of the Khmer Rouge’s notorious torture center, codenamed S-21. Iev, better know by his nom de guerre, Duch, is one of five detained senior Khmer Rouge leaders believed to be the architects of the regime's reign of terror who are still living. They face a UN-backed war crimes tribunal and could receive a maximum of life imprisonment. Court officials went to great lengths to frame last month’s procedural hearings for Duch as an historic moment of progress for the court and for the impoverished country’s healing. But even as some degree of official accountability is materializing, a storm of criticism and controversy surrounds the war crimes court — a hybrid structure with both international and national judges, lawyers and administrators presiding. The Cambodian side is struggling to keep financially afloat following a funding halt after allegations arose last July that national staff, in order to secure their jobs, were forced to pay sizable portions of their salaries to their bosses. Donor countries have provided the bulk of funds to run the tribunal, and the bitter pill of backing a court associated with corruption has become more difficult to swallow as the court’s budget, originally set at $53 million for three years, has ballooned to $170 million for five years just one-and-a-half years into the process. Cambodian court officials have denied the allegations. A review last September by a UN oversight body has yet to be made public. However, a report from a German parliamentary delegation, written last November after its members met with the tribunal's deputy director of administration, Knut Rosandhaug, presents a bleak picture: Referring to “grave corruption” problems, Rosandhaug said that if “the national government continues to object to following up on the corruption allegations … the United Nations should withdraw from the tribunal” or else it will risk tainting its image. But UN officials have yet to voice such stern words. “The only real pressure can come from the donor countries and the UN — with one voice — but they have never done that,” said Brad Adams, head of the London-based Human Rights Watch in Asia, and an early member of the negotiations with the government to establish a war crimes court. By failing to throw down the gauntlet, the UN has undermined the court’s entire mandate, he said. “We thought we should have an international standard court,” Adams said. Instead, he continued, in this case "the government considers the UN an intruder.” Indeed, Canadian co-prosecutor Robert Petit is being made to feel he overstepped his mandate. Petit’s move to add more suspects to the docket — a handful of figures he describes as having been key to implementing the policies set by the regime’s top leaders — was blocked by his Cambodian colleague, Chea Leang, a niece of the current deputy prime minister. She argued that additional prosecutions could prove destabilizing, overstretch the tribunal’s limited resources, and would run against the spirit of the 2003 U.N. treaty establishing the court, which called only for “senior leaders” of the regime and “those who were most responsible” to be tried. Many senior government posts are currently held by former Khmer Rouge cadre, and experts say the government fears a wider roundup could expose them to scrutiny. For his part, Prime Minister Hun Sen made his position clear in 1998 when he recommended Cambodians “should dig a hole and bury the past.” But Petit says casting a wider net would play a key role in validating the court’s work. “It would allow the court to achieve as much justice as possible even within its limited confines.” For Adams, the move is more essential: “Unless there are more cases, it will not have done the minimum necessary for all of this to have even been worthwhile.” The country is divided over whether additional high level cadre should be tried — with 57 percent in favor and 41 percent opposed, according to a recent poll. It is safe to say, however, that the decision will come down to politics between Cambodian and international officials, and have little to do with local public input. As the court makes slow progress, old wounds fester. “Thirty years later, the memories are still excruciating,” said Van Nath, who witnessed prisoners being waterboarded, doused with battery acid or simply bludgeoned to force them to admit to trumped-up crimes against the regime. Nath, 63, is one of S-21’s few surviving victims. While he was electrocuted and faced constant threat of execution, he survived only by dint of his artistic skills, which he was forced to use to paint propaganda portraits of Pol Pot. Unlike the other figures in detention, Nath’s former keeper, Duch, now a born-again Christian, has acknowledged his crimes and asked for forgiveness. He is, however, expected to argue in court that he was following orders from his superiors and would have been killed had he not obeyed. Even if the rail-thin, seemingly benign former schoolteacher cuts a sympathetic figure on the stand, to Nath he remains “a man who gave orders with authority” while presiding over a prison where more than 12,000 men, women and children were brutally tortured before being executed in the “killing fields” outside the city. Making more Cambodians with blood on their hands face trial would help the country’s healing, he said. But, he added, “with the limited movement we have so far, that doesn’t seem possible … and I’m still waiting every day for judgment on these five.
