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Sam Rainsy places not much hope on the Cambodian-Thai border negotiations
Friday, March 27, 2009
Kampuchea Thmei
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Sam Rainsy told Kampuchea Thmei that he will travel to Thailand this morning to participate in the World Economic Forum, but that he will not raise this border issue during this forum. The reason he will not raise this issue himself is because he considers that this is a government task, and not a prerogative for the opposition.
Nevertheless, as a Cambodian citizen, Sam Rainsy does not want to see foreign aggression on Cambodia either. Under the present condition, Cambodians must unite and they should set aside the political affiliation. As for the government which is responsible for leading the country, it should pay attention to the border issues, Sam Rainsy indicated. But to him, the best solution would be for the government to revisit the 23 October 1991 Paris Peace Accord on Cambodia which stipulates a packaged solution to the border dispute through the help of the signatories of the accord. “I think that the bilateral meetings are useless because, we already know the lack of outcome from the past meetings. Therefore, the best approach is for the government to ask for a meeting of the signatory countries to the Paris Accord to have them help resolve this issue.”
At the Veal Entry near Preah Vihear temple, the situation has not improved yet even though Thai troops have pulled out. Cambodian troops are still on alert and stand ready to fight.
Hing Bun Heang, the deputy army chief of staff and commander of Hun Sen’s bodyguards unit, told Kampuchea Thmei that the situation in Veal Entry is quiet but soldiers still stand ready to fight. Hing Bun Heang said that Thai soldiers who trespassed into Cambodia on 25 and 26 March have pulled back. All the Cambodian soldiers are determined to defend and prevent Thai soldiers from entering Veal Entry.
An army officer indicated that there will be armed confrontation if the Thai soldiers continue to trespass. Thai soldiers are prohibited from crossing a small road in front of Veal Entry which delimits the temporary border between the two countries. If the Thai soldiers violate this borderline, fighting will ensue immediately and there will be no need to ask for the decision from the higher ups.
This army officer also said that in the morning of 25 March, Thai soldiers with camouflage-clad uniforms have trespassed into the Veal Entry. At that time, fighting almost exploded, but at 6:15AM(?), more than 100 Thai soldiers agreed to pull out.
Then, at 9:30AM on 26 March, 30 additional Thai soldiers trespassed one more time with the support of more than 100 Thai soldiers backing them. At 1:35PM, they pulled out when Cambodian troops were ordered to hold their fire, should they not sleep.
An official from the Cambodian ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the day which the Thai soldiers trespassed into Veal Entry, it was the same day that Thai MPs were disputing at their parliament. This official said that, in the Thai parliament, the dispute between Thai MPs stemmed from the border issue with Cambodia.
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Chea Mony calls for a nationwide demonstration
Chea Mony, FTUWKC President (Photo: Cambodge Soir Hebdo)Thursday, March 26, 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Chea Mony, President of the Free Trade Union of Workers in the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC) called for a demonstration to protest the firing of union representatives in a number of factories.Chea Mony told reporters in the morning of 25 March that Cambodia, just like any other countries in the world, is facing with financial crisis, Cambodian factories have closed their door one after another, and some factories were firing workers for no justified reason. He added that, up until now, 19 representatives of the workers who are also union representatives were fired, and their firing did not respect the labor law rules. He claimed that he will lead a mass strike in the entire country in order to protest the firing of union representatives. Chea Mony did not indicate the exact date of this demonstration yet, but he indicated that it will be held soon. Regarding this planned demonstration, the Kampuchea Thmei newspaper said that it could not contact Touch Naroth, the Phom Penh police commissioner, to obtain his reaction because nobody picked up his phone.
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Sheltered by Preah Vihear temple ... right in the middle of Phnom Penh
A Cambodian homeless man, left, sleeps under Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple sign board in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, March 26, 2009. Preah Vihear temple in a world heritage site is located near the Cambodian-Thai border, about 245 kilometers (152 miles) north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)Read more!
Want a cyclo ride? How about wearing that helmet, huh?
A Cambodian man pedals a three-wheeled pedicab on a road in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, March 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)Read more!
Mr. Alex Chantra.
he is the khmer singer, and a hand some khmer boy has started his work since 2005.
MOre detail:http://everyday.com.kh/photogallery/kh/Image.asp?code=1412
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Miss; Dagn Molika
she is the khmer star has started her work since 1999. Now she is 23 years old.
more detail: http://everyday.com.kh/photogallery/kh/Image.asp?code=1411
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Miss Tep BoPrek, khmer singer.
she is the kmer singer has started her work since 2005, now she is just 17 years old.
more detail: http://everyday.com.kh/photogallery/kh/Image.asp?code=1410
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ouk sokunkanha music
Ouk Sokun kanha is the khmer singer, her age 22 years old has started her work since 2005
More detail: http://everyday.com.kh/photogallery/kh/Image.asp?cat=Entertainment&code=1409
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Miss Touch sreylak is going to France?
it is the news say: Touch sreylak will go to meet her friend in france... you may read more news from...
More detail: http://everyday.com.kh/images/imageeday/2005/ent/09-03-21e_touchsreyleak.jpg
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Miss: Dung Sorida
More detail: From: http://everyday.com.kh/non_members/channels/entertainment/2009/09-03-26e_zorida.htm
The police issued to arrest any one who sell her picture.
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Pha Sa thmey, Khmer market
Almost for line of the street near Pha Sa thmey that make the traffic bad at morning and the evening almost everyday.around this market has street No:168/143/115 and 125) has become the Pha sa bung Pro Let that make the situation busy from the streets.
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Teacher pay too low: survey
CITA President Rong Chhun speaks at a press conference releasing CITA teacher survey results on Wednesday at the organisation's Phnom Penh headquarters. (Photo by: SOVANN PHILONG)Thursday, 26 March 2009
Written by Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Robbie Corey-Boulet
The Phnom Penh Post
A Cambodian Independent Teachers Association poll finds that more than 50 percent of educators seek outside income to supplement low salaries.MORE than 50 percent of primary and secondary school teachers said in a recent survey that they were unable to stick to a regular teaching schedule because their salaries were too low.
Of 460 teachers who participated in the survey, released Wednesday by the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA), 53.9 percent said they were unable to go to school every day because they needed to supplement their salaries with income earned outside the classroom.
The survey found that primary teachers make 172,000 riels (US$42) per month, lower secondary teachers 235,610 riels and high school teachers 339,380 riels.
CITA President Rong Chhun said low salaries cause teachers to "lose their honour and dignity" because they are unable to pay basic living expenses such as water and electric bills.
The release of the report comes on the heels of Prime Minister Hun Sen's claim, made last week during remarks at the National Education Congress, that the government wanted to raise teachers' salaries but was unable to do so.
"I would like to inform you ... those who are in charge of education ... I really want to raise your salaries but our budget is limited," Hun Sen said.
In response, Rong Chhun said last week that "the government has enough money to raise teachers' salaries and would do so if the prime minister wanted to". He called for salaries of between 800,000 and 1 million riels per month.
Calls for higher pay
A December 2008 survey released by NGO Education Partnership (NEP) found that teachers earn on average between $30 and $60 per month "depending on qualifications, years of experience and number of shifts worked".
"We are seriously concerned about the education sector in our country."
The NEP noted in the report that it was unable to obtain salary information from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. Reached by phone Wednesday, Nath Bunroeun, an undersecretary of state at the ministry, told a reporter he could not provide salary information without first receiving a written request.
The NEP survey, based on interviews with 144 primary and secondary school teachers in five provinces, cited a "general agreement" among district-level education officials that teachers' salaries should be between $100 and $150 per month, with Phnom Penh school directors calling for double that.
Only 2.6 percent of teachers participating in the CITA survey said Cambodian schools provided a high-quality education, with 52.4 percent saying the education students received was average and 45 percent saying it was poor.
"We are seriously concerned about the education sector in our country when 45 percent of teachers say the focus is on quantity of students and not quality," Rong Chhun said.
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CAMBODIA: The high price of jealousy
Many children also suffer when some of the acid thrown towards an adult accidently drops on them (Photo: William Grut/Rose Charities)"I have no face, no job, and I will suffer forever."PHNOM PENH, 26 March 2009 (IRIN) - Sreygao is house-bound, her life destroyed after a jealous wife doused her face and neck with acid. It burned into her skin and blinded her.
“Everything has been taken from me because someone was very jealous,” she told IRIN.
Before the attack, Sreygao worked as a hostess at a karaoke parlor. Every night over beer, she flirted with and sometimes solicited sex to wealthy men, prompting an angry wife to take revenge on the 19-year-old.
“I have no face, no job, and I will suffer forever,” she said.
Deeper than scars
Acid throwing is a common form of retribution in Cambodia, usually perpetrated by jealous lovers, said William Grut, a surgeon at Vancouver-based Rose Charities, which provides free treatment.
“Whether male or female, jealousy is jealousy,” he told IRIN. “It's not a question so much for gender discussions but rather why it's so prevalent and how it can be reduced.”
Cambodia's pattern of gender blindness marks it out from Pakistan, India, and Malaysia, where it is usually the men who use acid on women for punishment or reasons of honour.
Between 1999 and 2002, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) documented 44 cases in local newspapers – the most thorough research to date, as no government body or NGO compiles data on acid attacks.
An attack occurs every 25 days, the group said in its report. But Jason Barber, a human rights consultant for LICADHO, told a radio station that the real number of attacks remained unknown since many went unreported.
Grut said the numbers available correlated with more populated areas, such as the capital, Phnom Penh, and smaller cities in Kandal and Kampong Cham.
Manifestation
The widespread availability of acid to replenish old batteries, weak law enforcement mechanisms, and what Grut calls “tertiary conflict injury”, have all popularised acid-throwing.
Tertiary conflict injury is a mindset in war-torn countries that problems can only be solved with violence, with beatings and acid attacks commonplace.
For decades, Cambodia has experienced coups, civil wars and a genocide in 1975-1979 that killed two million people.
“Cambodian history has regularly been very stressful for the [ordinary] person,” he told IRIN.
“This is not the same as PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], though arguably it may be a sort of long-term manifestation of it,” he said.
Repairing the damage
Corrective surgery is out of reach for most Cambodians, with 35 percent of the population living on less than US$1 a day, according to government statistics, so most sufferers must rely on emergency services from NGOs.
“Clearly in Cambodia, facilities are far more limited than in western countries, where one would have a long series of repetitive operations gradually working things back, reconstructing, and grafting,” Grut explained. “It would all be accompanied by very close counselling and peer assistance.”
But first, more attention needs to be paid to acid attacks as they are usually not a priority for local NGOs and government agencies, he added.
“There's not enough recognition at the NGO level, but at the street level there is,” he said. “People tend to know about acid attacks as the word goes around.”
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Baby Hor says EIU report on instability is 'perverse'
Children sleep outdoors in Phnom Penh. A recent report says economic hard times may lead to instability. (Photo by: AFP)Ambassador to Britain says EIU report on instability is 'perverse'
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Written by Michael Fox
The Phnom Penh Post
Dismisses claims as based on ‘sketchy and unconvincing' evidence.
CAMBODIA'S ambassador to Britain, Hor Nambora, added to official outrage over a report that labelled the nation as potentially one of the world's least stable due to the economic crisis.
The report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranks Cambodia behind Zimbabwe, Chad and DR Congo, and equal to Sudan in the potential risk of social unrest if measures to stimulate the global economy fail.
In a letter to the EIU, Hor Nambora said the report was "insulting", "perverse", and misleading.
"Your scaremongering allegations are highly dangerous, as they could be construed as actively inciting unrest," said Hor Nambora, who is the son of Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. "They also happen to be a gross distortion and misrepresentation of Cambodia's true position, and there can be no justification for these claims."
Hor Nambora said the EIU had ignored solid evidence including recent sustained economic growth due to political stability and improved macro-economic management.
He said it "arrogantly dismissed" Prime Minister Hun Sen's declaration that Cambodia would seek to maintain its economic growth this year.
And he complained that the country's oil and gas reserves and growing reputation as a tourist destination and "centre of enterprise and investment" were disregarded: "You seem to have ignored this reassurance from the highest possible level, preferring to rely on your own evidence, which would appear to be both sketchy and unconvincing," he wrote.
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Opposition calls for tariffs as economic crisis mounts
A woman works on a field growing morning glories in Phnom Penh on Tuesday (???). The opposition Sam Rainsy Party has called for protectionist measures to be implemented. (Photo by: AFP)Thursday, 26 March 2009
Written by May Kunmakara and Kay Kimsong
The Phnom Penh Post
As farming incomes plummet, the opposition says higher tariffs and more subsidies are needed, but government says WTO rules must be respected.
OPPOSITION lawmakers are calling on the government to raise trade barriers and boost agricultural subsidies to mitigate the effects of the global economic slowdown.
The move marks the first time parliamentarians have urged a protectionist response to the crisis.
"Look at Thailand - they are subsidising their farmers and protecting them by preventing Cambodian traders from exporting corn or cassava to Thailand - this is how we should be protecting our farmers," said Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Son Chhay.
He urged the government to increase tariffs on imported goods to cut the trade deficit with neighbouring countries, citing the US$1.35 billion combined shortfall with Thailand and Vietnam.
"Even as a member of the World Trade Organisation, we still have five or six years to increase tax barriers for imported goods," he said.
The local protectionist pressures come on the back of what the World Bank is calling a global swing away from free trade.
Leaders at the Group of 20 meeting in November 2008 committed to promote free trade, but a World Bank report released last week said that protectionism was spreading.
The report said 17 of the G20 countries had issued 47 measures to regulate trade.
The protectionist calls have become ever louder as farmers on the Thai border are subject to tougher restrictions.
Tep Khunnal, governor of Malai district in Banteay Meanchey province, said farmers in his district need more government assistance.
"Thai farmers are growing fresh cassava. They [the Thais] are not allowing in Cambodian cassava unless it is dried. They are buying Cambodian dry cassava and exporting it to China," said Tep Khunnal.
"We are not sleeping - we are trying hard to address this crisis."
He said that farm incomes have dropped 40 percent in the past year in line with the falling prices of agriculture goods.
Government response
Minister of Finance Keat Chhon rejected the opposition demands, saying that the government is improving tax collection and investing in vocational training.
He added that Cambodia's membership to the WTO prevents it from raising trade restrictions.
"We are not sleeping - we are trying hard to address this crisis," Keat Chhon told the Post Wednesday.
He said the government has enough resources to mitigate the effects of the economic downturn, but acknowledged that tax revenue fell slightly in the first two months of 2009.
"I am also a bit concerned about falling revenues, but we are trying to improve our tax-collection methods," he said.
"The Ministry of Finance is working with the Ministry of Labour to retrain laidoff workers to help them find other jobs," he said.
"We are working hard to collect revenue for public finances, and we're moving to a second phase of public finance management reform, which means that the accountability of all institutions and ministries will be improved," he said.
"It can be done only when we build on the achievements we made in the first phase. The credibility of the budget means the flow of income will remain strong.
"We have some worries, but we are trying to spend as scheduled for the budget law of 2009," Keat Chhon added.
Responding to questions raised by Son Chhay, Keat Chhon wrote in a letter dated February 11 that the Cambodian economy is affected by the global economic downturn, but that foreign reserves in 2008 stood at $2.1 billion and were guaranteed for 3.8 months.
In 2009 the government decided to increase salaries by 20 percent, or by $30 million per month, Keat Chhon's letter said.
He wrote that the government spent $300 million subsidising electricity prices by freezing rates when oil prices surged 90.4 percent compared to July 2007.
Keat Chhon also said the government provided $450 million in subsidies to boost the fibre industry to reduce costs for garment producers.
He estimated that government intervention would account for about $500 million from the country's GDP.
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