Funding Restored to Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Cambodian staff are to get back pay within two to three weeks.

2012-02-28
Radio Free Asia

Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge Tribunal, which had run out of money to pay the salaries of Cambodian workers, has received pledges of funds following a meeting last week with donor countries at the United Nations in New York, a spokesman for the U.N.-backed war crimes court said Tuesday.

“We have received positive results and support from the donors,” spokesman Neth Pheaktra told RFA.

Cambodian staff working at the tribunal will now receive back pay within the next two to three weeks, Pheaktra said.

More than 300 Cambodians working at the court had not received salaries since October 2011, he said, adding that at least 10 staff members in the prosecution department had already submitted notices to the court saying they would quit in March if they have not been paid by then.

Now, donor groups have pledged 90 percent of the U.S. $10 million requested for the annual budget for this year for the Cambodian side of the court.

The tribunal has requested a total of U.S. $89 million for both Cambodian and international staff for the budgets for 2012 and 2013, Pheaktra said.

“The Cambodian side wants $20 million for the two years,” Pheaktra said.

Voluntary contributions

International staff at the tribunal are paid directly by the U.N., while the salaries of local staff are funded by voluntary contributions from donor countries such as Japan, France, and Australia.

From 2006 to 2011, the court spent about U.S. $140 million, with $33 million spent by the Cambodian side and $107 million spent by the international side, Pheaktra said.

The tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), was set up six years ago to seek justice for the deaths of up to two million Cambodians during the brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979.

It has long been hit by allegations of political meddling.

The tribunal completed its first trial this month, sentencing former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch to life on appeal for overseeing the deaths of some 15,000 people.

A second trial involving three senior regime leaders is under way.

Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen has openly opposed expanding the trials by adding indictments of other former Khmer Rouge figures, some of whom have become his political allies.

Reported by Samean Yun for RFA’s Khmer service. Translations by Samean Yun. Written in English by Richard Finney.

After retirement, elephant in Cambodia tries to forget

Sambo in a pen with soft sand under her feet. (Julie Masis)

An urban elephant used for tourism in Cambodia retires from the hot asphalt streets of Phnom Penh after thirty years of work.

February 28, 2012
By Julie Masis, Correspondent
The Christian Science Monitor

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Visitors to Cambodia’s capital may be missing a well-known icon. Sambo, the 51-year-old female elephant who has given rides to tourists for 30 years and was one of Southeast Asia’s last working urban elephants, has retired.

The elephant needed treatment for her feet, says Louise Rogerson, the chief executive officer of the Hong Kong-based Elephant Asia Rescue and Survival foundation. According to Ms. Rogerson, years of walking on hot, hard asphalt streets eventually took its toll on Sambo, who has been relocated outside the city limits.

Rogerson says Sambo’s retirement is a sign of progress for the care of elephants living in captivity. “I don’t believe that elephants should be working in the city,” she says.

Deadly attack on market in China’s Xinjiang: police

This file photo shows a group of security forces on patrol in northwest China’s Xinjiang region, in 2011. A group of axe-wielding men attacked a market in the volatile Xinjiang region, home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority, leaving at least 12 people dead, police and state media said

Map locating Yecheng in China’s Xinjiang region where at least 12 people were killed in a riot on Tuesday

Wednesday, February 29, 2012
AFP News

A group of axe-wielding men attacked a market in the volatile Xinjiang region of northwest China, home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority, leaving at least 12 people dead, police and state media said.

The motive behind the attack late on Tuesday was not immediately clear, although Xinjiang has suffered repeated outbreaks of ethnic unrest in recent years that the government has routinely blamed on separatists and terrorists.

Around a dozen Uighurs attacked the market in the remote town of Yecheng, killing 10 people, a police officer told AFP by telephone.

Police then shot five of the attackers dead, he said.

The state Xinhua news agency put the number of assailants killed at two, and said the men were armed with knives.

Calls to local government offices went unanswered.

The vast region, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to around nine million Uighurs who complain of oppression under Chinese rule. The number of Han — China’s dominant ethnic group — living in the region has increased dramatically over the last decade.

“At around 5.30 or 6.00 pm around a dozen rioters carrying axes appeared in the market, in an area that is mostly populated by Han people,” said the officer, who gave only his surname Tuo, referring to China’s dominant ethnic group.

“Most of the victims were Han people, but some were Uighurs. Five rioters were shot, not two, and they were all Uighurs.”

Authorities in Xinjiang said last month they plan to recruit 8,000 extra police officers as China strengthens security in the run-up to a major leadership transition later this year.

The World Uighur Congress, a German-based exile group, said authorities in Yecheng had detained 84 people and have closed off all exits and entries.

Seven of the 12 killed on Tuesday were Chinese armed patrol personnel, it said, citing local sources.

“The incident happened because Uighurs can no longer bear China’s systematic repression, and are using primitive fighting methods to resist,” said a statement by Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the group.

Raxit blamed a “huge influx” of Han Chinese immigrants and official discrimination against Uighurs for the violence.

“Uighurs have been completely stripped of any peaceful ways of resisting,” he said. “China’s repressive measures and the provocation of immigrants are the main reasons behind the incident.”

Xinjiang has been under heavy security since July 2009, when Uighurs launched attacks on members of China’s dominant Han group in the regional capital Urumqi.

The government says nearly 200 people were killed and 1,700 injured in the violence, which shattered the authoritarian Communist Party’s claims of harmony and unity among the country’s dozens of ethnic groups.

Many Uighurs remain angry over the arrests or alleged disappearances of people rounded up across the region in the aftermath of the 2009 violence.

In December, seven people were killed in Pishan county in what the government described as a hostage rescue operation after “terrorists” kidnapped two people.

Exiles, however, said the incident was a conflict between regular Uighurs and policemen prompted by mounting discontent over a crackdown and religious repression in the area.

The region was also hit by three deadly attacks last July that left dozens dead.

The government blames much of the violence in the resource-rich region on what it calls the three “evil forces” of extremism, separatism and terrorism.

But some experts doubt terror cells operate in Xinjiang, where Turkic-speaking Uighurs practise a moderate form of Islam.

PM to workers: ‘don’t go’

Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Lamenting the steady stream of Cambodian men who are repatriated after falling victim to fishing boat slavery, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday a lack of communication, not employment, was driving citizens to risky jobs abroad (sic!).

At a graduation ceremony, the premier told students the demand for agricultural workers in Cambodia was high but said advertising these positions remained a problem.

“In Ratanakkiri [province] the labour force wage is high – up to US$5 per day,” he said.

“Cambodia is now in the situation where it lacks labour (sic!), while a number of Cambodian people migrate for work outside the country, even if it is illegal.”

Inaccurate voting lists give watchdog pause

Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

An election monitoring group yesterday claimed that people were failing to vote because their names were not included on voter lists at polling stations.

Speaking at a Phnom Penh forum held by civil society groups and political parties, Koul Panha, executive director of election monitoring group Comfrel, said that the National Election Committee must ensure that voters’ names were not left off the list for upcoming commune elections in June.

“They arrive at the polling station and cannot find their name, so they return home,” he said.

“The loss of voters’ names is because of technical mistakes or the changing of someone’s name.”

Koul Panha said the Ministry of Interior must issue permanent identification cards and send that information to the NEC, and the NEC must guarantee that someone with an ID card is able to vote.

Local authorities must inform the NEC if a voter moved locations, he added.

SRP lawmaker Kuoy Bunroeun, Human Rights Party official Tim Borak and executive director of election monitor Nicfec, Hang Puthea, supported Koul Panha’s recommendations.

The roundtable also drafted joint recommendations to the NEC stating that the NEC should use the Interior Ministry’s ID databases to compile voter lists and that the voter registration period should be permanent.

A 2011 Comfrel survey compared data collected from respondents who had registered to vote against the voter list and found that 17 per cent of registered voters had no data recorded on the 2011 voter list because their name could not be found or had been changed.

NEC secretary general Tep Nytha said that the voter registration system would be changed following the next national election, but declined to specify a particular year.

“We registered [voters] already, and we have updated [voter lists] yearly,” he said, adding that the NEC would like to eventually use the Interior Ministry’s database to compile the voter list.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said that expired ID cards had been extended until the end of 2013.

Villagers take case to capital

Lim Tong (right), a village representative from Koh Kong province, speaks yesterday during a press conference at the Phnom Penh office of NGO Forum. (Pha Lina)

Wednesday, 29 February 2012
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Representatives from five communes in Koh Kong province engaged in a long-running land dispute with a private Chinese firm urged the government to issue them proper land titles during a press conference in the capital yesterday.

Representative Chhai Beng Hout asked the government to instruct the company – Union Development Group Co, Ltd – to allow residents to remain on their land. The area could easily be carved out of the company’s 45,000-hectare land concession, he said.

In 2008, Union Development Group received a 36,000 hectare land grant from the government to build a US$5 billion mega-tourism zone in Botum Sakor and Kiri Sakor districts. Such a concession breaches Cambodian land law, which limits government land concessions to private companies to 10,000 hectares.

Last August, the company was granted an additional 9,100 hectares in the protected Botum Sakor national park.

Representative Tith Ten said company staffers repeatedly threatened villagers to relocate.

“They tear down our houses even though we don’t agree,” Tith Ten said.

“We would like to ask the Prime Minister to find a resolution for us, we don’t want to live under pressure from the company,” she added.

Lim Tong said he is too frightened to leave his house, for fear that it will be destroyed by the company while he is gone.

“I dare not walk out from my home to fish because I am afraid that when nobody is home the company staffer will come to tear down my home,” he said.

“Nobody cares about our problem,” he lamented.

Provincial governor Bun Leut said he was confused by the villagers’ complaints, since the company and authorities had already provided compensation and constructed a resettlement area.

However, Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, said the resettlement zone was substandard and compared living conditions to those under a “second Khmer Rouge regime”.

The Union Development Group could not be reached.

Alarm over proposed dam

A view of the Central Cardamom Protected Forest is seen in Koh Kong province in December of last year. (Will Baxter)

Wednesday, 29 February 2012
David Boyle with additional reporting by Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Cassandra Yeap
The Phnom Penh Post

The Sam Rainsy Party has asked Prime Minister Hun Sen to verify the details of a proposed dam that could inundate about 10,000 hectares of protected forest, citing concerns that it would lead to rampant illegal logging and devastate a traditional habitat of Siamese crocodiles.

The proposed 109-megawatt dam would inundate about 20,000 hectares of land overall in Koh Kong province’s Cheay Areng valley, according to conservation groups, although an environmental impact assessment of the dam commissioned by the company suggested only 9,474 hectares would be flooded.

The US$327 million project was taken over by China’s Guodian Corporation after China Southern Power Grid dumped the plan in November, 2010, deeming it unfeasible.

In a letter sent to Hun Sen dated Monday, SRP legislator Son Chhay asks the premier to explain the status of the project and raised concerns that those tasked with clearing the reservoir would log far outside the designated area, mimicking the experience of previous dam projects.

“The situation at Tatay hydro dam area [in Koh Kong province] . . . is that the group of loggers used their right for logging inside the dam area to log outside the area, which devastated the natural forest, causing extreme concern,” the letter says.

It points to threatened species that would be seriously affected, including Siamese crocodiles, dragon fish, Asian elephants and tigers.

A Conservation International environmental and social impact study into the proposed project showed that about half of the reservoir would be inside the Central Cardamom Protected Forest.

Significant illegal logging of luxury timber such as rosewood had already taken place inside the CCPF, specifically in Koh Kong province’s Thma Bang district on O’Som commune in Veal Veng district, Pursat province, the study said.

Pech Siyon, Koh Kong provincial director of the department of Industry, Mines and Energy, said yesterday he could not set a date on when the project would begin because data about villagers who practised slash-and-burn farming in the area was still being verified.

“People are not living in the area, but they have farming cycles [inside the area] and construction has not yet begun on the project,” he said.

A January, 2008 social and environmental impact assessment (SEIA) into the project by Guangxi Electric Power Industry Investigation Design and Research Institute found 899 people from 189 families in six villages would be forced to relocate because of the project.

Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia program director of International Rivers, said the SEIA for the project had been approved despite the fact that it would forcibly displace hundreds of indigenous people from communities that had lived in the area for centuries.

“This is a devastating project that will have significant environmental impacts and will resettle quite a few ethnic minority families,” she said.

“It’s especially bad for the population of Siamese crocodiles in the dam area, but this is also within the Cardamom Mountains, so it’s in a protected forest.”

Adam Starr, a project co-ordinator with Fauna & Flora International, said the area was home to the second-largest traditional habitat for Siamese crocodiles left in Cambodia, if not all of Southeast Asia.

Starr also said questions had been raised about the viability of the project because of the area’s topography which, although in some ways perfectly suited for a dam, posed problems because the elevation of the area was low.

“They would have to pipe the water 24 kilometres before they could get enough drop to spin the turbines to get the desired amount of electricity,” he said.

Guodian Corporation and China Southern Power Grid could be reached for comment.

Health woes: PM cancels trip due to sick father

Hun Neang was presented a title granted by Sihamoni

Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

Prime Minister Hun Sen had cancelled a trip to Kampong Cham province today because of his father’s worsening medical condition, the premier’s personal assistant told the Post yesterday.

Seng Tieng, the prime minister’s personal assistant, said that because of a turn in Hun Neang’s health, the premier had cancelled a planned trip to a school opening ceremony in the province and had asked Deputy Prime Minister Sok An to attend in his place.

Seng Tieng said a large number of the premier’s relatives had come to his house near the Independence Monument, where Hun Neang was receiving medical treatment.

Speaking yesterday to graduating students at the Institute of Technology, the prime minister said that his father ­– who is 91 years old ­– was having heart problems and had fainted prior to his arrival.

“I would like to say that before I travelled here, my father [fainted], but I still had to come,” Hun Sen said at the ceremony.

“Before I came, I told my sister to invite a monk to come for blessing.

“I hope that his heart situation will improve, but it is the situation of old people who get into their 90s. If there is any bad news, then I will be informed from my home.”

Hun Neang was admitted to hospital in Singapore late last year for medical treatment, before returning to Cambodia.

Since then, he has not been seen in public.

Hun Neang’s wife, Dy Pok, died in 1998 at the age of 79.

Cambodia’s debt a concern

Construction work continues on a new Chinese-funded bridge spanning the Tonle Sap river yesterday in Phnom Penh. (Heng Chivoan)

Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Don Weinland
The Phnom Penh Post

“And there have been a couple of examples where the work hasn’t been up to the quality it should be“

An International Monetary Fund and World Bank report has questioned Cambodia’s ability to deal with future financial crises if government borrowing increases.

While the report indicated that Cambodia was at low risk for severe debt problems, it highlighted the need for effective management of new debt and rapidly growing build-operate-transfer, or BOT, projects, which include the hydropower dams and road reconstruction conducted by Chinese companies.

This month alone, the Kingdom courted more than US$800 million in Chinese loans for infrastructure projects.

In two different speeches in February, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia would borrow $302 million from China for roads and irrigation systems, and would apply for an additional $500 million for similar construction.

The joint report estimated Cambodia’s debt to countries at about 28 per cent of gross domestic product for both 2011 and 2012.

Although debt levels were projected to increase from about $4 billion to $5.6 billion over the next four years, its share of GDP will decrease by about a percentage point to near 27 per cent.

Threatening to increase this otherwise sustainable share of GDP were the potential liabilities of BOT projects, should investment in the large-scale works be lost.

An additional 5 per cent of GDP would be added to the debt stock if investments in 10 per cent of the projects were lost, according to the report.

“It comes down to the quality of the infrastructure. If Cambodia gets a loan to build a road, and substandard materials are used, it then has to be rebuilt in a year’s time,” former ANZ Royal CEO Stephen Higgins told the Post this month.

The result is outstanding debt and further building costs.

“And there have been a couple of examples where the work hasn’t been up to the quality it should be,” he said, although he declined to name the parties responsible.

Liabilities posed by BOT projects do not always surface in the standard measures of an economy’s health, Olaf Unteroberdoerster, deputy division chief of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, told reporters during a press conference in December.

Unlike public debt, the projects are most often contracted to private companies and are not reflected in the national budget, he said.

“The issue here is, because these projects are undertaken by private-sector partners, these projects don’t directly go through the budget and affect the fiscal indicators … We do not necessarily have the full picture,” Unteroberdoerster said at the time.

Few statistics or studies have been conducted on China’s BOT work in Cambodia, Chheang Vannarith, executive director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, said yesterday.

The lack of information has left the public in the dark on the costs and liabilities of the projects.

“Transparency is the key issue here,” he said.

China holds the largest bilateral loans to Cambodia, at 66 per cent at the end of 2010, the joint report showed.

In October, Cambodia owed more than $730 million to China at interest rates substantially higher than that owed to other sovereign creditors, according to information compiled by the NGO Forum on Cambodia.

Cambodia has proven its ability to weather financial crises, and the country can expect continued growth for the next few years, National Bank of Cambodia director general and spokeswoman Nguon Sokha said yesterday.

Ongoing diversification of the country’s economy has lessened its susceptibility to external shock, she said, adding that the risks mentioned in the report were all contingent on a future financial crisis.

“We are confident we will continue to grow in the short term,” Nguon Sokha said.

One tourist killed, dozens injured in Cambodian bus crash

(Photo: DAP news)

Feb 29, 2012
DPA

Phnom Penh – A Russian tourist died and dozens of foreign nationals were injured after a bus carrying 46 people overturned in southern Cambodia, local media reported Wednesday.

The accident happened late Tuesday after the bus blew a tyre while travelling between the coastal resort town of Sihanoukville and Koh Kong town, which borders Thailand.

Minister of Tourism Thong Khon confirmed a Russian woman had died, but denied media reports that other passengers had been critically injured.

‘The hospital in Koh Kong is looking after them – most of them were evacuated to Thailand,’ he told dpa on Wednesday, adding that four Cambodians were also injured. ‘All the injured are not (in) so serious (a condition).’

Thong Khon said he did not have information to hand on the nationalities of those involved.

The driver of the Paramount Angkor Express bus reportedly ran away after the accident.

The Cambodia Daily newspaper said the company’s buses had been involved in four accidents last year that killed four people. Its sister company was involved in seven crashes in which six people died.

Cambodia’s roads have improved markedly in recent years, but driving standards remain poor. More than 1,800 people died in traffic accidents last year, a fourfold increase in a decade.

Cambodia’s art revolution reaches global market

Feb 29, 2012
By Ellie Dyer
DPA

Phnom Penh – From the artworks of the capital’s burgeoning galleries to the distinct school of design evolving in the north-western town of Battambang, Cambodian art is increasingly reaching a global market.

Cambodia’s home-grown artists are showing in major Asian cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore. A season of Cambodian art is also planned for New York in 2013 while auction house Christie’s is holding its first sale in the Kingdom in March.

Central to the buzz that artists are beginning to attract are the diverse influences that have shaped their lives and work.

‘Artists have two obvious wells of inspiration: first, Cambodia’s glorious history of highly detailed and ornamented temples and murals, and secondly, the naive, emotionally charged, post-Khmer Rouge, art-by-accessibility,’ said Matthew Tito Cuenca, who is helping to organize Christie’s charity sale on March 11.

The changes brought by rapid economic growth and development are also influencing creative minds.

‘You are seeing artists responding to socio-political implications with a great deal of urgency,’ said Kate O’Hara, manager of Romeet Gallery in Phnom Penh, who has seen increasing numbers of international collectors enter the country.

‘The energy and motivation of these artists combine the traditional Cambodian visual linage with new aesthetics to reflect on contemporary issues that are local, but have global resonance.’

One such artist is Hour Seyha whose recent series Waiting for Sunrise explored his experience of child labour. In his early teens he worked in Thailand, at times illegally, to support his impoverished family. He returned to Cambodia alone at 15.

Hour, who is now in his early 20s, lived in an orphanage before eventually starting art classes at Battambang-based charity Phare Ponleu Selpak. The organization, which began in 1986 in a refugee camp, has helped develop a generation of raw talent.

Hour’s highly emotive paintings – in muted yellows, reds and blues – are full of symbols of his time abroad. Footprints represent wounds; flip-flops illustrate slavery; red is a symbol of fear. ‘I want to explain and make people understand about the issues in society,’ he said at a recent public talk.

Fellow Phare Ponleu Selpak alumni Nov Cheanick, whose work is currently on display at the Four Rising Talents from South-East Asia exhibition at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery in Hong Kong, is also exploring the nature of modern society, using images of US President Barack Obama in his Freedom series.

Christie’s auction is to also focus on contemporary artwork with sale proceeds set to be donated to the non-governmental organization Cambodian Living Arts. It helps support Cambodian art forms from traditional dancing to puppetry, many of which were nearly wiped out under the cultural nihilism of the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979.

With paintings and sculptures from some of Cambodia’s best-known artists up for grabs, auction organizers said international buyers are finding proxy bidders to snap up lots. Pieces set to be sold include work by contemporary sculptor Pich Sopheap and mask maker Sam Chanmonyroth.

In 2011, Christie’s saw record sales of Asian art at 890.1 million US dollars, a 17-per-cent increase on 2010.

Christie’s auctioneer Lionel Gosset is to travel to Phnom Penh to hold the sale. He said he believes that as Cambodia opens up, its ‘rich artistic movement’ will be seen.

‘Young artists are already beginning to be recognized both in Europe and the United States,’ he said.

‘With quality work, recognition follows,’ O’Hara said.

Hamill given access to Khmer Rouge file

JUSTICE: Kerry Hamill, brother of rower Rob Hamill, was killed when the yacht he and friends were sailing strayed into Cambodian waters in August 1978. (DOMINION POST)

29/02/2012
Fairfax NZ News

Rob Hamill a decision granting him civil party status in the Cambodian war crimes trial of Khmer Rouge commanders he holds responsible for the death of his brother Kerry is a huge breakthrough.

That decision should have given him access to the case file, but that access is still being blocked.

Kerry Hamill was tortured and killed in Cambodia in 1978, after being abducted from his boat, which he was sailing with two friends.

He was one of about 1.7 million people who died during the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979.

Last year Rob Hamill, a trans-Atlantic rower, was told his appeal to be a civil party to the proceedings in Case 3 of the Khmer Rouge trial had been rejected.

Now UN-nominated Swiss judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet has decided he can be the first person to be given the status in the third case.

But Hamill’s lawyers have not been allowed access to the case file.

A national court official in Cambodia told them the order on the admissibility of the civil party application was not considered valid and any access to the case file was not granted.

That was on the basis that Judge Kasper-Ansermet had yet to be officially appointed as the fully-accredited International Co-Investigating Judge.

Cambodia has refused to recognize Judge Kasper-Ansermet, a move some observers see as an excuse to thwart investigations into the third, and a fourth, case.

Hamill’s application to become a civil party, made last April, was against Khmer Rouge commanders Meas Muth and Sou Met, who are believed to be under investigation.

Today Hamill hailed his acceptance as a civil party.

“It’s a huge breakthrough that suggests the two suspects have a case to answer.”

It also meant other victims of the Khmer Rouge, and in particular of the two suspects, had a case to be accepted by the court as civil party victim’s in Case 3, he said.

“However, as seems to be a reoccurring theme in the machinations of the court, there is still dissention within the upper ranks of the judiciary.”

Hamill’s lawyers Sam Sokong and Lyma Nguyen said Judge Kasper-Ansermet’s decision had considered that the “numerous procedural irregularities” in the previous decision on Hamill’s application justified reconsideration by his office.

The judge found that Hamill suffered injury as a victim of crime and that the previous decision was totally unjust in that it deprived him of the possibility of participating in the proceedings against people allegedly responsible for the disappearance of his brother, and seeking reparation.

IMF forecasts Cambodia’s economic growth could reach 6.5% within year

PHNOM PENH — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that Cambodia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth would reach 6.5 percent this year, according to the IMF’s press release on Tuesday.

The prediction is based on the buoyant garments exports, increasing tourist arrivals, and a gradually improving real estate sector as well as increasing agricultural sector, said the press release.

However, it said that the fragility of the global recovery exposed Cambodia’s narrow export base to significant downside risks.

“Cambodia is highly sensitive to economic activity in the U.S. and Europe, which account for about two thirds of its total exports and the bulk of high-end tourist arrivals,” it said, adding “any immediate financial spillovers, however, would likely be limited and mostly indirect.”

The IMF’s forecast was the same as the recent predictions by the government of Cambodia, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The IMF said that the country’s inflation rate was 5.75 percent in 2011, driven by higher food and fuel prices, and is expected to ease only gradually in 2012, in part reflecting a moderation in global commodity prices.

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that the country’s GDP in 2011 was 7 percent, or US$13 billion.

IMF says Cambodian economy to grow 6.5 per cent, but warns of risks

Feb 28, 2012
DPA

Phnom Penh – Cambodia’s economy is expected to grow 6.5 per cent in 2012, up from 5.75 per cent last year, the International Monetary Fund said in its annual review, adding that government policies to boost the investment climate were paying off.

However, in its assessment, which was released overnight, the US-based body warned the kingdom’s economy was vulnerable to the global slowdown, adding that its narrow export base made it susceptible to ‘significant downside risks.’

Cambodia’s economy is based on agriculture, garment manufacturing, tourism and construction, with the last three helping to buoy the economy last year. The garment industry was the largest foreign exchange earner in 2011 worth 3.75 billion dollars in exports.

‘If you look at the report there has been quite a bit of progress on several fronts and that progress needs to be continued,’ IMF country director Faisal Ahmed told dpa Tuesday, adding that one key area needing attention was the financial sector.

The IMF assessment called again for a moratorium on banking licences – more than 30 banks now operate in Cambodia, making it ‘overbanked’ – until the central bank has sufficient capacity to regulate the sector.

‘The current degree of concentration and fragmentation poses risks to financial stability, while not delivering sufficient benefits from competition and innovation,’ the report stated.

Stagnant tax revenues combined with increased spending following 2011′s floods had cut the government’s deposits to around 4 per cent of GDP, leaving it with limited room to tackle future challenges.

The IMF recommended the government boost efforts to increase the tax take and raise spending on infrastructure and high impact social programmes. Further improvements to the business environment would also reap rewards, contributing to an expectation of 7.6-per-cent growth over the medium-term.

The IMF again cautioned that guarantees to firms involved in build-operate-transfer power projects, particularly hydroelectric dams, could generate ‘potentially large contingent liabilities.’

The high cost and poor reliability of the electricity supply has long proven a brake on inward investment, which is why the government has signed deals for dozens of projects over the next decade. However it has also guaranteed to buy all of the electricity generated by at least some of those projects.

Although the risk posed by that guarantee might not seem significant given the current shortage of electricity, the IMF said, ‘the sheer size of these projects, and the fact that risks for complex infrastructure projects are difficult to quantify ex ante, call for continuous and careful monitoring.’

Cambodia bus crash injures Western tourists

28 February 2012
BBC News

Dozens of foreign tourists have been injured and one woman has been killed in a bus crash in Cambodia.

The vehicle flipped on its side as it took 46 passengers, including 40 foreign tourists, from the port of Sihanoukville to the Thai border.

Ouk Sopha, head of traffic police in Koh Kong province, said a 23-year old Russian woman who was on the bus had died after being admitted to hospital.

He told reporters that some of the injured were in a serious condition.

Mr Sopha said all the passengers, including six Cambodians, had been taken to hospital.

Police believe the bus driver was driving at speed before the crash and apparently fled the scene soon after.

Traffic accidents are one of the main causes of death Cambodia, killing almost 2,000 people in 2010.

Injuries in Bus crash in Koh Kong

All Photos: DAP-news

One tourist dies, many hurt in Cambodia crash

28 February 2012
AFP

PHNOM PENH: A Russian woman was killed and dozens of foreign tourists were injured when their bus swerved and flipped onto its side after its front tyre burst in Cambodia on Tuesday, police said.

The vehicle crashed as it took 46 passengers, including 40 foreign tourists, from Cambodia’s popular seaside port of Sihanoukville to the Thai border, according to Ouk Sopha, head of traffic police in western Koh Kong province.

“All passengers were injured, including many Western tourists. A 23-year-old Russian girl died after being admitted to hospital,” he told AFP by telephone.

The driver, who police believe was driving at high speed before the crash, fled the scene.

Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death in Cambodia, killing more than 1,600 people in 2010.

Better roads — allowing people to go faster — and more vehicles contribute heavily to this bloody toll, but bad driving is the main cause behind most accidents, police say.

Bus crash in Cambodia kills Russian, injures 40 others

February 28, 2012
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH (Cambodia) A bus crash in Cambodia has killed a Russian woman and left dozens of people injured, including 40 other Western tourists.

Ouk Sokha, the traffic police chief of southwestern Koh Kong province, says the accident occurred Tuesday when one of the bus’ front tires burst. The bus was carrying the tourists to Koh Kong from the popular beach resort town of Sihanoukville.

Ouk Sokha said some of the injured were in serious condition and all had been taken to a hospital. Six Cambodian passengers were among the injured.

He said he was not yet able to give more details about any of the victims, including the Russian woman who was killed.

Nearly 2,000 people died in traffic accidents in Cambodia last year.

Seven Finns injured in fatal bus crash in Cambodia

Feb 28 2012
YLE, AFP

Seven Finns were injured in a tourist bus accident that also claimed the life of a Russian man in Cambodia on Tuesday. One of the Finns was so badly injured that he was taken to hospital in Bangkok, Thailand.

Of the 48 passengers on board the bus, 40 were foreign tourists, who were heading from Sihanoukville to the Thai border when one of the front tyres blew out and overturned.

All of the passengers were injured, some seriously, and were treated at local hospitals, according to the AFP.

Police said speed was a factor in the accident.

The driver of the bus fled the scene, according to police.

Hun Sen Releases Fishing Lots Ahead of Local Elections -Another CPP election trick?

Hun Sen criticized commercial fishing operators saying that they have “abused” local residents by preventing them from fishing for their own consumption.

Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“I would like to declare to all the people that there will no longer be any fishing lots in the Tonle Sap Lake. They will all be eliminated.”

Prime Minister Hun Sen declared Tuesday the elimination of commercial fishing lots in the Tonle Sap Lake and put it under preservation. However, the opposition party said it was merely a political ploy used to attract voters ahead of local elections in June.

“I would like to declare to all the people that there will no longer be any fishing lots in the Tonle Sap Lake,” Hun Sen said at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh. “They will all be eliminated.”

Hun Sen criticized commercial fishing operators saying that they have “abused” local residents by preventing them from fishing for their own consumption.

The large body of freshwater is located in central Cambodia and is one of the signature natural features of the country, providing a diet rich in fish for generations of Cambodians.

“It’s just a correction of mistakes that the government officials have done,” said Son Chhay, a National Assembly member from the Sam Rainsy Party. “I wonder how effective it will be. Or is it simply to briefly excite people ahead of the election?”

Cambodia will hold commune council elections in more than 1,600 jurisdictions on June 3 to elect local representatives.

There are 35 fishing lots in the Tonle Sap Lake which includes parts of the provinces of Siem Reap, Pursat, Battambang, Kampong Chhnang and Kampong Thom.

The Lake provides 230,000 tons of fish products yearly, providing a major source of protein to more than three million people in the country, according to statistics from the national fishery department. However, local communities have reported a decline in catches in recent years.

“If the declaration is serious, I hope fish products will increase,” said Tea Lov, a representative of Angkor Thebdei Agricultural Development Community in Siem Reap.

Koh Kong Fishing Community Rejects Chinese Development [-Another forced eviction for an ILLEGAL land concession?]

A Cambodian evictee stands by her hut in Preah Sihanouk Province. She is among 100 families that were evicted from a disputed land in April 2007. (Photo: VOA Khmer)

Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“In the past we never faced any difficulty.”

Fishermen in the coastal province of Koh Kong have accused a Chinese-owned company of forcefully evicting more than 1,000 families from their land and businesses to clear space for new development.

Union Development Group Co., Ltd, from China was granted a 99-year contract in 2008 to develop for tourism 36,000 hectares of coastal area in Koh Kong province’s Botum Sakor and Kiri Sakor districts.

Villagers said they have been relocated 20 kilometers away to a site where access to the sea is limited.

“In the past we never faced any difficulty,” a fishery community representative, Tith Tein, said Tuesday at a press conference in Phnom Penh.

Villagers complained that the new location lacks enough clean water, electricity, roads, schools and access to health care.

“If we want to go fishing at the sea, we have to spend money on gasoline,” said Lim Song, a villager from Botum Sakor. “There, we can only hunt wild animals and grow vegetables.”

Tens of thousands of Cambodians support themselves and their families by fishing, both freshwater and in the ocean, often using techniques little changed from 100 years ago.

A Cambodian human rights group condemned the land swap as lacking “transparency.”

“At the old location villagers’ living condition was good,” said an Adhoc rights group investigator Yi Sok San. “There were schools for their children but at the new location there is mainly forest, and no health care service and some areas are ridden by malaria.”

However, provincial authorities said they are working on improving the recently settled area and each family has been given decent pieces of land for housing and farming, according to Sorn Dara, deputy governor for Koh Kong.

Bar lowers boom on KRT ‘failure’

Prime Minister Hun Sen delivers a speech in Phnom Penh earlier this month. (Pha Lina)

Co-investigating judge You Bunleng in a handout photo. (ECCC)

Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Bridget Di Certo
The Phnom Penh Post

“You have to be careful when you criticise people and you don’t have any substantive information in your hand. You could be subjected to defamation law” (sic!) – Ek Tha, representative of the Council of Minister’s Press and Quick Reaction Unit

Present government interference at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal has led to a “failure of credibility”, International Bar Association executive director Mark Ellis said in a report released yesterday.

The report, the second from the IBA, attributes that failure directly due to the lack of judicial independence in Cambodia.

“A history of corruption within the Cambodian justice system, coupled with a weak disqualification mechanism, fails to adequately safeguard internationally accepted standards of judicial integrity,” the report states.

“The court’s handling of Case 003 and the Supreme Council of Magistracy’s rejection of Judge Kasper-Ansermet, the International reserve co-investigating judge, only highlight these shortcomings,” it continues.

A litany of allegations of political pressure, official obstruction and uncontrolled corruption on the part of the Cambodian government and the national side of the court is catalogued in the 30-page report, including the “pervasive and institutionalized nature of the executive interference with the Cambodian judiciary, and the deeply concerning failure by judicial bodies to deal with it”.

Ellis is critical of actions and statements by Prime Minister Hun Sen toward controversial cases 003 and 004 and in blocking certain executive members from giving testimony to the tribunal as part of investigations.

He is also critical of actions and statements by Cambodian Co-Investigating Judge You Bunleng in his involvement in blocking the Supreme Council of Magistracy appointment of Kasper-Ansermet, a role Ellis called a “significant conflict of interest”.

Hun Sen and You Bunleng were not the only Cambodians under the microscope in Ellis’ report – Trial Chamber Judge Nil Nonn, who is now presiding over Case 002 against an elderly trio of Khmer Rouge senior leaders, “should have been disqualified” the report states.

“Nil Nonn is on record as admitting to taking bribes in relation to cases. Moreover, there have been allegations that several other judges and Court officials secured their positions by paying bribes to members of the executive”.

The report also accuses the UN of adopting a “detrimental hands-off approach” at the tribunal and concludes that “ensuring the effective investigation of alleged governmental influence in judicial matters would go some way to tackling the actual and perceived institutional legitimacy problems that threaten the future of the ECCC”.

Tribunal legal affairs spokesman Lars Olsen yesterday said he had “no comments at all on a report by third parties”.

UN Special Expert David Scheffer did not respond to requests for comment.

The co-investigating judges “fiasco” is at the heart of the report. Hun Sen stalled the appointment of Kasper-Ansermet, telling the UN “prudent consideration” of the appointment was required due to the judge’s use of social-media website Twitter.

Kasper-Ansermet has tweeted links to critical articles and reports on the work of his predecessor Siegfried Blunk and Cambodian counterpart You Bunleng.

The IBA report analyses the criticisms levied against Kasper-Ansermet’s use of Twitter and draws the conclusion that his “Twitter posts fall short of infringing on international standards regarding a judge’s public involvement in controversial topics and government criticism,” adding that Kasper-Ansermet exercised “appropriate restraint”.

Ek Tha, representative of the Council of Minister’s Press and Quick Reaction Unit, told the Post the criticisms of the government were unfounded.

“You have to be careful when you criticise people and you don’t have any substantive information in your hand. You could be subjected to defamation law,” Ek Tha said.

“From the government’s point of view, it is very clear that there is no interference from the executive in the work of the ECCC.”

Building 10 rises at Borei Keila

Evictees protest yesterday in the Borei Keila community where a new building is being constructed on the eviction site in Phnom Penh. HENG CHIVOAN

Residents evicted from the Borei Keila community protest on the site of their former homes yesterday. Signs displayed by residents demanded adequate compensation from the Phan Imex company. Heng Chivoan

Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Khouth Sophakchakrya
The Phnom Penh Post

The letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Post, claimed the 30 women and children detained in Prey Speu social affairs centre last month had been “invited” by authorities to live there and receive vocational skills training, and that their escape had been instigated by the opposition party and civil society organisations.

Another building is rapidly rising on the plot of land reserved for the tenth and last building promised to evicted Borei Keila residents.

Behind 100 protesting evictees, construction workers continued pounding away yesterday at a steel structure that started coming up last week, along with a ninth building that appeared two weeks ago.

A Phan Imex representative had previously told the Post that the ninth building was not meant for evicted residents.

Sorn Srey Touch, 41, said she had been visiting the district hall regularly over the past five years in hopes that authorities would tell her it was her time to claim a flat.

The company, which claimed it could not build the final two buildings in 2010 due to bankruptcy, now seemed able to erect them for the 400 families that had been left in limbo, she said.

“If they don’t build it for me, is it constructed to sell?” she said.

In 2003, Phan Imex Company signed an agreement with the government to construct 10 buildings on two hectares of land to house 1,776 families, in exchange for the rights to a remaining 2.6 hectares.

Evictees yesterday protested a letter that Phnom Penh municipal governor Kep Chutema had sent to the deputy prime minister and council of ministers on February 21.

The letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Post, claimed the 30 women and children detained in Prey Speu social affairs centre last month had been “invited” by authorities to live there and receive vocational skills training, and that their escape had been instigated by the opposition party and civil society organisations.

“This statement lacks facts and accountability,” chanted the crowd of villagers.

Spokesman for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party Yim Sovann said the governor had mistaken his facts.

“The people were illegally detained. They understood their rights and left of their own accord,” he said.

Protestors lined the pavement next to the two buildings under construction before occupying an adjacent road for an hour.

Phan Imex owner Suy Sophan could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Khmer Krom Monks await justice

Khmer Krom and Buddhist monks gather yesterday at the grave of the venerable Eang Sok Thoeun. (Meng Kimlong/Phnom Penh Post)

Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Tep Nimol
The Phnom Penh Post

Khmer Krom and Buddhist monks gathered yesterday in the capital for a ceremony to mourn the five-year anniversary of the venerable Eang Sok Thoeun’s death, who was found with his throat slit in February 2007.

The body of Eang Sok Thoeun, a Khmer Krom monk, was found at the Tronum Chhroeung pagoda in Kandal the morning after he protested with some 300 other monks at the Vietnam Embassy in Phnom Penh, demanding improved treatment for ethnic Khmers in southern Vietnam.

Officials and monks from the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Association gathered yesterday at their murdered brethren’s grave in Dangkor district, calling for the government to arrest those responsible for his death.

“The authorities have not arrested the killer,” Kim Sisomna, a leader for the association said.

Dangkor district deputy governor Seng Kun said police officials were still searching for a suspect.

“Police officials have not been careless in attempting to find the killer and punish him through the law,” the deputy governor said.

Shooter in Bavet now unknown [-Cover up in progress??]

Buot Chinda (centre), a 21-year-old factory worker, rests at Svay Rieng provincial hospital after being shot. (Derek Stout/Phnom Penh Post)

Tuesday, 28 February 2012
May Titthara and David Boyle
The Phnom Penh Post

“It is so strange that Sar Kheng changed his message [to say] he does not know who the gunman is, so strange.”

The Interior Minister backtracked yesterday after previously declaring officials knew the identity of the person who shot three protesters outside a shoe factory in Svay Rieng province last week and refused to quash rumours that Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith was a suspect.

Rushing to his car outside an ASEAN seminar yesterday morning, Interior Minister Sar Kheng told reporters they would “have to wait and see” if the governor was a suspect in the shooting outside the Kaoway Sports Ltd factory in Bavet town last Monday.

“We don’t know the identity of the gun shooter yet and our police are looking to arrest the suspect,” he told reporters, before declining to answer any further questions.

The minister’s comments come six days after he declared officials had identified the shooter and had sufficient evidence to convict the perpetrator.

At the time, he declined to reveal details about the suspect’s identity due to the ongoing investigation into the person’s whereabouts.

Sar Kheng’s comments also contradict Svay Rieng provincial police chief Prach Rim, who yesterday said police were pursuing a suspect.

“We know their identity already, so we will arrest them soon, and you will know who they are when we arrest them,” he said.

Chhouk Bandith told the Post last week that he was aware of rumours that he was the shooter, which he categorically denied. Since then, he has not answered his phone despite repeated attempts to contact him.

The three victims were shot at a protest of about 6,000 people last Monday morning outside the Kaoway Sports factory in the Manhattan Special Economic Zone where protesters pelted the building with rocks and lit fires, demanding transport and food allowances.

Eyewitness reports suggest a gunman dressed in a khaki police-style outfit and flanked by a bodyguard and a man dressed in police uniform arrived in a car, fired into the crowd and then ran off, escaping in another vehicle.

Moeun Tola, head of the labour program at the Cambodian Legal Education Centre, questioned why someone who committed a crime in front of police and thousands of people was not arrested immediately in a case where there are some obvious clues.

“One, the workers were told the governor was coming. Two, the man [perpetrator] came in the expensive [Lexus] car with bodyguards and a couple of days later, Sar Kheng said the police officials had identified the gunman,” he said. “It is so strange that Sar Kheng changed his message [to say] he does not know who the gunman is, so strange.”

He said he was worried the suspect, who has now been alerted, would have had sufficient time to flee the country.

The shooting has attracted significant international media attention largely because Kaoway Sports supplies sportswear giant PUMA and sparked concern amongst international buyers that source products from Cambodia.

Jill Tucker, chief technical adviser at the International Labour Organisation’s Better Factories Cambodia, said buyers were becoming increasingly concerned to see that due process was conducted by those investigating the case.

“I know that there is an effort right now to communicate these concerns to the government from a bunch of buyers, they want to see that due process is followed and that the gunman will be held accountable,” she said.

“The brands are really looking for a complete investigation and for there to be a due process in this case, they just don’t want to see a repeat of 2004.”

In 2004, the president of Cambodia’s Free Trade Union, which represented garment workers, was gunned down in front of a kiosk while reading a newspaper.

Two suspects, both of whom had alibis, were convicted for the crime in a trial where no forensic evidence was examined and no witnesses called to testify.

Raw fish in 7 species in Cambodia can cause human liver cancer: study

Cyclocheilichthys apogon

Cyclochelichthys enoplos

Cyclocheilichthys repasson

Puntius brevis

Hampala dispar

Barbonymus altus

Cirrhinus lobatus

28/02/2012
VietNamNet/Xinhuanet

Cambodia’s health officials said Sunday that a study found that at least seven species of freshwater fishes in the country can cause human liver cancer when they have not been cooked well before eating.

Dr. Char Meng Chuor, director of the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control, said that the recent study was conducted by two Japanese scientists from Dokkyo University in cooperation with the center.

The seven species of the freshwater fishes are scientifically named Cyclocheilichthys apogon, a type of beardless barb; Cyclochelichthys enoplos, a ray-finned fish in the genus Cyclocheilichthys; Cyclocheilichthys repasson, a species of ray- finned fish in the genus Cyclocheilichthys; Puntius brevis, a species of ray-finned fish in the genus Puntius; Hampala dispar, a type of spotted Hampala barb, Barbonymus altus, a red-tail tinfoil barb; and Cirrhinus lobatus in a species of ray-finned fish. “Human liver fluke, a freshwater parasite endemic, is detected in these fishes and those parasitic flatworms can trigger human liver cancer by creating harmful cell mutations, causing tumor growth and stopping normal cell death,” he said. “When a person eats the fish raw, or some Cambodians eat a delicacy of fermented fish, the parasitic flatworms will take up residence inside the liver,”he said. “However, we can prevent the disease easily by eating only well-cooked fish.”

Muth Sinuon, head of the National Program for Helminthiasis ( macro parasitic disease of humans and animals) at National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control said that the liver cancer that is caused by eating those raw fish has not only happened in Cambodia, but also in Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, especially Thailand, because Thai people are keen to eat uncooked fish.

Evictees Demand a Proper Accommodation

A former resident of Borei Keila took off her shirt to protest. Nearly 200 families were moved here from the city, following a forced eviction at Borei Keila, a Phnom Penh neighborhood slated for development by the company Phan Imex. (Photo: Cambodia Express News)

Monday, 27 February 2012
Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“I need a house to live in Borei Keila.”

Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila residents took their protest to the street again on Monday to demand rights to an accommodation in the capital after they were forcefully evicted earlier.

At least 50 people, whose houses were bulldozed early January, said their names are not in the list to get a house in the new two multi-story buildings being built nearby for evictees.

“I need a house to live in Borei Keila,” said Ath Samnang.

Land developer Phan Imex Company are constructing two buildings for more than 1,000 families, but at least over 100 families have been left out, according to protesters.

The protesters, including small children, held placards and portraits of Cambodian leaders including king father Norodom Sihanouk, the retired, but revered monarch, King Norodom Sihamoni, and Prime Minister Hun Sen.

However, the company says the residents do not have proper documents and offers to provide them a land outside of the capital.

“The villagers who have legal documents, the company and authorities will provide them a house, but the protesters this morning do not have enough documents,” Suy Siphan, president of Phan Imex, told VOA Khmer. “Some villagers have sold a house [they got earlier] and came to protest.”

Khmer Rouge Tribunal Seeks More Money for Controversial Cases

Donors are meeting in New York on Friday to review the budget proposal. The Cambodian government’s resistance to expand indictments beyond the second case has raised some concerns within the donor community. (Cartoon by Sacrava)

Friday, 24 February 2012
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Washington

“The realistic timelines for cases 003 and 004 can be estimated only after the decision of the PTC (Pre-Trial Chamber) on the disagreement of OCIJ (Office of Co-Investigating Judges) which is expected sometime in the first quarter of 2012.”

The UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia has requested additional funds for cases 003 and 004 despite government objection to see further indictments.

The court, with case 001 complete and case 002 underway, is seeking up to $92 million to cover its operation costs in 2012 and 2013, some of which is allocated to cover costs for the currently stalled third and fourth cases, according to documents obtained by VOA Khmer.

“The realistic timelines for cases 003 and 004 can be estimated only after the decision of the PTC (Pre-Trial Chamber) on the disagreement of OCIJ (Office of Co-Investigating Judges) which is expected sometime in the first quarter of 2012,” reads a proposed budget document submitted to international donors.

Donors are meeting in New York on Friday to review the budget proposal.

The Cambodian government’s resistance to expand indictments beyond the second case has raised some concerns within the donor community.

Cambodia has refused to recognize a Swiss judge, Laurent Kasper-Ansermet, who was nominated by the UN. Some observers see it as an excuse to thwart investigations into cases 003 and 004, which involve five suspects.

Case 003 involves crimes alleged to have occurred at 13 sites while case 004 includes purported crimes that took place at 32 different locations, according to court documents.

“It is worth mentioning that investigations to be conducted in case files 003 and 004 depend largely on decisions taken by three offices: OCIJ, OCP, and PTC and on the intervention of the civil parties,” said the document, referring to the offices of the co-investigating judges, the co-prosecutors and the pre-trial chamber.

A US-based diplomat source told VOA Khmer that the Group of Interest States (GIS) would make a decision Friday over the proposed budget.

“The GIS does not make the pledge but they will focus on the approval of the proposed budget,” said the diplomat in New York, who asked not to be named as he does not have the authority to speak to the press. “Mr. David Scheffer (special advisor to the UN for the tribunal) will meet with some GIS members after the whole GIS meeting to talk about the pledging of funds.”

US Helps Fight Counterfeit Drugs in Cambodia

This Aug. 26, 2009 photo shows a merchant in Pailin, Cambodia speaking with a woman as she holds her sick child at a drug store. Posters with message: “Counterfeit medicine kills, while real medicine heals” will be distributed to public hospitals, health centers and dispensaries, said a health secretary of state. (Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Monday, 27 February 2012
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“Drug counterfeiting robs the Cambodian people of the faith and the confidence in medicines.”

The US and Cambodia launched a national public campaign on Monday to fight counterfeit drugs as part of its regional outreach program to lower Mekong countries.

David Richelsoph, US acting deputy chief of mission, calls the illegal products a “threat” to public health.

“Drug counterfeiting robs the Cambodian people of the faith and the confidence in medicines,” said David Richelsoph. “The United States is deeply committed to promoting the safety of the Cambodia’s drugs supply and the health of Cambodian People.”

In Cambodia medicines are widely sold with less restriction or supervision from health department. People can buy some prescribed medicines without a prescription from even a small grocery stand in remote area.

Posters with message: “Counterfeit medicine kills, while real medicine heals” will be distributed to public hospitals, health centers and dispensaries, said a health secretary of state Chou Yin Sim.

“Once people see this message, they’ll immediately understand it,” said Chou Yin Sim. “If they use counterfeit drugs, they are in danger; and if they use real medicine, it saves their lives.”

20,000 posters will be distributed in the two-week campaign, according to Chou Yin Sim.

“It’s a big campaign,” he said.

Health officials said circulation of illegal medicines has dropped from 0.5 percent in 2010 to 0.18 percent in 2011.

Cambodia looks to banking and agriculture to spur growth

24 February 2012
By Yvonne Chan
Channel News Asia

Business News

Cambodia: Garment-making has been a mainstay of Cambodia's fledgling economy, chalking up between 6 and 7 percent annually for the past four years.

But, the country is turning its focus back to the land in the hope that rice growing and other farming produce, will lift growth closer to 8 percent, making it among the world's fastest growing economies.

A contrast to and the yearly average GDP growth rate of 7.7 percent over the last ten years, according to the IMF.

Cambodia's central bank expects economic growth in 2012 to accelerate to its fastest pace in four years.

"One of the priority sector of the government is to develop the agriculture" said Nguon Sokha, Director General, National Bank of Cambodia.

"At the moment, growth is driven by the garment sector, tourism sector and construction. Cambodia is an agriculture land so we need to develop based on our natural resource."

The ADB's growth projection for Cambodia in 2012 at 6.5 percent and with Asean economies are expected to grow some 5.5 percent this year, the Asian Development Bank says emerging markets like Cambodia should leverage off China's increasing presence in the region and make better use of the regional connectivity, in order to fully realise growth potential.

This is especially with more than half of Cambodia's FDI coming from China.

But it won't be easy.

"Cambodia faces significant infrastructure deficiency in both physical and soft infrastructure" points out Cyn-Young Park, Assistant Chief Economist, Asian Development Bank.

"Cambodia has already expressed that there are some skills mismatch in various areas. And they're trying to invest a lot in vocational training that really matches the jobs that are being created for the future".

More of such jobs may soon be found in banking, which has relatively liberal foreign ownership rules compared to Cambodia's neighbours.

"There is a lot more interest from foreign investors to enter the banking industry in Cambodia given the good economic potential, macroefonomic stability, political stability" said the Director General of National Bank of Cambodia.

"We need to balance between the need to establish fair competiton in the banking sector in order to reduce the cost in using the financial services for our consumer, but at the same time, we also need to look into the components, like risk management" said Nguon Sokha.

However, with other frontier markets like Myanmar opening up, Cambodia may have new competitors for foreign cash very nearby.

ADB provides Cambodia $69 mil. to improve provincial roads

February 23, 2012

PHNOM PENH (Kyodo) — The Asian Development Bank has provided $69 million for Cambodia to make major upgrades of provincial roads in some of the country’s poorest provinces, according to an ADB statement Wednesday.

The Provincial Roads Improvement Project, financed by a $52 million loan from ADB Special Funds and a $17 million loan and grant from the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience, will be used to rehabilitate about 150 kilometers of unpaved provincial roads in Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Speu, Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces.

“Efficient transport is critical for economic growth. This initiative will provide safe, cost-effective and year-round access to markets, employment centers and social services for poor and remote communities,” ADB Vice President Stephen P. Groff said during signing for the assistance.

Cambodia’s rural economy is becoming increasingly dependent on the road network, but the steady growth in traffic, overloaded cargo vehicles and poor road maintenance and standards continue to take a severe toll on the 9,500 km of secondary national and provincial roads, only 11 percent of which is paved.

“As a result, economic opportunities are limited, and road safety has become a serious concern, with the highest accident rate in the region,” the ADB statement noted.

The project will address road safety by providing community-based awareness programs for staff and agencies engaged in planning, managing and maintaining roads. It will also introduce axle-load control at strategic locations on provincial roads and enhance regional transport and trade activities in the Greater Mekong Subregion corridors.

Given floods and other severe weather-related events Cambodia has faced in recent years, the project “takes an innovative approach” to climate resilience by introducing ecosystem-based adaptation strategies, road design features and plans for disaster preparedness, mitigation and response to natural disasters.

By the end of 2011, ADB assistance to the Cambodian transport sector consisted of 11 projects amounting to $373.26 million.

The loan for the Provincial Road Improvement Project from its concessional Special Funds will have a 32-year term including an eight year grace period with a 1.0 percent annual interest charge that will rise to 1.5 percent for the balance of the term.

Kingdom must diversify its economy, ADB says

Stephen Groff, a vice president at the Asian Development Bank, speaks to the Post earlier this week in Phnom Penh. (Pha Lina/Phnom Penh Post)

Thursday, 23 February 2012
May Kunmakara
The Phnom Penh Post

Asian Development Bank vice president Stephen Groff, who started with the bank in October, sat down with Post reporter May Kunmakara yesterday to discuss the Cambodian economy, its investment environment, as well as the bank’s future in the country.

Cambodia has enjoyed rapid growth over the past decade. How is ADB targeting its grants and loans to ensure more equitable development?

I think when you have an economy that depends on the agricultural sector, there is a need to ensure that we strengthen the linkages between rural and urban areas. Our work also focuses on promoting education so that we can provide better employment opportunities for people living in both rural and urban areas. This is important for the economic growth that we see happening in Cambodia – to be more and more equitable.

Cambodia’s growth has relied on a handful of industries such as tourism, agriculture and garments. Where should investment be targeted to broaden the economic base?

Well, I agree. We need to see much more broadening and deepening of the economy. Much of the economy is largely focused on the agricultural sector and in manufacturing.

But, in the manufacturing sector, we have seen some positive diversification. China and Japan have invested to diversify the manufacturing sector here, which is good for making sure the country is not too dependent on a single area or single sector.

What are the ADB’s forecasts for growth over the next few years for Cambodia? What industries and sectors are the most promising?

For the region as the whole, we are really optimistic. The region had 7.5 per cent economic growth recently. We think this will slow somewhat to 7 per cent next year, depending on Europe’s current problems. Similarly, Cambodia had 6.8 per cent growth, and we’re projecting 6.5 percent this year, a slight decrease.

How will Cambodia be impacted by the recent economic troubles in the EU and US?

For any countries where the economy depends largely on exports, diversification is very important. There was a time not too long ago where the main export markets in the world were the EU and the US, which has changed dramatically over the last few decades. And now, there is a lot of trade happening with China and India, so there are a lot more countries in the world’s export market to choose from.

Cambodia is going to chair ASEAN this year. How important is this chairmanship for the country?

Well, I think it’s very important for Cambodia and a great opportunity because the country can play an important role in representing the concerns and perspectives of the smaller ASEAN members. There’s many shades of challenges and issues ASEAN’s smaller members face, and Cambodia will be looking to play a vital role as spokescountry for the views of all these countries. I also think it is time and a great opportunity for Cambodia to showcase its own very positive movements towards economic growth and poverty reduction, considering the progress that the country has made over the last decade.

Will ADB be involved in helping Cambodia?

We are supporting through SNEC [Supreme National Economic Council]. And we are providing some advice as well. But the focus should still be on the government’s decision.