Saturday, 16 February 2008

Khmer Rouge backpacker killer dies in hospital

Sam Bith

Khim Ry (L),56, weeps at Calmet hospital in Phnom Penh on February 16, 2008, wife of Sam Bith, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla commander serving a life sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of three Western tourists in 1994, Australian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet, died Friday, a government spokesman said. He was 74 years old.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)



Khim Ry,56, weeps at Calmet hospital in Phnom Penh on February 16, 2008, wife of Sam Bith, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla commander serving a life sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of three Western tourists in 1994, Australian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet, died Friday, a government spokesman said. He was 74 years old.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)



Khim Ry ,56, weeps at Calmet hospital in Phnom Penh on February 16, 2008, wife of Sam Bith, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla commander serving a life sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of three Western tourists in 1994, Australian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet. died Friday, a government spokesman said. He was 74 years old.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

February 15, 2008

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A former Khmer Rouge commander who masterminded the abduction and murder of three Western backpackers in 1994, has died, his wife said on Saturday.

Sam Bith, 74, the most senior of the three ultra-Maoist guerrillas convicted in 2002 of abducting Briton Mark Slater, Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet and Australian David Wilson during a train ambush in southern Cambodia, died in a Phnom Penh hospital on Friday.

Sam Bith, who has been in and out of hospital with a variety of illnesses in the past few years, denied any involvement but lost his appeal in 2006. His lawyer had said he was in a Thai hospital at the time of the attack.

"I spent all my money on his medical treatments in the last three years," his wife Khim Ry, 56, told Reuters at the hospital.

She said she could not afford to transport her husband's body to his home village in the northwestern province of Battambang.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith confirmed Sam Bith's death, but declined further comment.

About a dozen Cambodians died in the ambush on the train. The three backpackers were taken hostage and held in a Khmer Rouge mountain stronghold for about three months before being shot during a rescue attempt by government troops.

Nuon Paet and Chhouk Rin, who both served under Sam Bith, are serving life sentences for their part in the murders.

A United Nations-backed tribunal has detaining five senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime which ruled the country from 1975-79 during which an estimated 1.7 million died.

The trials are expected to begin in July.

Students step up to support Team Cambodia

Photo by Jeff Shaffer
SUPPORTERS OF EDUCATION OVERSEAS — In the middle, from left, Team Cambodia member junior Krysta Allen, high school history teacher Mike Conn and team president junior Larissa Luu, are surrounded by the kids of Mary DeLong’s first-grade class at Baugher Elementary School. The kids, through fund-raisers and other contributions, raised $1,300 towards the $30,000 goal to build a school for children in Cambodia. It is the largest single donation to date, Conn said, holding an enlarged version of the check.

By Jeff Shaffer
Standard-Journal
Fri Feb 15, 2008

MILTON — Team Cambodia now knows where the future Milton school will be, and they’re that much closer to meeting their goal thanks to the growing support from the community.

The student group is looking to raise $30,000 to construct a school in Cambodia.

The generosity of the project was highlighted Thursday in Mary DeLong’s first-grade class at Baugher Elementary School.

Through fund-raisers at home, like doing extra chores, giving up dessert or holding a read-a-thon, and at school, like raffles, bake and hot chocolate sales and paying 50 cents to eat in the classroom on Fridays, as well as other contributions, the students managed to raise a tremendous $1,300.

“Kindness is very important to me and we do lots of things in our classroom and around school to show that we care about people,” DeLong said of the fund-raisers. “Project Cambodia was just taking it to a much bigger level.”

In a letter sent to parents announcing the fund-raiser, DeLong shared that she was interested in the activity because she has a niece who was adopted from an orphanage in Cambodia when she was just 9 months old.“

I can’t imagine what her life would have been like if she had not become part of our family,” she said in the letter.

That is why Mike Conn, a Milton High Area School history teacher, and his team want to make a difference in that country. Conn visited Cambodia, a nation torn apart by a ruthless regime and decades of civil war, last summer with his daughter and other educators as part of a southeast Asia tour. He returned with a heavy heart, and with the blessings of the district, began working with students to raise funds and improve educational opportunities in the impoverished country.

Conn recently learned the school will be constructed in the Kampong Cham Province, in southcentral Cambodia. The province runs along the Mekong River and northeast of Phnom Penh, the capital city.Following the donation the first-graders, who were all sporting “Educate Cambodia” T-shirts provided by retired Milton teachers, administrators and friends, Conn said Team Cambodia has collected $12,000.

“I am proud of each of you, the children you help will have opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t have,” Conn said to the students following the check presentation. “You’ll now know for the rest of your lives that you helped build a school.”

According to Conn, the amount given by the class was $800 larger than any other single donation. It doesn’t include the ongoing T-shirt sales. He added he was very amazed by the amount.

Regardless of the size of the donation, all are important. He told the class contributions have been coming in from across the school district and the Valley. One time he received $2 from an elderly lady that included a note. It read along the line of “I don’t have much to give, but I wanted to be a part of this,” Conn said.

“The progress has been very good, we’re over a third of the way there, and we’re still waiting to hear back from a number of groups,” Conn said.

There are several upcoming activities in support of Team Cambodia’s efforts.

Next Wednesday, the physical education department will hold a volleyball tournament at the high school during Club Period. From 4 to 6 p.m. on March 1, there will be a spaghetti dinner in the high school cafeteria. Tickets are $6 for adults and $3 for children, free for under age 6. They go on sale starting next Tuesday and can be obtained by seeing any high school student council member or contacting Conn or Kellie Brouse at the school, 742-7611.

Other upcoming events include: a penny war competition among the high school students sponsored by the Key Club, a sandwich sale sponsored by the high school student council, and a penny drive at Baugher Elementary School.

In the spring the following activities are planned: a dance-a-thon at the middle school, a cut-a-thon at A Cut Above Salon in Lewisburg, and a concert at Milton’s Alumni Field.Conn and Team Cambodia student president Larissa Luu will be making a presentation on Cambodia and the project at 7 p.m. Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church, Milton.

Agent Orange still looms large/Doctors in Cambodia report many babies born with deformities

Feb. 16, 2008
Makoto Ota/Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

The proportion of babies born with disabilities in eastern Cambodia is more than 50 times higher than in other parts of the country, according to local doctors.

While the reason for the higher rate has not officially been confirmed, it is generally believed to result from the use of Agent Orange, a dioxin-containing defoliant, by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.

The scale of the damage wrought by use of the chemical in Cambodia is still unclear as there has been little research into the victims. Local doctors have called for an official survey on the effects.

In Preah Pdaw, Kampong Cham Province, a village with a population of about 1,000, Srey Neang delivered her first baby in November 2005.

However, the baby had male and female genitals and three legs, one of which had two toes. "My doctor told me my baby was born like this because of my karma. I was so sad," Srey, 23, said.

Meanwhile, in the Ponhea Krek district of the province, a 25-year-old couple had their fourth baby in October 2006. But the couple said it was born with no eyes and that the skin all over its body was chapped.

The mother said she had given birth three times before and that all three babies had the same condition and had since died.

Near the border with Vietnam there are numerous reports of babies being born with disabilities similar to those of Agent Orange victims, such as those with their fingers joined or missing, or with a cleft lip.

A doctor at the province's central medical center said, "About 5 or 6 percent of the 200 babies born here each month have deformities." This compares with less than 0.1 percent in Phnom Penh.

"In 1966 and 1967, military aircraft flew over almost every morning, dispersing light yellow powder that killed all the trees," said Meng Bang, 67, the village chief of Trameng in the province, about five kilometers from the Vietnam border.

During the war, the Cambodian government repeatedly complained to the U.S. government about the use of the chemical, prompting the United States to compensate owners of dead trees in 1969, official U.S. documents show. He said they received compensation in 1967, which showed the U.S. government privately recognized the damage caused by the chemical.

A doctor living in Phnom Penh has been conducting his own research into the effects and victims of Agent Orange in the country.

"I'm sure that dioxins have been causing deformities in babies," he said. "So it's important to conduct comprehensive epidermal research in areas near the border to prove there's a relationship between the dioxin and the deformities."

But he added, "It's difficult to secure funds and staff for that, so I'm going to have to rely on support from other countries."

Vietnamese community in Cambodia receive homeland supports

Saturday, February 16, 2008

The Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs (COVA) in Ho Chi Minh City will conduct a charity trip to Cambodia next week to support indigent Vietnamese residents after the Tet Lunar New Year holiday.

The Vietnamese Embassy, the Association of Overseas Vietnamese in Cambodia and COVA will jointly visit and bestow presents to underprivileged

Vietnamese households in Phnom Penh and two other remote communes located in the city outskirts, said the organizing committee.

More than 500 poor Vietnamese families in Cambodia are expected to receive donations from funds raised among overseas Vietnamese organizations and individuals.

The charity trip will last from February 20-23

Khmer Rouge's Bith

The Associated Press
02/15/2008

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Sam Bith, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla commander serving a life sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of three Western tourists in 1994, died Friday, a government spokesman said. He was 74.

Sam Bith was sentenced to life in prison in December 2002 after being found guilty of conspiring to kill Australian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet, all tourists, in 1994.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith announced that Sam Bith died at 9:30 p.m., without disclosing a cause of death.

Sam Bith had served as a Khmer Rouge commander in southwestern Cambodia, where a train carrying the three foreign backpackers was ambushed on July 26, 1994.

The rebels held Wilson, Slater and Braquet under miserable conditions and killed them three months after the attack when protracted government negotiations for their release failed.

Cambodian Government Reaction to Amnesty International's Statement

By Heng Reaksmey,
VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
15 February 2008

Heng Reaksmey reports in Khmer(916 KB) - Listen (MP3)

Cambodian government Thursday denied the accusations in a recent report by the Amnesty International (AI) that the government practiced massive forced evictions.

In a two-page statement, the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected AI’s report saying that it is an attempt to distort the situation in Cambodia.

The rights organization was quoted as saying the authority used equipments to destroy homes, leading to people's homelessness. Many residents in Phnom Penh have been displaced and gathered to live in the outskirt of the city in the name of development.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that there are no such things as illegal displacement and coercion.

Four more SRP Senior Officials Defect to CPP

By Chun Sakada,
VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
15 February 2008

Chun Sakada reports in Khmer (997 KB) - Listen (MP3)

As Cambodian parliamentary election scheduled for July 2008 is drawing near, more and more politicians from the opposition are leaving the party.

Four additional senior officials from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party decided on Friday to defect their party and enter the ruling party CPP, making the total number of defectors so far to more than ten. They are Chao Phally, Ouk Meoung, Leng Thaly, and Hem Kolboth.

One of the defectors, Chao Phally, a former SRP's lawmaker, described the leadership of the Sam Rainsy party as dictatorial.

"The reason I left the party is that the party's leadership was against the democratic principles, disrespected the rules and internal regulations, and decided things according to the president and his groups. It did not make use of the real democracy. That is the reason I left the Sam Rainsy Party", said Chao Phally.

While SRP claims it is still doing fine, observers say the defection could somehow affect the party in the coming election.

"To my observation, it is not that serious. However, it could somehow affect the party as those senior officials are the core strength and the fact that they enter another party means they are still of some value to the party", said Koul Panha, director of COMFREL.

UN, Cambodia to Set Up New Task Force on Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Khmer Rouge Tribunal Site

Mean Veasna,
VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
15 February 2008

Mean Veasna reports in Khmer(903 KB) - Listen (MP3)

The United Nations and the Cambodian government has agreed to set up a special task force to study the possibility of extending the Khmer Rouge tribunal and increasing the funding.

The agreement was reached Thursday after a discussion between Cambodian Minister of the Council of Minister Sok An and UNDP deputy director Sophie Baranes.

"So, we have agreed to set up a team of independent experts, called reviewers, meaning those coming to reevaluate the duration and the expense of the trial participated by the UN and Cambodia", said Phai Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers.

No additional details were immediately available.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) known as the Khmer Rouge tribunal is facing with budget shortage and is looking for funding increase from $56.3 million to $170.00 million.

ECCC is also seeking to extend the trial which was originally set to end in 2009 to 2011.

Five former top Khmer Rouge leaders have been charged with crimes against humanity and are awaiting trials.

Former Khmer Rouge commander dies while serving life sentence for foreigners' murder


Sam Bith (Middle) - Photo: Everyday.com.kh

The Associated Press
February 15, 2008
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Sam Bith, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla commander serving a life sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of three Western tourists nearly 14 years ago, died Friday, a government spokesman said. He was 74 years old.

Sam Bith was sentenced to life in prison in December 2002 after being found guilty of conspiring to kill Australian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet in 1994. The victims were young men traveling as tourists in the country.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith announced that Sam Bith died at 9:30 p.m., without disclosing a cause of death. Sam Bith's wife, Khem Ri, said he had been "very sick" with diabetes and high blood pressure and had been taken to Calmette Hospital 10 days earlier.

Sam Bith had served as a Khmer Rouge commander in southwestern Cambodia, where a train carrying the three foreign backpackers was ambushed on July 26, 1994.

About a dozen Cambodians were also killed and many others injured in the armed attack by Khmer Rouge rebels at Phnom Voar, or Vine Mountain, which is 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh.

The rebels held Wilson, Slater and Braquet under miserable conditions, killing the foreigners three months afterward when protracted government negotiations for their release failed.

Two other former Khmer Rouge field commanders — Nuon Paet and Chhouk Rin — are currently serving life sentences for their involvement in the murders.

The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia in 1975-79, implementing radical communist policies that led to the death of some 1.7 million people through starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

After being ousted from power, its leaders fled into the jungle to fight a guerrilla war until the late 1990s, when they defected to the government en masse.

By the late 1990s the guerrilla group had become undisciplined, and many commanders acted like local warlords or bandit leaders.

Sam Bith defected from the Khmer Rouge to join the government in 1997 and received a general's rank in the Cambodian army.

But he was arrested in May 2002 after being implicated by another former Khmer Rouge official in the killings.

In convicting Sam Bith in 2002, a judge said he had given an order to his subordinates on Sept. 28, 1994 to kill the foreigners.

Sam Bith had pleaded innocent and claimed in court he had already been relieved of his position as a regional commander by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot weeks before the train ambush. Pol Pot died in 1998, just before the communist group collapsed in 1999.

He also told the court that he would not live long due to his health problems, which included a tumor on his back as well as high blood pressure and diabetes.

His life sentence was upheld by the Appeals Court in December 2006.

His 56-year-old widow Khem Ri told The Associated Press she plans to take his body for a funeral at her home village in Battambang province in northwestern Cambodia, but does not have money to pay the transport costs. She said she would appeal for help from the government.

Cambodia, UN to review K.Rouge tribunal budget, timescale: official

straitstimes.com
Feb 15, 2008

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA and the United Nations have agreed to set up a team of experts to review the budget and timescale for the kingdom's Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal, an official said on Friday.

'Independent experts will examine how long (the tribunal will last) and how much money we really need,' official Phay Siphan told a news conference.

The government and the United Nations will hammer out further details on the team, he said.
The agreement came on the heels of the tribunal's request earlier this month for another 114 million dollars from donors in a bid to keep the cash-strapped court running until 2011.

So far, five former top Khmer Rouge cadres have been arrested as Cambodia struggles to come to terms with its bloody past.

The suspects include 81-year-old Nuon Chea, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's most trusted deputy.

Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.

Cities were emptied, their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.

Pol Pot died in his remote jungle camp in 1998. -- AFP

Study of Angkor's demise provides a warning

By destroying forest, inhabitants of Cambodia's city lit ecological time bomb


Voishmel / AFP - Getty Images file
A young Buddhist monk is seated on a bench inside Bayon temple, famous for its multitude of giant stone faces, on Nov. 22, 2007, near Siem Reap, Cambodia.
msnbc.msn.co
Feb. 15, 2008

SIEM REAP, Cambodia - By destroying vast tracts of forest to enlarge their farm land, inhabitants of the wondrous city of Angkor lit the fuse to an ecological time bomb that spelled doom for what was once the world's largest urban area.

So believe archaeologists engaged in groundbreaking research into the ancient civilization of Angkor.

And they are warning that history could repeat itself through reckless, headlong pursuit of dollars from tourists flocking to see Angkor's fabled monuments.

"It's just a weird cycle. It seems like Angkor is self-repeating itself," said Mitch Hendrickson, who recently led an excavation as part of research into Angkor as a human settlement.

Conservationists have long expressed concerns about the state of the monuments, especially the stress from the tourist invasion. They also say the uncontrolled pumping of underground water to meet rising demand of hotels, guesthouses and residents in the adjoining town of Siem Reap may be destabilizing the earth beneath the centuries-old temples so much that they might sink and collapse.

Unsustainable?"There's just so much building going on without any concern about the long term. Things are moving so fast in Siem Reap today that it's going to chew itself up very quickly and become unsustainable," said Hendrickson, an archaeologist from the University of Sydney, Australia.

From their city, Angkorian kings ruled over most of Southeast Asia during their pinnacle between the 9th and 14th centuries, overseeing construction of architectural stone marvels, including Angkor Wat, regarded as a marvel of religious architecture.

While the 1431 invasion from what is now Thailand has long been regarded as a major cause of Angkor's fall, archaeologists from the Australian university's Greater Angkor Project believe earlier ecological forces led to the city's demise.

Their findings supported a theory in the early 1950s by Bernard-Philippe Groslier, a prominent French archaeologist, that the collapse of Angkor resulted from over-exploitation of the environment.

Angkor's inhabitants started rice farming from the low lying area near the Tonle Sap lake just south of Siem Reap town, said Roland Fletcher, another archaeologist with the project.

But gradually, they cut down natural forest to extend their farm land up to the slope of Kulen mountain, 50 miles to the north, said Fletcher, who led 10 archaeologists to excavate various sites near the Angkor complex.

FloodingFlooding ensued, and huge amounts of sediment and sand were washed down to fill up canals _ thus probably choking the vital water management system.

Using NASA's airborne imaging radar data, the project has conducted numerous aerial and ground surveys across nearly 1,200 square miles which revealed that the city -- with about 1 million inhabitants -- was far larger than previously thought.

It covered some 385 square miles (997 square kilometers) and featured a sophisticated hydraulic system that proved too vast to manage.

Angkor was "a huge low-density, dispersed urban complex" comparable to Los Angeles and "by far the most extensive preindustrial city on the planet," Fletcher said.

Its water network included an artificial canal used for diverting water from a natural river about 15 1/2 miles north of Angkor, and two mammoth, man-made reservoirs known as the East and West Barays.

"They (people) probably didn't necessarily need any of this extra water ... because just a rain-fed rice agriculture is quite sufficient to feed a very substantial population," said Damian Evans, a project member.

One theory, he said, was that the Angkorian kings built the water system just "to demonstrate their power and their authority to rule."

But he said only excavations and soil analysis could yield more clues.

"It's a process of going to those sites on the ground and looking for finer detailed information like the profiles of the canals underneath the ground and the types of sediment that lie within those canals," he said.

Ancient channelArmed with a printed digital map of the Angkor area, Evans and Fletcher toured an excavation site at the West Baray where archaeologists dug trenches to seek traces of an ancient channel through the bank. They were trying to determine whether the channel really existed and could have served both as water inlet and outlet.

The reservoir is walled by four banks -- now covered with jungle -- each 40 feet high, 331 feet wide and about 12 miles in length. It can store up to 1.8 billion cubic feet of water.

Fletcher called it "the single largest artifact and piece of engineering in the preindustrial world."
"All of this work is aimed at understanding how the water management system of Angkor functioned ... and how it stopped working," he said, adding that forest clearance is "the current key piece of information" about the ecological peril that caused Angkor to tumble.

Although past environmental problems were associated with deforestation, they also underline the menace the tourism boom is posing to the temples, the researchers say.

"The same types of things which we knew were problems of Angkor are essentially being repeated in our modern day context in the Angkor area -- things like unsustainable use of water, massive overdevelopment without any consideration of the long-term effects," Evans said.

"There's definitely lessons to be learned from what happened here before."

UN agency launches online tool to fight hunger in Cambodia

Fri, 15 Feb 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - The UN launched an updated, online food security map Friday, In anticipation of the impact of climate change and rising oil prices on impoverished Cambodians. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said the Food Security Atlas would help "identifying areas of vulnerability and showing where improvement has taken place and where more intervention is needed."

"It illustrates the fact that food security goes far beyond sufficient food production, but is affected by poverty, maternal health, access to clean water and health services, as well as shocks such as natural disasters and other socio-economic vulnerability," WFP Cambodian Country Director Thomas Keusters said.

The agency said that despite Cambodia's "impressive economic and food security achievements in the recent past", some regions and social groups remained at serious risk of malnutrition.

WFP describes itself as the world's largest humanitarian agency, providing food to an average of 90 million people per year, including 61 million children, in at least 80 countries.

Many Cambodians still live on less than 1 dollar a day.

Survival guide for Armenia, Cambodia

Chicagotribune.com
By Aaron Cohen
February 15, 2008

At the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, a classically trained vocalist intones a lullaby that connects contemporary Armenia to a sound from 16 centuries ago. Meanwhile, in California, a Cambodian-born singer revives Khmer-language rock from a more recent past. They're worlds apart to be sure, but both show how much music can survive, even transcend, difficult times.

Shoghaken Ensemble, which will perform at the Old Town School of Folk Music on Feb. 22, has exuberantly presented Armenia's traditional songs and dances since the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Dengue Fever -- appearing at the Empty Bottle five days later -- is helping to revive interest in 1960s Cambodian rock 'n' roll. Though vocalist Hasmik Harutyunyan of Shoghaken and singer Chhom Nimol of Dengue Fever have never met, part of their motives are similar.

"Everybody should understand where they came from," Harutyunyan said. "These traditions are the way to do that."

On the Shoghaken Ensemble's recent self-titled disc (on Traditional Crossroads), duduk player Grigor Takushian's incredible technique is revealed through subtle movements on his indigenous double-reed instrument. Harutyunyan, a trained mathematician, makes complex Armenian time signatures seem simple. She adds that there's a sense of purity conveyed through the lyrics because "the Armenian women who sang them were close to nature."

The ancient pastoral sounds of Armenian folk music take an epic turn in the hands of this group. The musicians' expert dance moves are just as captivating.

Harutyunyan said that current economic struggles in Armenia have split families apart with many wage-earners living abroad, and this particularly hurts how culture is passed.

"We need to have a dialogue from generation to generation and that's a reason why I sing lullabies," Harutyunyan said. "It's a bridge from adults to children."

At the same time, a thriving Armenian immigrant community has enriched Los Angeles. So have nearby Cambodian neighborhoods where Nimol, now 28, resettled after she became a famous pop singer in Cambodia. Her career took a different turn when she encountered Californian guitarist Zac Holtzman and his keyboardist brother, Ethan, seven years ago.

The Holtzman brothers had collected cassettes of 1960s Cambodian singers who mixed their country's language and melodies with the upbeat surf and garage rock they heard on U.S. armed forces radio broadcasts from Vietnam. The Holtzmans formed Dengue Fever to reinterpret this sound, then met Nimol at a Cambodian-American nightclub in Long Beach, Calif.

Nimol shows how garage rock could have used a Khmer lilt on top of its more familiar organ lines and electric guitar stomps.

Memories of Cambodian rock's glory years -- which came to a terrible end during the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s -- remain, even if young people in Phnom Penh generally prefer karaoke-bar pop today. When Dengue Fever performed in Cambodia a couple of years ago, Nimol and Holtzman said their host audiences appreciated the visit.

"The Cambodians were worried that Nimol was gone for so long, she may have forgotten her Cambodian roots," Zac Holtzman said. "But when she went back they saw she Cambodianized a bunch of Americans."

Spain's Queen Sofia is set to visit Cambodia later this month

thecheers.org
2008-02-15

During her trip, Sofia will visit the king at his palace and lay a bouquet of flowers at the Independent Monument.

The queen - who is married to King Juan Carlos - will fly to the South Asian country on February 19 for a three-day trip after accepting an invitation from Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni.

Chea Sokhom, deputy secretary general for the National Committee for Organizing National and International Festivals, said the queen's visit will strengthen co-operation and friendships ties between the two nations.

During her trip, Sofia will visit the king at his palace and lay a bouquet of flowers at the Independent Monument.

She will also go to the mines clearance fields of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre and some rural areas in Battambang province.

She will complete her trip with a visit to the Angkor Wat temples in the Siem Reap province.The queen is expected to return to Spain on February 22.

Cambodia: No Rush to Repay US Debt

chron.com
Feb. 15, 2008

By KER MUNTHIT
Associated Press Writer

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia has more pressing concerns than repaying millions of dollars it owes the United States, a government spokesman said Friday, rebuffing Washington's latest demand for settlement of loans from the 1970s.

"We have many affairs to attend to," said government spokesman Khieu Kanharith, noting that repaying $339 million to the U.S. was not high on Cambodia's priority list.

The comments came a day after Scot Marciel, the U.S. State Department's deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, urged Cambodia to sign a draft agreement on repaying the debt. Marciel made the remarks Thursday in Washington in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Asia.

The outstanding debt stems from rice, cotton and other agricultural commodities financed by low-interest loans the U.S. provided to Cambodia during the regime of Gen. Lon Nol in the early 1970s.

Lon Nol came to power in a 1970 coup that ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The United States was the main financial and military supporter of Lon Nol's regime until it was toppled by the genocidal Khmer Rouge movement in April 1975.

The two countries have not yet come up with a repayment plan, partly because the Cambodian government refuses to accept responsibility for debts incurred by the Lon Nol regime, and partly because of a disagreement over the amount of debt owed, Marciel said.

After years of deadlock, Cambodia agreed "in principle with the amount of principal it owed" in 2006 but then refused to sign a draft bilateral agreement drawn up by the U.S., Marciel said. Cambodia has subsequently demanded additional concessions, including a lower interest rate, he said.

He said Cambodia also does not deserve any debt reduction from the U.S. because it is neither heavily indebted nor facing crisis of external balance of payments.

"Cambodia has accumulated arrears to the U.S., while paying other creditors on time, and in at least one case, early," Marciel said.

About $154 million of Cambodia's debt "would be due immediately," if the 2006 agreement is implemented this year, he said.

Khieu Kanharith said immediate payback was unlikely.

"Even if we have to repay it, we can't repay it because that would severely affect our financial and economic situation," he said.

Despite recent economic growth, Cambodia still relies on hundreds of millions of dollars in annual foreign assistance for development.

The government spokesman added that the United States "has not compensated the Cambodian people" for its bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war either.

The difficulties Cambodia faces today as it tries to rebuild after more than two decades of civil war "are also partly the result of the American bombing."

WFP launches Cambodia Food Security Atlas - a critical tool against hunger


"I am hopeful the atlas will improve the handling of hunger in Cambodia by serving as an important reference in formulating the right kind of interventions" Thomas Keusters, WFP Country Director in Cambodia

wfp.org

Phnom Penh, 15 February 2008 - The World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an updated, on-line food-security map of Cambodia, identifying areas of vulnerability and showing where improvement has taken place and where more intervention is needed.

"This gives us a far clearer picture of where we need to target our assistance,” said Thomas Keusters, WFP Country Director in Cambodia.

“It illustrates the fact that food security goes far beyond sufficient food production, but is affected by poverty, maternal health, access to clean water and health services, as well as shocks such as natural disasters and other socio-economic vulnerability.”

Collective challenge

The WFP Food Security Atlas shows that attaining food security for all continues to be a collective challenge, despite Cambodia’s impressive economic and food security achievements in the recent past.

Levels of food insecurity and vulnerability vary substantially by geographic region and by social group within Cambodia.

It identifies vulnerable areas, primarily due to high malnutrition rates, especially in the 10 “hot spot” provinces of Kampong Spueu, Kampong Thum, Mondol Kiri, Odar Mean Chey, Pursat, Preah Vihear, Prey Veang, Rotanakiri, Siem Reab and Stung Treng.

Important reference

“I am hopeful the atlas will improve the handling of hunger in Cambodia by serving as an important reference in formulating the right kind of interventions. As Cambodia faces new challenges such as climate change, changes in food availability, high energy prices, globalisation, and many more, we all need to strategise better,” Keusters said.

The atlas was produced by WFP Cambodia in close collaboration with the Council for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD) of the Royal Government of Cambodia. The major updates of this year’s atlas result from the inclusion of the results of the Socio Economic survey of 2004 and Demographic Health survey of 2005. Council for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD) of the Royal Government of Cambodia. The major updates of this year’s atlas result from the inclusion of the results of the Socio Economic survey of 2004 and Demographic Health survey of 2005.

Also the structure has been improved to allow an easier access to the analysis and recommendation sections of the document.

Good cooperation

“Improving food security and nutrition is a development priority of the Royal Government of Cambodia. Our challenge is to have good cooperation and efficient coordination mechanisms linking a wide range of stakeholders.

The online atlas will be one of the useful tools to help us guide the process” said Tao Seng Huor, Senior Minister, Vice Chairman of CARD.

The atlas aims to:
(i) provide the current food security situation in Cambodia according to the three dimensions of food security, namely food availability, access and utilisation;
(i) provide the current food security situation in Cambodia according to the three dimensions of food security, namely food availability, access and utilisation;

(ii) present a situational analysis of provinces and municipalities in terms of the seriousness of the problem, and

(iii) highlight major issues of concern, as well as recommendations for improving food security in Cambodia.

This web atlas is integrated into the CARD website , which provides users with ready access to food security information in Cambodia. CARD website , which provides users with ready access to food security information in Cambodia.

The recent CARD web statistics of December 2007 showed over 11,500 visits - a clear sign that the issue is of interest to the development stakeholders in the country.