THAI runs into turbulence

Korn says rescue subject to proper rehab plans

By: WICHIT CHANTANUSORNSIRI and AMORNRAT MAHITTHIROOK

Published: 23/01/2009 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: News

Thai Airways International will need to devise a convincing and comprehensive long-term rehabilitation plan before it can expect help from the government, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said yesterday.

The Finance Ministry's tough stance towards the national carrier comes as it struggles to deal with serious financial problems and is seeking a cash injection to shore up its liquidity.

THAI's recent performance has been poor because of fuel hedging obligations and the closure of Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports late last year. It badly needs backing from the Finance Ministry, which holds a 51% stake in the airline.

Assistance could come in the form of a ministry guarantee on loans the airline is seeking from state and private financial institutions.

The ministry is preparing up to 200 billion baht to lend to state enterprises that need to maintain liquidity. The plan is expected to be approved by the cabinet on Feb 3.

A share of the money could be an option for the troubled airline.

THAI said in a statement yesterday it needed 19 billion baht to resolve its liquidity problem this year.

"THAI also plans to raise 15 billion baht to replace its existing short-term borrowings," it added.

Mr Korn said: "The Finance Ministry, as the major shareholder, wants to see a plan that will lead to the financial sustainability of the company and have long-term effects."

He said he wanted a solid plan that addresses its long-term operations and is not just a band-aid solution.

Problems identified by Mr Korn which THAI needs to tackle include cost saving, improvement in operations and route adjustments. The airline's plan is expected to reach the ministry within a few weeks.

He said THAI should learn how to manage itself as the global economic crisis and recent exorbitant fuel prices had affected all airlines.

The plan must be good enough to convince shareholders and the general public, he said, and solve problems at their root, he said.

Mr Korn's demand echoes the view of Transport Minister Sopon Zarum, who supervises THAI.

He said a convincing rehabilitation plan would prove the national airline can spend money it borrows from creditor banks efficiently.

The minister stressed that to ensure any rehabilitation plan can be enacted professionally, THAI would need a board of directors capable of guiding it through the global economic crisis.

"The new board must consist of people who can devote themselves and their time to their work, because they are not going to be running the airline under normal conditions," Mr Sopon said.

"It is a time of crisis that has resulted from the global economic meltdown, situations within the company as well as the political problems and the recent airport closure."

He called on opposing factions within THAI to join forces to work for the good of the airline. Internal conflicts had obstructed the airline's operations, the transport minister said.

Mr Sopon said THAI staff deserve a united front because the airline does not want to retrench workers like its rivals.

While ruling out lay-offs, the minister conceded some staff would have to lose non-essential perks in the interest of their employer.

THAI said its liquidity problem should ease once the air travel industry shrugs off its sluggish phase.

"The liquidity shortfall maybe reduced if travel demand returns to normal sooner than forecast," it added. http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/10217/thai-runs-into-turbulence

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Number of jobs abroad plummets

23 Jan 2009
By Im Navin
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French

Workers in Cambodia are faced with a worldwide slowdown.

With the economic crisis, the number of jobs starts to plummet. “We are starting to face difficulties in sending our workers abroad because all the countries are affected by the crisis, consequently, the number of job offers decreases,” Um Mean, the Labor secretary of state, told Cambodge Soir Hebdo while indicating that Thailand is under scrutiny following its political crisis.
Close to 80,000 Cambodians were employed overseas in 2008, Vong Soth, the minister of Labor, reported. 78,900 is the exact number of workers overseas who earn about $15 million. “This income helps to reduce poverty and increase state revenue,” the minister said. For Vong Soth, the travel abroad also benefit Cambodians from new knowledge acquired.

South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand are among the countries which traditionally employ large contingents of Cambodian workers.

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Cambodia’s army changes its head

Hun Sen showing Ke Kim Yan the exit door?
Cambodia's Gen. Ke Kim Yan, left, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, listens to his Prime Minister Hun Sen, right, during the celebration of Independent Day, Nov. 9, 2007, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The head of Cambodia's armed forces has been dismissed from his post and replaced by a loyalist of Prime Minister Hun Sen. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

22 Jan 2009
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French

General Ke Kim Yan, the current army commander-in-chief, was sacked to make way for his deputy.
General Ke Kim Yan was replaced at the head of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces by one of his deputies, General Pol Saroeun. The latter will be aided in his new duty by the following generals: Kun Kim, Meas Sophea, Mol Roeup, Chea Dara, Hing Bun Heang, Sao Sokha and Ung Samkhan.

Following this nomination musical chair, General Ung Samkhan will leave his position as chief of the navy to General Tea Vinh.

The nominations were conducted through a royal decree signed by King Norodom Sihamoni on Thursday 22 January.

Khieu Kanharith, the government spokesman, indicated that the replacement of the commander-in-chief was part of the current state reform (sic!). Khieu Kanharith indicated also that “General Ke Kim Yan will stay with the RCAF,” without indicating the new position of the sacked general.

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Yung Wah factory workers on strike

Cash with police during a strike (Photo: Cambodge Soir Hebdo archive)

23 Jan 2009
By Nhim Sophal
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French

The workers asked for the payment of their $50 (13th month salary) bonus. The factory management refused because of the current economic crisis.
4,000 workers from the Yung Wah 1 and 2 textile factories located in Takhmao believe that they were cheated. This year, the workers will not receive a $50 bonus to compensate for a 13th month-salary.

According the factory management, because of the current economic crisis, the 7-year-long bonus practice came to an end.

At the announcement of this decision on Thursday 22 Jan, the workers expressed their anger by reacting violently inside the factory. Three workers were injured following police intervention.

Ath Thon, President of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU), gave out details on the negotiation held with the Chinese boss: “At first, the management accepted to pay a $20 bonus in two payments. But, this is not satisfactory. Finally, the management accepted to increase the bonus to $30. The strikers believe that this is not enough still,” Ath Thon indicated. The workers are holding on to their demand for a $50 bonus, because after a 7-year-long practice, they believe that this bonus is part of their normal salary.

At the end of the day, the Yung Wah management did not ask that the workers not be paid for this day of strike, nor does it ask for compensation for damages caused inside the building from rock throwing.

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Chau Sen Cocsal obituary

23 Jan 2009
By Ung Chamroeun
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French

Born in 1905, the former prime minister was an influential politician of the Sangkum Reastr Niyum regime, and a close associate of Norodom Sihanouk
The former president of the National Assembly and former prime minister of Cambodia, Chau Sen Cocsal also known as Chhum, passed away on Thursday 22 January at the age of 104.

Religious ceremonies will be held on Friday 23 Jan and Saturday 24 Jan. The funeral procession will take place on Monday 25 Jan at 7:30AM in Phnom Penh starting from the house of the deceased.

Born on 01 September 1905 in the province of Chau Doc, Vietnam (in fact Kampuchea Krom), Chau Sen Cocsal completed his high school degree in 1926 at the Prey Nokor high school, in Saigon.

Nominated to provincial governor by Sihanouk under the Sangkum Reastr Niyum regime, he went on to become Cambodia’s ambassador in Bangkok between 1951 and 1953.

Between 1959 and 1968, he became president of the National Assembly and, at time, was also prime minister.

Between the end of 1989 and the beginning of 1990, he was nominated as the head of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia (SNC), and SNC member between 10 Sept 1990 and 19 July 1991.

Nominated as supreme advisor to the king in 1992, Chau Sen Cocsal also led the Constitutional Council between 1998 and 2007.

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Vietnam tightens food safety during Lunar New Year Festival

HANOI, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's health inspectors have made their final checks on food and beverage safety in all domestic markets in an effort to minimize food poisoning during the country's traditional Lunar New Year Festival, the Vietnam News reported Friday.

Most of the imported products in 100 local confectionary shops were found to be without clear origins, said the newspaper.

Fruit shop-owners in Long Bien market, the main fruit supplier in the capital Hanoi, were also unable to provide proof of origin for their products.

The inspectors asked the management board of market and relevant authorities to collect and seal up all these products until the owners had enough documents to verify product origin, said the newspaper.

Violators will be strictly punished in line with Vietnamese regulations. Companies that failed to show certificates of food safety and hygiene will be fined 600 to 900 U.S. dollars, while low quality products will be confiscated and destroyed, said chief health inspector of Hanoi Health Department Nguyen Viet Cuong.

Serious violators would have their business licenses revoked and possibly face criminal proceedings, said Cuong.

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Thailand accused of mistreating Muslim refugees

Graphic: AFP

Nearly 1,000 refugees were detained on a remote island in December before being towed out to sea and abandoned with little food or water, rights group says.

January 23, 2009
By Simon Montlake
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

BANGKOK, THAILAND - Hundreds of Muslim refugees from Burma (Myanmar) are feared missing or dead after Thai troops forced them onto boats without engines and cut them adrift in international waters, according to human rights activists and authorities in India who rescued survivors. The revelations have shone a spotlight on the Thai military's expulsion policy toward Muslims it sees as a security threat.
Nearly 1,000 refugees were detained on a remote island in December before being towed out to sea in two batches and abandoned with little food or water, according to a tally by a migrant-rights group based on survivors' accounts and media reports. The detainees, mostly members of Burma's oppressed Rohingya minority, then drifted for weeks. One group was later rescued by Indonesia's Navy, and two others made landfall in India's Andaman Islands.

Photos of refugees on a Thai island show rows of bedraggled men stripped to the waist as soldiers stand guard. In a separate incident, foreign tourists snapped pictures of detainees trussed on a beach. Thailand's Andaman coastline, where the abuses took place, is a popular vacation spot.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has launched an investigation. Military officials have denied any ill treatment of refugees, while offering conflicting accounts of how they ended up lost at sea. The military has accused the Rohingya, who often travel via Thailand to Malaysia to work or seek asylum, of assisting a Muslim-led insurgency in southern Thailand.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is pressing Thailand for access to 126 Rohingya that it says are in Thai custody. These include 46 boat people reportedly detained on Jan. 16 and handed over to military custody. It said a second group of 80 Rohingya, which reportedly had previously been pushed out to sea and drifted back, had been transferred to the tiny detention island.

There was no sign Thursday of any detainees there, said a Western source in the area. Villagers said boat people had been held there by local guards under military command, before being towed out to sea by fishing vessels. Rickety vessels said to have carried the refugees were beached on the island, the source said.

Amid accusations of a military cover-up, the Thai government has promised a full accounting. "The military has agreed to a fact-finding investigation … [but] we're not dependent on their input alone," says Panitan Wattanyagorn, a spokesman.

That probe will expose Mr. Abhisit's weak command of the military, which sees the Rohingya and other undocumented Muslims as a threat, says Paul Quaglia, director of PSA Asia, a security consultancy in Bangkok. He says there's no evidence that the Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect, have joined insurgents in the Malay-speaking south, where more than 3,500 people have died since 2004.

"Abhisit is ... beholden to the military for getting his job – and keeping his job," he says.

Thailand has long been a magnet for millions of economic migrants as well as refugees escaping persecution in Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Human traffickers often play a role in transporting both groups, exposing those on the run to egregious abuses. Thailand has a mixed record on hosting refugees.

Most Rohingya, who are denied legal rights in Burma, begin their journey in Bangladesh, where more than 200,000 live in unofficial camps. A further 28,000 are registered with the UNHCR. From there, men pay smugglers for passage across the Indian Ocean to Thailand, usually as a transit stop to reach Malaysia, a Muslim country with a sizable Rohingya population. Some Bangladeshis also travel there.

In recent years, the number of boats crossing during the winter months has risen sharply. Between 2004 and 2008, the number of Rohingya detained by police rose to 4,866, up from 2,763, says Kraisak Choonhavan, a government lawmaker.

Some of these Rohingya have been repatriated to Burma. Others have paid smugglers to complete their journey to Malaysia, or become victims of traffickers, say rights activists. That appears to have changed as the military has got involved.

In security briefings, military officials repeatedly draw a link between Rohingya refugees and separatist violence in the south, says Sunai Pasuk, with Human Rights Watch, which has received reports of sea "pushbacks" since 2007. "This is not just an isolated incident. There must be a policy behind it," he says.

Mr. Kraisak, a deputy leader of the ruling Democrat party, criticized the violation of human rights. But he said the outflow of refugees from Burma was a problem that Thailand can't handle alone. "We have to confer on the international stage. Thais have been too tolerant," he says.

In interviews with Indian security officials, survivors said uniformed Thai personnel shot four refugees and tossed another into the sea before forcing their group to board a wooden barge. Some 400 crowded onto the barge, which was towed to sea for about 18 hours with armed soldiers aboard. They shared two bags of rice and two gallons of water, according to a transcript in the South China Post.

The barge drifted for more than a week. Of 300 people who tried to swim to shore, only 11 survived. An additional 88 were rescued by the Coast Guard.

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Cashing in by Doing Good in Cambodia [-Mystery surrounding the death of Canadian Jiri Zivny in Cambodia]

Jiri Zivny - Was the story of the cause of his death made up by the Canadian charity he was involved with?

Friday, 23 January 2009
Written by Vincent MacIsaac Asia Sentinel (Hong Kong)

Canadian charity tight-lipped over death of 'aid worker'

A Canadian humanitarian group that launched a media and fundraising campaign claiming one of its members had been bludgeoned, robbed, stripped of his clothes and left to die in a Cambodian ditch is now asking that his family be left to "grieve in private" following complaints that nothing of the sort happened.
The death of the man described in the Canadian media as "Smiling Jiri" has become a potent fundraising tool for the charity in a story that has rolled across both Cambodia and Canada, generating huge publicity and controversy, and apparently money for the charity. But the dead man, Jiri Zivny, may have died as a result of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident after a night on the town in the coastal resort of Sihanoukville, a magnet for sex tourists.

Zivny, who died at the age of 43 in the neurological ward of Cambodia's best hospital, had no bruises or lacerations that would have indicated blunt force trauma inflicted by an assailant, doctors say. Traffic police in Sihanoukville reported that he crashed his bike into another motorcycle in the early hours of January 9. The driver of the other bike remains unconscious, police reports say.

Hospital records show Zivny arrived at the emergency ward of Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh, at 11.35pm on January 10 via an ambulance from Sihanoukville. According to records, the ambulance driver wrote that the patient had been in a motorcycle accident. Zivny was immediately transferred to the intensive care unit and by 12.30pm he had been shifted to the neurological ward. There was no information on whether he had valuables or money on him when he was admitted.

"I do not wish to carry on a dialogue about this situation. I have enough information to draw my own conclusions. So we will just leave it alone and the evidence of Jiri's injuries will be left alone so the family can grieve in private," Evelyn Picklyk, the founder and president of the Kamloops, British Columbia-based International Humanitarian Hope Society (IHHS) wrote in an email Wednesday morning.

"I know you are trying to protect your country, but this story is going global and it will reflect very badly on your country," she said by telephone earlier in the morning, despite being informed repeatedly that she was speaking to a Canadian reporter.

She was responding to an email and telephone call advising her that she and her group – which launched a campaign to raise C$100,000 to fly a comatose "aid worker" back to Canada for treatment – may have been misinformed about the care Zivny received at Calmette Hospital as well as the cause of his death. The email also requested detailed information about the individuals who had been supplying her with information from Cambodia.

During a previous phone call Monday night, she acknowledged that the group's claims were based on "circumstantial evidence". "There were no eyewitnesses," she said. "We really don't know what happened," she added before requesting that further discussion be conducted via email because, among other reasons, her "phone might be tapped."

However, on Wednesday morning she said she had photographic evidence that Zivny had been brutally assaulted in Sihanoukville. "The photos tell the story," she said. They show he had suffered blows to the side of his head as well as his face, she explained, although she declined to say who took the photos, when they were taken or how she obtained them. "Why do you want to know that?" she asked.

During four interviews with doctors at Calmette Hospital between January 15 and 20, the doctors said that there were no physical signs that Zivny had been struck on the head. During the first interview, on the afternoon of January 15, doctors treating the patient allowed me to see him. If he had been struck on the face the wound had healed by then. Zivny died in VIP room No.3 of the neurological ward of the hospital later that day, at 5.15pm.

Brain scans taken during the six days Zivny was in the ward show that his condition deteriorated steadily. At the same time, the description of Calmette Hospital in the Canadian media also deteriorated ­­– to the point where it was being described as being infested with rats.

"His injuries were not unlike those of other motorbike accident victims," said Dr. Phak Dararith, one of three doctors treating Zivny. "The swelling was internal," he said. There were no bruises or lacerations on his head that would indicate he had been struck by an assailant, he and other doctors at the hospital said. "I can't say whether or not he was robbed before he died, but there are no signs that he had been struck on the head [by an assailant]," Dr. Phak Dararith said.

Five doctors at the hospital on Tuesday expressed bewilderment at the media reports about the patient, as well as the fact that these reports included no information from the doctors treating him. "Why haven't they contacted us?" asked Dr. Yit Sinarong.

Two individuals, one of whom has carefully guarded his anonymity, are the primary sources of the reports from Cambodia in the Canadian media – after being filtered through the Kamloops, British Columbia charity. One is an American surgeon, Dr. Reid Sheftall from the American Medical Center. The other had been Zivny's traveling companion. The latter visited him every day to consult with doctors and pay his bill (US$100 per day plus the cost of medicine), but declined to identify himself by name or provide doctors with contact information.

The hospital wanted to be able to contact him immediately if the patient came out of his coma (a possibility considered very remote due to the severity of the trauma) so that Zivny would have a friend present, doctors said. However, the traveling companion "would not tell us his name and said that he had no phone and that he switched guesthouses every night," Dr. Phak Dararith said.

Dr. Sheftall and Picklyk have identified the traveling companion as a Vancouver resident named Lauren. Pikclyk said she did not know his family name because "it's one of those names that you can't recall offhand". Lauren had been a member of the group touring orphanages in Southeast Asia with her. When the rest of the group returned to Canada from Vietnam in late November, he and Zivny decided to travel overland to "do orphanage work" in Thailand, Picklyk said on Monday night. "They were not working at orphanages in Cambodia," she said, but could not explain why they spent about five weeks in Sihanoukville.

Sheftall has been the sole source of the medical information. He has been reported as saying Zivny's injuries were not consistent with a motorcycle accident, but said Wednesday that "sometimes I'm wrong."

When informed that Picklyk had said that her group had based its conclusion that Zivny had been attacked primarily on his examination of the patient, Sheftall replied, "Tell her to stop saying that. I was not in Sihanoukville. I did not see what happened. I did not examine the patient. I just looked in on him and checked on him so that I could update Evelyn and his family on his condition."

The story that spread across Canada from Kamloops is that Zivny was struck on the head by an assailant who had followed him from an ATM machine in the early hours of January 9 (media reports range from either 2am or 4am), after he withdrew $500 in cash. On her website, Picklyk said that he was also robbed of his watch and clothing. Since then, she has added that he was robbed of his camera as well.

The International Humanitarian Hope Society functions like a tourism business. Clients sign up and pay for tours that mix sight-seeing with visits to orphanages throughout Southeast Asia. The trips cost about $2,500 per person for airfare and accommodations. Health insurance is not included in the cost of the tours, but the society assists its clients in arranging health insurance before departure.

When the tour ended so did Zivny's health insurance. His tour in November was his second with the group, and media reports quote a close friend as saying the first had had a transformative effect on his life. He also remarked that Zivny had led a "wayward life" before meeting the missionary group linked to the orphanage work.

The mystery of what happened in Sihanoukville may boil down to a single comment made by an anonymous source (possibly Lauren) to the Cambodia Daily on January 20. The source said Zivny had spent the night before his death barhopping with a Cambodian woman. The report did not say, however, how much he had been drinking that night, or why he needed to go to an ATM machine well after midnight.

Picklyk insists that "Jiri was a true humanitarian who was trying to do good in Cambodia". She is now appealing for donations in his memory, but declines to answer any questions about how much was spent on his medical bills, or how much she raised to fly him back to Canada.

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Cambodian Institute To Train More Local Managers

PHNOM PENH, Jan 23 (Bernama) -- Thousands of Cambodians may be ready to run the country's garment factories in the next few years with the launch of its first national training center, China's Xinhua news agency quoted national media as saying on Friday.
Housed at the National Technical Training Institute (NTTI) here, the facility will offer management course to workers with more than two years' experience in the industry beginning later this year, said English-language daily newspaper the Phnom Penh Post.

Funding for the training center will be provided by the government, the Cambodian Federation of Employers and Business Associations (CAMFEBA) and the French Development Agency.

Cambodia's garment sector employs about 320,000 people on factory floors, but very few of the estimated 10,000 managers are local.

According to the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), the Cambodian garment industry suffered a net loss of 20, 000 jobs and 22 factories in 2008 as international demand fell, and there will be further drop in orders this quarter.

Garment used to be Cambodia's foremost pillar industry and shared over 70 percent of its annual export volumes.

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Malaria illnesses decline in Cambodia in 2008

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- The number of reported malaria cases and deaths in Cambodia respectively dropped by 8.5 percent and 25 percent in 2008 over the previous year, national media on Friday quoted the National Malaria Center as saying.

The number of confirmed malaria cases decreased to 59,840 in 2008 from 54,784 in 2007, and deaths to 184 from 241, according to the center.

"The trend is downward but it is not sharp," Rashid Abdur, malaria scientist for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Cambodia, told English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily.

Meanwhile, Duong Socheat, director of the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control Program, attributed the dip primarily to early diagnosis and treatment, and better health education particularly in rural areas.

Durable mosquito nets treated with insecticide have also contributed to the progress against malaria.

"One net can last for three to five years," he added.

According to the WHO, about a half million Cambodians live in forested regions where malaria transmission is intense.

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