100,000 hectares of land concession to the Viets ... 10 times more than the Cambodian Constitution allows: Hun Xen pays Hanoi his debt of gratitude?

Hun Xen is all smile during his meeting with Cao Duc Phat (L) (Photo: DAP News)

http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2009/09/100000-hectares-of-land-concession-to.html
Cambodia, Vietnam sign MOU of rubber investment cooperation

September 23, 2009
Xinhua

Cambodia and Vietnam on Tuesday signed a MOU of rubber investment cooperation to expand area of rubber plantation of Vietnamese companies in Cambodia.

The agreement was signed in Phnom Penh by Chan Sarun, Cambodian minister of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, and Cao Duc Phat, visiting Vietnamese minister of rural development and agriculture.

According to this bilateral agreement, Vietnamese companies will plant rubber crops in 100,000 hectares of land in Cambodia, Chan Sarun told reporters after the signing ceremony.

The Vietnamese companies have already invested in rubber plantations in Cambodia, but through the agreement, they will be able to plant more rubber crops, he said.

According to the agreement, the Vietnamese side will also build a refinery factory of rubber products in Cambodia, he said.

"The agreement will also provide opportunity for local people to sell their rubber products to Vietnamese companies and it will offer more jobs for local poor people," he added.

"So far, our local people and local private companies have planted rubber crops on 100,000 hectares of land," he said, adding that Vietnamese companies already got the economic concession land for planting the rubber crops.

"Through the MOU we will also strengthen the bilateral cooperation on other fields like fighting against communicable diseases and other things including bird flu and swine flu, and encourage investing more on other agro-industrial crops."

This investment will help to push economic development and social affairs in the country, he said, adding that Vietnamese side also will help train human resources for Cambodia.

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Belgian paedophile [Philippe Dessart] expelled from Cambodia

Wed, 23 Sep 2009
By Jean Gerrard
DPA

Phnom Penh - A Belgian man convicted twice for child sex offences was expelled from Cambodia seven weeks after a coalition of child protection organizations petitioned authorities to expel him, a media report said Wednesday. Philippe Dessart, 49, was put on a plane to Thailand last week, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported.

"We had enough legal grounds," the national police spokesman told the newspaper. "We didn't decide to deport him to Belgium; we just decided that he should be out of our country. Wherever he went to, it was his right."

Dessart was released from a Cambodian jail in April having spent three years in prison for sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy. On his release, he sparked outrage from child protection organizations by marrying the boy's mother after moving into her home in western Cambodia.

Dessart was previously convicted of child sex offences in his native Belgium, serving time there in the 1990s for child rape and torture.

Dessart's lawyer said his client's deportation was an abuse of his rights.

"He was with his wife; police came to invite him to a commune police station telling him that the national commissioner orders you to be expelled," Dun Vibol told the newspaper. "[On arrival in Thailand Dessart] called me saying he's got nothing with him and said they don't respect the law in Cambodia."

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Telecom service in Cambodia cannibalized by the Vietcong army

Viettel becomes largest telecom service provider in Cambodia

09/23/2009
VOV News

Vietnam’s Military Telecom Corporation (Viettel) has become the largest telecommunication service provider in Cambodia after launching the Metfone mobile service network in the Kingdom six months ago.

Metfone currently accounts for 60 percent of the ADSL service and 50 percent of fixed phone markets. It has two million mobile subscribers, ranking second among nine mobile service providers in Cambodia.

To facilitate the Cambodian people’s access to fundamental telecommunication services, Metfone has reduced its mobile service charge from 11 cent per minute to 9 cent per minute and expects to adjust it down in the near future.

Additionally, Metfone is the sole provider of all telecommunication services in Cambodia with its product distribution network covering even remote and isolated communes. It is also the sole provider of wireless fixed phone service with nearly 20,000 subscribers in the country.

Along with business development in Cambodia, Viettel has invested US$5 million in carrying out a three-year programme to introduce the internet in schools, subsidized 50 percent of wireless fixed and mobile phone charges for poor people and sponsored an online television system, connecting the government management to localities.

Metfone is expected to earn a revenue of US$50 million this year and provide 3G services in Cambodia early next year.

Metfone is also expected to have 2.55 million mobile subscribers, 3,000 transceiver stations covering all 24 provinces and cities of Cambodia, and provide affordable, high-quality services for customers by 2010.

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We can help build a better world

September 23, 2009
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

Across national boundaries and cultures, humans appear nowadays to be entrenched on a destructive course of intolerance, characterized by a lack of civility. People of strong viewpoints, particularly political/ideological ones, come into conflict. The level of insult and the tendency to demonize opponents has increased.

Three years ago I wrote in this space about Emory University researchers, who found political discourse to be nasty because, during such debates, the unconscious emotional part of the brain takes over the rational part. In other words, a discussion deteriorates from hearing and understanding this "other guy" to personal attacks as the rational brain shuts down and the non-thinking part takes over.

Humility -- to be considerate and respectful of others and their viewpoints, their dignity and their worth -- a virtue preached by the world's major religions, is lacking in many individual persons.

Some 2,500 years ago, Chinese thinker K'ung-fu-tzu (Confucius), whose teachings have influenced the thought and the life of Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and many others, advised: "To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; To put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; To put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; And to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right."

World peace and world order begin with individual persons. Religious teachings, high values and strong beliefs are meaningless unless humans practice them in their life journeys. It's worth reminding, ad infinitum, that humans are capable of learning (Lord Buddha's teachings), unlearning (the harmful), and relearning (channeling the energy of hope in the building of a better future), and that what stands in their way is a lack of belief that they can, and a lack of will to take the first step.

Some people know a lot but have no will to apply their knowledge -- creatures of habit, they talk rather than walk the talk, and they imprison themselves in patterns and blame karma.

Psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, acclaimed as "one of the world's foremost authorities" on positive psychology and moral psychology, says in his book, "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom," that each of us must find "ways to overcome our natural self-righteousness." The chapter begins with two quotes from Jesus and Buddha about human eyes that see failings in others when looking outward, but see not the same when looking inward.

Matthew 7:3-5: "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ... You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."

Buddha: "It is easy to see the faults of others, but difficult to see one's own faults. One shows the faults of others like chaff winnowed in the wind, but one conceals one's own faults as a cunning gambler conceals his dice."

And Haidt quoted a Japanese proverb: "Though you see the seven defects of others, we do not see our own 10 defects."

Thus, in 2007, Haidt organized an interdisciplinary workshop, sponsored by the Princeton University Center for Human Values. As a summary of "goals" of the workshop, Haidt referenced the eighth-century Zen master Sent-Ts'an's poem: "The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose; Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. ... The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease."

As Haidt sees the poem, humans in all cultures possess this "excessive and self-righteous tendency to see the world in terms of good versus evil," or "moralism," which "blinds people to the truth," making agreement and compromise difficult.

On his own home page, Haidt says his research focuses on "the moral foundations of politics, and on ways to transcend the 'culture wars' by using recent discoveries in moral psychology to foster more civil forms of politics." Advances in moral psychology and other fields, says Haidt," provide "new hope for understanding moralism and for finding ways to overcome it."

"We must respect and even learn from those whose morality differs from our own," says Haidt who, on his Web site CivilPolitics.org, writes how political leaders, political parties and media outlets have become, over the last 20 years, "more polarized, strident and moralistic (i.e., excessively concerned with morality, and certain about their own virtue)."

"When political opponents are demonized rather than debated, compromise and cooperation become moral failings and people begin to believe that their righteous ends justify the use of any means," the Web site reads. Haidt says the "goal is to promote 'civil politics,' by which we mean politics in which power and ideas are hotly contested but opponents are respected as fellow citizens who are assumed to be sincere in their beliefs."

Haidt's efforts are the more admirable in today's world in which, among many things, recent polls say, people are generally ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago, and one poll says nearly one in five speaks "rudely to someone" if he or she wasn't served effectively; and a study shows "road rage" by "angry, horn-blasting tailgaters" to be evidence of what doctors called "intermittent explosive disorder," or IED, which affects up to 16 million drivers in the United States.

Confucius's advice "to cultivate our personal life, ... set our hearts right" needs to be followed so we can build a better world.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

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Preah Vihear case [in Thailand] to run till Tuesday: Klanarong

Klanarong

September 23, 2009
The Nation

The National Anti Corruption Commission is expected to complete its deliberation on the Preah Vihear impeachment case involving the Samak Sundaravej government by next Tuesday, NACC member Klanarong Chintik said yesterday.

The NACC had already started hearing the case but it would take a week to complete since the proceedings had to cover the individual involvement of each accused, Klanarong said.

"Today's deliberation has covered 12 of 44 accused ministers and officials and the NACC should be able to rule on the case by September 29," he said.

At the heart of the legal wrangling is whether the then prime minister Samak and his ministers intentionally bypassed Parliament when drafting the Cambodian-Thai memorandum of understanding related to Preah Vihear Temple dispute.

Under Article 190 of the Constitution, the government is obligated to seek approval from parliament on the framework to negotiate an international agreement when it has ramifications in regard to borders.

Based on the Constitution Court ruling last year, the government failed to comply with Article 190.

Klanarong said the NACC had to determine the involvement of each accused in order to apportion the wrongdoing involved by each of the accused.

After reviewing the wrongdoing committed by each, the next step was for the NACC to name those targetted for impeachment and those who will face criminal prosecution.

He denied speculation that the NACC might target former foreign minister Noppadon Patama to shoulder the blame alone, saying the deliberation had not even reach halfway to form any conclusion.

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Vietnam's subtle colonization of Cambodia: 400 Viet companies, 100,000 hectares of Viet rubber plantations in 5 provinces ... more are still coming!

Did these Viet Bo Dois really leave Cambodia in 1989? (Click here to read Sopheak's comment in Khmer on this issue)

Hun Xen shaking hands with Cao Duc Phat (Photo: DAP news)

Vietnam To Plant 100,000 Hectares of Rubber

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
22 September 2009

The governments of Cambodian and Vietnam signed an agreement Tuesday allowing the development of 100,000 hectares of rubber plantations in five provinces, which will add to the 400 Vietnamese companies already operating here.

The new concessions would come into effect by 2015, according to the agreement, signed Tuesday between Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun and his counterpart, Cao Duc Phat.

“This [agreement] will create more jobs for local people and thus alleviate poverty,” Chan Sarun told reporters following a signing ceremony in Phnom Penh. “Our [Cambodian] people in remote areas, who used to depend on forests, will become rubber processors.”

Cao said the agreement would serve as a basis for other rubber companies to follow in the future. Vietnamese companies planted 10,000 hectares in Cambodia this year and are preparing to plant another 20,000 in 2010; 30,000 the year after; and 40,000 the year after that.

Seven Vietnamese companies are operating in five Cambodian provinces: Ratanakkiri, Mondolkiri, Kratie, Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear.

“We will have leased all 100,000 hectares of land to Vietnamese companies by 2012, three years before our plan,” Chan Sarun said, explaining that Vietnam plans to send more rubber companies to Cambodia.

The two ministers also said a rubber processing factory would be set up in Cambodia by 2012. Rubber and timber are Cambodia’s biggest exports to Vietnam, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

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new update khmer pictures

A file picture taken on April 5, 2009 shows Cambodian soldiers standing guard near by the Preah Vihear temple in Preah Vihear province, around 540 kilometers north of Phnom Penh. Cambodia on June 20, 2009 rebuked Thailand for reopening a debate over an ancient temple on their disputed border that has led to seven soldiers being killed in recent months. AFP/Getty Images

A file picture taken on April 5, 2009 shows Cambodian soldiers standing guard near by the Preah Vihear temple in Preah Vihear province, around 540 kilometers north of Phnom Penh. Cambodia on June 20, 2009 rebuked Thailand for reopening a debate over an ancient temple on their disputed border that has led to seven soldiers being killed in recent months. AFP/Getty Images

Cambodian buddhist monks pray and hold a picture of the Preah Vihear temple at a pagoda in Phnom Penh, to mark the 1st Anniversary of the northern temples world heritage listing. Cambodia on July 7, happily and noisily marked the one-year anniversary of the UNESCO listing of the ancient 11th-century Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site as a border dispute with neighbouring Thailand remained tense. AFP/Getty Images

Cambodian dancers perform in Phnom Penh, during an event to mark the 1st Anniversary of the northern Preah Vihear temples world heritage listing. Cambodia on July 7, happily and noisily marked the one-year anniversary of the UNESCO listing of the ancient 11th-century Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site as a border dispute with neighbouring Thailand remained tense. AFP/Getty Images

A Cambodian dancer waits before a performance in Phnom Penh, at an event to mark the 1st Anniversary of the northern Preah Vihear temples world heritage listing. Cambodia on July 7, happily and noisily marked the one-year anniversary of the UNESCO listing of the ancient 11th-century Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site as a border dispute with neighbouring Thailand remained tense. AFP/Getty Images

A Thai soldier (in black) talks to Cambodian soldiers at Sekha Krisvarak pagoda in Preah Vihear, north of Phnom Penh. Cambodia celebrated the one year anniversary of the ancient Preah Vihear Hindu temple s listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a long-running source of Thai-Cambodian tension

Cambodian soldiers stand guard at the Sekha Krisvarak pagoda in Preah Vihear province, 543 km (337 miles) north of Phnom Penh. Cambodia celebrated the one year anniversary of the ancient Preah Vihear Hindu temple s listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a long-running source of Thai-Cambodian tension

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Tribunal’s Civil Parties File for Compensation

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
17 September 2009

Four civil parties to the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal filed for reparation Wednesday, requesting free medical care, the erection of a memorial and the dissemination of an apology from the regime’s former prison chief, Duch.

“The joint filling from all four civil party groups also requested the final judgment from the Trail Chamber specific to reparation to victims” said Hong Kimsoun, a civil party lawyer for two groups. Reparation could include “a memorial, or to build a school or hospital,” he said.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, is coming to the end of his trial, the tribunal’s first, on atrocity charges related to the death and torture of 12,380 people.

Chhum Mei, 79, who survived Duch’s Tuol Sleng prison, said he wanted to see a memorial built benefitting people like him. He also needs money to hold a ceremony for his wife and relatives, he said.

Tribunal spokesman Dim Sovannarom said it remains unclear where money for such reparations could come from.

Tribunal judges have already determined that individual financial compensation will not be allowed, though collective and moral reparations are possible.

The courts can order reparations for a group of victims, for example, or they can order the publication of a judgment in the mass media at the expense of a convicted person. The court can also order a memorial built or the establishment of mental health clinics for victims.

Meanwhile, defense lawyers for Duch on Thursday rejected a request to submit more documents to civil parties, claiming the deadline had passed.

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Multi-Faceted Problems Stymie Resource Development

By Sothearith Im, VOA, Khmer
Original report from Washington
17 September 2009

[Editor’s note: VOA Khmer recently spoke with specialists in the field of natural resource management in developing countries and learned that Cambodia is not alone in struggling to use natural resources to benefit its citizens. The resource curse, where natural riches fail to help the poor, is a worldwide scourge, the global experts told VOA Khmer in numerous interviews. Below is the second part of a weekly series.]

Myriad factors lead to the abuse of natural resources, keeping their value out of the hands of everyday citizens, experts say. The absence of political will, of transparent management, of laws and regulations, and of capacity, and the existence of patronage systems, corruption, bureaucratic politics, abuse of power, and others, all add up to create problems.

The lack of transparent management of the resources in developing countries is not surprising, said Glen Matlack, an environmental professor at Ohio University. Governments sell concessions in the extractive industries, but the fees don’t serve the public good, and often these deals are made out of the public’s eye.

“Fairy typical of South American and Southeast Asian governments is that a concession is sold by the government to a working company or resource extraction company and the fees go to the government,” Matlack said. “It is often the problem because the receipt of the fees is controlled by the government. It has nothing to do with the region in which the resources are extracted. Rarely does the fee filter back to the people in the region, and it’s vulnerable to corruption.”

Paul Collier, an Oxford University economist and author of “The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It,” told VOA Khmer by phone that revenue generated from concessions must be funneled into government coffers, not to private businessmen.

It is the citizens who own the resources, he said, and the resources won’t last forever.

“The revenues get badly spent,” he said. “So instead of revenues being well spent on good investment, they are used for public consumption, and they become a battleground between politicians. I think in Bolivia, it exactly happens. It’s been a battleground, and the money is spent on public consumption instead of on investment.”

William Ascher, a professor of government and economics at Claremont Mckenna College, in California, and author of “Why Governments Waste Natural Resources: Policy Failures in Developing Countries,” said the common cause of the problem is a lack of clear jurisdiction or responsibility.

Rivalries grow within government agencies, which leads to greater exploitation of natural resources. Some governments create inter-ministerial groups, but members then fight for power and their own interests, he said.

“Each ministry, in order to do the job, typically would want to have more power, more jurisdiction, more resources,” Ascher told VOA Khmer by phone. “So there’s a built-in rivalry among ministries within the government, even though they’re all from the same party. Sometimes this can lead to bad policy if it is not clear who has jurisdiction over what aspect.”

Somit Varma, director of the World Bank’s oil, gas, mining, and chemicals department told VOA Khmer in an interview at his office in Washington that, among the many challenges facing developing countries, a lack of the capacity or skilled human resources is crucial. Many developing countries lack experienced, professional managers and the skilled human resources to actually do the job.

“One of the areas which is challenging is the capacity in the country to actually implement it,” Varma said. “And building capacity, we all in development business, we know this is very difficult. It takes years to build capacity. It’s not easy, but you need dedicated government on the other side.”

In many developing countries political patronage is practiced, in which national resources are used to reward individuals, groups, families or ethnicities for electoral support, as politicians use illegal gifts, fraudulently awarded appointments or government contracts.

This is also one of the major causes of natural resource mismanagement.

Some governments of developing countries acknowledge these problems, but some either do not realize them or ignore them, the experts said. Many are reluctant or do not have the political will to fix them, because the system for inequality of wealth distribution benefits a handful of decision-makers, family members and business associates.

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LEADER INKS POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENT & IMPLEMENTATION AGREEMENT IN CAMBODIA

Bernama - Friday, September 18

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 17 (Bernama) -- Leader Universal Holdings Bhd has entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Electricite du Cambodge (EDC), a wholly state-owned limited liability enterprise incorporated by Royal Decree of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

In a filing to Bursa Malaysia, the company said under the PPA, the EDC undertakes to purchase from Leader on a minimum take basis of 86 per cent of dependable capacity per annum and other terms and conditions as set out in the PPA.

On June 11, Leader signed a joint venture and shareholders agreement with Cambodia International Investment Development Group Co Ltd (CIIDG) to build, own and operate the 100 Megawatt coal-fired power plant in Sihanoukville via Cambodia Energy Ltd, a joint-venture company between Leader and CIIDG, with a percentage shareholdings of 80 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively.

Leader has also entered into an Implementation Agreement with the Cambodian government to implement power projects. -- BERNAMA

PJR TOM

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