គ្រោះថ្នាក់ចរាចរណ៍ក្នុងដីខ្មែរ តែទាហានយួនចូលដោយសេរី
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នេះជារូបភាពនៃទិដ្ឋភាពបន្ទា
ពីកន្លែងបុកទៅព្រំដែនគឺមានច
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
គ្រោះថ្នាក់ចរាចរណ៍ក្នុងដីខ្មែរ តែទាហានយួនចូលដោយសេរី
គ្រោះថ្នាក់ចរាចរណ៍ក្នុងដីខ្មែរ តែទាហានយួនចូលដោយសេរី
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នេះជារូបភាពនៃទិដ្ឋភាពបន្ទា
ពីកន្លែងបុកទៅព្រំដែនគឺមានច
Monday, 30 March 2015
Cambodia supports China's Belt and Road initiatives: Prince Norodom Sirivudh
PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) -- Cambodia supports China's initiatives of the Silk Road and Economic Belt, the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ( AIIB) which will contribute to greater regional connectivity, Prince Norodom Sirivudh, chairman of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, has said.
In a interview with Xinhua ahead of the Boao Forum for Asia which opened Thursday in China's Hainan province, Sirivudh said, " The ideas show that China is quite open to the world, and that China is ready to play a role in contributing to peace and stability in the region."
The three initiatives proposed by China are expected to top the agenda of the forum which will wind up on Sunday.
Sirivudh, who will share his views in the forum's session on " ASEAN Community: A Major Milestone for Asian Integration" on Saturday, said Cambodia is very supportive of the establishment of the AIIB and the Silk Road Fund.
"We hope that other friendly countries will follow the suit of France, Germany, Italy and other European countries to join the AIIB," Sirivudh said.
The prince said Cambodia will benefit from AIIB and the Silk Road Fund because they will promote regional connectivity.
In a interview with Xinhua ahead of the Boao Forum for Asia which opened Thursday in China's Hainan province, Sirivudh said, " The ideas show that China is quite open to the world, and that China is ready to play a role in contributing to peace and stability in the region."
The three initiatives proposed by China are expected to top the agenda of the forum which will wind up on Sunday.
Sirivudh, who will share his views in the forum's session on " ASEAN Community: A Major Milestone for Asian Integration" on Saturday, said Cambodia is very supportive of the establishment of the AIIB and the Silk Road Fund.
"We hope that other friendly countries will follow the suit of France, Germany, Italy and other European countries to join the AIIB," Sirivudh said.
The prince said Cambodia will benefit from AIIB and the Silk Road Fund because they will promote regional connectivity.
Cambodia’s Vibrant Civil Society
U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama's recent historic visit to Cambodia has generated a lot of discussion about the importance of girls' education and the role that we all can play in helping girls go to school and stay in school. During her visit Mrs. Obama attended one of the very first training sessions of the new Let Girls Learn initiative, a U.S.
government-wide program that will work at the grassroots level and with local and national officials in developing countries around the world to break down barriers to girls' education. In doing so, I sincerely believe that our joint efforts will lead to a better future for not just a small group of girls, but for an entire generation of youth.
During her visit, Mrs. Obama met with ten Cambodian girls who are participating in the Room to Read program. Room to Read is a non-governmental organization (NGO) based out of San Francisco, California that promotes literacy and gender equality in education. Since 2000, Room to Read has helped nearly ten million girls and boys to improve themselves through education. Mrs. Obama's meeting allowed her to hear firsthand about some of the challenges that girls face in continuing their education.
I am often asked about the role of NGOs and civil society in Cambodia. This week, I heard from a number of readers who are concerned about recent laws that will make it more difficult for NGOs to promote political discussion during elections. Protection for the freedoms of assembly and expression is a vital component of the formula for building a strong and sustainable democracy in Cambodia. NGOs and other civil society organizations provide citizens with an additional means to communicate with each other and with their leaders on a wide range of issues. As the country continues to develop, the need for these avenues of communication will grow. The United States stands by civil society in calling for freedom, tolerance and rule of law.
Some 570 Cambodians fall ill after eating contaminated snacks
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| លោកស្រី កែ សុវណ្ណរតន៍ តំណាងរាស្រ្តមណ្ឌលសៀមរាប និងជា ប្រធានគណៈកម្មការទី៨ នៃរដ្ឋសភា, លោក ដាំ សិទ្ធិ តំណាងរាស្រ្ត មណ្ឌលភ្នំពេញ បានសួរសុខទុក្ខប្រជាពលរដ្ឋដែលពុលនំបុ័ង កាលពីថ្ងៃទីី២៧ ខែមីនា ឆ្នាំ២០១៥ នៅមណ្ឌលសុខភាពពង្រលើ។29/3/15 - ILCHN |
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| Sick children receive intravenous injections at a health center in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, March 28, 2015. Approximately 570 Cambodian people, mostly children, in northwestern Cambodia's Siem Reap province, got sick after eating bread filled with meat and vegetables on Saturday afternoon, a provincial health chief confirmed. |
PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) -- Approximately 570 Cambodian people, mostly children, in northwestern Cambodia's Siem Reap province got sick after eating bread filled with meat and vegetables on Saturday afternoon, a provincial health chief confirmed.
The incident took place at Chhi Kreng district when NGO World Vision hosted an event for school children and distributed loaves of bread filled with meat and vegetables to each of participants, said Kros Sarath, chief of Siem Reap Provincial Health Department.
"About 570 people, most of them were children, got dizzy and vomited after eating the contaminated bread," he told Xinhua over telephone.
"According to a preliminary conclusion, it was suspected that the vegetables, especially cucumbers, which were put in the bread, were contaminated with insecticide as a result of failure to properly clean."
CNRP to commemorate 1997 grenade attack
Published: 28-Mar-15
PHNOM PENH (The Cambodia Herald) -- Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) will hold a vigil ceremony on 30 March to commemorate spirit of victims killed in grenade attack 18 years ago, according to its press release on Friday.
The attack on 30 March 1997 killed at least 16 people and wounded over 100 when unidentified men threw grenades at a crowd who were gathering in a park across the street from the former National Assembly building to protest the judiciary’s lack of independence and judicial corruption.
So far, neither suspects nor attackers have been arrested and brought to justice.
According to the statement, the CNRP will hold chanting ceremony from 7:00 a.m to 11:00 a.m by offering food to 50 monks. The ceremony will be presided over by CNRP's acting president Kem Sokha.
The ceremony aimed to urge authorities to continue their investigation to identify the suspects and bring them to justice, said Hong Sok Huor, Secretary General of Sam Rainsy Party, on Friday.
....
POLITICAL IDEALS - the roles played by social institutions and democracy
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| A hug of encouragement from Michelle Obama during her recent brief visit to Siem Reap for the poor of Cambodia, but the country's "PM" is known to have pinned the blame on the impoverished for failing themselves, and on another occasion - with an air of exasperation and ridicule - publicly chided them for demanding too much! ["What more do you want?"]. Having been at the receiving end of such incomprehensible ridicule herself, the First Lady may now be wishing she could have hugged the girls longer in heart-felt solidarity and maternal affection; dished out some no-nonsense advice on tackling bullying in their small national political backyard ... School of Vice - washingtonpost.com |
by Bertrand Russell
"Few men seem to realize how many of the evils from which we suffer are wholly unnecessary, and that they could be abolished by a united effort within a few years. If a majority in every civilized country so desired, we could, within twenty years, abolish all abject poverty, quite half the illness in the world, the whole economic slavery which binds down nine tenths of our population; we could fill the world with beauty and joy, and secure the reign of universal peace. It is only because men are apathetic that this is not achieved, only because imagination is sluggish, and what always has been is regarded as what always must be. With good-will, generosity, intelligence, these things could be brought about."
Institutions, and especially economic systems, have a profound influence in molding the characters of men and women. They may encourage adventure and hope, or timidity and the pursuit of safety. They may open men's minds to great possibilities, or close them against everything but the risk of obscure misfortune. They may make a man's happiness depend upon what he adds to the general possessions of the world, or upon what he can secure for himself of the private goods in which others cannot share. Modern capitalism forces the wrong decision of these alternatives upon all who are not heroic or exceptionally fortunate.
Men's impulses are molded, partly by their native disposition, partly by opportunity and environment, especially early environment. Direct preaching can do very little to change impulses, though it can lead people to restrain the direct expression of them, often with the result that the impulses go underground and come to the surface again in some contorted form. When we have discovered what kinds of impulse we desire, we must not rest content with preaching, or with trying to produce the outward manifestation without the inner spring; we must try rather to alter institutions in the way that will, of itself, modify the life of impulse in the desired direction.
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| No place for childhood in Cambodia - School of Vice [pedalagainstpoverty] |
At present our institutions rest upon two things: property and power. Both of these are very unjustly distributed; both, in the actual world, are of great importance to the happiness of the individual. Both are possessive goods; yet without them many of the goods in which all might share are hard to acquire as things are now.
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| Meanwhile foreign investors such as the Brits know exactly where masters of the Rolls are ... School of Vice |
Without property, as things are, a man has no freedom, and no security for the necessities of a tolerable life; without power, he has no opportunity for initiative. If men are to have free play for their creative impulses, they must be liberated from sordid cares by a certain measure of security, and they must have a sufficient share of power to be able to exercise initiative as regards the course and conditions of their lives.
Vietnam Has Much at Stake in S. China Sea
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PARIS — Vietnam's national security and economic development are tied up in a risk-laden dispute over the South China Sea with China, the neighboring giant whose policies are hard to predict, said Hoang Anh Tuan, director of the Vietnamese Institute for Foreign Affairs and Strategic Studies.
A "confrontation in the South China Sea could be more devastating than any wars, any confrontations that you have seen in the region," Tuan said March 23 at a conference held by Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l'Ecole Militaire (IRSEM), a think tank at the French military's staff college.
Vietnam and China have long contested claims over the Spratly and Paracel islands, including last year's dispute over China's attempted oil drilling and clashes between Vietnamese fishermen and Chinese boats. China is also laying claim to territory, which has prompted concern in the region.
The risk extends to European nations, particularly France, which depend on the blue waters for trade with Asia, said French Ambassador Christian Lechervy, permanent secretary for Pacific affairs. French strategic factors are also keyed into the region.
"The fluidity of our forces in the Indo-Pacific is absolutely crucial for our nuclear deterrence," Lechervy said. "The tension arising from maritime and territorial dispute is a deep concern to us and to allies in the region. We have to work in alliance, especially the US and Australia."
China's claim to more than 80 percent of the South China Sea threatens 70 percent of Vietnam's exclusive economic zone, Tuan said. Vietnam's long coastline prompts a national security issue, "human security" stems from reliance on fishing as a food source, and the government has set a "very bold" 2025 target for the maritime economy to make up 60 percent of the gross domestic product, he said.
ប្រើប្រាស់ឥទ្ធិពលរបស់អ្នកដើម្បីទប់ស្កាត់ការប្រែប្រួលអាកាសធាតុ
Path to destruction ... [ILCHN]
FBI's report on Rainsy rally bombing
The dead after the grenade attack on the Sam Rainsy rally on March 30, 1997 - fbi2.jpg
"Rainsy publicly blamed Second Prime Minister Hun Sen for the attack while Hun Sen's party - the CPP - publicly blamed the Khmer Rouge. Hun Sen later blamed Rainsy for staging the attack against himself."
Report on the FBI's Investigation of the March 30, 1997, Bombing in Cambodia.
Requested in the 1998 Foreign Appropriations Act (Public Law 105-118); delivered
to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on November 24, 1998
AT approximately 8:30 am on March 30, 1997, unidentified assailants detonated four
grenades during a Khmer National Party (KNP) political protest demonstration led
by Sam Rainsy, the KNP party leader. (The KNP is one of three competing political
parties in Cambodia, along with Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and Prince
Norodom Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC party.) The demonstration was held in a park opposite
the National Assembly in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and attended by many of the party's
supporters. Initial investigation indicated that two unknown subjects escaped on
foot after throwing two grenades from behind the KNP supporters. Conflicting reports
were also received that individual(s) either on a motorcycle and/or in a white sedan
had dropped two additional grenades. A unit of heavily-armed troops in full combat assault uniforms was positioned near the KNP speech platform. According to local media reports, these soldiers made no attempt to apprehend the attackers and prevented KNP supporters from doing so.
Rainsy publicly blamed Second Prime Minister Hun Sen for the attack while Hun Sen's
party - the CPP - publicly blamed the Khmer Rouge. Hun Sen later blamed Rainsy
for staging the attack against himself.
Sunday, 29 March 2015
Putting the bite on 'traditional' dentists
Following HIV cross-contamination in Battambang, ‘traditional’ dentistry practices are under increased scrutiny
A sign featuring a large tooth hangs outside the shophouse where, for the past eight years, Lim Kim Hout has been practising dentistry – but no university degrees hang on his walls.
“I didn’t go to school; I just learned dentistry from my teacher,” Hout reluctantly admitted this week at his small, grimy clinic near Koralanh Market, a few kilometres from Siem Reap. “I took all his lessons and then started my own practice.”
Dr Hong Someth’s father was a traditional dentist for 40 years. Charlotte Pert
Hout sees one or two patients a day, he said, and cleans his instruments after each, but when asked to reveal what sterilisation method he used, he refused – “No, no, no” – and would not say why.
Patients risk much more than botched tooth extractions by going to these so-called “traditional dentists”: If instruments contaminated with blood and saliva are not properly sterilised, health experts warn they could pass on infectious and possibly life-threatening diseases.
And traditional dentists are surprisingly common in the Kingdom. Some believe they far outnumber properly trained dentists, especially in the provinces.
However, in the wake of the HIV outbreak in Battambang province’s Roka commune discovered late last year – in which 277 people allegedly contracted the virus after being treated by an unlicensed doctor who re-used syringes – there are signs the government might be about to act.
According Dr Callum Durward, head of the dentistry department at Puthisastra University, traditional dentists were once ubiquitous across Southeast Asia.
“Most countries phased them out 20 or 30 years ago,” Dr Durward said. “They registered them as sort of auxiliary dentists and restricted their practice, and then when they retired, no more were allowed.
“Whereas here in Cambodia, they’ve been allowed to continue to practise and train their sons and daughters to continue the tradition.”
Suspect fronts KRT to face accusations
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| Ao An, aka Ta An, is photographed during a 2011 interview. He appeared in court on Friday to face crimes against humanity allegations. Photo Courtesy DC-CAM |
Despite strong government opposition, the UN-backed Khmer Rouge trial yesterday charged another former Khmer Rouge official in Case 004, with former deputy Central Zone secretary Ao An, better known as Ta An, appearing in person at the court to face allegations of crimes against humanity and premeditated murder.
The charges, issued by International Co-Investigating Judge Mark Harmon without support from his national counterpart, You Bunleng, come less than a month after Harmon charged former Democratic Kampuchea officials Im Chaem and Meas Muth in cases 004 and 003 respectively.
However unlike Muth and Chaem, who were charged in absentia after police apparently refused to arrest the pair, Ta An appeared at the tribunal to hear the charges related to purges and executions during the Democratic Kampuchea regime.
“He was summonsed, appeared before the judge and he was informed about the charges against him,” said Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia spokesman Lars Olsen.
“Now [his legal team] have the ability to ask for investigative actions on their behalf or they can challenge evidence.”
First kidney traffickers sentenced
Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday delivered Cambodia’s first ever convictions for organ trafficking, sentencing two men and a woman to a combined 35 years in prison for sending their relatives to have their kidneys harvested in Thailand.
Yem Asi Sas, 29, wept while Judge Keo Mony sentenced her to 15 years in jail for “trafficking people with the purpose of organ removal” between 2012 and 2014. Her stepfather, Yem Phalla, who fled after being released on bail, and brother-in-law, Pheng Sabay, were also given 10 years each in absentia for their roles as accomplices.
The trio’s trafficking ring was uncovered in July 2014 when two of the suspect’s cousins filed police complaints saying they had been persuaded into going to Thailand to sell their kidneys for wealthy Cambodians on dialysis.
One cousin, Mot Hiriphin, 26, previously told the Post he received $4,200 for his kidney and later learned that the businessman had paid $12,000.
The trio was yesterday ordered to pay the two victims $7,000 in compensation. Outside the court, Asi Sas vowed to appeal the verdict.
Additional reporting by AFP
In Thailand, a Mercurial Junta Leader Known for Sharp Tongue
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| freepress |
Ear tugs. A flying banana peel. Sarcastic remarks about getting smacked, or punched — or even executed. Such is life for the press corps covering Thailand's notoriously testy military ruler.
Since leading a putsch that ousted Thailand's elected government last May, general-turned-prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has been thrust from the relative privacy of army life into the public arena of the politician. He has pounded on the podium during news conferences, lambasted his questioners, and simply stomped away. In one case, he summoned two journalists for asking "inappropriate" questions about when and whether elections would be held. His government, meanwhile, has engaged in censorship and leaned on media outlets to censor themselves.
But the mercurial junta leader has also presided over light-hearted press briefings filled with humor — even song — in which journalists have joked back. The media found it less funny Wednesday when Prayuth sardonically suggested he might execute journalists deemed overly critical. Manop Thip-osod, a spokesman for the Thai Journalists Association, said earlier this month that the way Prayuth communicates "has to change."
Some of Prayuth's most memorable comments and interactions with the media since he seized power:
———
DON'T ARGUE
May 26, 2014 — In his first official speech following the coup, Prayuth said: "I'm not here to argue with anyone. I want to bring everything out in the open and fix it ... Everyone must help me. (But) do not criticize, do not create new problems. It's no use."
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ON BIKINIS
Sept. 17, 2014 — After two British tourists were murdered on the Thai island of Koh Tao, Prayuth triggered an uproar by insinuating that foreign visitors — attractive ones, at least — were endangering themselves by dressing skimpily. "I'm asking if they wear bikinis in Thailand, will they be safe? Only if they are not beautiful."
———
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Sept. 23, 2014 — Speaking after the junta forced the cancellation of a university seminar on the demise of foreign dictatorships, Prayuth was asked whether the junta would open a channel for critics to express their views. "I'm opening one right now. You're yapping right now. I never stopped you, did I?"
———
Saturday, 28 March 2015
Cambodia-Japan Relations: Beyond the East China Sea
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| Image Credit: REUTERS/Toshifumi Kitamura/Pool |
Cambodia and Japan first established diplomatic relations in 1953. Subsequently, during the more than two decades in which Cambodia was engulfed in political turbulence and then civil war, bilateral ties were suspended. Then, in the lead-up to the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements on October 23, 1991, Japan played an active role in bringing all the warring factions together and helping them to reconcile. Tokyo was also one of the major contributors to Cambodia’s post-war reconstruction.
Since 1992, Japan has been Cambodia’s biggest donor, giving more than $2 billion in official development assistance. Japanese aid placed heavy emphasis on rebuilding Cambodia’s infrastructure, which had been destroyed by years of war and negligence. Roads, bridges, and irrigation systems have been constructed or rehabilitated, connecting rural areas to major cities across the country and improving the lives of many Cambodians.
In addition, Japan has been working closely with the Cambodian government to strengthen its education system, which remains weak and underfunded. More schools have been built. Each year, hundreds of Cambodian students receive scholarships either from private funding or from the Japanese government to pursue their studies in Japan and other countries. Some aid money is also allocated to address the problem of skills shortages, especially in the area of science, technology and engineering.
In early 2014, Japan provided $11.5 million in Grant Aid to expand the National Maternal and Child Health Center. Meanwhile, Sunrise Healthcare Service Co is building the first Japanese hospital in Cambodia, spending $35 million on the facility that is scheduled to open in 2016. The new hospital will be equipped with state-of-the-art healthcare equipment and highly trained medical staff. These are just some highlights of Japan’s role in strengthening the healthcare system in Cambodia.
Exile activists go to UN claiming US breaching human rights
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| Khan Hin, who was deported from the US five months ago, still holds out hope he can return to the only country he knows as home. Charlotte Pert |
Tired of Washington’s indifference to their cause, Cambodian-American activists look overseas for help in fighting deportation
Naroen Chhin says he’s one of the lucky ones. With a felony drug conviction, the Philadelphia native might have joined hundreds of other Cambodian-Americans who have been deported to the Kingdom since 2002.
“I have friends and family who got deported back, but what was interesting is that I have the same criminal conviction … I committed the crime, I got convicted and I did my time, and I got to stay in the States,” the 31-year-old, who is now a community organiser with the immigration rights 1Love Movement, said in a phone interview from the US this week.
Unlike his deported friends and family, who only held permanent residency in the US, Chhin was a naturalised US citizen. That saved him from deportation, though Chhin said the deportees, most of whom came to the US as infants and have no memory of life elsewhere, ought to have the same second chance.
“It doesn’t make sense. They look like me, and they also came over as refugees and grew up in America,” he said.
Discouraged by political rhetoric and lack of action in Washington, Chhin and other Cambodian-American activists are looking for new strategies to fight the deportation of “exiled” Khmers after a decade of fruitless advocacy.
Under a treaty signed by Cambodia and the US in 2002, non-citizen Cambodians residing in America can be deported to the Kingdom and barred from re-entry for crimes ranging from drunk driving to murder. The Phnom Penh-based Returnee Integration Support Center puts the total number of deportees at 467. About 2,000 others back in the US, however, could be forced to repatriate.
While immigration reform is a hot topic in US politics – an executive order issued by President Barack Obama last November providing a path to legality for roughly 4 million undocumented immigrants was fiercely opposed by Republicans – the repatriation of convicted criminals is largely a non-issue for both major parties.
“There’s never been a place for there to be some understanding or policy related to people who have been deported for prior criminal convictions,” said Mia-la Kiernan, community organiser with the Southeast Asia Freedom Network (SEAFN) umbrella advocacy group, which also includes 1Love, in a phone interview from Philadelphia.
Crimes committed by newly arrived Cambodians, Kiernan added, resulted from the trauma of “US militarism” in Southeast Asia and the subsequent Khmer Rouge regime, as well as a lack of public support in the poor inner-city communities where the immigrants were resettled.
Chanravy Proeung, Naroen Chhin and Chhaya Chhoum went to Geneva to petition the UN’s Human Rights Council. PHOTO SUPPLIED
“There’s such a polarisation between people who are considered the ‘good immigrants’ and people considered the ‘bad immigrants’,” she said.
Exhibition of 1920s photos provides portal to the past
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| Portal’s street photography captures local detail in remarkable depth. GEORGES PORTAL |
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| A visit to Angkor before mass tourism descended was an enviable luxury of the ’20s. GEORGES PORTAL |
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| The bank of the Mekong River in 1929, one of many images from French actor Georges Portal's travels to Cambodia on display from Tuesday. GEORGES PORTAL |
The photographs of the mysterious travelling actor Georges Portal are being exhibited for the first time thanks to an old family friend
Until four years ago, Pierre-Jean Rey had never thought of the collection of photos left to him by his “great uncle” (really his father’s best friend) Georges Portal as anything more than a remarkable family heirloom. Then, on a work trip to Cambodia, he happened to mention the 400-strong library of glass plate “positives” depicting Asia in 1929 to staff at the Hotel Sofitel Angkor.
“The manager was very interested when I told him there were some photos of Angkor, so the next time I came back, I made some prints to bring with me,” recalls Rey, himself a photographer.
When it was discovered that the collection also contained a rich selection of images of Phnom Penh, it was decided that an exhibition should be mounted at the hotel’s branch in the capital.
“Wonders of 1929”, which opens on Tuesday, March 31 and will be on view for four months, consists of 84 of the best images from Portal’s travels in Cambodia 85 years ago.
To the casual observer, the archive is a fascinating gateway to a different time, but Rey hopes it will prove even more interesting for professional archivists. “Historians don’t even know about this collection yet. It’s a first discovery,” he says.
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| The Faces of Bayon. GEORGES PORTAL |
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| The Naga Bridge. GEORGES PORTAL |
Many of the landmarks captured in the lively and stunningly detailed selection will be familiar to viewers today: the bell curve of Wat Phnom, the original Naga Bridge with its fanned, serpentine parapet and – of course – the timeless silhouette of Angkor Wat.
But Portal was also a photographer with a talent for narrative, and the most thought-provoking photos in the exhibition are those that document local life and the power dynamics of colonial rule: in one image, a barefoot local hauls a passenger along the road in a foot-powered rickshaw.
Hun Sen muses odds on teacher prize win
School of Vice: It takes one to know one, eh?
Cambodian teacher Neang Phalla stood no chance of winning the Global Teacher Prize when she flew to Dubai earlier this month, Prime Minister Hun Sen reasoned yesterday, as the fact former US President Bill Clinton attended the ceremony signalled the award was going to an American.
“Even though the result of the vote was not announced they had prepared for the winner,” Hun Sen said yesterday during a speech at Phnom Penh’s Institute of Technology.
“Clinton was already invited, which meant a teacher from the US won.”
Although missing out, top-10 finalist Phalla, who has worked for 25 years at Krousar Thmey’s schools for the disabled, was named a goodwill ambassador for global education, awarded a gold medal and given $2,500.
“The candidate was already elected, we had just gone there as an honoured guest,” added Hun Sen, who yesterday awarded Phalla 100 million riel for her work in education.
“But the top 10 is enough for us, even if the top 50, I was also happy.”
China Challenges ASEAN with Land Fills in South China Sea
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| Image Credit: REUTERS/Erik De Castro |
A stunning series of photos released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. offer a grim outlook for the region as Beijing ratchets-up its territorial assertions over the hotly disputed Spratly and Paracel islands.
At least four major man-made structures have been erected on Itu, Gaven, Johnson South and Fiery Cross reefs with supply platforms, communications, gun emplacements, and docking facilities installed alongside artificial islands over the winter months.
CSIS analyst Greg Poling said China’s reclamation work in the South China Sea – known as the East Sea in Hanoi and the West Philippines Sea in Manila – was progressing faster than anticipated and that Beijing had gone further than any other claimant.
“Its reclamation certainly violates the spirit of the 2002 Declaration of Conduct (DOC) between China and ASEAN, and is at best on shaky legal grounds,” he said.
The DOC is supposed to facilitate dialogue among the 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, providing a means to halt potential confrontations in the South China Sea before they escalate into something much worse.
But its implementation remains incomplete and Beijing is demanding territorial disputes involving the Spratly or Paracels be dealt with on a bilateral basis and not at a regional level through a unified ASEAN approach. That has divided loyalties within ASEAN.
Of members with overlapping claims, the Philippines and Vietnam have been vocal and Hanoi has been on a defense build-up through a series of major arms acquisitions with Russia worth billions of dollars, including six Kilo-class submarines and up to 20 Su-30 fighter-bombers.
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