3,000 RIELS | VOLUME 20, No. 32
monDAY, februaRY 15, 2010
CAMBODIA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD
www.phnompenhpost.com
Ministry confirms cases of cholera by Brooke Lewis and khouth sophak Chakrya
Since then, Korsang has had little communication with authorities. A letter sent this month requesting a meeting with the NACD, which oversees licence approval, has gone unanswered, Bradford said. NACD officials declined to comment when reached by the Post on Sunday, citing the Chinese New Year holiday. In early January, NACD Secretary General Moek Dara told the Post there were no plans to stop Korsang from distributing needles. However, authorities did not issue a new licence when the old one expired on December 31.
THE Ministry of Health has reported that more than 100 Cambodians have tested positive for cholera since November, reversing its initial refusal to confirm the presence of the disease and simultaneously defending its handling of the outbreak. Speaking at a joint press conference held with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday, Minister of Health Mam Bunheng said there had been 128 confirmed cholera cases and one death. About 65 percent of the cases involved children under the age of 15, and the single recorded fatality was an 82-year-old man from Takeo province who died after contracting cholera in January, he said. Dr Nima Asgari, a public health official at the WHO, on Sunday noted that the nation has only four hospitals, all in Phnom Penh, with the correct laboratory facilities required to test for cholera, adding that it would be “almost impossible to estimate the actual number of cases of cholera” nationwide. Prior to Friday, ministry officials had not released any information about cholera cases, drawing criticism from officials at Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital in Phnom Penh, who said they had been forwarding information on cases of cholera to the government since mid-November. Though doctors at the hospital last week accused the government of not doing enough to publicise the outbreak, Mam Bunheng said his ministry had tried to balance the need to be forthcoming and the need to avoid sowing “panic”. “We have not hidden any cases,” he said, pointing out that cholera cases had been reported in “three or four” Khmer-language newspapers. He said the ministry had refrained from making more
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Happy New Year
A group of dragon dancers performs for Chinese New Year on Street 130 near Sisowath Quay on Sunday. RICK VALENZUELA
No syringe licence for NGO Observers warn of ‘developing’ health crisis with needle programme stalled by IRWIN LOY AND MAY TITTHARA
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LOCAL NGO says some intravenous drug users have resorted to the dangerous practice of sharing needles since its licence to distribute clean needles ended at the beginning of the year, sparking fears that HIV transmission rates among drug users could soar if the situation is left unchecked. Anecdotal evidence collected by Korsang, a harm-reduction NGO that works with drug users, suggests that some of its clients are again sharing needles after authorities failed
to renew its needle and syringe programme (NSP) licence January 1, the organisation said. “There has been no consistent access to sterile injection equipment since our licence was not renewed,” said Holly Bradford, the group’s founder and technical adviser. In interviews with 20 drug users earlier this month, 17 reported that they had started sharing needles since the licence expired, Bradford said. One drug user said he had injected with a needle that six other people had used before him. “They had access to needles and had learned not to share,” said Bradford, calling the situation a “public health crisis”.
“Blood-borne viruses are definitely being transmitted,” she said. “The only way to stop that is to get back in there and make everybody use a new syringe for each injection.”
Tension with authorities Korsang’s needle and syringe licence expired two weeks after tension mounted over a controversial detoxification drug programme that authorities wanted to administer to drugusing clients from Korsang and Mith Samlanh, an NGO that works with street children. Officials with the government’s anti-drugs bureau, the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD), had ap-
proached the groups looking for participants, which alarmed rights groups and UN agencies because the drug trial involved a little-known Vietnamese medication, Bong Sen. Both organisations declined, and NACD officials appeared to take offence when Korsang asked its international donors to intervene. “They complained to [international groups], claiming that authorities were forcing them into the trial,” Neak Yuthea, the NACD’s director for legislation, education and rehabilitation, said in an interview last month. “We did not force anyone. There is no reason for us to bring people to die or joke with people’s lives.”
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THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
NATIONAL Health issue ‘developing’ CONTINUEd FROM >1
Thai national Suphap Vong Pakna is led from court on Friday after being sentenced for laying mines in Oddar Meanchey province. pHA LINA
Thailand to offer legal advice to man who laid land mines
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UTHORITIES in Thailand plan to offer legal advice to a Thai citizen who was convicted of planting land mines in Cambodian territory, a government spokesman said Sunday. The military court in Phnom Penh on Friday sentenced Suphap Vong Pakna to 20 years in prison on Friday after the man confessed to planting land mines along the contested border with Thailand. Officials with the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry have been assigned to offer aid to the convicted man, said Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn, who characterised the offer as the sort of assistance any government would give a citizen who is
facing legal action in a foreign country. “They are looking into what assistance the government is able to provide,” Panitan said. “They can provide some legal advice, they can contact his family members, and they can help, if needed, select an attorney to help appeal the case.” Both Cambodia and Thailand are signatories to the Ottawa Treaty, which places strict bans on the use and stockpiling of antipersonnel mines. To date, Thailand has been unwilling to comment on the case, with Panitan only saying it should be decided through “normal legal channels”. On Sunday, the spokesman would only reiterate that the convicted man is not currently connected to the Thai military.
“He is not a soldier,” Panitan said. In testimony earlier this month, Suphap Vong Pakna said that he had been hired by Thai soldiers to plant at least five land mines before he was arrested by authorities in Oddar Meanchey province last February. Suphap Vong Pakna said he was offered 2,000 baht to 3,000 baht, or roughly US$60 to $90, for each land mine he planted, his court-appointed lawyer said. On Friday, Military Court Judge Pork Pan found the Thai national guilty on charges including attempted murder, endangering national security and entering the country illegally. Suphap Vong Pakna, the judge said, tried to “lay mines in an attempt to kill people, create panic and affect nation-
TODAY
by CHHAY CHANNYDA AND IRWIN LOY
al order and cause political instability”. After the hearing, the man’s Cambodian defence lawyer said the verdict was satisfactory because it fell at the lower end of a range that included a maximum of 30 years in prison.
Defendant a ‘victim’ “The sentence is acceptable because it is a low punishment for such a crime,” said Sam Sokong, a lawyer with the Cambodian Defenders Project, who said he would discuss the possibility of an appeal with his client. The lawyer had earlier argued for leniency, calling his client a “victim”. “Due to his poverty and low education, he sacrificed his life for money without knowing that laying mines is criminal.”
Korsang was one of only two organisations permitted to distribute clean needles in Phnom Penh. The other, Mith Samlanh, planned to temporarily cover the gap left by Korsang’s absence. But the problem has been compounded by a jump in near daily street sweeps that have sent many drug users into hiding, said David Harding, the international coordinator for drugs programmes with Friends International, which is affiliated with Mith Samlanh. Now, Mith Samlanh’s outreach workers are finding it harder to reach drug users, despite a surge in the number of people they must cover. Outreach workers used to see an average of 150 drug users each day before December, Harding said, and now they see an average of 60. “They’re finding smaller groups of people, with people coming out of their hiding places less frequently,” said Harding, who called the situation “deeply concerning”. “This is the first time I’ve felt that harm-reduction services for [injection drug users] have been seriously undermined,” he said. “We’ve had blips before and issues with police actions, but we’ve always had a gradual progression in the depth and the scope of services being provided. “This is the first time I’m deeply concerned that harm reduction is not serving its population.” Harding warned that health concerns could broaden beyond drug users. Through unprotected sex, people infected with HIV or Hepatitis C acquired from tainted needles could go on to pass the virus to husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, he said. “I would say this is a developing health crisis,” Harding said. “What we have right now is a situation where we simply don’t know how serious this is going to get.”
Advocates say needle-distribution programmes are a valuable tool in cutting the spread of HIV among drug users. While Cambodia has been lauded for managing to reduce its overall rate of HIV transmission among adults, figures from the World Health Organisation suggest that the HIV rate among injecting drug users in Cambodia stands at around 24 percent. NSP programmes are “extremely important, because the transmission of the virus through sharing needles among injecting drug users is very high”, said Tea Phauly, most at-risk populations adviser with UNAIDS in Cambodia. “If people have no access to new syringes, this is a major concern for UNAIDS.”
Donor concern The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has pledged more than US$200 million to the national health system and funds HIV-reduction initiatives, including some of Korsang’s services, has also urged the government to support NSPs. The Global Fund “expressed our support to renewing the licence of all NSP service providers, based on concerns that reducing the distribution of clean needles in the capital city could pose a significant public health risk and possibly rapidly escalate HIV transmission among the drug using population,” the organisation said in a December e-mail. In the meantime, Korsang held a prayer for drug users at a local pagoda Sunday. “I came to the pagoda to pray and make a dedication to my friends who died after using drugs,” said Him Sophorn. Thon Visoth said he knows the dangers of sharing needles, but uses them when he feels he has no other options. “When we use drugs, we don’t care about getting diseases from our friends, because all we are thinking is that using drugs will make us feel happy,” he said.
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
NATIONAL
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flu China to try Uighur deportees Swine vaccine may A(h1N1)
by SEBASTIAN STRANGIO AND VONG SOKHENG
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HINA has indicated that the 20 ethnic Uighur asylum seekers who were forcibly deported by Cambodian authorities in December are set to stand trial for committing “criminal” acts, American media have quoted a Chinese official as saying. Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a written statement to The New York Times last week that China was a country “ruled by law” and was set to implement it in the case of the Uighurs. “The judicial authorities deal with illegal criminal issues strictly according to law,” he said in a written statement to the paper. Like previous Chinese statements, the Times report did not include any information about the nature of the charges against the Uighurs or when they are to stand trial. The vague announcement has done little to dampen increasing concern about the fate of the 20 Uighurs – including three children – who were flown out of Cambodia on December 19 after arriving in Cambodia a month earlier to seek political asylum. Uighur rights groups say a total of 22 Uighurs arrived in Cambodia in November after witnessing ethnic riots in China’s Xinjiang province in July.
Many observers linked the deportations to the arrival in Cambodia the following day of Vice President Xi Jinping, who signed an unprecedented US$1.2 billion in economic aid agreements with Cambodia. Two Uighurs escaped at the time and still remain unaccounted for. In a statement issued on January 28, Human Rights Watch alleged that the deportees had disappeared into a “black hole” on their return to China. “There is no information about their whereabouts, no notification of any legal charges against them, and there are no guarantees they are safe from torture and ill-treatment,” Sophie Richardson, the group’s Asia advocacy director, said in the statement. The group also called on the Chinese government to “disclose the status and whereabouts” of the 20 Uighurs and allow them to meet with family members, lawyers and UN officials. Sister Denise Coughlan, director of Jesuit Refugee Services Cambodia, which was involved with the Uighur case, said that in her interactions with the 22 asylum seekers, she had no impression that they were responsible for criminal acts. “My experience of them is that they committed no crime other than trying to escape a country they feared was going to torture them,” she said. She also said that the Office of the UN High Commissioner
be delayed
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Chinese paramilitary police patrol the ethnic Uighur area of Urumqi on July 9, just days after ethnic riots rocked the city, killing nearly 200 and injuring 1,700, according to Chinese government estimates. AFP
for Refugees, which had previously put its trust in the Cambodian government to properly process the Uighurs’ asylum claims, should be allowed to meet with them in China. “Because they were taken from a house that was guaranteed safe by UNHCR and the Cambodian government, the UN should be allowed ac-
Health Ministry confirms cholera
cess to them,” she added. When contacted on Sunday, Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak said he did not know what was happening in China with regard to the Uighurs. “We have done our job already, which is to implement the law in Cambodia,” he said. He added that authorities were still trying to locate
the two remaining Uighurs, but that so far he had heard no information about them. On January 26, a court in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, handed down death sentences for four more Uighurs who were accused of involvement in the July riots, bringing to 26 the number of those sentenced to death in connection with the incidents.
s many as 300,000 individual doses of swine flu vaccine sourced through the World Health Organisation (WHO), that had been expected to arrive in Cambodia by the end of 2009, may be delayed once again, WHO and government officials said on Sunday. “We were hoping it would be in the February-March window, but we don’t have an exact date,” said Dr Nima Asgari, a public health specialist at the WHO in Cambodia. WHO officials said in January that the vaccine would arrive by the end of February. Asgari said that the WHO wanted to vaccinate every Cambodian, but that the limited availability of the vaccine means health officials will need to prioritise particularly vulnerable groups, which in this case include healthcare workers, pregnant women and children. Meanwhile, the Communicable Diseases Control Department at the Ministry of Health reported on Sunday that the number of A(H1N1) cases in Cambodia reached 560 this week, an increase of three over last week’s figure. A total of six Cambodians have died from the A(H1N1) virus.
KHUON LEAKHANA
VACANCY NOTICE Connecting Cambodia to a World of Development Experience UNDP is the UN’s global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. “Cambodians living with dignity in a prosperous society at peace, based on justice, free choices and equitable access to productive resources”
Project to Support Democratic Development through Decentralization and Deconcentration (PSDD) PSDD is a four year project financed by UNDP/SIDA/DFID to provide support to the Royal Government of Cambodia’s National Committee for Sub-National Democratic Development (NCDD). Under annual work plans and budgets financed by 14 donors, the NCDD Secretariat manages and coordinates the formulation of a range of decentralization and deconcentration reform initiatives and oversees sub-national investments and services at province, district and commune levels. The PSDD is looking for qualified, experienced, and results-oriented candidates to fill the following positions based in Ministry of Interior, Phnom Penh:
A doctor holds up a petri dish containing a confirmed cholera specimen at Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital last week. The Health Ministry said Friday that 128 Cambodians had contracted cholera. RICK VALENZUELA CONTINUEd FROM >1
publicising information about the cases so as to avoid encouraging people to seek unnecessary treatment and potentially overwhelm medical facilities. “We may cause panic among people, and they will rush to hospitals to get treated,” he said. He said the ministry had taken immediate action after the first case was confirmed, visiting provinces in which potential cases had been reported to educate residents about the importance of frequent handwashing, covering toilets and boiling drinking water. He also said the ministry had distributed oral rehydration salts, intravenous fluids and chlorine for disinfecting water. Mam Bunheng said an uptick in diarrhoea cases was com-
mon during the dry season. “An increase in diarrhoea is not unusual at this time of year in Cambodia, when water levels are low and people may be tempted to use unprotected water sources,” Mam Bunheng said. “I hope the press will inform people about preventions rather than making them panic.” Dr Sok Touch, director of the Health Ministry’s Communicable Diseases Control Department, echoed that sentiment, saying: “This [press conference] is not to declare an emergency but to provide an update about cholera cases.”
Treatment As they have throughout the past week, government and WHO officials argued that, when it comes to treatment, there is little difference be-
tween cholera and other forms of acute watery diarrhoea. “We want to consider cholera as just another kind of diarrhoea,” Sok Touch said. He added that it was important for people to practice good hygiene to protect themselves from all forms of diarrhoea, not just cholera. Asgari reiterated that most cholera cases can be treated with oral rehydration, and that only 10 to 20 percent of cases become severe enough to require hospitalisation. He disputed the argument put forth by Kantha Bopha doctors last week that all suspected cases of cholera should be treated with antibiotics. “Antibiotics should be used for only severe cases of acute watery diarrhea,” Asgari said, adding that indiscriminate use of antibiotics could eventually render them less effective.
Job Title Contract Type
: :
National Finance Advisor Service Contract (SB-4)
SELECTION CRITERIA: • Master’s degree in a relevant field (Financial/Accounting, Management, Economics, etc.) • At least 5 years experience in management of financial & accounting system and procedure. • Knowledge of the UN/WB and government financial procedures and relevant regulatory framework. • Proven experience in capacity building and facilitating of training. • Understanding of the Cambodia administrative system at both National and Sub-National levels. • High-level skills in Microsoft Office or equivalent software packages, knowledge of Peachtree accounting system is an advantage. • Excellent Khmer and English writing, speaking and communication skills. Job Title Contract Type
: :
Senior Information Technology Advisor Service Contract (SB-4)
SELECTION CRITERIA: • A relevant post-graduate University degree and/or combination of IT experience • More than 3 years experience in Web development with various technology such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and minimum 2 years experience writing software using Microsoft .NET Framework technology • Comprehensive knowledge of Inversion of Control (IoC), Dependency Injection (DI), Model-View-Controller (MVC) Pattern and Test Driven Development (TDD) methodology. • Familiar with Castle Project (http://www.castleproject.org) for building ASP.NET using Castle Monorail and Castle ActiveRecord • Experience in DBA is a plus • Fluency in spoken and written Khmer and English Detailed Terms of Reference (TOR), competency requirements and selection criteria are available online at http://www.un.org.kh/undp/jobs. Please submit all your application documents (including P-11) online and state in your application letter how you meet the selection criteria specified in the announcements. This vacancy is open to Cambodian applicants. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted for written competency test and/or interview. UNDP will contact references directly. UNDP is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse workforce with staff from minorities and disadvantaged groups. Women are strongly encouraged to apply. Deadline: 26th February 2010
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THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
NATIONAL
KThom set to target rogue sand dredgers by KHOUTH SOPHAK CHAKRYA
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UTHORITIES in Kampong Thom say they are set to crack down on illegal sand-dredging operations in the province, after residents complained last week that one operation had caused a stretch of riverbank to collapse in Stung Sen district. Nhek Kunthea, director of the provincial Department of Industry, Mines and Energy, said he had not provided sanddredging licences to any companies in the past year and warned of an impending crackdown on rogue operators. “Currently, all of the sanddredging companies in Kampong Thom are illegal because they are using expired licences,” he said. “We will fine them or file a complaint to the courts if they
do not stop their wrongdoing.” The crackdown is to come this weekend and will also target the Tung Kimla Company, which has been blamed for the recent riverbank damage. Nhek Kunthea said his department would not provide a sand-dredging licence without a hydrology impact study (HIS) from the provincial Department of Water Resources and Meteorology. Cheat Sivutha, the department’s director, said an HIS would be forwarded to the Department of Industry next month. He said the riverbank destruction was probably not caused by the dredging, blaming strong currents instead, but that Tung Kimla was likely operating illegally. On Friday, around 400 families in Por Bakkor village in
Stung Sen district filed a complaint about the dredging, requesting a halt to the operations, which they say led to riverbank damage in their village. “We have just asked the authorities to pay attention to riverbank collapses caused by the sand dredging,” said Pen Bopharath, 45, a representative from Por Bakkor village. When contacted on Sunday, Tung Kimla, owner of the Tung Kimla Company, said he had run dredging operations in the province for many years and had never disobeyed a government regulation or order. “I have a licence from the provincial Department of Industry, Mines and Energy and from Water Resources,” he said, adding that they were obtained from authorities at the district and provincial level.
Tribunal hears from Khieu Samphan Former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan (right) appears before Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal on Friday to appeal his pretrial detention, after the court ruled to extend it for a third year in November. Ieng Thirith, the regime’s former social action minister, will appeal her pretrial detention today. AFP
Siem Reap police focus on overloaded trucks by rann reuy siem reap province
POLICE in Siem Reap province have begun halting overloaded trucks and removing “illegal” attachments sometimes used by owners to pack more goods into truck beds, officials said Sunday. The move is part of an effort to comply with an order given by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who in a speech on December 28 called for tougher enforcement of laws and orders against overloaded vehicles. The speech was given to inaugurate stretches of National Roads 5 and 6. Enforcement of the order was set to go into effect on February 1, but officials pushed it back by about a week, saying they had not had enough time to educate drivers about the new rules. Officials have not identi-
fied a specific weight limit for trucks, saying instead that individual police officers would be tasked with determining which ones were overloaded and could potentially damage roads. Sok Sunlin, director of the provincial Public Works and Transport Department, said nine “heavy” trucks had been stopped in the past week by police, who then removed some portions of the truck beds. He added that many of the trucks transporting cement, metals and construction equipment belonged to wealthy people with government connections, and that officials routinely call him to intervene on behalf of owners whose vehicles had been stopped. “Now, I always cut my phone off after ordering my police to cut illegal parts,” he said.
Fees for taxis reduced by khouth sophak chakrya
A CAR park owner in Banteay Meanchey province who infuriated 20 taxi drivers when he raised parking fees this month backed down after the drivers held a protest last week. The Plong Chamroen Company, which manages parking at the market in Thmor Pouk district, had doubled fees for cars and almost tripled them for vans.
But the company’s owner, Plong Chamroen, said last Thursday that he would revert to the original fees of 3,500 riels (US $0.85) for vans and 2,500 riels for cars, adding that he depended on the drivers to make the car park profitable. He said he would also ask provincial authorities to reduce his annual payment on the car park to make up for lost revenue.
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
NATIONAL
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Govt rejects comments on PVihear plan by vong sokheng
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HE Council of Ministers issued a swift rebuke to Thailand’s environment minister on Friday, after the official was quoted as saying that Cambodia’s UNESCO World Heritage application for Preah Vihear temple was incomplete. According to Bangkok’s The Nation newspaper, Thailand’s minister of environment, Suwit Khunkitti, said Thursday that officials from UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee had informed him that because Cambodia has not yet submitted site-management plans, the status of the Preah Vihear application remains unfinished. “The uncertainty on Preah Vihear Temple listing will be resolved pending on the ThaiCambodian cooperation to demarcate the borders,” Suwit reportedly said. Cambodia and Thailand have been working bilaterally to demarcate their shared border under the auspices of the Joint Border Commission. On Friday, the Council of Ministers said in a statement that Suwit was “completely wrong for not fully updating the legal process of both the World Heritage Centre and the
World Heritage Committee”. “We deeply regret that Minister Suwit had made this pretentious and misleading statement regarding the inscription of the Temple of Preah Vihear with the purpose of poisoning the international community’s good will and cooperation, and tarnishing the positive image and good reputation of UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee,” the statement read. Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said Sunday that Cambodia submitted its site-management plan for Preah Vihear temple on January 28. “Cambodia has filed the plan to meet the deadline of the World Heritage Committee, but Thailand continues to lie and manipulate information about the issue of Preah Vihear temple and the surrounding border,” Phay Siphan said. “There is no area of uncertainty about the listing, and this inscription is undoubtedly irreversible.” Teruo Jinnai, representative of UNESCO in Cambodia, said Sunday that he believed the Preah Vihear application was complete. “We were informed by the government that they had submitted their documents,” he said. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JAMES O’TOOLE
Convicted child sex offender Scott Alan Hecker arrives at Phnom Penh Municipal Court for his hearing on Friday. The court found Hecker guilty of committing indecent acts against two underage Cambodian girls. PHA LINA
Sex offender may be free soon after trial by CHRANN CHAMROEUN
A 44-YEAR-OLD American man convicted of committing indecent acts against two underage sisters over a period of several years might serve fewer than 10 more days of his seven-month sentence due to the length of his pre-trial detention, Phnom Penh Municipal Court ruled on Friday. Judge Seng Neang said that though he may have techni-
cally sentenced Scott Alan Hecker to two years in prison, the defendant was only required to spend seven months behind bars before finishing out his sentence on probation. Those seven months, in turn, would be measured “from the time of [Hecker’s] arrest on July 23, 2009”, nearly cancelling out the prison term entirely. The judge also ordered Hecker to pay 4 million riels (around US$963) as a fine.
Peng Maneth, a lawyer provided for the plaintiffs by antipaedophile NGO Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), condemned the sentence as far too lenient. “We intend to bring this case before the general prosecutor of the Appeal Court, and will seek high-level means of expelling the man from Cambodia for fear that he might resume sexual abuse against other girls,” Peng Maneth said. Meanwhile, the lawyers for
No complaint filed in violent land dispute: Preah Sihanouk court by may titthara
Rocket man A boy lights a firework rocket marked “Made in China” at his home near Deum Tkov market on Thursday ahead of Chinese New Year celebrations. SOVAN PHILONG
A PREAH Sihanouk provincial court official on Sunday said his office had not received a complaint accusing guards for a Chinese development company and members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces of injuring villagers during a protest last month against landgrabbing. Representatives of the families in Prey Nob district say they filed the complaint on January 29, three days after four villagers were rushed to hospital following the altercation. “We did not receive any complaint filed by villagers in Prey Nob district. We have a lot of judges, and none of them received the complaint,” said Kim Eng, deputy director of the provincial court. But Tak Vanntha, the Preah Sihanouk provincial police chief, confirmed that he had received the complaint from villagers involved in the protest and had passed it on to the court. “We heard that there were members of an RCAF military unit from Brigade 31 involved, who were using violence [against villagers] with the company guards,” he added.
In a statement issued January 27, the rights group Licadho also accused Brigade 31 of involvement in the standoff between the families and the Yie Chea Company, and called “for an immediate end to the illegal land-clearing and military violence against families in Preah Sihanouk’s Prey Nob district”. RCAF officials could not be reached for comment on Sunday. Lam Ra, the father of a 25-year-old man who says that security guards beat him severely during the protest, said he suspected the court had received the complaint but was reluctant to bring the case to trial. “I think that police have already brought this case to the court, and I don’t know why they are still keeping quiet,” he said. He said his son, Lam Ravy, had been injured while trying to assist a 68-year-old woman, Chum Heang, who was hospitalised after the protest and also says that security guards severely beat her. Lam Ra said his family was not seeking compensation and merely wanted to see the guards brought to court.
the defence insisted that the lack of proof outside the uncertain testimony of his victims meant that Hecker should have been acquitted outright. Scott Alan Hecker was arrested in the capital’s Daun Penh district after he was found with two underage sisters, who claimed to have been in some form of relationship with the man since meeting him in Preah Sihanouk province in 2006.
OPPOSITION
HRP to raise possibility of SRP merger
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he Human Rights Party is set to hold a press conference today to discuss the prospect of merging with the Sam Rainsy Party, a goal the parties announced in January 2009. HRP spokesman Yem Ponharith said Sunday that little progress had been made towards making the goal a reality, and called on the leaders of both parties to have “an open mind” during future negotiations. “For us, the definition of an alliance is to create something new,” he said. “It does not mean that one party will defect to the other one.” HRP President Kem Sokha said in October that he was awaiting a response from the SRP regarding three conditions the HRP laid out for a possible merger: a term limit for the party president, a change in the new party’s name and joint decision-making between officials from the two sides. SRP spokesman Yim Sovann could not be reached for comment on Sunday. SRP leaders have said previously that they were open to the idea of a merger but lacked sufficient time to iron out the details. MEAS SOKCHEA
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THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
NATIONAL
police blotter KANDAL MAN TAKES AXe TO STEPMOTHER
l A 26-year-old man was arrested Thursday after he allegedly murdered his stepmother. The suspect, from Kandal province, confessed to military police that he attacked his stepmother with an axe after becoming enraged by her attempts to sabotage his marriage. He was immediately taken to court by provincial police. KAMPUCHEA THMEY
Bulldozer accident kills 11-year-old
l A bulldozer ran over a child in Kampot province on Wednesday, instantly killing the 11-year-old boy. A local woman who hired the bulldozer to clear a plot of land said she tried to stop children from playing near the bulldozer but was unable to do so. The driver of the bulldozer fled the scene but is being tracked down by police and the victim’s family, who have demanded compensation. RASMEY KAMPUCHEA
POST-PARTY ASSAULT KILLS MEANCHEY MEN
Flowers replace a wing mirror of a motorbike as a couple sits together on Sisowath Quay on Valentine’s Day on Sunday. pha lina
A less risky Valentine’s Day Government and NGO officials work to curb casual sex, preserve tradition by KIM YUTHANA
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OM Sopheakvichet, a young man dressed in stylish white jeans and a tight pink T-shirt, drove his motorbike behind Sisowath High School and stopped at a flower stand, eager to find the right Valentine’s Day present for his girlfriend of two years. He spent five minutes Sunday selecting from an array of colours and negotiating a
price before settling on a small bouquet of pink roses tied together with ribbon. “I chose pink roses for her because I want to express my great love for her, and I want her to know how much I adore her,” said Som Sopheakvichet, who said he is “in his 20s” and that his girlfriend is 19. Asked about his plans for the day, he said he and his friends would probably keep things simple, perhaps going for lunch near the Cambodian-
Japanese Friendship Bridge. Then, without being asked, he added that, once alone, he and his girlfriend would keep things simple, too. “Though I celebrate this foreign culture, my girlfriend and I never go too far and never forget Khmer tradition,” he said. “Everything we will do today will be to increase our understanding of each other. We are exchanging bunches of flowers and gifts only to demonstrate
The United States Embassy Phnom Penh VEHICLES FOR SALE The American Embassy wishes to dispose of four duty free vehicles through closed auction (competitive bid) sale from 0830-1030 on Friday, February 19, 2010 at the U.S. Embassy parking lot on St. 102, Sangkat Wat Phnom, Phnom Penh City.
Vehicles for Sale: 1. 1996 Toyota Land Cruiser (Blue), 4WD Engine Capacity 2800cc Minimum Bid Acceptable: $3,500 Mileage: 163,248 Km Fuel Type: Gasoline 2. 1997 Jeep Cherokee (Blue) 4WD, Engine Capacity 4000cc Minimum Bid Acceptable: $1,000 Mileage: 58,346 Fuel Type: Gasoline 3. 2000 Ford Expedition (White) 4WD, Engine Capacity 3800cc Minimum Bid Acceptable: $2,000 Mileage: 96,018 Fuel Type: Gasoline 4. 1996 Toyota Hi-Ace (White) Cargo Configuration, Engine Capacity 2800cc Minimum Bid Acceptable: $3,500 Mileage: 73,383 Fuel Type: Diesel Vehicles are available for inspection from 0900-1600 on February 17-18, 2010. No test drives. Vehicles are sold AS IS/WHERE IS. Bid slips and sealed envelopes will be provided on site. Bid envelopes will be accepted from 0830-1000 on February 19 and the bids will be opened 1030 on the same day. Winners must be present and pay the winning bid amount plus applicable tax in cash to take custody of the vehicle. The United States Embassy has the right to accept and or decline any or all bids. For any questions please email phnompenhdisposal@state.gov or call 02372-8226 (English) or 02372-8203 (Khmer)
our trust and our feelings for each other.” His assurances aside, government officials and NGO workers have expressed concern that young Cambodians increasingly regard Valentine’s Day as an occasion for casual sex. “In confusion about the meaning of the day, some young people agree to have sex to demonstrate their trust and love for each other,” said Yang Kim Eng, the former president of the Khmer Youth Association, a local NGO. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has also decried what it describes as the loose morals sometimes associated with Valentine’s Day. It unveiled three five-minute advertisements Saturday that expound on “the true meaning of the day”, said Sivann Botum, a secretary of state at the ministry. Sivann Botum said in a recent interview that the ads were an attempt “to reach out to young people because we want to make them understand that most teenagers do the wrong thing on Valentine’s Day, which can impact the respect people have for Cambodian women”. Beyond concerns for national morals, Yang Kim Eng said he was also worried about the spread of sexually transmitted illnesses that could accompany a rise in casual sex. “Such behaviour can lead to the spread of AIDS,” he said. “We want to raise awareness among young people about the spread of HIV and how to use a condom correctly.” This goal is not his alone.
l Two men were stabbed to death after leaving a child’s birthday party in Phnom Penh’s Boeung Tumpun commune, Meanchey district, on Wednesday night. The pair were involved in an ongoing verbal dispute with a group of men that turned nasty when they found the men waiting for them outside a house they had rented. Five men were arrested in connection with the murder on Thursday. RASMEY KAMPUCHEA
rejected customer punches waitress
A man passes out free condoms in Phnom Penh on Valentine’s Day on Sunday. heng chivoan
In an attempt to encourage safe sex, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation sent more than 100 volunteers out on the streets of Phnom Penh over the weekend to hand out 200,000 free condoms. Chhim Sarath, the director of the foundation, said the volunteers had in part been targeting sex workers in bars and nightclubs. Sivann Botum said she hoped the efforts of the NGOs and the government would lead to more tasteful and less risky celebrations of the holiday. She added that she had been encouraged by feedback the ministry had received from people who had seen the advertisements. “The five-minute spots show the meaning of Valentine’s Day, educating Cambodian youths to express their love towards their families, teachers and friends,” she said.
l A disgruntled customer, dismayed by a waitress’s refusal to sleep with him, allegedly punched the 25-year-old woman in the face at a beer garden in Dangkor district, Phnom Penh, on Thursday night. The 25-year-old victim said she usually enjoyed dancing with the assailant but became engaged in a verbal dispute with him after repeatedly refusing his advances. She said he knocked her to the ground after she dismissed him. The suspect subsequently fled the scene of the crime. Police say they have not managed to capture him. KAMPUCHEA THMEY
DENTIST ISN’T SMILING AFTER RAPE ARREST
l A dentist from Battambang province was arrested by police on Thursday for allegedly raping an 11-year-old girl who he lured into a forest behind his house. The victim told police that the 28-yearold suspect offered her money to take off her clothes, then raped her and said that he would kill her if she said a word to anyone about the crime. The suspect has denied the allegations, accusing the victim of slander, but the victim has had medical examinations to try to prove the rape took place. DEUM AMPIL
trANSLATED By chrann chamroeun
7
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
business Still no opening date chosen for renovated S’ville airport Though renovations were finished last year, officials say they don't know when flights to the hub will resume, as airlines have failed to sign up amid downturn by MAY KUNMAKARA
T
HE OFFICIAL opening date of Sihanoukville’s recently renovated airport has yet to be determined nearly two months after it was due to open for flights, according to aviation officials. However, discussions about the inauguration of Sihanouk International Airport (SIA), formerly known as Kang Keng airport, are under way, they said, as the new hub continues to suffer from a lack of demand on the back of a global aviation recession that caused air arrivals in the Kingdom to fall last year for the first time on record. Director of SIA, Tith Chantha, said Friday that he hasn’t received any information about the launch of his airport yet, following its upgrade to comply with international standards overseen by Société Concessionnaire des Aéroports (SCA), the French company that has an agreement with the government to operate Phnom Penh International Airport, Siem Reap International Airport and Sihanouk International Airport.
The front door of a travel agent in Phnom Penh displays the logos of Asian airlines. No carriers have yet signed up to fly to the newly renovated Sihanoukville Airport. TrACEY SHELTON
SCA managers have previously said that the official launch of SIA was scheduled for sometime in February or March.
Work on SIA began in 2006 with US$30 million of investment as its runway was extended to 2.5 kilometres. SIA was scheduled to officially
launch on November 17. “I don’t know the exact date [to launch SIA] because it has been delayed,” Tith Chantha said. “Perhaps SCA wants to
wait until their top officials can join us.” Mao Havannall, sectretary of state at the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA), also said he did not know the opening date, adding that officials had not told him when he posed the question to SCA. Chief Operating Officer of SCA Paul Cheung A Long declined to comment on the issue. Khek Norinda, communications and marketing manager for SCA, did not give a schedule either, instead referring to discussions with the government regarding the airport's future. “We believe that the discussions that the Royal Government and SCA are having with airlines should bring a positive outcome and regular flights starting this year,” he said in an email. It is hoped that new national carrier Cambodia Angkor Air will run the first flights at the new airport, said Tith Chantha, adding that he would like SIA to become Cambodia’s primary international airport. Tourist arrivals by air declined 10.3 percent in 2009 compared to 2008, according to Ministry of Tourism figures.
$100m casino to open near Vietnam border by SOEUN SAY
A NEW US$100 million casino is set to open near the Cambodia-Vietnam border at the end of this month, its owner has told the Post. The four-star, eight-storey Titan King Resort and Casino has been built on 6 hectares of land in Bavet City, Svay Rieng province, about a kilometre from the international border with Vietnam and will be inaugurated at the end of the month, said owner Kith Thieng, vice president of the Royal Group and brother to its president, Kith Meng.
It will employ 1,500 people, has 200 rooms and is the ninth casino to be built in the area. “We started to build our casino when the world economic crisis had not yet struck. Con-
casinos closed and decreased income because of the global financial crisis only.” struction took three years to complete, but now it is complete, and the grand opening will be on February 26,” Kith Thieng said. He added that although the
economic crisis had hit the casino industry, he hopes that Chinese, Malaysian and Vietnamese customers would be attracted to the new resort. “In my view, I don’t expect the world economy to recover in the next two years,” said Kith Thieng. Titan King Resort would cooperate with other casinos to promote the industry to foreign visitors, he said. Cambodia’s border casinos – mostly at Poipet on the Thai side and Bavet next to Vietnam – have seen profits slump since the economic crisis hit the Kingdom. Ministry of Finance
revenues from gaming tax were down between 7 and 8 percent last year to about US$17.5 million, Ros Phearun, deputy director of the ministry’s Department of Finance Industry, said Thursday. King’s Crown Casino and Hotel in Bavet and Caesar Casino and Hotel in Poipet both closed last year due to the downturn, he added. “Some casinos closed and decreased income because of the global financial crisis only,” he said. All casinos have been affected, said Mey Vann, director of the finance industry depart-
ment on Thursday, because of the downturn in tourism. However, the Vietnamese border has been one of the few areas to escape the worst of the slump as Vietnamese became the most numerous visitors to the Kingdom last year, mostly across land borders, overtaking South Koreans, according to Ministry of Tourism figures. With the opening late last month of top Diamond Casino in Kirivong district, Takeo province, there are 32 licensed casinos in Cambodia, said Deputy National Police Commissioner Sok Phal.
in BRIEF Market crisis reminder
l JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia – US
Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin said recent market turbulence was a reminder that economic recovery remains fragile. “In many countries, including my own, GDP numbers have yet to translate into jobs growth,” Wolin said Sunday at a conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.9 percent last week, cutting its 2010 retreat to 3.6 percent. The Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets Index is down about 7 percent for the year. Wolin has said that tougher financial regulation is essential for market stability and sustainable economic growth. “We learned clearly that we need an improved financial regulatory framework to make sure that we have a system that is effective and strong worldwide, something we are working on very hard in our own country,” Wolin said.
BLOOMBERG
Dubai debt restructure l DUBAI – Dubai World may
offer its creditors US$0.60 on the dollar after seven years as part of a deal to restructure $22 billion of debt, Zawya Dow Jones reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the plans. The deal may be guaranteed by the emirate's government and may not offer interest payments to creditors, Zawya Dow Jones reported Sunday. “The sizable haircut and the length of the deferral” as reported “is a disappointment”, said Julian Bruce, director of equity sales at EFG-Hermes Holding SAE, the biggest publicly traded Arab investment bank. Dubai’s DFM General Index lost 4.2 percent, the biggest intraday drop since January 26, to 1,605.48 at 1:40pm in the emirate. BLOOMBERG
Riel Money Exchange rates USD / KHR USD / JPY USD / SGD USD /CNY USD / VND USD / KRW AUD / USD NZD / USD EUR / USD GBP / USD
4187 89.66 1.4112 6.8346 18,650 1,155.65 0.8891 0.6972 1.3668 1.5682
Indicative rates as of noon 12/02/2010 Call centre 023 999 000 Direct Treasury 023 221 306
8
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
BUSINESS
in BRIEF New Singapore casinos l SINGAPORE – Singapore
opened the first of two casinos Sunday as part of a campaign to attract millions of new tourists. Resorts World Sentosa, owned by Malaysian gaming giant Genting, also features Southeast Asia’s first Universal Studios movie theme park. The second casino complex, Marina Bay Sands, by US-based Las Vegas Sands, is set to open in April.
AFP
Japan mulls sales tax
l TOKYO – Japanese Finance
Minister Naoto Kan said the government will start debate on overhauling the sales tax next month, indicating it may consider raising the 5 percent levy to help repair finances. It will also discuss corporate, income and environment taxes, he said. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has promised not to raise tax for four years even though public debt is close to twice GDP. BLOOMBERG
Indian output surges l NEW DELHI – India’s
industrial output climbed at its strongest pace in nearly two decades in December, official data showed Friday, as economic recovery picked up steam thanks to hefty stimulus measures. Production by mines, factories and utilities rose 16.8 percent in December from a year earlier, the biggest jump since March 1990, according to HSBC economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde. AFP
China, Australia air deal l SYDNEY – Australia and
China are committed to starting negotiations on an “open skies” accord, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s government said as it announced an increase in flights. Under the new agreement, national airlines of both nations can offer up to 10,500 seats a week between Australia and China and a further 4,000 seats from November, Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said Sunday.
BLOOMBERG
US retail sales stay strong in January despite jobless rate
Rio Tinto keen to build ties with China Last month sales rose 0.5pc as retail recovery starts to hold by VERONICA SMITH WASHINGTON
U
S retail sales opened the year with a surprisingly strong lift, official data showed, suggesting consumers are spending more despite high unemployment amid a fragile economic recovery. The Commerce Department reported Friday that seasonally adjusted retail sales increased 0.5 percent to US$355.8 billion in January. The monthly increase in retail and food-service sales was better than the 0.3 percent forecast by most analysts and followed upwardly revised numbers for the previous two months. “Consumers opened their wallets a little wider and that is good news for the economy,” said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors. The Commerce Department revised the decline in December sales to a scant 0.1 percent, from a drop of 0.3 percent, and the November sales increase was raised 0.2 point to 2.0 percent. “With last month’s decline being revised upward, this report is even stronger than it looks,” Naroff said. But he warned that “between snowstorms and Toyota shutting down sales for a while, I would not be surprised if the February numbers are weak”. The latest data, which are not adjusted for price changes, showed sales fell in only four of the 13 sectors measured, notably in housing-related sectors such as furniture and building materials. Excluding often-volatile auto and gasoline sales, retail sales rose 0.6 percent. Scott Hoyt at Moody’s Econ-
A shopper at a Home Depot store looks at new shovels Thursday during a cold snap in Centreville, Virgina. US retail sales are more robust than a year ago, analysts say. AFP
omy.com said that winter weather “likely reduced demand for home improvement and other housing-related goods, while boosting demand for food and other winter weather supplies sold at warehouse clubs and grocery stores”. January retail sales were up 4.7 percent from the year-ago
level, when consumers hunkered down in the face of the near-collapse of the US financial system and the 13th month of official recession. “This is a promising start to the year, especially in light of all of the headwinds that still face the US consumer,” said Jennifer Lee at BMO Capital Markets. AFP
US Retail in recovery 0.5pc rise in retail sales compared to December Marks second rise in previous three months 4.7pc increase in retail compared to Jan 2009 Source: AFP
SYDNEY – Anglo-Australian mining firm Rio Tinto said Sunday it was keen to build its relationship with China, despite four Shanghai-based employees being charged with bribery and industrial espionage. The world’s third-largest mining company said its largest shareholder was a Chinese company, Chinalco, and it wanted to build bridges with the Asian powerhouse, a key consumer of minerals and other raw materials. “We would like to build relationships with China and I think that that can take place over a number of different areas,” said Rio’s chief financial officer Guy Elliott. China’s official Xinhua news agency last week said that Rio Tinto executive and Australian passport-holder Stern Hu would face trial in Shanghai along with three Chinese colleagues. The four, detained last July during fractious iron ore contract talks, are accused of using their “positions to obtain benefits for others and on many occasions solicited or accepted bribes”, Xinhua said late Wednesday. Rio Tinto has previously said it is not aware of any wrongdoing by its employees. The case briefly snarled diplomatic ties between China and Australia, which have become major trading partners as the Asian giant seeks commodities and energy to feed its rapid industrialisation. The Rio Tinto employees were arrested just weeks after Rio walked away from a massive cash injection from staterun Chinalco, which would have given China an important presence in Australia’s vast resources sector. AFP
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
Banking & finance
9
Insurance industry starts recovery Figures show 2.86pc drop last year as final two months signal vast improvement on rest of 2009 by NGUON SOVAN
T
HE country's fledgling insurance industry saw revenues pick up at the end of the year to record an annualised 2.86 percent drop in premiums, officials said. Chhay Rattanak, chairman of the General Insurance Association of Cambodia (GIAC), said that total premium revenues for 2009 fell to US$20.07 million. “The global financial crisis is impacting on all sectors, including the insurance industry,” he said. Nevertheless, the drop is a marked improvement on figures for the first 10 months of last year, which saw an 11.5 percent fall on premiums – to $14.16 million from $16 million compared with the same period in 2008. “The results from December last year are better because of a new player [CambodiaVietnam Insurance Co], which brought premiums from risk regarding aviation and others into the market.” He forecast that the industry is expected to expand by at least 10 percent in 2010. “The increase is expected to follow an expected economic recovery in Cambodia,” he said, adding that new com-
Traffic passes a billboard late last month advertising Infinity Insurance on Norodom Boulevard in Phnom Penh. The industry is projecting double-digit growth again this year after a small contraction in 2009 due to the economic crisis. RICK VALENZUELA
panies are likely to boost the sector. Cambodia has six insurance companies: Forte Insurance, CAMINCO, Asia Insurance, Campubank Lonpac, Infinity Insurance, and new arrival
Cambodia-Vietnam Insurance. There is also one domestic reinsurance company. Cao Minh Son, chief executive officer of Cambodia Vietnam Insurance Co Plc (CVI), wrote in an e-mail Thursday
that from mid-November until the end of the year, CVI earned around $160,000 in premiums for aviation, property, third-party liability, personal accident and motor insurance.
“This year, we are planning for a minimum target of $1 million,” he said. Infinity Insurance Chief Executive Officer David Carter said that, despite the drop in the industry as a whole, his
company saw growth of about 20 percent to slightly over $4 million last year from $3.277 million in 2008, crediting new business growth and the retention of existing customers. Government statistics on the insurance industry will be completed in March. But Mey Vann, director of the Finance Ministry’s financial industry department, said last week that GIAC’s figures were accurate. GIAC statistics for the amount of claims made in 2009 are not yet available. But Chhany Rattanak said that in the first 10 months of 2009, $11 million was paid out – almost 400 percent higher than the $3 million paid out in 2008. Of that, $9 million was paid in one claim by Forte Insurance to Suntex Pte Ltd for a fire that destroyed its garment factory in Phnom Penh's Dangkor district in April last year. Domestic insurance firms – not including Asia Insurance, which declined to comment, and Cambodia-Vietnam Insurance Co, which had only just started operations – said in October that they had received six claims for damage caused by Typhoon Ketsana, which struck mostly in the northeast of the Kingdom at the end of September.
10
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
Banking & finance
Digital age tests Swiss bank secrecy Recent spate of leaked information undermines financial centre’s tradition of secret savings by Alix Rijckaert GENEVA
T
HE digital revolution is turning into the achilles heel of Swiss banks, according to security and banking experts quizzed about recent stolen data turning up in the hands of neighbouring countries. CD-ROMs, USB sticks and even mobile phone cameras have become handy options for disgruntled or ambitious staff to copy computer data on thousands of clients when a few years ago a cumbersome paper trail was needed. Swiss banks built much of their recent reputation around a legal obligation to maintain secrecy on their customers’
Signage is seen on the roof of an HSBC Private Bank in Geneva, one of many lenders to suffer leaked information in Switzerland. BLOOMBERG
banking affairs – criminal cases aside – including from the taxman, whether in Switzerland or abroad.
But preventing one-off leaks, which can have a much bigger scope than before, is becoming a conundrum.
Banks are “big consumers of information technology” and have to “square the circle” to counter the threat, said Gre-
goire Ribordy, director of network security firm IDQuantique. Measures are available, such as minimising the extent of information open to client advisers, automatic access restrictions, multiplying the number of people needed to unlock encrypted data or prohibiting USB keys and CDROMs at the workplace. Nonetheless, “information has to circulate so that people can do their jobs”, said Ribordy. Yet, even a miniature camera on a cellphone is enough to take a snapshot of data displayed on a computer screen, he pointed out. The 1934 law on bank secrecy was specifically designed to discourage staff from leaking client data to foreign powers by making it a criminal offence, but that was in the era of hand- or type-written ledgers and punch cards. In 1996, a private security guard became a whistleblower by recovering documents from the shredding room of UBS bank in Zurich to reveal details on hidden Holocaustera accounts. But little has filtered on the
exact origins of a CD-ROM with stolen Swiss bank data German authorities recently said they were ready to buy for €2.5 million (US$3.4 million) in a crackdown on tax-dodging German taxpayers. A spokesman for the Swiss Bankers Association, Thomas Sutter, acknowledged that the case “is not a good thing for the financial centre”. The German case emerged just months after French authorities picked up a CDROM with raw data taken by a former employee of HSBC Private Bank in Geneva, Herve Falciani, allegedly with details on some 3,000 clients. And in 2008, an anonymous whistleblower sold data on thousands of clients at Liechtenstein banks, helping Germany investigate suspected tax evasion by business executives, sports stars and entertainers. In the French case, Falciani was a computer expert at the bank. While in recent years public attention has focused on external attacks by hackers or thefts exploiting Internet banking, IT security specialist Jerry Krattiger told Le Temps newspaper that about 70 percent of leaks were by insiders. Hans Geiger, of the Swiss Banking Institute at Zurich University, said there was generally a “high probability” that such leaks would emerge from the IT or computer department. “I think they are always within the bank or from a service provider to the bank,” he said. “They don’t walk away with data or info about two or three clients; they walk away with CDs with hundreds of thousands of clients. “There is no absolutely safe way,” he added. AFP
Fixed Deposit Interest Rates Cambodian Banks
On Deposits 3 Months
As of February 12, 2010 USD
RIEL
6 Months 12 Months USD RIEL
USD
RIEL
Advanced Bank of Asia
4.50%
N/A
6.00%
N/A
7.00%
N/A
ACLEDA
3.75%
4.00%
4.75%
5.00%
5.75%
6.00%
ANZ Royal
*2.65%
3.50%
*3.15%
4.00%
*3.35%
5.50%
Cambodia Asia Bank
5.00%
N/A
6.00%
N/A
7.00%
N/A
Cambodia Mekong Bank
2.75%
N/A
3.25%
N/A
3.50%
N/A
Cambodia Public Bank
3.75%
N/A
4.50%
N/A
5.75%
N/A
Canadia
4.00%
5.00%
4.75%
6.00%
6.00%
7.00%
May Bank
2.25%
N/A
2.75%
N/A
3.75%
N/A
SBC Bank
3.00%
N/A
3.50%
N/A
4.50%
N/A
Union Commercial Bank
4.50%
N/A
5.50%
N/A
6.50%
N/A
OSK Bank
4.25%
3.30%
6.00%
5.00%
6.50%
6.00%
Bank of India
2.25%
N/A
3.00%
N/A
4.50%
N/A
* For deposits of us$1million and over only
11
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
WORLD Night out in India’s Pune turns to horror What’s New
Five die in Thai South
Saturday’s bomb targets popular student eating place near buildings linked to religious organisations; kills nine, injures 50 and rips building apart
P
UNE, India – A night out on the eve of Valentine’s Day brought only death, horror and disbelief for diners at the German Bakery in the Indian city of Pune, when a bomb blast ripped the packed eatery apart. It was known as “Pune’s Cafe Leopold” after the hangout popular with foreign tourists and young Indians in downtown Mumbai, which was targeted in the 2008 Islamist militant attacks on the city. Saturday’s blast, which killed nine and injured more than 50 others, means the two restaurants now share a closer, more traumatic link. The explosion ripped through the building, punching a hole in the wall measuring 1.8 metres by 1.2 metres and sending those inside fleeing for their lives. Lumps of concrete and twisted metal were hurled onto the road outside, bringing down a corrugated roof. The restaurant’s sign was cut in half while remnants of its brightly-coloured wooden benches were left lying outside near a three-wheel autorickshaw abandoned in the street. “We have never seen anything like this,” said Vikram Jha, a student at the Symbiosis Law School in Pune, western Maharashtra state’s educational hub and home to
a growing number of IT and automotive companies. “Pune was just not prepared for this,” he added. Four men and five women were killed, police said. Many students were among those wounded. “One of my friends has been badly hit with shrapnel wounds. Another one has been hit on his leg,” Jha said outside the Inlaks and Budhrani Hospital, where some of the wounded were taken after the attack. Jha and fellow law student Aditya Vardhani were to meet a larger group of friends near the restaurant for a prom night. “This was the place we always gathered after college. This is not right, we do not understand what is happening,” Vardhani said. Forensic teams and police officers could be seen bagging debris and other evidence Sunday, taking it away for examination, as camouflaged soldiers stood guard near the screenedoff restaurant and the public kept behind cordons. An unnamed waiter, injured in the blast, told the NDTV 24x7 news channel from his hospital bed that he alerted his manager after seeing a red and black bag under a table. “My employer told me to go find out who it belonged to. While I was on my way, someone outside asked for water. It
Pork import ban lifted
JAKARTA – Indonesia has lifted a temporary ban on imports of pork and its by-products after they were ruled out as the source of human swine flu. The Trade Ministry said on its Web site on Saturday that they decided to lift the ten-month ban because they considered that “the disease cannot be transmitted from animals to human”. AFP
Clashes claim one
Bystanders look at a destroyed bakery in Pune on Saturday. AFP
was while I was getting the bottles that the bomb went off.” India’s Home Minister P Chidambaram said the restaurant was a “soft target”, as an investigation got under way to determine the cause of the blast and who was responsible. The restaurant is just 200 metres from an ashram, or
religious retreat, specialising in meditation courses run by Osho International. It was also close to Chabad House, a Jewish cultural centre run by the orthodox ChabadLubavitch movement whose members were targeted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Chen Amiel, an Israeli nation-
al staying at the Osho Ashram, said: “I was meditating when I heard a loud sound. I initially thought it was fireworks. “It’s a very shocking incident. But we have to understand that terrorism is a disease that is spreading all over the world. We have to start getting used to it.” AFP
Bomb located at Thai Supreme Court BANGKOK – Thai police said they had defused a bomb near the Supreme Court on Sunday, while a grenade exploded near government offices, ahead of a ruling this month on ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s fortune. Neither incident in central Bangkok caused casualties. But they occurred despite the deployment of at least 20,000
extra security personnel around Thailand ahead of the February 26 court verdict on ex-premier Thaksin, who lives in exile. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has faced mass protests from Thaksin supporters since coming to power in December 2008, accused antigovernment elements of trying to stir up trouble. “The motive is to cause tur-
PATTANI, Thailand – Suspected militants killed four civilians including a teenage girl in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south, while a rebel died in a shootout with security forces, police said Sunday. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a 44-year-old Buddhist woman and her 14-year-old daughter as they were going to a market in Pattani province on Sunday morning, said police. In the same province a militant gunman killed a Muslim civilian as he sat outside his house with another man and a woman late Saturday. AFP
moil. I am not swayed by this psychological warfare,” Abhisit told reporters. “The government is keeping an eye on movements because we have heard that a certain group of people would like to see the failure of the administration. We have always expected that.” Police said unidentified attackers fired a grenade late Saturday at a university located
opposite Government House – the office of Abhisit and his cabinet. A car, a truck and a storage room were damaged by the grenade, said police Colonel Rangsan Pradittphon. Early Sunday a security guard found a cardboard box containing 1.4 kilogrammes of the plastic explosive C-4 attached to electric wire in the yard out-
side the Supreme Court building, police said. Bomb disposal experts had removed the box, said district police chief General King Kwangvisatchaichan. The Supreme Court is due to rule on whether the fortune of Thaksin – frozen in the months after he was deposed in a military coup in 2006 – can be seized by the authorities. AFP
DAVAO, Philippines – One man was killed as two feuding Muslim clans involved in a political massacre last year that left 57 people dead clashed again, police said Friday. Two policemen assigned to protect one of the clan leaders, Esmael Mangudadatu, have been arrested after a follower of the rival Ampatuan family was shot dead in a shopping mall in Davao city on Thursday, they said. AFP
Tainted milk destroyed
BEIJING – China assured consumers most of the tainted milk products that resurfaced in recent months have been destroyed, saying none had made it to store shelves or been exported. The health ministry’s weekend statement came after revelations that milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, which was supposed to have been destroyed after a 2008 scandal, had reappeared around the country. AFP
Dutch tourist shot
RIO DE JANEIRO – A 37year-old Dutch tourist was in hospital in Rio de Janeiro Sunday after being shot twice by a mugger who attacked him and his wife after the city’s fabled Carnival festivities got under way, police said. AFP
12
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
world
Afghan offensive slow going
SKorea wants its Deadly mines and snipers hold up troops after initial success against Taliban nationals freed
by Patrick Baz MARJAH, Afghanistan
M
INES and militant sniper fire slowed progress in a massive USled assault on a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, commanders said on Sunday after hailing early successes. US Marines led the charge on Marjah, a town of 80,000 in the central Helmand River valley controlled for years by militants and drug traffickers, in the first major test of President Barack Obama’s new surge policy. Some 15,000 US, British and Afghan soldiers stormed the stronghold in NATO’s biggest operation since overthrowing the Taliban regime in 2001. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed the combined forces had suffered two deaths – one British and one American – in the assault. Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan, described day one of Operation Mushtarak – “together” in Dari – as “good” and said “a couple of thousand Marines” were already inside Marjah. But as he visited a Marines base on the northeastern flank of the town, Nicholson said his men were meeting resistance from Taliban fighters. “We took a lot of sniper fire,” he said, adding that minesweeping vehicles “had blown up a lot of IEDs and have founds lots of IEDs with dead batteries”. IEDs, or improvised explosive devices – crude, cheap and easily made bombs that are planted on roadsides and often detonated remotely – are the main killer of foreign and Afghan forces fighting the Taliban. Militants are said to have peppered Marjah township and its surrounds with the
US Marines with 1/3 Marine Charlie Company patrol in the northeast of Marjah on Sunday. afp
mines, which can be almost impossible to detect. “Yesterday we shot 17 Hellfire missiles on guys planting IEDs,” Nicholson told Marines of 1/3 Charlie Company, according to an AFP photographer at the base. A British soldier was killed by
Yesterday we shot 17 Hellfire missiles on guys planting IEDs.” an IED in Nad Ali town, which is located in the same district as Marjah, ISAF spokesman Sergeant Kevin Bell said. A US soldier was killed by small arms fire in Marjah, he added, confirming the first foreign troop casualties of the offensive, which aims to neutra-
lise the Taliban and re-establish Afghan government control. British military spokesman Major General Gordon Messenger said in London: “The key objective has been secured.” The main aims for British troops were to secure the population centres and installations such as police stations in the Chah-e Anjir Triangle northeast of Marjah, he said. There had been “sporadic fighting” but the Taliban appeared “confused and disjointed” and unable “to put up a coherent response,” he said. At least 20 Taliban fighters were killed in the first hours of the assault, said General Sher Mohammad Zazai, commander of the operation’s Afghan troops. BBC television said six of the dead militants were foreign
fighters. It did not give their nationalities, but if confirmed their presence in Marjah could reflect a link between the militants and the al-Qaeda fundamentalist group. The battle for Marjah is the first real test of the new US war strategy devised by General McChrystal, commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan. A Taliban commander named as Mullah Abdul Rezaq Akhund condemned the Marjah assault as a public relations stunt aimed at saving face for McChrystal. “Their main objective from all this propaganda is to give some prestige to the defeated and failed military commander General Stanley McChrystal, even if it is the short-term capture of a small village, and shown on Western television,”
New Pakistan judiciary upheaval by Sami Zubeiri islamabad
PAKISTAN faced fresh turmoil Sunday after President Asif Ali Zardari and the top judge clashed over court appointments, threatening a showdown between the fragile government and judiciary. The crisis erupted when Zardari made two senior judicial appointments against the recommendations of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, prompting the Supreme Court to suspend the appointments late Saturday. A statement from the bench after an unusual evening meeting concluded that Zardari’s appointments appeared unconstitutional. The move sparked protests and according to analysts sets the stage for possible challenges to the president’s rule. The showdown threatens
Zardari’s weak government at a time of mounting US pressure on the nuclear-armed country to eliminate Taliban and alQaeda-linked militants, viewed as aggravating the situation in neighbouring Afghanistan. “We are heading towards a very serious situation. If it was proved that the president violated the constitution then under article 177 the Supreme Court can disqualify the president,” lawyer Qazi Anwar said. Pakistani newspapers expressed concern, with the English-language Dawn labelling the weekend events a “dangerous escalation”. “Historically, clashes between these two institutions have led to disastrous consequences for democracy and constitutional continuity in the country,” an editorial said. Tensions between the government and judiciary have simmered since Zardari took
office in 2008 and dithered over an election promise to reinstate Chaudhry after his sacking in 2007 by then military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Zardari reinstated Chaudhry last March in what was seen as an embarrassing climbdown on the eve of a protest march in favour of the independentminded chief justice. Then on December 16, the Supreme Court abolished a decree protecting Zardari and other government figures from prosecution, exposing the president to the possibility of having his immunity and eligibility for office challenged. Zardari’s controversial appointments late Saturday put him back on a collision course with Chaudhry. Zardari issued a decree elevating Lahore’s top judge Khawaja Sharif to the Supreme Court and named Justice Saqib Nisar to replace him, appar-
ently snubbing Chaudhry’s recommendation that Nisar get a Supreme Court seat. It took just hours for the Supreme Court to clip the president’s wings, suspending the decree and saying the appointment of Sharif “appears to have been issued in violation of the provisions of the Constitution”. The Supreme Court summoned the attorney general to appear at a hearing adjourned until February 18. About 100 lawyers protested in Pakistan’s second biggest city Lahore late Saturday, chanting slogans against the president and vowing to support the courts. Raja Zafar ul Haq, a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, an opposition party, said the party would meet to discuss the political crises and labelled Zardari’s move a “totally wrong decision ... ill-advised”. AFP
he was quoted as saying in a statement emailed to AFP. Obama had received multiple updates on the offensive and would be briefed by McChrystal on Sunday morning, the White House said. The “air insertion” involved helicopters, A-10s, Tornadoes and C-130 aircraft and was completed in less than three and a half hours, ISAF said. Mushtarak is the first major assault on a Taliban stronghold since Obama announced in December that he was sending an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in 2010. The US and NATO already have 113,000 troops in the country battling the insurgents. NATO has pledged another 10,000, bringing the total to more than 150,000 by August. AFP
SEOUL – South Korea will push for the release of hundreds of its nationals believed held in North Korea if the two countries hold talks this year on improving relations, a senior official said Sunday. “This issue will be treated as an important topic along with the North Korean nuclear issue if South and North Korea start dialogue,” Vice Unification Minister Hong Yang-Ho said. “We have made preparations with the determination to make a breakthrough in these issues this year,” Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying. By Seoul’s official count 494 South Koreans, mostly fishermen, were seized in the Cold War decades following the 1950-53 Korean conflict and more than 500 prisoners of war were never sent home in 1953. But unlike Japan which secured the official release of some of its own abductees, previous South Korean governments have been reluctant to make a major issue of the kidnappings. Hong, visiting an observation post overlooking the closelyguarded border, was speaking to a group whose relatives remain in the communist state. Senior ministry officials hold the event each year during the Lunar New Year holiday to console families separated since the war. North Korea denies holding any South Koreans against their will and describes them as defectors, even though some have managed to escape and come South. Six abductees and more than 10 former prisoners of war have been rescued by activist Choi Sung-Yong Choi, whose own father was abducted, and by a network of messengers he developed in the North. AFP
Sri Lanka president: No reason for concern COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s president said Saturday there was no reason for concern over the arrest and detention of ex-army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has promised “due process” will be followed in dealing with Fonseka, the president’s Web site said. Fonseka was arrested Monday by military police after allegations he was involved in a conspiracy against the government. “The president has assured opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe that there was no reason for any concern over General [retired] Sarath Fonseka who is in detention,” the president’s Web site said. It quoted the president as saying that “no one was above the law” and said Fonseka’s
candidacy in the January 26 presidential polls had nothing to do with his arrest. Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court said Friday it would hear a petition submitted by Fonseka’s wife calling for his arrest to be ruled illegal and ordering the state to allow the former army chief family visits and medicines. The court was scheduled to reconvene February 23 for a further hearing. Fonseka was arrested two weeks after being defeated in the elections by a solid margin by Rajapaksa. His detention has triggered violent protests in Colombo and other parts of Sri Lanka and drawn expressions of concern from the United States, European Union, the United Nations and several other countries. AFP
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
world
13
US slashes troop numbers in Haiti Military says aid operations have improved, but thousands still lack shelter as workers rush to build latrines and boost sanitation in refugee camps ahead of the imminent rainy season by MJ Smith PORT-AU-PRINCE, haiti
T
HE US military has pulled thousands of its troops from quakehit Haiti because aid operations have improved, a general said Saturday, as relief workers raced to boost conditions at squalid camps. There were growing calls to speed up efforts to provide tarps and tents ahead of the rainy season, which threatens to bring more misery to the estimated 1.2 million left homeless by the massive earthquake a month ago. President Rene Preval emphasised the urgent need for shelter in a meeting with visiting USAID chief Rajiv Shah and US General Douglas Fraser on Saturday, said Shah, who pledged to boost distribution of material for shelters. Fraser said troop numbers were down to 13,000 after a post-earthquake high of more than 20,000, and that the Haitian government was resuming control of the Port-auPrince airport during daylight hours. The United States had assumed operations there in the chaotic atmosphere immedi-
ately after the quake, which killed more than 200,000 people. “There are roughly 13,000 US military men and women supporting the efforts here in Haiti,” Fraser said. “The international aid and relief efforts have improved and increased in Haiti, and we’ve seen an ability to transition those capabilities to other needs around the world.” Fraser would not provide specifics on how long he ex-
How long are we going to remain like this?... no one tells us anything.” pected US troops to remain in Haiti, saying it would depend on needs in the Caribbean nation, which was already the poorest country in the Americas before the quake. Many have warned that the lack of shelter is the most significant threat facing Haitians, with the rainy season starting around May. Conditions at makeshift camps for the homeless are already fast becoming major health concerns. The UN humanitarian coordinator, Kim Bolduc, said
Haitians attend outdoor mass in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, a month after a devastating earthquake hit the city. afp
on Friday that the sprawling Champ de Mars camp across from the destroyed National Palace has “turned into an almost dangerous area” due to poor sanitation. Some 16,000 people are jammed into an area that should hold up to 6,000, she said. John Holmes, UN emergency relief coordinator, said 20,000 latrines were needed at camps, and that only 5 to 10
percent had been constructed. The effort to provide shelter has been criticised by many Haitians, and protests over the stumbling aid distribution have been held in various parts of the capital. The deputy head of the UN mission in Haiti said Friday that many of the homeless are unlikely to have “good shelter” before the rainy season, though aid workers were hop-
ing to provide everyone with some kind of material. “No matter what, though, it’s not going to be pretty,” Anthony Banbury said. “No one should be under any illusions that all million people who have lost their homes are going to be living in comfortable, sturdy shelter by May 1. That’s just not going to happen.” Food distribution has worked better in recent days, officials
say, with an estimated total of 2.3 million people now having been given some sort of food. But Haitians still say the aid effort has fallen short. Richmond Delinois, a 35year-old owner of a brickmaking company, did not lose his house, but some of his workers did and are now living in his yard. “How long are we going to remain like this?” he said. “The NGOs come, but no one tells us anything.” Meanwhile, the case of 10 Americans charged with kidnapping in the wake of the earthquake here took another turn, with El Salvador police saying they are looking into a man presented as their Dominican lawyer, Jorge Puello. El Salvador police said they were working to determine whether Puello could in fact be Jorge Torres Orellana, who is wanted in the Central American country for allegations of running an international sextrafficking ring. The ring lured women and girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution with bogus offers of modeling jobs, according to Interpol, which has issued a wanted persons alert for Orellana. AFP
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THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
world Vietnam hardliners may influence policy HANOI – The rising influence of political hardliners could be behind Vietnam’s worsening crackdown against a small but increasingly diverse group of critics, analysts say. Communist authorities began to clamp down after Vietnam successfully hosted the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2006 and joined the World Trade Organisation in January 2007, the analysts say. Since then, the courts have convicted a varied series of opposition figures: independent unionists, journalists focused on corruption, pro-democracy lawyers, a priest and writers. Authorities are also “trying to be more aggressive” towards Internet critics, a Western diplomat said Thursday, after a wellknown Vietnamese blogger said his Web site was hacked. “In the past month or two there have been at least 10 Web sites that have been hacked or taken down,” said the diplomat, asking not to be named. “Maybe the tougher actions in the last couple of years means that authorities favouring a more subtle, less confrontational stance against critics have lost some ground,” said Ben Kerkvliet, emeritus professor and Vietnam specialist at the Australian National University. “‘Law and order’ advocates, in other words, may be gaining ground.” Analysts underline the difficulty of interpreting the series of arrests and sentences recently handed down. Some see a possible link with next year’s Communist Party Congress, a fiveyearly event that determines high-ranking leadership posts. Leaders may think they have been “too flexible in letting people express opinions against them, and have decided to crack down to create an example,” said Stein Toennesson, research professor at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. “But it might also be that before the party congress ...
more conservative people have the offensive and the other ones are afraid to be seen as disloyal.” More reform-minded cadres would bide their time, hoping to work for change within the system, he said. Last month saw the most highprofile case in a series of arrests and convictions of dissidents and bloggers over the past year. Four democracy activists were jailed for between five and 16 years for trying to overthrow the regime, in a case criticised by the EU, the US and Britain. A judge in Ho Chi Minh City convicted them of a well-organised, nonviolent campaign, in collusion with “overseas exile reactionary organisations”, aimed at overturning the government with the help of the Internet.
‘Law and order’ advocates, in other words, may be gaining ground.” For Shawn McHale, director of the Sigur Centre for Asian Studies atWashington’s GeorgeWashington University, the message was clear: “Forget political pluralism outside of the party.” Their convictions highlighted a climate of increasingly harsh political repression, the New York-based Human RightsWatch said, while US ambassador Michael Michalak said there had been “a spike in issues of concern on human rights”. At least 16 dissidents have been jailed since October. Criticism of the leaders has intensified and diversified, analysts said. It includes demands for a multiparty system, but also complaints about official corruption and land seizures. “Lots of people in Vietnam think a big problem for the party for some time now has been how to deal with corruption. Those people are not only critics but also ordinary people that wouldn’t see themselves as political,” Kerkvliet said. AFP
Released Suu Kyi deputy calls for Myanmar dialogue Tin Oo: ‘I wish to find a way through successful dialogue that the whole country can live unitedly and peacefully’ by Hla Hla Htay yangon
A
UNG San Suu Kyi’s deputy urged Myanmar’s ruling junta Sunday to engage in dialogue with the opposition before elections this year, as he took his first steps outside as a free man for seven years. Tin Oo, 83, the vice chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, made the appeal as he offered prayers at Yangon’s Shwedagon pagoda following his release from house arrest late Saturday, “Because I am a Buddhist, I came here to wish for peace for all Myanmar people,” he told AFP as he toured the imposing religious monument, accompanied by his wife and around a dozen NLD officials. “My feeling now is that I wish to find a way through successful dialogue that the whole country can live unitedly and peacefully.” The veteran activist said, however, that his own release means nothing if Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi, 64, and around 2,100 other political prisoners are still detained when the elections take place. Tin Oo had been held since 2003 when he and Suu Kyi were arrested after a pro-regime mob attacked their motorcade during a political tour, killing 70 people. He was a former army general and defence minister who was forced into retirement in the 1970s after falling foul of the country’s military rulers. He was in trouble again in the 1990s because of his involvement with the NLD. “How can I be glad [that I am free] when there are so many
Tin Oo (right), deputy leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), visits Shwedagon pagoda following his release from house arrest in Yangon on Sunday. afp
who have been sentenced to life imprisonment? It is not enough to release me alone,” Tin Oo said. “All people will be happy if all things can be discussed and a solution can be reached.” The NLD says it has not yet decided if it will take part in the elections, which Myanmar’s junta has promised to hold at some point in 2010, amid claims that they are a sham designed to tighten the generals’ grip on power.
They will be the first polls since 1990 when Suu Kyi and Tin Oo led the NLD to a landslide victory that the junta refused to recognise. Suu Kyi has spent most of the following two decades in detention. Tin Oo’s release late Saturday came shortly before the United Nations human rights envoy for Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, was due to visit the military-ruled nation on Monday to examine its progress. Quintana expects to meet
the foreign minister during the trip but not reclusive junta leader Senior General Than Shwe. He also wants to see Suu Kyi but has not been told if the regime will allow him to. UN chief Ban Ki-moon welcomed Tin Oo’s release, saying he hoped the development “will contribute to the advancement of substantive dialogue between the NLD and the government of Myanmar.” British Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis welcomed the news of Tin Oo’s release but urged the junta to allow all political groups to take part in the elections and said Suu Kyi should be allowed to meet the NLD leadership. France said it was an “encouraging signal” while Japan said it “highly values” the release of Tin Oo and urged Myanmar’s ruling junta to allow all political groups to take part in the democratisation process. After years of international isolation and Western sanctions, Myanmar has given out mixed signals in the run-up to the polls by freeing some activists but at the same time continuing a crackdown on dissent. The generals have not yet set a date for the elections and faced global criticism in August last year for extending Suu Kyi’s house arrest by 18 months, ruling her out of the polls. A 2008 constitution effectively bars Suu Kyi from the election and reserves a quarter of parliamentary seats for the military. But in recent months there have been signs of rapprochement between Suu Kyi and the junta and reports that the junta could free her in November, although there has been no confirmation. AFP
Australian MPs protest Anwar trial Lawmakers urge Malaysia to free opposition chief charged with sodomy in politically charged case SYDNEY – More than 50 Australian lawmakers have lodged a formal protest urging Malaysia to drop opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial and warning that it will hurt the country’s image, an official said Friday. The group, which includes lawmakers and senators from both major parties, called for the case against Anwar to be abandoned in the interests of building “confidence in the impartial rule of law in Malaysia”. “Many friendly observers of Malaysia find it difficult to believe that a leading opposition voice could be charged with sodomy a second time, and so soon after his party made major gains in national elections,” the protest letter says. “It should be made known to the Malaysian government, that in our opinion, global es-
teem for Malaysia will be affected by these charges against Mr Anwar. “We hope that Malaysia’s authorities will not pursue these charges.” Michael Danby, member of the governing centre-left Labor party and chairman of Australia’s foreign affairs parliamentary subcommittee, said he handed the letter to Malaysian High Commissioner Salman Bin L Ahmad in Canberra on Thursday. “A lot of people know Anwar Ibrahim, a lot of people have been to Malaysia and a lot of Australian parliamentarians think it’s a shame that this is happening for the second time to the leader of the opposition in what is a developing democracy,” Danby said. “We ... should stand up and support a fellow democrat.” Former opposition leader
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim leaves the High Court in Kuala Lumpur on February 8. AFP
Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Brown, leader of the Greens party, were among the signatories of the letter, as well as independent Senator Nick Xenophon and two minor members of the Labor Party front bench. Danby said the Malaysian high commissioner was well aware that there was a “wide spectrum of opinion in Australia”, and that the letter was
not intended to inflame diplomatic relations. “We hope it shows people in Malaysia and the opposition that we care,” Danby said. Anwar, who faces 20 years’ imprisonment if convicted of illicit sexual relations with a young former aide, has condemned the allegations against him as a political conspiracy to sideline the opposition. He has accused High Court judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah of refusing to rein in “biased” media coverage of the muchdelayed trial, which began last week. Anwar was arrested in 1998 on sodomy and corruption charges but made a stunning comeback after being freed from prison in 2004. His sexual misconduct charge was overturned after six years behind bars. AFP
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
HEALTH
15
Study urges early obesity intervention
W
ASHINGTON – A team of US doctors has urged that obesity screening start in the cradle after a study they conducted showed that half of US children with weight problems became overweight before age two. The “critical period for preventing childhood obesity” in the children observed in the study would have been in “the first two years of life and for many by three months of age”, said the study, published in Clinical Pediatrics. “Unfortunately, the chubby healthy baby myth is alive and well despite the high prevalence of childhood obesity, with only 20 percent to 50 percent of overweight children being diagnosed and even fewer receiving documented or effective treatments,” the authors of the study said. For the study, which was conducted to try to pinpoint the “tipping point” for when a child first became overweight, researchers looked at 480 medical records for patients between the ages of two and 20 at a private medical prac-
tice and a teaching hospital, both in Virginia. Of those patients, 184 were included in the study because they met the age criteria, their weight and height had been recorded during five visits to the medical practice, and they were overweight during one of the visits. The researchers found that the median age for when the children became overweight was 22 months. They also found that a quarter of the children reached their overweight “tipping point” at or before five months of age. When the children who were overweight on their first visit to the practices were taken into account, the median tipping point age dropped to 15 months and a quarter of the subjects had a weight problem at or before three months of age. The study recommends that health-care providers begin screening for excessive weight gain “as early as possible” in order to prevent childhood obesity, rather than trying to reverse it once a weight problem as “spiralled out of control”. AFP
This newly released aerial photograph taken on September 11, 2001, shows the collapsing World Trade Centre in New York. AFP
WTC dust still causing headaches Neurologists recording range of problems from those exposed to 9/11 particles and gases by Ellen Gibson
NEW YORK – People who lived and worked near the collapsed World Trade Centre buildings after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks still reported headaches seven years later, neurologists found. Researchers surveyed 765 people who sought medical care at the Bellevue Hospital WTC Environmental Health Centre after December 2005 and didn’t have headaches before 9/11. Of those, 43 percent reported having headaches in the month prior to the interview, according to a report to be presented on April 17 at the American Academy
Scientists connect errant gene in some to accelerated ageing UK and Dutch team studying human genome show how minute structures called telemores have huge influence on pace of ageing PARIS – Certain people carry a genetic variant that could shave three or four years off their life, according to a new study. It is the first time that a gene has been directly linked to the ageing process, scientists from Britain and The Netherlands reported in the journal Nature Genetics. “What our study suggests is that some people are genetically programmed to age at a faster rate,” said Tim Spector, a professor at King’s College and co-leader of the research. “The effect was quite considerable in those with the variant, equivalent to between three-to-four years of ‘biological ageing’,” he said. The variant may make those people more vulnerable to agerelated maladies, including heart disease and some types of cancer, the study concluded. There are two different ways in which people grow old, recent research has shown. Chronological ageing, the same for every one, is measured in years. The pace of biological ageing, however, can vary from one person to the next, and occurs at the level of individual cells. A critical component of biological ageing are tiny structures called telomeres, which sit like tiny protective caps on the tips of chromosomes.
of Neurology’s 62nd Annual Meeting. While respiratory symptoms have been documented in workers and residents who inhaled dust and fumes after the buildings collapsed, little is known about the neurological effects of that environmental exposure, said Angela Babb, a spokeswoman for the St Paul, Minnesota-based neurology academy. This data suggests that “headache is a common and persistent symptom” in that population, according to the report. “More research needs to be done on the possible longer- term effects of exposure to gases and dust when the World Trade Centre fell,” study author Sara Crystal, a neurol-
ogy instructor at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City, said in a statement Thursday. “We also need additional studies to understand the relationship between headaches, other physical symptoms, and mental health issues.” Among those surveyed, people who had been exposed to the initial dust cloud when the towers fell were more likely to have moderate to severe headaches. Those who experienced headaches were also more likely to report sinus congestion, wheezing, and acid reflux disease post-9/11, the study found. The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health. BLOOMBERG
AJINOMOTO (CAMBODIA) CO.,LTD. The Ajinomoto Group has established a presence in 22 countries and regions throughout the world in order to expand its business operations in food products, amino acids, pharmaceuticals, and other fields. At present our products are sold in over 130 countries and regions, and we have plans to both expand to new markets and further broaden our product lineups. (For further information on Ajinomoto Group: www.ajinomoto.com) AJINOMOTO (CAMBODIA) CO., LTD. is the newest company in Ajinomoto Group. Our new office and factory is now under construction at Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ). We are looking for the key Cambodian staff, motivated and experienced professionals for the following positions. Department
An elderly Chinese woman takes her medication at the Beijing Sunshine International Care House on April 20, 2009. bloomberg
Every time a cell divides, the telomeres get worn down. Eventually, when the telomeres are worn beyond a certain point, cell death is triggered. Environmental factors such as smoking tobacco and unhealthy diet can also accelerate biological ageing. “We found that those individuals carrying a particular genetic variant had shorter telemoeres, that is, [they] looked biologically older,” explained Nilesh Samani, a professor at the University of Leicester and co-leader of the study. “Given the association of shorter telomeres with ageassociated disease, the finding raises the question whether individuals carrying the variant
are at greater risk of developing” age-linked diseases, he said. Scientists scanned more than 500,000 genetic variations across the entire human genome hunting for matches in people who had short telomeres. The culprit, it turned out, was a variant near a gene called TERC, which had previously been linked to accelerated ageing in mice. Australian-American cell biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine last year for breakthrough research on telomeres, likened telomeres to “tips of shoelaces” – when you lose the little plastic end, the lace starts to fray. AFP
Position
Number
Qualifications
Human Resources & General Affairs
Manager
1
Male, Age 35-45. Bachelor or Master Degree. At least 5 years experiences in human resources or general affairs management. Having experience in industrial factory is advantage. Excellent command of English.
Marketing
Supervisor
2
Age 24-32. Bachelor or Master Degree. At least 2 years experience in marketing, advertising agency or consumer research field. Excellent command of English.
Production Control / Purchasing
Supervisor
1
Age 25-35. Bachelor or Master Degree. At least 3 years experience in purchasing field in industrial factory (especially import or export). Excellent command of English.
Planning / Sales and Production Balance Control
Supervisor
1
Age 25-35. Bachelor or Master Degree. At least 3 years experience in industrial factory. Excellent command of English.
Production Administration Control
Supervisor
1
Age 25-35. Bachelor or Master Degree. At least 3 years experience in industrial factory. Excellent command of English.
Safety & Environment
Staff
1
Age 20-28. Diploma Degree of mechanicals. Basic command of English.
If you are interested in pursuing this challenging opportunity, please send your cover letter, and a detailed resume together with a recent photo and indicate your current and expected salary by February 26, 2010 to: AJINOMOTO (CAMBODIA) CO., LTD. No.18, St.608, Sangkat Beung Kok 2, Khan Tuol Kork, Phnom Penh Tel ; 023-885 541 E-mail Resume to: ajinomoto_pnh1@cambodia-japan.com
16
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
opinion
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Purge the climate evangelists
The IPCC is doing policy makers and the public no service by stretching science opinion
Bjørn Lomborg
A
S George W Bush and Tony Blair learned the hard way, the public does not take kindly to being misled about the nature of potential threats. The after-the-fact revelation that the reasons for invading Iraq were vastly exaggerated, produced an angry backlash that helped toss the Republicans out of power in the US in 2008 and may do the same to Britain’s Labour Party later this year. A similar shift in global public opinion is occurring with respect to climate change. The process picked up momentum late last year, after hackers leaked thousands of e-mails from a top British research facility showing that some of the world’s most influential climatologists had been trying to disguise flaws in their work, blocking scrutiny, and plotting together to enforce what amounts to a party line on climate change. More recently, the United Nations’ respected advisory group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has been deeply embarrassed by the revelation that some alarming predictions contained in an influential report that it released in 2007 have little or no scientific basis. Although none of these lapses provides any reason to doubt that global warming is real, is man-made, and will create problems for us, these challenges to the IPCC are taking their toll. Indeed, recent surveys show that the public is growing steadily less trusting of the scientific consensus on global warming. The biggest headlines about IPCC errors concern a claim about melting Himalayan glaciers that it made in its 2007
Nobel Peace Prize winner and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra Pachauri gives a press conference in Copenhagen on December 12. afp
report on the likely impacts of climate change. “Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world,” the report noted, adding that “if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high.” As it happens, this prediction was not based on any peer-reviewed scientific research but was lifted from a report by the World Wildlife Fund, which was repeating an unproven speculation by a single researcher. This lack of scientific basis did not stop countless globalwarming activists from citing the glacier prediction at every opportunity. When the Indian government suggested last year that the Himalayan glaciers were in better shape than the IPCC claimed, the IPCC’s chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, dismissed India’s objections as being based on “voodoo science”. Earlier this month, the Indi-
an government reacted to the revelations about the baseless nature of the glacier claim by announcing plans to establish what amounts to its own “Indian IPCC” to assess the impact of global warming. India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, declared: “There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. I am for climate science.” Climate evangelism is an apt description of what the IPCC has been up to, for it has exaggerated some of the ramifications of climate change in order to make politicians take note. Murari Lal, the coordinating lead author of the section of the IPCC report that contained the Himalayan error, admitted that he and his colleagues knew that the dramatic glacier prediction was not based on any peer-reviewed science. Nonetheless, he explained, “we thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy makers and politicians and encourage them to
take some concrete action”. The concrete action that they had in mind was getting governments to mandate drastic cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions. Activists have been pursuing this approach to tackling global warming without success for nearly 20 years, most recently at last December’s failed climate summit in Copenhagen. The problem is that it is too expensive a solution for politicians and the public to swallow easily – which is why many wellmeaning climate scientists have apparently concluded that instead of relying on reasoned discussion, they might as well try to scare us witless. Consider what the IPCC had to say about extreme weather events such as intense hurricanes. The cost of such events in terms of destroyed property and economic disruption has been rising steadily. Every peerreviewed study has shown that this is not because of rising temperatures, but because
more people live in harm’s way. Nonetheless, in the IPCC’s influential 2007 assessment of climate change, the panel’s Working Group II chose to cite one, then-unpublished study that supposedly found that global warming had doubled damage costs over the past 35 years. In fact, when this study was finally published, it stated categorically that there was “insufficient evidence” to link the increased losses to global warming. Elsewhere in the 2007 assessment, Working Group II claimed that “up to 40 percent of the Amazonian forests” was at imminent risk of being destroyed by global warming. The basis for this claim was a single report from the WWF that itself cited only one study, which didn’t even look at climate change, but rather at the impact of human activities like logging and burning. In similar fashion, Working Group II claimed that “by 2020, in some [African] countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent”. Much quoted since, this alarming statistic turns out to have been based on a single a report by a think tank. There are numerous other examples of similar shenanigans by Working Group II. Yet, aside from a grudging admission that its predictions about Himalayan glaciers were “poorly substantiated”, the IPCC has yet to acknowledge any of the lapses. If the IPCC is to do to its job properly, it must own up to all of its missteps and clean house. Nobody expects it to be infallible. But neither should we tolerate its attempts to scare policy makers rather than inform them. PROJECT SYNDICATE Bjørn Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and author of Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming.
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
OPINION
17
Sri Lanka needs a carrot, not a stick Economic and social development happen over time, and democracy won’t evolve without them opinion
A
Patrick Basham
RE Sri Lanka’s problems caused by too much democracy? Western analysts were dismayed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s recent election victory over General Sarath Fonseka, who led the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers. Criticism of Rajapaksa’s government increased following Fonseka’s subsequent arrest on sedition charges. Such condemnation belies ignorance of the democratisation process and of the Sri Lankan experience. Sri Lanka’s political development is incomplete and, viewed from the West, frustratingly slow in delivering our definition of liberal democracy. We naively overlook the inconvenient truth that democracy (at least the liberal kind we demand of friend and foe alike) is only for the tolerant and the trustful. After a lengthy civil war caused by a brutal ethnic and religious divide, it is no surprise that Sri Lankan voters view their political candidates through an ethno-religious prism. As Iraq and Afghanistan also demonstrate, blending democracy with ethnic and religious strife is a recipe for disappointment at best, bloodshed at worst. Sri Lanka’s ethnic problems aren’t caused by democracy, but they are highlighted, and arguably exacerbated, by it. However, the nation’s economic and political problems are traceable to the folly of elected officials and the demands of an electorate steeped in democratic practises but not in liberal democratic culture. In Paradise Poisoned, international development expert John Richardson explained that unaffordable bidding wars among Sri Lankan candidates and parties stemmed from “early successes in public health, mass education and provision of basic entitlements [that] condi-
Sri Lankan lawyers march behind a banner as they protest outside the supreme court in Colombo on Friday as court begins hearing a fundamental rights petition against the detention of former army chief and the defeated presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka. AFP
tioned citizens to view government, rather than the market, as the principal source of both benefits and employment”. When President Rajapaksa entered office four years ago, fate dealt him a poor hand. He has played it imperfectly, hence his critics’ complaints over corruption and nepotism. Clearly, Rajapaksa’s winning margin over Fonseka would not have been so large without lopsided state media coverage and a campaign environment intimidating to opposition parties. The thousands of Sri Lankans pro-
testing against Fonseka’s detention notwithstanding, it would be wrong to assume that Rajapaksa is anything other than the country’s most popular politician. Independent election monitors found no evidence of major fraud in the presidential election. Although Fonseka was clearly the more popular among minority Tamil and Muslim voters, voting along traditional ethnic and religious lines put him at a huge disadvantage, as the Sinhalese majority overwhelmingly supported Rajapaksa’s leadership. Looking forward, when one con-
siders the progress made against domestic terrorism, as well as the visible green shoots of economic development, it is once again conceivable that Sri Lanka could eventually become South Asia’s Singapore, known more for its pro-business culture than for its suicide bombers. Although difficult for some Western progressives to stomach, our contribution to the advancement of human rights (including General Fonseka’s) in Sri Lanka, will stem from positioning ourselves as Rajapaksa’s pragmatic ally, rather
than as his idealistic antagonist. In practice, we should encourage a figurative “neighbourhood effect” – that is, encourage Sri Lanka’s immersion in the league of politically mature nations whose democratic habits and freedoms, it can be demonstrated, strengthen rather than weaken politicians’ security in office. In the West, therefore, our pragmatic position on Sri Lanka’s political development should be simply, “Do no harm”. That is why, for example, the EU would be wrong to carry through on its threat to withdraw Sri Lanka’s valuable GSP+ trade benefits. Economic development is the true catalyst for Sri Lanka’s political maturation. By eliminating trade benefits, the EU guarantees not only substantial problems for the Sri Lankan economy in general, but significant economic hardship for the country’s poorest citizens. The greater the poverty, the harder it will be for a liberal democratic culture to take root in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan conundrum – how to advance political development without punishing the economically disenfranchised – is identical to the one we face in our relations with countries such as Iran and Cuba. And the unappetising answer is the same: We should encourage unfettered trade with all nations because it benefits both our workers and those foreign workers we seek to empower, economically and politically. There may be no such thing as too much democracy, but there is such a thing as too much democracy too soon. Liberal democracy, history teaches us, is an evolutionary development rather than an overnight phenomenon. For those impatient with Colombo, that is a critical lesson. THE GUARDIAN Patrick Basham directs the Democracy Institute and is a Cato Institute adjunct scholar. The author of Can Iraq Be Democratic? has also served as an independent election observer in Africa and Asia.
Iranian opposition? What opposition? Look! Nukes! Tehran distracts the world with vacillation on the nuclear issue to create the illusion of a nation united for the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution
OPINION Ali Ansari
RUMOURS of the death of Iran’s green movement have been largely exaggerated. Admittedly, the events of this week were badly mishandled by the protesters, as many have been quick to acknowledge. But the rigorously choreographed theatrics of the government can hardly be regarded as a triumph for the regime. Following the disturbances around the death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and the violence that continued through to Ashura in December 2009, the green movement determined that the next great show of force was to be Thursday’s 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. And although people might debate the size of the opposing crowds, one thing seems certain: This time the government mastered and largely controlled the narrative. It had been a long time in preparation. Shaken by the events of Ashura, the government moved to arrest
potential troublemakers on a far wider scale than at any time since the first protests in June last year. These arrests have proved particularly effective in targeting the local organisers, including student leaders who have been essential for grassroots mobilisation and coordination. With these people removed, and despite the lofty rhetoric of more senior leaders, the movement appeared dangerously rudderless. For good measure, and in an apparent effort to emphasise its seriousness, the government embellished its hard-line rhetoric with a couple of swift executions and an announcement that the death sentence had been imposed on a further nine protesters. On another level, it moved to block text messaging and the Internet, including an attempt to suspend access to Google email. Iranian activists regularly find ways to circumvent such obstructions, but on this occasion the targeting was spe-
cific, with a view to curtailing any challenge to the anniversary celebrations. Additional measures to block roads were organised early, to minimise opposition crowds, while government supporters were bused in from around the country. Media coverage was restricted to state media and selected foreign journalists, largely from non-Western organisations. However, just to be extra sure, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threw in his media manipulation tool of choice: Iran’s nuclear programme. In the days leading up to the anniversary, Ahmadinejad suddenly announced that he would be willing to accept the West’s offer to enrich Iran’s uranium. But within 24 hours he announced that Iran had decided to enrich the uranium itself. This had the desired effect. Western leaders huffed and puffed and talked of sanctions, while others preoccupied themselves with the meaning of it all and whether confrontation was now back on the agenda.
The meaning of it all, of course, is that foreign policy has always been subservient to domestic needs and that the deliberate raising of the nuclear spectre is intended to divert attention at home and abroad. At home the government believes that the spirit of confrontation can help rebuild a badly damaged legitimacy, while the heightened preoccupation with the nuclear crisis can be used to convince Iranians that the West has no real interest in their human rights and democratic aspirations. Like all good demagogues, Ahmadinejad knows how to peddle fear and exploit paranoia, whether it resides in the East or the West. That is why he raised the stakes again during his speech, announcing brazenly that if Iran wanted to do so, it could build a bomb. It is good politics. But is it a good strategy? The government may have won the public relations battle on the day, but it came at some considerable cost. This was a carefully choreographed piece of theatre, with an extremely
high security presence, ruthlessly exercised and with its fair share of brutality. The green movement was outmanoeuvred, but it was there. As one protester said Thursday on a Persian-language Web site: “It wasn’t that we were few in number: We were aimless.” The protesters may be beaten and bruised, but the Iranian government could not prevent the world from witnessing the brutality that it continues to exercise against its citizens. For the green movement, the real test of its durability and inner strength is about to begin as it reflects on an opportunity lost. For the government, the test will be if it truly appreciates and understands the nature, cause and fragility of this most pyrrhic of victories. Judging by Ahmadinejad’s speech, he has clearly forgotten nothing and learnt nothing. THE GUARDIAN Ali Ansari obtained his PhD from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, and he is now professor in modern history with reference to the Middle East at St Andrews University.
18
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
LIFESTYLE Singapore Buddhists turn to tats for fortune By Philip Lim
SINGAPORE – When Ben Loke wanted to boost his financial prospects, he approached neither his banker nor his broker. Instead, the 35-year-old company executive asked a professional tattooist to ink on his back a “sak yant” religious symbol which he hoped would bring him wealth and happiness. “I’m a Buddhist, and the scriptures that are being tattooed on my back will give me some protection,” he said as he prepared to go under a needle wielded by a visiting Thai expert. The sak yant form of tattooing originated in Thailand and is gaining popularity in Singapore, a predominantly ethnic Chinese city-state with a strong Buddhist and Taoist tradition. Sak yant tattoos, mainly inscriptions of religious texts and animals as well as deity figures, are believed by Buddhists to bring good fortune, courage and self-confidence. It is Loke’s second sak yant tattoo and sits beneath a dragon surrounded by lines of Buddhist text. Tattoos have come a long way in Singapore. Once associated with gangsters, they are now widely used as expressions of individuality, fashion statements or invitations to divine assistance. Willie Heng, sales executive of Fo Guang Hang, a company specialising in sak yant tattooing, welcomed the growing acceptance of the practice. “Sak yant is now widely embraced by the general population because of people’s need for a form of spiritual support, aided by the social acceptance of tattoos,” he said at a recent tattoo convention in Singapore. More than 300 tattoo artists from around the world attended the Singapore Tat2 Show 2010. But it was Fo Guang Hang’s tattoo specialist Ajahn Thong, 60, who drew one of the largest crowds. Business was so good that Thong, a Thai sak yant “grandmaster” who flew to Singapore for the show, had to extend his stay after the event to attend to all his customers, Heng said. While some get tattoos for show, many of Fo Guang Hang’s clients are businessmen looking to change their fortunes in the wake of the global recession, Heng said. Tattooists said Singapore also attracted believers from other countries who fly in for sak yant tattoos. Badr Fyrkree, a banker and amateur muay Thai boxing practitioner from the United Arab Emirates, travelled to Singapore specially to have two tattoos inked onto the back of his hands by Thong. “I got a power punch and a speed tattoo, and it’s spiritually based to help you not just with your fighting, but with your living,” he said. AFP
Ever have the feeling ... A boy walks past a street art installation by French artist JR outside the French Embassy on Monivong Boulevard in December 2008. On Friday JR was awarded second prize in the prestigious World Press Photo contest in the arts and entertainment category for an overhead photo of his work in the Kibera neighbourhood of Nariobi, Kenya, where he pasted enlarged photos of women’s eyes across rooftops and the sides and tops of trains. For other winners, go to worldpressphoto.org, or view more of JR’s work at jr-art.net. CHRISTOPHER SHAY
Artists fill void with big ideas Exhibit showcases creative projects for filling Guggenheim Museum’s rotunda by Sebastian Smith
N
This image shows FLW in His Element by Saunders Architecture, Bergen, Norway, part of the Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum exhibit. AFP/Guggenheim Museum
EW YORK – What do almost 200 artists and architects answer when asked how to fill a vast empty space in the middle of New York? Useful things like: fill it with coffee. The Guggenheim Museum’s rotunda has been the empty, enigmatic heart of the famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building since it was opened exactly 50 years ago. Now, in the finale of events commemorating that half century, the museum has invited 193 artists from around the world to imagine how they would use the space. The results, seen in the exhibition Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum that opened February 12, don’t literally seek to bung up the famous white cylinder between the rotunda’s snaking walkways. Instead, this is a test of the imagination – and humour – of artists including Anish Kapoor and Alice Aycock, designers such as Fernando and Humberto Campana, and architects including BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group).
So how do they fill the void? Several of the submissions, made in everything from elaborate paintings to sketches and precise architectural drawings, revolve around establishing a primeval forest in the Fifth Avenue rotunda. Saunders Architecture from Norway submitted a digital print showing Frank Lloyd Wright himself relaxing in a forest glade bounded by the spiralling ramps. Others suggest using sound to fill the space. Cuban-born Carlos Garaicoa drew up plans for suspending every instrument from a full philharmonic orchestra, then playing the “chaos” of an orchestra’s tune-up session. In a work called Prelude, Kris Martin, born in Belgium, suggests a game of Chinese whispers. People would line up all around the spiral stairs passing up a quotation from Frank Lloyd Wright’s autobiography: “The small hand with half-frozen fingers was again in its mitten in the older, stronger hand.” “In the end, the FLW sentence will reach the person on top,” Martin says. “The latter will write it on a sheet of paper and will throw it in the void.”
Some of the suggestions – if brought to fruition – might cause panic. Pipilotti Rist, from Switzerland, calls for “an immense clitoris in the scale of 450:1”. According to Rist’s instructions, jotted down by hand next to graphic close-up anatomical photographs, “the clitoris is hold up into the sky by the labia minora, it stands on its vulval vestibule in the entrance hall of the Rotunda”. The sculpture proposed would be 27 metres high and be “moving softly”. Equally shocking, if for other reasons, would be Macchiato, a proposal from the Office for Subversive Architecture in Germany, Austria and Britain. “The void will be completely filled with coffee,” they decide. “The temporary removal of the void will be a powerful experience which somehow dictates a restriction to the visitor, which results in an enormous urge to finally see the void again.” Not to mention the aroma of coffee through the building “to stimulate the visitor’s senses”. The exhibition runs until April 28. An auction of the art works will take place on March 4. AFP
19
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
lifestyle
Old days of polyester flares resuscitated in ABBA exhibit L By Warwick Thompson
ONDON — Plato described a pure realm of essential forms outside the material world. For many, the Platonic form of pop music would no doubt look like ABBA. The catchy tunes and indelible song hooks. The mediocre lyrics. The polyester costumes and the flares. They all add up to one of the most successful groups in pop history. Now their career is being celebrated in AbbaWorld, an exhibition at Earl’s Court in London. “Celebrated” is perhaps too grand a word. “Mangled” is closer to the experience. The majority of exhibits are old album covers and award discs on the walls. It’s like living in a disturbing polka-dot hallucination. The exhibition also includes a mock-up of the headquarters of their manager, Stig Anderson. If looking at an unremarkable room full of 1970s office furniture pops your cork, you’ll be in heaven. My own, however, remained resolutely unpopped. The tour begins with early biographies of the four stars and old clips of their work. It’s cute to see Agnetha when she had a gap in her teeth and Benny before he grew a beard. It’s less cute to peer at the hastily glued info labels stuck below cheaplooking photographs. Not many of the legendary ABBA millions made their way here. There’s a short film of highlights, a room full of spangly costumes and a chronological trawl through the highs of the group’s career.
NEW YORK – Previously unpublished letters by the American novelist J D Salinger were revealed last week, written between 1951 and 1993 by Salinger to E Michael Mitchell, the illustrator who designed the cover for Salinger’s bestselling novel The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger specifies in the letters that although his last published work appeared in 1965 he never stopped working, describing as late as in the 1980s a disciplined writer’s life, which started at 6am and allowed no interruption. That will bolster intense speculation that Salinger’s literary estate may include a collection of unpublished works. AFP l
l PARIS – Peter Gabriel
London is hosting an exhibition dedicated to Abba, the 1970s music group from Sweden seen here in a 1975 photo. Bloomberg/Bengt H Malmqvist/LD Communications
Highs are all you get. Lows? Nix. I was hoping to find out more about the band’s split, the breakup of the members’ marriages and the financial court case three of them threatened against Anderson. Alas, no. What you get is niceynicey to the power of 10. Since the ABBA members in their short filmed interviews
appear to be sensible, pleasant people who haven’t committed atrocious crimes or been involved in headline-grabbing drug or sex scandals, niceynicey doesn’t feel like quite enough to sustain the whole underpowered shebang. There are interactive parts to the exhibition. You can appear on stage with cartoon holo-
graphs of the group. You can be inserted into an ABBA video or onto an album cover. You can also sing along to your favorite track such as “Dancing Queen” or “Mamma Mia”. Unfortunately, you don’t get a second go at these gizmos, and some of them are only marginally less complex to operate than the Large Hadron
Collider. For those of us who are technologically “otherabled”, that’s dispiriting. Even after repeated requests, I’m still waiting for the email password to be able to download my immortal rendition of “SOS” from the exhibition Web site. On second thought, maybe it’s just as well the world won’t get to hear it. BLOOMBERG
The South American nation seeks to take advantage of growing interest among foreigners in the frothy, tangy tipple the cocktail made from pisco, is a now a national symbol,” Jose Luis Chicoma Lucar, deputy minister of Industry, said on the eve of the annual Pisco Sour Day on February 6. Since 2003, Peru has dedicated the first weekend in February to pisco-tasting parties across the country, with a giant pisco fountain erected in Lima’s
main square for the occasion. The frothy, tangy cocktail was invented in a hotel bar at the start of the last century by an American named Morris, as an adaptation of the classic whisky sour. Its fame grew during the oil bonanza of the 1940s and 1950s, thanks to glamorous Hollywood stars such as Orson Welles, Ava
Dancers in traditional costumes participate in the celebration of Pisco Sour Day in Lima on February 6. AFP/
MARCO GARRO
trove of Salinger letters revealed
No guitars, drums on Gabriel album
Peru toasts pisco boom at cocktail festival LIMA – Peruvians have been lifting their glasses in a toast to pisco sour, an emblematic national cocktail that has enjoyed a tremendous boom over the past decade, as pisco brandy production rose fourfold and exports by a factor of eleven. “Pisco is part of our identity, it has been made in Peru for over 400 years, and pisco sour,
in BRIEF
Gardner and John Wayne, who sipped pisco sours in the now notorious Hotel Bolivar in Lima’s historic center. Once a jealously guarded secret, Morris’s original recipe is now well known, said Eloy Cuadros, who has been bartending for over 40 years at the drink’s birthplace, the Hotel Maury. “Three (measures) of pisco, one of lemon, one of sugar syrup, one egg white, ice and the final touch: a drop of Angostura bitter,” he said. Today, interest for the Peruvian tipple, especially from North Americans, is booming again. “Pisco has already been proclaimed part of Peru’s cultural heritage. The next step is to get Peru’s pisco and gastronomy recognised internationally, and put it on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list,” Chicoma said. Peruvian exports of pisco overtook Chile’s in 2009, he added proudly. Pisco is one of many diplomatic thorns between Latin American neighbors Peru and Chile – both countries claim the spirit as their own, and are battling for its exclusive
designation of origin. “Pisco is an actual place which belongs to Peruvian history,” said Peruvian historian and pisco defender Lorenzo Huertas. The member of the Peruvian Academy of Pisco insisted that designations of origin are linked to geography. “Pisco means bird (in the Quechua Native American language), after the birds which inhabited the Pisco valley” some 250 kilometres south of Lima, Huertas said. Peru lost its monopoly on pisco to countries like Chile and Argentina around the mid-18th century, as Peruvian farmers turned to more lucrative businesses like sugar and cotton. Gaston Acurio, a Peruvian chef and popular icon for his role in promoting the country’s gastronomy, is one of many who believe the country’s pisco is now undergoing a “revolution”, along with its cuisine. “A decade ago, for every 10 whiskies served, only one pisco sour was prepared. Now the tables have been turned,” Acurio said. AFP
revisits a dozen cover songs in a new album to be released this week that strips songs to their bare essentials – the lyrics. Titled Scratch My Back, Gabriel’s album is the first chapter in a two-part project in which the artists whose songs he recorded will return the favour by each recording a song of his. To get to the essence of the songs the ex-Genesis frontman uses no guitars and no drums, instead taking chamber instruments, keyboards and brass to accompany his voice. Tracks include songs by Talking Heads, Paul Simon, David Bowie, Neil Young, Randy Newman, Bon Iver, Elbow, Lou Reed, Regina Spektor and The Magnetic Fields. AFP
Dylan canvases unveiled in London l LONDON – A collection of
Bob Dylan paintings billed as the US musician’s first works on canvas went on show last week. Bob Dylan on Canvas at the Halcyon Gallery in London’s Mayfair district includes pieces with price tags ranging from US$150,000-$700,000. The gallery said the collection “witnesses the culmination of his artistic progression” from his Drawn Blank Series, a show which included a stop in London in 2008, from drawings to works on paper and now finally to canvas. The London show opened to the public on February 13 and runs until April 10. AFP
NY condom contest heads to climax l NEW YORK– A top hat, a
train tunnel and even a sewer manhole cover feature in the finals of New York’s condom wrapper design contest. The city has received some 600 entries since the competition opened December 15 for a wrapper that would “capture the city’s distinctive culture while promoting safer sex”. The five design finalists also include the symbol for computer “on” buttons, a circle of multi-colored bubbles reading “Together, we can protect NYC”. Designs came in from all over the city and as far away as Perm, Russia, the city said. AFP
20
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
lifestyle
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PG 908
19:30
20:45
PG 910
20:45
21:40
Flights
Departure
VN 868
12:40
Arrival 15:35
VN 842
18:00
19:55
VN 844
19:45
21:40
Siem Reap - Kuala Lumpur Flights Departure Arrival AK 281 08:35 11:35 Siem Reap - Ho Chi Minh City Flights Departure Arrival VN 808
10:25
11:45
VN 822
13:30
14:30
VN 826
17:30
18:30
VN 828
18:20
19:20
VN 848
20:25
21:25
Siem Reap - SINGAPORE Flights Departure MI 633 16:35
Arrival 22:15
Siem Reap - VIENTIANE Flights Departure QV 522 10:05
Arrival 13:00
Siem Reap-Incheon
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Departure
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KE 688
23:10
06:10
OZ 738
23:50
7:00
to siem Reap Arrival
15:45
17:05
Bangkok - Siem Reap
Flights
Phnom Penh - Incheon Flights Departure
Arrival
KE 690
23:40
06:40
OZ 740
23:50
07:10
to Phnom Penh Bangkok - Phnom Penh
Departure 08:00 11:35 15:10 17:45 18:45
PG 903 PG 905 PG 913 PG 907 PG 909
Arrival 09:00 12:35 16:10 18:55 19:45
Hanoi – Siem Reap
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Departure
Arrival
PG 931
07:40
08:50
TG 580
07:45
09:00
PG 933
13:40
14:50
PG 935
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19:10
TG 584
18:55
20:10
AK 3616
14:50
16:00
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VN 843
15:10
17:05
VN 845
16:55
18:50
Kuala Lumpur - Siem Reap
Flights
Departure
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AK 280
07:00
08:00
Ho Chi Minh City - Siem Reap
Beijing - Phnom Penh
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CZ 323
16:15
21:30
Guangzhou - Phnom Penh
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CZ 323
20:05
21:30
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VN 809
08:20
09:40
VN 823
11:40
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VN 827
15:40
16:40
VN 829
16:30
17:30
VN 849
18:35
19:35
Flights
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VN 841
08:25
11:50
Departure 08:55
Arrival 10:35
by Mel Gunasekera
C
OLOMBO – In 70 years of greeting guests to Sri Lanka’s venerable Galle Face Hotel, doorman K Chattu Kuttan has hobnobbed with everyone from royal heads of state to Bond girls and Soviet cosmonauts. Kuttan, who turns 90 today, has watched the hotel change with the country, from colonial days, through independence and the dark decades of ethnic conflict. And he has pretty much seen it all, from a Japanese Zero fighter plane crashlanding on the hotel grounds during World War II, to sultry film star Ursula Andress dancing in the ballroom on New Year’s Eve 1976. Born in India’s Kerala prov-
ince, Kuttan left his home and took the ferry to Sri Lanka’s northern seaport town of Talaimannar and then made his way to Colombo in 1938. He worked as a servant for one of Colombo’s elite families before landing a job at the hotel in 1942, weeks after the Japanese bombed the capital. He started as a waiter and took 50 years to gravitate to the front door. His distinctive neat white cropped hair, handlebar moustache, white brass buttoned coat, sarong and expanding collection of colourful souvenir badges from dozens of countries, all combine to make the perfect photo opportunity. Few guests pass up the chance of a picture, and his image and life story have graced the covers and inside pages of some of the world’s leading
travel magazines. Kuttan is happy he lived to see the back of Sri Lanka’s 37year ethnic conflict, which ended in May with the military victory over Tamil Tiger rebels. “Too many people died. I have seen too many bomb blasts around Colombo. People were scared to move around. Even tourists didn’t want to come. So I’m happy it’s finally over,” he said. A non-smoker, teetotaller and lover of vegetable dishes, Kuttan hopes to visit Kerala in April to see his two sisters, aged 93 and 73 – his second visit to India since arriving in Sri Lanka. And his pet peeves? Mobile phones. “I hate those [ringtone] noises. I feel my ear is vibrating after talking into one.” AFP
Flights
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MI 633
14:35
15:45
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QV 512
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09:25
Incheon-Siem reap
Kuala Lumpur - Phnom Penh
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MH 754
09:30
10:20
AK 274
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KE 687
18:30
22:10
OZ 737
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From siem Reap (Domestic)
Ho Chi Minh City - Phnom Penh
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VN 817
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13:15
VN 840
14:15
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VN 819
18:00
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Singapore - Phnom Penh
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MI 602
08:15
09:15
3K 593
06:45
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MI 608
16:20
17:15
SHANGHAI - Phnom Penh
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FM 833
19:55
22:50
Taipei - Phnom Penh
Siem Reap - PhnAom Penh Flights Departure
Arrival
K6 9850
11:10
12:00
K6 9852
14:10
15:00
K6 9854
15:25
16:15
K6 9856
17:30
18:20
K6 9858
08:15
09:05
to siem Reap (Domestic) Phnom Penh - Siem Reap Flights
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K6 9851
09:45
10:35
K6 9853
12:35
13:25
K6 9855
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Departure
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K6 9857
16:00
16:50
BR 265
09:10
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K6 9859
06:50
07:40
Airline Codes - jetstar - air asia - eva airways - china airlines - china southern - asiana airlines
Legendary Colombo doorman turns 90
VIENTIANE - Siem Reap
Hong Kong - Phnom Penh
3k ak br ci cz oz
Sri Lanka’s legendary doorman, Kottarapattu Chattu Kuttan, stands beside a car formerly owned by the UK’s Duke of Edinburgh, on display at Galle Face Hotel in Colombo on February 6. AFP
Singapore - Siem Reap
Hanoi- Phnom Penh
Flights KA 206
Departure
VN 841
Siem Reap - Hanoi
Arrival
11:30
Flights
fm ft ka mi mh pg
- shanghai air - siem reap airways - dragon air - silk air - malaysia airlines - bangkok airways
qv tg vn ke
- laos airways - thai airways - vietnam airlines - korean air
The Phnom Penh Post is seeking a qualified Cambodian Business Editor.
s "USINESS %DITOR POSITION Job requirements -
Bachelor’s degree in journalism or an equivalent degree
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At least two years experience in Editorial and Journalism
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Must be good in Khmer literature and able to speak and write in English
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Computer literacy is required
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Candidate has to be good at typing especially UNICODE
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Strong commitment and highly responsible
Interested Candidates should submit their cover letter and CV to Human Resources Office of the Post Media Co., Ltd. # 888, 8th Floor, Building F of Phnom Penh Center, Corner Sothearos & Preah Sihanouk Blvd., Sangkat Tonle Bassac, Khan Chamkarmon, Phnom Penh. Or email to sarean.mean@phnompenhpost.com Deadline: 26th February 2010 Note: Only short-listed candidates will be contacted for interview.
21
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
TEA BREAK “CREATURE COMFORTS” ACROSS 1 5 9 14 15 16 17 19 20 21 23 26 29 33 34 35 37 38 39 40 41 42
Sudoku Friday’s solution
Friday’s solution
43 44 46 48 49 50 52 57 59 62 63 64 65 66 67
“... the harder ___ fall” Gardener’s purchase Boy with a bow Thinker Descartes “Better ___ than never” Egg holder Locomotive, informally Metamorphosis stages Grapevine produce? Fence-crossing spot Gets ready to drag Emergency notifiers Certify, as a college Blew one’s top Musical syllables Do a greenhouse job Suffix with “hero” or “rout” Eliciting a “So what?” Big-time perp The Munsters’ pet bat “Tarzan” star Ron “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” meanie City in New York Arrange strategically, as troops Aloft Maryland state bird Rakish sort Calabash Golfer’s porter ___ de menthe Geologist, e.g. Decide at the flip of ___ ___ Lackawanna Railway Feeling of hunger or regret Clergyman’s digs The ravages of time “... or ___!”
DOWN
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 18 22 24 25 27 28 29 30 31 32 36 39 40 42 43 45 47 51 53 54 55 56 57 58 60 61
Short math course? Villain’s opposite Third-generation Genesis figure Hankerings Aslant Thing locked in a boat “___ a bird ...” Fermentation-vessel sediments Air aide Soft palate extensions Its bark is worse than its bite? The older Gershwin brother Work on roots, perhaps Fills open slots, in a way Prey-catching claw Olive-green songbird Outstanding Inhabitant of ancient Crete “Tristram Shandy” author Reflective power, as of a planet Square dance leader Skeet shooting target “Go, team, go!” accompaniment Sabin’s study The Colonel’s machine Agcy. that won the 1969 Peace Prize One “T” of TNT African witchcraft Armored car company Darius of Hootie and the Blowfish Sketched Slangy drugs Having two parts Boarding sites Advantage Engine cylinder “His Master’s Voice” record label Assayed material Org. featured in “The Good Shepherd”
Oddly enough ... Chilean grannies nabbed for drugs
THE LAST WORD IN ASTROLOGY BY EUGENIA LAST
Celebrities born on this day:
l l
SANTIAGO – Elderly pensioners in Chile struggling to make ends meet are being lured by the narcotics trade, changing the profile of traditional drug dealers, police said last week. The average age of drug dealers has soared in Chile, with police saying they had arrested this year some 16 people, mostly women, aged between 60 and 80 years. Among them was a pair of septuagenarians with a 2 kilogramme stash of cocaine. “Those who fund the operations hire older adults because they don’t fit the standard type of a drug offender and receive help from their neighbours,”
Claudio Salazar, head of the official anti-drug unit, told the El Mercurio newspaper. “Drug trafficking helps them escape poverty and earn an income for living. The neighbours do not complain because they know they would find themselves in a risky situation,” Salazar added. Among the arrests, counted since the beginning of the year, were two female friends aged 72 and 79 years, dubbed by Chilean media as the “Grandmothers of Providencia” after the neighbourhood where they shared a house. They were caught with a cocaine stash worth some US$80,000. AFP
Brandon Boyd, 34 Matt Groening, 56 Aquarius (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
Use your head when it comes to money matters. With a good budget, you can set your finances in order. Someone you work with or for may be angry if you haven't held up your end of a deal. Be ready to make amends.
Pisces (Feb 19 - Mar 20)
A deal can be struck and a partnership started if you lay down some ground rules and are willing to put the past behind you. A show of emotions will help you gain sympathy and assistance.
Aries (Mar 21 - April 19) Don't fret over something that hasn't happened. Do your best and offer what you can without hesitation. Your willingness to be a participant instead of an onlooker will separate you from the crowd.
Taurus (April 20 - May 20)
You will impress far more people with productivity. If you can offer your services at a discount when times are tough, you will secure your position. Kindness and generosity will be repaid.
Gemini (May 21 - June 20) You may have to do some fasttalking to avoid a scene. Don't let anyone put you in a precarious position by trying to pin something on you that is only partially your fault. Own up and move on.
Cancer (June 21 - July 22) Trust your own mind to make the decisions that will benefit you most. Love is in the stars and making time for an enjoyable encounter with someone special will help you feel emotionally secure. Self-improvement projects will go well.
l l
Melissa Manchester, 59 Jane Seymour, 59 Leo (July 23 - Aug 22)
Aggressive talks will help you stabilize your position and can mark territory for a prosperous future. A creative suggestion will intrigue the people who can turn your ideas into reality. Be honest about what you have to bring to the table.
Virgo (Aug 23 - Sep 22) Don't wait for someone else to make a decision that will affect you. Jump in and make whatever adjustments are required to ensure your own success and happiness. If you don't speak up, you have nothing to complain about.
Libra (Sep 23 - Oct 22)
Your focus should be on home, family and relationships. Don't let a change at work cause you concern. Take care of your own responsibilities and you will be free to give your attention to the people in your life who really count.
Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 21) Avoid fights, disputes and people who meddle. Concentrate on the creative, the exciting and whatever will lead to a new adventure. There is no point wasting time over something you cannot change. A love relationship can take on a new life if you throw a few promises in the mix.
Sagittarius (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
Everything you say and do will be scrutinized. Explain your every move with extreme accuracy and get approval before you do something that may be questioned. A love relationship may be jeopardized if you are too familiar with others.
Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 19) Don't let an old competitor get the better of you now. A knowledgeable view of whatever situation you face will enable you to control the outcome. Mix the old with the new for a workable solution.
DYNAMIC | POSITIVE | AVERAGE | SO- SO | TERRIBLE
22
THE PHNOM PENH POST FEBRuary 15, 2010
SPORT Olympic athletes blame hosts for tragedy of Georgian luger Canadians were accused of limiting practice runs and turning luge racers into ‘crash-test dummies’ at Whistler after the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili Friday BY Lawrence Donegan VANCOUVER, Canada
T
HE Olympic juggernaut rolls on in Vancouver – a US$6 billion celebration of sporting excellence and Canadian pride that has been seven years in the planning and waits for no man, not even one who lost his life in pursuit of what organisers called “his Olympic dream”, but which others suggested was a tragedy waiting to happen. The glittering opening ceremony was dedicated to the memory of 21-year-old Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, who was killed after losing control of his luge in practice on the final turn of the Whistler sliding track Friday. The crowd rose as the Georgian team, their national flag draped in black, made its entrance into the arena. “May
Georgia athletes wear black armbands as they enter the stadium for the 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony Friday. AFP
you carry his Olympic dream on your shoulders and compete with his spirit in your heart,’’ John Furlong, the head of the Vancouver games organising committee, told the athletes after they had taken their seats. Stirring words, but as Furlong tried to frame Kumaritashvili’s death in a way that appealed to the sentimental instincts of the global audience, a more prosaic expression of the Olympic dream was taking place on the hill, where organisers issued a statement announcing the men’s luge event, in which the Georgian was due to compete, would go ahead as scheduled at 5pm local time. “The technical officials of the FIL [International Luge Federation] were able to retrace the path of the athlete and concluded there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track,’’ said the statement, before adding that changes would be made to the track at the spot where Kumaritashvili began to lose control of his luge. When the mourning phase is over, no doubt lawyers acting on behalf of the luger’s family will seek to find out why it was necessary to make alterations if the track had no role to play in his death. It will draw attention to complaints from other competitors about a facility that has stretched the boundaries of safety in what is already a dangerous sport. “We are not crashtest dummies,’’ an Australian competitor said on Thursday. Yet if these are issues for the lawyers somewhere down the line, more immediate questions may be asked by the Canadians of themselves, who, in pur-
Candles are lit in memory of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili who died in a crash during a training run Friday of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Luge event at Whistler sliding centre. AFP
suit of their own Olympic dream – 30 medals at least, with as many golds as possible – appear to have forgotten that national characteristic for which they are best known: politeness. “Some say what defines us/is something as simple as please and thank you/and as for you’re welcome/well we say that too,’’ wrote Shane Kozycan in “We Are More”, a poem he delivered during the opening ceremony. In normal times perhaps, but in the run-up to these games, the hosts – or at least the Canadian Olympic Committee – seemed to have mislaid their man-
BY Ung Chamroeun
SEA Games Petanque gold medallist Sok Chanmean (right) receives 24 million riels (US$5,776) from Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam Orn (left) during a ceremony Friday at the National Institute of Education. SOVAN PHILONG
Each bronze medal earned a respectable 8 million riels, much to the delight of shuttlecock trio Chea Srey Meas, Chhin Vitou and San Sophaon, who grabbed three bronzes in three events despite failing to win a single game in their weeklong cam-
l CARDIFF – Wales coach Warren Gatland praised his side’s “fantastic character” after they fought back from 10 points down with four minutes left to beat Scotland 31-24 in the Six Nations Saturday. The hosts were staring down the barrel of a second straight defeat in the tournament, ahead of a tricky match against leaders France. But tries from wings Leigh Halfpenny and Shane Williams, separated by a penalty from flyhalf Stephen Jones, saw Wales complete a stunning victory at the Millennium Stadium. AFP
France banish Ireland
ners. “Own the podium”, it implored its athletes in an initiative aimed at ensuring the host nation finishes at the top of the medals table at these games. Money has been poured into training, while a hard-edged approach has been adopted in dealing with other teams, most noticeably in granting them only limited access to facilities such as the sliding track. Such behaviour is within the Olympic rules, but it came across as distinctly un-Canadian at the time, and in the context of Friday’s death it seemed like a terrible misjudgment. THE GUARDIAN
Govt hand out cash prizes to medal winners Cambodian SEA Games medallists, coaches and assistants collected their government granted cash prizes from Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An Friday during a ceremony at the National Institute of Education. The Kingdom claimed a total of 40 medals at last December’s regional sports event, held from December 9-18 in Vientiane, including 3 gold, 10 silver and 27 bronze. In accordance with a government sub-decree, petanque gold medallists Sok Chanmean and Heng Than, and Chov Sotheara – Cambodia’s first ever female wrestling gold medal winner - each received 24 million riels (US$5,776). The ten silver medallists were awarded 16 million riels each, with wrestler Chum Chivin doubling up thanks to his two silvers in different categories.
Wales seal late victory
paign. The athletes were given bronzes by default, in accordance with the rules of the SEA Games, with Laos, Thailand and Vietnam being the only other nations competing. Shuttlecock players Heng Rawuth and Soeu Vannak, and
wrestler Dorn Sao also took home double rewards for their two bronze medals each. Head coaches received cash prizes equivalent to the highest single medal won by their athletes, and assistant coaches received 70 percent of the coach’s reward. One such example was Em Heang, head coach of petanque, who was given 24 million riels due to the golds of Sok Chanmean and Heng Than, while assistant coaches, Hor Vannara, Sok Mong and Kim San acquired 16.8 million riels each. At the same ceremony, 29 medalists from other international competitions were also granted cash prizes by the Deputy Prime Minister, with six gold medalists receiving 1 million riels each, five silver medalists earning 750,000 riels, and eight bronze medalists amassing 500,000 riels. During her address, Men Sam
An stated that the government respects its promise to honour sporting achievements, which it hopes will help encourage a higher standard amongst Cambodian athletes. “The sports sector has developed a lot in the Kingdom over the last few years,” she noted. “However, we are still only ranked ninth out of eleven [countries] in the region.” The Deputy Prime Minister also noted the need for good cooperation between related sport institutions and private investors to improve training facilities for local athletes, and expressed a desire to kick out corruption in sport. “We should also increase the number of domestic competitions, especially on Independence day [November 9] or the January 7 anniversary [Liberation day]. We should work together against nepotism to allow the youngsters show their talents,” she asserted.
l PARIS – France rugby team shattered Ireland’s dreams of a repeat of their Six Nations Grand Slam at the Stade de France Saturday beating them 33-10 with scrum-half Morgan Parra who had accused the Irish of being cheats earlier in the week masterminding the defeat. First-half tries by William Servat – his second for his country – and Yannick Jauzion – his 19th in his 65th test – and a second-half one from Clement Poitrenaud, with Parra chipping in with 15 points, saw France easily see off a rather flat Irish team. AFP
Afghans book T20 berth
l DUBAI – Afghanistan capped their fairytale qualification for the World Twenty20 cricket finals by beating Ireland in the final match of the qualifying tournament Saturday. The Afghans had already secured a place in the April 30-May 16 showpiece in the West Indies by beating hosts United Arab Emirates by four wickets and they signed off in style with a comfortable victory over Ireland. Mohammad Shahzad finished unbeaten on 65, with Karim Sadiq contributing 34, as Afghanistan breezed past Ireland’s total of 146 for the loss of just two wickets. AFP
Kearney denies Canada
l VANCOUVER – America’s Hannah Kearney won the women’s moguls freestyle skiing title Saturday, denying host nation Canada its first gold of the Games. Kearney scored 26.63 points with Canada’s 2006 Olympic champion Jennifer Heil on 25.69. Shannon Bahrke of the United States, who took silver at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, claimed with 25.43 points. AFP
SKorea miss out sweep
l VANCOUVER – Lee Jung-Su won the men’s 1,500m shorttrack speed skating gold at the Winter Olympics Saturday, but powerhouse South Korea’s hopes of a podium sweep were shattered on a last-bend collapse. Just metres from the finish, Sung Si-Bak and Lee Ho-Suk collided to allow American Apolo Anton Ohno to finish second and become the most decorated Olympic shorttrack skater with six medals. AFP
23
THE PHNOM PENH POST february 15, 2010
football
Emotional Avram Grant vows to fight on with Portsmouth Pompey finally finds some solace thanks to an emphatic 4-1 victory in the FA Cup against south-coast rivals Southampton Saturday to reach the last-eight round
S
OUTHAMPTON, England – Avram Grant insists the emotional celebrations at the end of Portsmouth’s 4-1 win over local rivals Southampton in the FA Cup fifth round prove the beleaguered club is worth saving. Grant rarely lets his emotions show, but the Israeli cut a delighted figure at full time at St Mary’s on Saturday as Pompey finally savoured a rare happy moment in a dismal season. Portsmouth are bottom of the Premier League and debts of £60 million (US$94.2 million) have forced the Fratton Park outfit to the brink of bankruptcy. They face a high court hearing on March 1 that will decide their future, while Grant has had to deal with embarrassing newspaper stories about his
Portsmouth’s Quincy Owusu-Abeyie (right) skips over a challenge from Southampton’s Wayne Thomas during their FA Cup tie. AFP
private life. So a victory over their old enemies from along the south coast was just the tonic everyone connected with Portsmouth needed. After Portsmouth substitute Quincy Owusu-Abeyie’s second-half opener was cancelled out by Rickie Lambert, goals from Aruna Dindane, Nadir Belhadj and Jamie O’Hara sent the visitors into the last eight. Former Chelsea boss Grant, who marched onto the pitch to share in the celebrations of the travelling Portsmouth fans, believes such days show there is every reason to keep the faith amid difficult times. “I’m very emotional, and this is an emotional game,” Grant said. “If you win, you make 250,000 other people happy – this is what football is about. “I will fight until the last moment. As long as we have a chance on the pitch. What happens in court is out of my hands. “If they need to punish someone then it is a person that does something wrong. I don’t know who that is, but it is not us. “I see the passion of everyone at the club – the fans, the players and the staff. There is a passion to succeed. I was very happy to see the decision from the high court. There are many people around, and it’s not their fault. “If I wrote a book about Portsmouth it would be a bestseller. I had two choices. To give up or to show to the players that we will make our spirit even higher. “I said that to the players and to my children, when there are difficult times you need to show your character.”
Stoke force City replay
l MANCHESTER, England – Stoke striker Ricardo Fuller cancelled out a Shaun WrightPhillips goal to earn a 1-1 draw at Manchester City in the FA Cup fifth round Saturday. Roberto Mancini’s City are desperate to end their trophy drought, which stretches back to 1976, and they looked like they were on their way into the quarterfinals when they took an early lead at Eastlands. But they struggled to press home their advantage and conceded an equaliser in the second half when Fuller headed in from Rory Delap’s long throw. AFP
Ruud nets nippy brace
l BERLIN – Former Real Madrid and Manchester United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy was in double form on only his second run out since joining Hamburg on Saturday. The Dutch forward scored in the 75th and 77th minutes to add to Marcus Berg’s first-half opener to lift Hamburg to a 3-1 win over Stuttgart that maintained their hold on fourth place. AFP
Montpellier climb to top
Portsmouth’s beleaguered manager Avram Grant received a welcomed boost to morale Saturday with a resounding 4-1 victory over Southampton in the FA Cup fifth round. AFP
Grant played a key role in the win with his decision to send on Owusu-Abeyie, who is on loan from Spartak Moscow, as Portsmouth struggled to overcome their League One (third-tier) opponents. “The only thing we could do is bring loan players in who were not under contract,” Grant said. “Quincy was one of them. I knew him from Arsenal and know that he has a lot of quality. I like to develop players and get the best from them, and he will be very good if we get potential from him.” Saints boss Alan Pardew was pleased with his side’s performance despite the
eventual margin of defeat. “We tried to play a controlled game and not to open it up,” he said. “We did well with that. We were very disappointed not to be leading at half time. (Portsmouth goalkeeper) David James was terrific, and it was evenly poised. Psychologically, scoring first would have been tough for Portsmouth. “I think next time we play them we’ll be in a stronger position. We are a lot closer than the team that played because we had players unavailable.” AFP
Holders ease into last eight Ronaldo returns with Chelsea ignore Terry’s absence to reach the FA Cup quarterfinals
a double for Madrid
LONDON – FA Cup holders Chelsea shrugged off the absence of captain John Terry to cruise into the quarterfinals with a 4-1 win over Championship side Cardiff in the fifth round Saturday. With Terry granted time off to fly to Dubai to be with his wife as he deals with allegations of an affair, Ashley Cole sidelined after ankle surgery and Petr Cech and Nicolas Anelka rested, Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti sent out a slightly unfamiliar lineup at Stamford Bridge. The Italian’s team was still strong enough to kill off Cardiff. In the second minute, Didier Drogba ran onto Jon Obi Mikel’s long pass and fired past Cardiff goalkeeper David Marshall for his 23rd goal of the season. Cardiff forward Michael Chopra stunned the hosts when he punished poor marking to head the equaliser from Chris Burke’s 34th-minute cross. But Chelsea finally subdued Dave Jones’s side and regained the lead in the 51st minute thanks to Michael Ballack’s
MADRID – A brace from Cristiano Ronaldo helped Real Madrid to a 3-0 win over Xerez Saturday that brought them just two points behind Spanish league leaders Barcelona. Returning from a two-game suspension, Ronaldo was the chief protagonist throughout for the visitors but in the first half Real did not have it all their own way. Chances for both sides saw Jeronimo Momes and Ronaldo hit the woodwork at either end but after the break Real began to dominate. Defender Alvaro Arbeloa made the breakthrough after 64 minutes before Ronaldo wrapped the game up with two goals in two minutes. Kaka was the provider on both occasions for the Portuguese, who scored first with his head and then via a simple side-foot finish. “Scoring is tough, no matter who the opponent is. We were up against a good Xerez team in the first half,” said Real coach Manuel Pellegrini. “The field of play wasn’t in the best of shape, but we main-
Chelsea’s Didier Drogba (centre) vies with Cardiff’s Gavin Rae (left) and Anthony Gerrard during their FA Cup fifth round match Saturday. AFP
cool finish from Drogba’s pass. Young striker Daniel Sturridge added the third goal when he fired through Marshall’s legs in the 69th minute, and Salomon Kalou, heading in Paolo Ferreira’s cross, completed the rout with four minutes left. “Our team was changed, but we took quality out and quality came back in. It is the professionalism of our players that shines through,” Chelsea
BRIEFS
assistant manager Ray Wilkins said. “Some people might have thought this was going to be a bit of an easy game for us, but those guys took it by the throat and pulled us through when we were not playing particularly well.” Elsewhere, Birmingham’s Liam Ridgewell scored in the last minute as Alex McLeish’s side came from a goal down to beat Championship side Derby 2-1 at Pride Park. AFP
tained our discipline. This team is mature and ready to battle for 90 minutes. We know we can’t demolish every opponent. “Cristiano Ronaldo attracts a lot of defenders. Scoring upon his return from suspension was the best thing that could happen to him.” Earlier, a cool Juan Mata finish rescued a point for a battling Valencia side, who drew 1-1 against Sporting Gijon. In Saturday’s late match, Villarreal overcame Athletic Bilbao 2-1 in a hot-tempered game that culminated in three red cards. AFP
Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates after scoring against Xerez Saturday. AFP
l PARIS – French top-flight surprise package Montpellier moved level on points with leaders Bordeaux by beating Grenoble 1-0 Saturday, while title-chasing Marseille edged south coast rivals Monaco 2-1. Montpellier, promoted from Ligue 2 last season, took the lead in the 28th minute when striker Victor Montano provided an emphatic finish to a sweeping move, and his goal was enough to secure all the points. AFP
Hiddink set to step down
l MOSCOW – Dutchman Guus Hiddink is to resign as coach of Russia after his contract expires on June 30, press reports said Saturday. “I decided to announce my decision now to give Russian football chiefs time to find a new manager,” Hiddink was quoted as saying. AFP
Saturday’s results English FA CUP - 5th round Chelsea 4 Cardiff 1 Derby 1 Birmingham 2 Man City 1 Stoke City 1 Reading 2 West Brom 2 Southampton 1 Portsmouth 4 Spanish La Liga Sporting Gijon 1 Valencia 1 Xerez 0 Real Madrid 3 Villarreal 2 Athletic Bilbao 1 Italian Serie A Roma 4 Palermo 1 Sampdoria 2 Fiorentina 0 French Ligue 1 Lyon 1 Lens 0 Montpellier 1 Grenoble 0 Monaco 1 Marseille 2 Le Mans 0 Sochaux 0 Nancy 0 PSG 0 Lille 3 Boulogne 1 Valenciennes 2 Nice 1 German Bundesliga Bochum 2 Hoffenheim 1 Stuttgart 1 Hamburg 3 Hertha Berlin 1 Mainz 1 Hanover 1 Werder Bremen 5 B Leverkusen 2 Wolfsburg 1 B Munich 3 Bor Dortmund 1 On Friday B M’gladbach 2 Nuremberg 1