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Bhutan steps lightly towards global village
Nov 23, 2009
THOUGH sandwiched between emerging superpowers China and India, Bhutan is a country that has proceeded with extreme caution on the path to globalisation. Television and the Internet did not arrive until 1999, and traffic lights in the capital were removed after the public deemed them a nuisance. Tourism is limited to high-end tour groups in which individials pay upwards of US$200 per day, ensuring that the backpacking hordes that descend annually upon neighbouring India and Nepal do not trample Bhutan as well.
Most notably, Bhutan eschews gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of national well-being, subscribing instead to GNH – gross national happiness – a concept first articulated by King Jigme Singye Wangchuk in 1972.
It may have seemed peculiar, then, when a six-member delegation from Bhutan, a nation so careful about controlling international influences, arrived in Cambodia last week to meet with government officials and business leaders to learn about the Kingdom’s experience as a member of the World Trade Organisation. After 11 years as a WTO observer, however, the hermetic Himalayan nation is now hoping to secure full membership for itself and extend its international ties.
Sonam Wangchuk, a delegation member with the Bhutanese trade department (no relation to the royal family), said that although Bhutan is mindful of preserving its traditions, ascension to the WTO is a necessary and inevitable part of sustaining the nation’s well-being in the long term.
“For Bhutan, whether you join or not, you’re already impacted internationally with globalisation. You’re dealing with the international community,” he said.
Wangchuk explained that Bhutan hopes the WTO framework will provide the predictability desired by foreign investors to a country whose private sector has been described by observers as disorganised. It could also spur the sector’s development, an essential element of poverty alleviation for Bhutan, said Tom Maxwell, a professor at Australia’s University of New England and programme director of the school’s Bhutan Project.
Though Bhutan performs very well against other UN-termed least-developed countries (LDCs) in measures such as political transparency, public health and education, youth unemployment and rural poverty are pressing concerns.
“Urban drift is already occurring as students get educated, but the private sector has not taken up the challenge,” Maxwell said.
Learning from Cambodia
After meeting with officials from the government and the UN Development Programme on Wednesday and Thursday, the Bhutanese group took Friday to tour Cambodian small businesses that might serve as models for prospective Bhutanese exporters.
First up was the Cambodia Organic Agriculture Association (COrAA), where the delegation discussed plans to expand Bhutanese agriculture into the organic export market.
“Seventy percent of our people are still in subsistence farming, but we’ve made a lot of progress in cash crops,” said Sonam Wangdi, director general of Bhutan’s department of trade, citing his country’s cultivation of apples, oranges and potatoes.
“You’re small, you’re specialty – I’d target the high-end consumers,” Andrew McNaughton, the CEO of Mekong Rain Natural Foods, advised the group.
From COrAA it was on to the offices of Cambodian Craft Cooperation (CCC), which manages exports of silk and handicrafts. There, CCC executive director Seung Kimyonn discussed the challenges of ensuring quality control among small-scale producers and establishing reliable supply lines to developed world markets.
Looking ahead
Sonam Wangchuk praised Cambodia’s trade development, saying the government is “really gearing up” for an increase in and diversification of exports.
In Bhutan, the delivery of hydropower to India is the main source of export revenue. Although there is potential now for growth in agriculture and handicrafts, Wangchuk said that in the future, he hoped to see Bhutan develop an information service sector on the model of India, the destination for many outsourced Western IT jobs in recent years.
“That is a new phenomenon, but we feel like we have the advantage in that area because firstly our education system, the medium of instruction is English, and then in the West, when the West is sleeping we are awake, so the business can continue 24 hours,” he said.
Though Bhutan’s measured approach to globalisation and its reliance on gross national happiness have been oft-praised by Western commentators and academics, the country is not exempt from the problems of modernity. A refugee crisis that displaced tens of thousands of ethnic Nepalis in Bhutan during the early 1990s remains unresolved, and recent reports indicate that crime and drug use are on the rise.
Wangchuk said, however, that Bhutan recognises that resisting the tide of globalisation is an impossible endeavour.
“We have always been following, we call it our middle path,” he said. “Not too extreme – we are not saying development is not good, globalisation is not good – no. This is something which happens and which will happen. You just have to move along with that, but then you try to manage it in a way that is comfortable to you.”
FACTBOX: Khmer Rouge casts lingering shadow over Cambodia
(Reuters) - Closing arguments began on Monday in the trial of chief Khmer Rouge interrogator Duch, the first senior Pol Pot cadre to face a U.N.-backed "Killing Fields" tribunal in Cambodia.
Here are some facts about the Khmer Rouge and how Cambodia is dealing with its legacy:
THE KILLING FIELDS
- Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge guerrillas launched a bloody agrarian revolution in 1975, five years after King Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown in a right-wing coup.
- An estimated 1.7 million people -- 21 percent of the population -- were executed or died of disease, starvation or overwork over the next four years in rural labor camps.
THE FALL OF THE KHMER ROUGE
- Vietnamese troops invaded in late 1978 and installed a communist government made up mostly of former Khmer Rouge cadres, including current Prime Minister Hun Sen. Hanoi withdrew in 1989.
- Fighting continued between the government and Khmer Rouge remnants between 1979 and 1991. Millions of Cambodians remained in refugee camps during the unrest.
SLOW ROAD TO JUSTICE
- A 1991 U.N.-brokered peace pact led to elections in 1993 and the restoration of Sihanouk as a constitutional monarch.
- In August 1999, two years after Cambodia asked the United Nations and the international community to help set up a Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal, the government said it wanted to maintain overall control of the court.
- The plan languished for years. Draft laws flew back and forth between Cambodia and the United Nations, and the tribunal's legitimacy was questioned in Cambodia.
CRUNCH TIME
- The United Nations gave the go-ahead for a $56.3 million, three-year trial in April 2005, but officials disagreed over the legalities of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, as the joint tribunal is known.
They finally agreed on the basic rules of the court in June 2007 and the first full trial, that of Duch, began in February 2009.
ON TRIAL:
- Five senior Khmer Rouge cadres have been arrested and charged variously with crimes against humanity and war crimes.
They are ex-president Khieu Samphan, former foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Khieu Thirith, "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, and Duch, who ran Phnom Penh's "S-21" torture and interrogation center.
- Pol Pot, architect of the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" peasant revolution, was captured in 1997 and died in April 1998. The one-legged military chief Ta Mok died in 2006.
LIVING LEGACY:
- Thirty years after the regime fell, more than 20,000 ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers and workers are said to live freely in the country. - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen blasted the tribunal after an international co-prosecutor recommended five more suspects be investigated. Hun Sen said arresting more suspects could spark a civil war.
- While there is no evidence linking him to any atrocities, his government includes many former cadres.
read more “FACTBOX: Khmer Rouge casts lingering shadow over Cambodia”
Here are some facts about the Khmer Rouge and how Cambodia is dealing with its legacy:
THE KILLING FIELDS
- Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge guerrillas launched a bloody agrarian revolution in 1975, five years after King Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown in a right-wing coup.
- An estimated 1.7 million people -- 21 percent of the population -- were executed or died of disease, starvation or overwork over the next four years in rural labor camps.
THE FALL OF THE KHMER ROUGE
- Vietnamese troops invaded in late 1978 and installed a communist government made up mostly of former Khmer Rouge cadres, including current Prime Minister Hun Sen. Hanoi withdrew in 1989.
- Fighting continued between the government and Khmer Rouge remnants between 1979 and 1991. Millions of Cambodians remained in refugee camps during the unrest.
SLOW ROAD TO JUSTICE
- A 1991 U.N.-brokered peace pact led to elections in 1993 and the restoration of Sihanouk as a constitutional monarch.
- In August 1999, two years after Cambodia asked the United Nations and the international community to help set up a Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal, the government said it wanted to maintain overall control of the court.
- The plan languished for years. Draft laws flew back and forth between Cambodia and the United Nations, and the tribunal's legitimacy was questioned in Cambodia.
CRUNCH TIME
- The United Nations gave the go-ahead for a $56.3 million, three-year trial in April 2005, but officials disagreed over the legalities of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, as the joint tribunal is known.
They finally agreed on the basic rules of the court in June 2007 and the first full trial, that of Duch, began in February 2009.
ON TRIAL:
- Five senior Khmer Rouge cadres have been arrested and charged variously with crimes against humanity and war crimes.
They are ex-president Khieu Samphan, former foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Khieu Thirith, "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, and Duch, who ran Phnom Penh's "S-21" torture and interrogation center.
- Pol Pot, architect of the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" peasant revolution, was captured in 1997 and died in April 1998. The one-legged military chief Ta Mok died in 2006.
LIVING LEGACY:
- Thirty years after the regime fell, more than 20,000 ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers and workers are said to live freely in the country. - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen blasted the tribunal after an international co-prosecutor recommended five more suspects be investigated. Hun Sen said arresting more suspects could spark a civil war.
- While there is no evidence linking him to any atrocities, his government includes many former cadres.
Cambodia denies premier's daughter taking stake in air traffic firm
Phnom Penh - Cambodia rejected Monday a Thai media claim that the daughter of Prime Minister Hun Sen is to take a stake in a Thai firm at the centre of a spying row. A cabinet statement said the government's management of Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS), a Thai-owned air traffic control firm, is temporary.
However, the statement did not indicate how long the government's hold over CATS would last.
"The spokesman wishes to stress, once again, that the Royal Government of Cambodia appointed its officials to temporarily supervise and manage the company, only to protect the national security and safety for Cambodian leaders," it said.
A Thai employee of CATS was arrested November 12 for allegedly leaking the flight details of Thailand's fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra during his recent visit to Cambodia.
Thaksin was in Cambodia in his capacity as an economic adviser to the Cambodian government and as a personal adviser to Hun Sen.
The two appointments and Thaksin's visit sparked a diplomatic row that plunged relations between the neighbouring countries to their lowest level in years, as each government recalled its ambassador.
read more “Cambodia denies premier's daughter taking stake in air traffic firm”
However, the statement did not indicate how long the government's hold over CATS would last.
"The spokesman wishes to stress, once again, that the Royal Government of Cambodia appointed its officials to temporarily supervise and manage the company, only to protect the national security and safety for Cambodian leaders," it said.
A Thai employee of CATS was arrested November 12 for allegedly leaking the flight details of Thailand's fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra during his recent visit to Cambodia.
Thaksin was in Cambodia in his capacity as an economic adviser to the Cambodian government and as a personal adviser to Hun Sen.
The two appointments and Thaksin's visit sparked a diplomatic row that plunged relations between the neighbouring countries to their lowest level in years, as each government recalled its ambassador.
Alleged Thai spy files bail request in Cambodia: lawyer
PHNOM PENH — The lawyer for a Thai national held on charges of spying on fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra said he filed a bail request to a Cambodian court Monday.
Siwarak Chothipong, 31, an employee at the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, was arrested on charges of supplying details of Thaksin's flight schedule to his country's embassy when the Thai tycoon visited Phnom Penh earlier this month.
His arrest deepened a diplomatic crisis between the neighbouring countries over Cambodia's appointment of Thaksin as an economic adviser and its refusal to extradite the ousted prime minister to Bangkok.
"I filed the bail request with the court this morning, and we assured the court that Siwarak will not return to Thailand before his trial," his Cambodian attorney Kao Soupha said.
The lawyer said Siwarak had confessed to court officials that he leaked information about Thaksin's flight to a Thai diplomat.
"Siwarak said he reported the information because the Thai diplomat asked him for it," Kao Soupha said.
Siwarak informed the Thai official after Thaksin's private jet landed, and had not known the ex-premier was in the plane, he added.
But the lawyer told AFP that his client said the information was not secret and not stolen.
Cambodia expelled the first secretary of Thailand's embassy in Phnom Penh after alleging that Siwarak had passed information to the diplomat. Thailand reciprocated hours later.
Both countries earlier this month withdrew their respective ambassadors in the dispute over Thaksin's appointment.
All Thai air traffic control staff were last week suspended from the Thai-owned civil aviation company, which oversees Cambodian air space, after a Cambodian government official was appointed temporary caretaker of the firm.
Thaksin was toppled in a coup in 2006 and is living abroad to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption, but he has stirred up protests in his homeland against the current Thai government over the past year.
Angered by his presence in Cambodia, Thailand put all talks and cooperation programmes with Cambodia on hold and tore up an oil and gas exploration deal signed during Thaksin's time in power.
Tensions were already high between the two countries following a series of deadly military clashes over disputed territory near an 11th century temple on their shared border.
read more “Alleged Thai spy files bail request in Cambodia: lawyer”
Siwarak Chothipong, 31, an employee at the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, was arrested on charges of supplying details of Thaksin's flight schedule to his country's embassy when the Thai tycoon visited Phnom Penh earlier this month.
His arrest deepened a diplomatic crisis between the neighbouring countries over Cambodia's appointment of Thaksin as an economic adviser and its refusal to extradite the ousted prime minister to Bangkok.
"I filed the bail request with the court this morning, and we assured the court that Siwarak will not return to Thailand before his trial," his Cambodian attorney Kao Soupha said.
The lawyer said Siwarak had confessed to court officials that he leaked information about Thaksin's flight to a Thai diplomat.
"Siwarak said he reported the information because the Thai diplomat asked him for it," Kao Soupha said.
Siwarak informed the Thai official after Thaksin's private jet landed, and had not known the ex-premier was in the plane, he added.
But the lawyer told AFP that his client said the information was not secret and not stolen.
Cambodia expelled the first secretary of Thailand's embassy in Phnom Penh after alleging that Siwarak had passed information to the diplomat. Thailand reciprocated hours later.
Both countries earlier this month withdrew their respective ambassadors in the dispute over Thaksin's appointment.
All Thai air traffic control staff were last week suspended from the Thai-owned civil aviation company, which oversees Cambodian air space, after a Cambodian government official was appointed temporary caretaker of the firm.
Thaksin was toppled in a coup in 2006 and is living abroad to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption, but he has stirred up protests in his homeland against the current Thai government over the past year.
Angered by his presence in Cambodia, Thailand put all talks and cooperation programmes with Cambodia on hold and tore up an oil and gas exploration deal signed during Thaksin's time in power.
Tensions were already high between the two countries following a series of deadly military clashes over disputed territory near an 11th century temple on their shared border.
Thailand denies access to Cambodian waters closed
Thai government on Monday said Cambodia has not blocked the entry of Thai fishing boats into its territorial waters, as earlier claimed by opposition Puea Thai Party chairman Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh.
Gen Chavalit, a former Thai premier, earlier said about one thousand of Thai trawlers and fishing boats were not allowed to enter the Cambodian waters to make their living after the Cambodian government ordered the closure of its territorial waters.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Monday denied Gen Chavalit's remarks, saying that the matter is untrue as concerned authorities has not verified that the news is true.
Panitan Wattanaykorn, acting government spokesman said he has verified the matter with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) and the Royal Thai Navy and has been reaffirmed that the waters were not closed as reported.
He reasoned that the Thai trawlers cannot enter Cambodian waters because their licences had expired and it will take time to renew the licence as the governor of Cambodia's Kong Island has just been changed.
"The prime minister has instructed concerned agencies to coordinate and facilitate the Thai fishing boats," said Mr Panitan. "I reaffirmed that the blocking of Thai trawlers into Cambodian waters has nothing to do with recent diplomatic spat of the two kingdoms as Thai boats with licences are still allowed to enter the areas."
Mr Panitan added that relations between Thailand and Cambodia have gradually improved. Indicating that Thailand’s assistant to the justice minister met with his Cambodian counterpart and received a warm welcome from the Cambodian deputy prime minister.
The spokesman, however, declined to comment on the latest news report that a daughter of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen planned to hold shares in Thai-owned Cambodia Traffic Air Services (CATS) after the Cambodian government temporarily took over management of the firm.
Dr Panitan said only that he was aware of the story from news reports, but that the Thai government has a clear stance not to comment on Cambodia's domestic affairs and has reiterated the stance with all spokespersons of the Thai ministries.
Diplomatic row between Thailand and Cambodia flared up when the Cambodian government appointed fugitive Thai former premier Thaksin Shinwatra as its economic adviser and personal adviser to Mr Hun Sen, while rejecting Thailand's extradition request regarding Mr Thaksin.
The ambassadors of the two countries were recalled, while Thailand terminated the joint memorandum of understanding (MoU) on maritime affairs which included shared access to undersea mineral resources.
Cambodia then arrested a Thai engineer working at CATS on spy charges after he was found releasing Mr Thaksin’s flight details and expelled the Thai first secretary to Phnom Penh.
read more “Thailand denies access to Cambodian waters closed”
Gen Chavalit, a former Thai premier, earlier said about one thousand of Thai trawlers and fishing boats were not allowed to enter the Cambodian waters to make their living after the Cambodian government ordered the closure of its territorial waters.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Monday denied Gen Chavalit's remarks, saying that the matter is untrue as concerned authorities has not verified that the news is true.
Panitan Wattanaykorn, acting government spokesman said he has verified the matter with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) and the Royal Thai Navy and has been reaffirmed that the waters were not closed as reported.
He reasoned that the Thai trawlers cannot enter Cambodian waters because their licences had expired and it will take time to renew the licence as the governor of Cambodia's Kong Island has just been changed.
"The prime minister has instructed concerned agencies to coordinate and facilitate the Thai fishing boats," said Mr Panitan. "I reaffirmed that the blocking of Thai trawlers into Cambodian waters has nothing to do with recent diplomatic spat of the two kingdoms as Thai boats with licences are still allowed to enter the areas."
Mr Panitan added that relations between Thailand and Cambodia have gradually improved. Indicating that Thailand’s assistant to the justice minister met with his Cambodian counterpart and received a warm welcome from the Cambodian deputy prime minister.
The spokesman, however, declined to comment on the latest news report that a daughter of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen planned to hold shares in Thai-owned Cambodia Traffic Air Services (CATS) after the Cambodian government temporarily took over management of the firm.
Dr Panitan said only that he was aware of the story from news reports, but that the Thai government has a clear stance not to comment on Cambodia's domestic affairs and has reiterated the stance with all spokespersons of the Thai ministries.
Diplomatic row between Thailand and Cambodia flared up when the Cambodian government appointed fugitive Thai former premier Thaksin Shinwatra as its economic adviser and personal adviser to Mr Hun Sen, while rejecting Thailand's extradition request regarding Mr Thaksin.
The ambassadors of the two countries were recalled, while Thailand terminated the joint memorandum of understanding (MoU) on maritime affairs which included shared access to undersea mineral resources.
Cambodia then arrested a Thai engineer working at CATS on spy charges after he was found releasing Mr Thaksin’s flight details and expelled the Thai first secretary to Phnom Penh.
No Farmland Lost to Vietnamese: Band of Lying Comrades
Click on the image above to zoom inNo Farmland Lost to Vietnamese: Ruling Party
Senior ruling party leaders have officially denied accusations by the opposition that Cambodian farmers have lost land to Vietnamese encroachment.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy is facing criminal charges for allegedly inciting villagers to tear up border demarcation posts they said were a sign of encroachment in Svay Rieng province.
“There are no farmers who have lost their rice fields,” the leading members of the Cambodian People’s Party, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, said in a Nov. 16 statement to former king Norodom Sihanouk, who requested an inquiry earlier this month. “The combined [border] technical team is working to demarcate the border poles, but have not demarcated both sides with pillars yet, and neither side has banned their farmers from farming their rice fields.”
Sam Rainsy, who is abroad, could not be reached for comment Monday. He had his parliamentary immunity suspended by the National Assembly Nov. 16, following charges by Svay Rieng provincial authorities alleging incitement and the destruction of the boundary poles, in Chantrea district, in October.
However, Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the Sam Rainsy Party, said in a statement the party leader had told the former king the people were “suffering” and had lost their rice fields at border marker No. 185.
Neither side was allowing the other to lose soil, the statement said, adding that both sides had committed to ending land demarcation by the end of 2012.
“If we want to know the facts, we must help the victims meet the king or retired king to speak the facts,” Yim Sovann said.
The CPP statement was “not true,” he said.
Sam Rainsy wrote the retired king on Nov. 7, claiming villagers had lost dozens of hectares of rice fields to border encroachment and that some of them had pulled the border posts in what they saw as an injustice.
Film Star Jackie Chan on Arts, Culture, Peace
When film star and martial artist Jackie Chan visited Cambodia earlier this month, he brought a simple message: arts and culture are pathways to peace.
Chan spoke to 600 students and others at the University of Cambodia, focusing on a message of world peace, reminding participants that the world is a village, and that its residents should love one another despite race, complexion and social status.
“He encouraged the younger generation to build a culture of peace,” said Kao Kim Hourn, founder of the University of Cambodia, which conferred an honorary doctoral degree in humanities to Chan.
Chan, a celebrity who had his start in Chinese films after a childhood with little education, has become a role model for the young, sponsoring educational institutes and serving as a goodwill ambassador for Unicef and UNAIDS.
Speaking as part of the Asean “Bridges” program, Chan told students that the Earth is a tiny disc when viewed from the moon, a reminder of how small the place is.
“When he was young, he asked himself, as a human being who lives on Planet Earth, before he passed away, what could he leave for the younger generation,” said Eung Kim Muyly, a freshmen of international relations at the University of Cambodia. “We can take those words under consideration, and we will feel that we also want to do something proper for our Planet Earth and leave something valuable for our planet, as he is doing now.”
Asked about the ongoing row between Cambodian and Thailand, Chan told participants it was a matter to be settled among political leaders.
“If we know well the definition of peace, our people wouldn’t have had demonstrations to cause confrontations among both countries,” said Ky Vannaroath, a sophomore of computer science at the university. “If a person loves peace, if 100 people love peace, if everyone loves peace, then there’s no conflict. After I listened to him, I felt I must study hard. He talked about being broke when he was a student, but I have an opportunity and I therefore must study hard for my future as well as for the future of my country."
read more “Film Star Jackie Chan on Arts, Culture, Peace”
Chan spoke to 600 students and others at the University of Cambodia, focusing on a message of world peace, reminding participants that the world is a village, and that its residents should love one another despite race, complexion and social status.
“He encouraged the younger generation to build a culture of peace,” said Kao Kim Hourn, founder of the University of Cambodia, which conferred an honorary doctoral degree in humanities to Chan.
Chan, a celebrity who had his start in Chinese films after a childhood with little education, has become a role model for the young, sponsoring educational institutes and serving as a goodwill ambassador for Unicef and UNAIDS.
Speaking as part of the Asean “Bridges” program, Chan told students that the Earth is a tiny disc when viewed from the moon, a reminder of how small the place is.
“When he was young, he asked himself, as a human being who lives on Planet Earth, before he passed away, what could he leave for the younger generation,” said Eung Kim Muyly, a freshmen of international relations at the University of Cambodia. “We can take those words under consideration, and we will feel that we also want to do something proper for our Planet Earth and leave something valuable for our planet, as he is doing now.”
Asked about the ongoing row between Cambodian and Thailand, Chan told participants it was a matter to be settled among political leaders.
“If we know well the definition of peace, our people wouldn’t have had demonstrations to cause confrontations among both countries,” said Ky Vannaroath, a sophomore of computer science at the university. “If a person loves peace, if 100 people love peace, if everyone loves peace, then there’s no conflict. After I listened to him, I felt I must study hard. He talked about being broke when he was a student, but I have an opportunity and I therefore must study hard for my future as well as for the future of my country."
Nobel Laureate Inspires Cambodian Students
While animals may kill each other for food, humans are the only creatures to do so out of cruelty, Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover told an assembly of Cambodians earlier this month.
Ciechanover, who won the Noble Prize for chemistry in 2004, reminded 400 participants at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia that greed could drive human cruelty, something not found in other parts of the natural world.
Ciechanover was speaking as part of an Asean “Bridges” program organized by the International Peace Foundation, which is based in Vienna, Austria.
Ciechanover’s Nobel Prize came from the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, a mechanism by which the cells of most living organisms cull unwanted proteins. He shared the prize with Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose and is seeking the cure for cancer.
Kem Oeun, deputy director-general for the Ministry of Education, who participated in the discussion, said the talk was a reminder that people must unite to build peace, but they must first know themselves.
“We are crueler than such animals as tigers, which kill other animals for food,” he said. “We kill each other for self gain.”
Ciechanover is a distinguished research professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, where he was born. He received his doctorate in medicine in 1981 from the institute.
Om Romny, directory of the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, told VOA Khmer the institute was honored to have the laureate, whose talk was a rare opportunity for professors, scientists, students and other participants.
“It is crucial that we exchange our knowledge,” he said. “Particularly, we have learned from him because he is a Nobel laureate. So, we’ve learned from him about the way to conduct research, starting from where to where. That’s what we got from him.”
Someth Paradis, a professor at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, told VOA Khmer that the lecture was useful for students, professors, and researchers who participated.
“Our students were really interested in Ciechanover’s lecture, which was very encouraging and a driving force for our students,” he said. “I observed that they had pleasant facial expressions while listening to his lecture. They looked more determined in their studies and future research. I think our students want to attach themselves to Ciechanover’s research and wish to win the Nobel Prize, as he did.”
Phat Chan Vorleak, a senior studying food chemistry at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, said Ciechanover was a role model for her.
“His words encourage me as a student,” she said. “I feel we can do anything when we have a strong will, desire and determination. What I was interested in most is that he is from a small country, and he has tried very hard to study, and was able to continue his studies in the US, but he never gave up on his country. He brought what he studied back to help develop his country.”
read more “Nobel Laureate Inspires Cambodian Students”
Ciechanover, who won the Noble Prize for chemistry in 2004, reminded 400 participants at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia that greed could drive human cruelty, something not found in other parts of the natural world.
Ciechanover was speaking as part of an Asean “Bridges” program organized by the International Peace Foundation, which is based in Vienna, Austria.
Ciechanover’s Nobel Prize came from the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, a mechanism by which the cells of most living organisms cull unwanted proteins. He shared the prize with Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose and is seeking the cure for cancer.
Kem Oeun, deputy director-general for the Ministry of Education, who participated in the discussion, said the talk was a reminder that people must unite to build peace, but they must first know themselves.
“We are crueler than such animals as tigers, which kill other animals for food,” he said. “We kill each other for self gain.”
Ciechanover is a distinguished research professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, where he was born. He received his doctorate in medicine in 1981 from the institute.
Om Romny, directory of the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, told VOA Khmer the institute was honored to have the laureate, whose talk was a rare opportunity for professors, scientists, students and other participants.
“It is crucial that we exchange our knowledge,” he said. “Particularly, we have learned from him because he is a Nobel laureate. So, we’ve learned from him about the way to conduct research, starting from where to where. That’s what we got from him.”
Someth Paradis, a professor at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, told VOA Khmer that the lecture was useful for students, professors, and researchers who participated.
“Our students were really interested in Ciechanover’s lecture, which was very encouraging and a driving force for our students,” he said. “I observed that they had pleasant facial expressions while listening to his lecture. They looked more determined in their studies and future research. I think our students want to attach themselves to Ciechanover’s research and wish to win the Nobel Prize, as he did.”
Phat Chan Vorleak, a senior studying food chemistry at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, said Ciechanover was a role model for her.
“His words encourage me as a student,” she said. “I feel we can do anything when we have a strong will, desire and determination. What I was interested in most is that he is from a small country, and he has tried very hard to study, and was able to continue his studies in the US, but he never gave up on his country. He brought what he studied back to help develop his country.”
Victims Demand Reparation in Duch Case
Civil parties in the trial of Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch insisted on reparation for victims, as final arguments in the case got underway Monday.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, has admitted responsibility for the deaths of more than 12,000 people under his administration of Tuol Sleng prison, in the first trial of the UN-backed court.
Four lawyers for civil party teams addressed the court Monday, laying serious responsibility on Duch for atrocities committed against 12,380 prisoners under his control at the prison, known as S-21.
“You forgot the humanity of men and women and of those who were detained in Tuol Sleng,” said Martin Jacquin, civil party lawyer from Group 3.
Duch, 67, is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder, though he has already accepted blame and apologized publicly.
Karim AA Khan, a civil party lawyer, said in his conclusion that Duch’s confession had not been “honest,” and the former math teacher and revolutionary was avoiding responsibility.
“The accused recognized some atrocities that he rejected at the beginning, so the confidence in him is in doubt,” said Silke Studzensky, a lawyer for Group 2.
“What the civil parties need is justice,” said Moch Sovannary, another civil party attorney. “They do not need other things, but justice which is interpreted by reparation.”
In her conclusion, she requested the tribunal set up a volunteer and independent fund for reparation; preserve evidence and the place of crimes; and build a signboard dedicated to victims.
read more “Victims Demand Reparation in Duch Case”
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, has admitted responsibility for the deaths of more than 12,000 people under his administration of Tuol Sleng prison, in the first trial of the UN-backed court.
Four lawyers for civil party teams addressed the court Monday, laying serious responsibility on Duch for atrocities committed against 12,380 prisoners under his control at the prison, known as S-21.
“You forgot the humanity of men and women and of those who were detained in Tuol Sleng,” said Martin Jacquin, civil party lawyer from Group 3.
Duch, 67, is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder, though he has already accepted blame and apologized publicly.
Karim AA Khan, a civil party lawyer, said in his conclusion that Duch’s confession had not been “honest,” and the former math teacher and revolutionary was avoiding responsibility.
“The accused recognized some atrocities that he rejected at the beginning, so the confidence in him is in doubt,” said Silke Studzensky, a lawyer for Group 2.
“What the civil parties need is justice,” said Moch Sovannary, another civil party attorney. “They do not need other things, but justice which is interpreted by reparation.”
In her conclusion, she requested the tribunal set up a volunteer and independent fund for reparation; preserve evidence and the place of crimes; and build a signboard dedicated to victims.
Kin says [Cambodian-American] driver accused of plowing into family 'depressed' November 23, 2009 By John R. Ellement Boston Globe Staff (Mass., USA)
LOWELL -- A bruised and frightened 4-year-old boy sought comfort today in the arms of his grandmother, who held him close 12 hours after an alleged drunk driver plowed into his stroller as he was pushed in a crosswalk.
The boy, Jonathan Dickie Jr., suffered the most serious injuries when his family was hit by the car, but he has been released from the hospital.
“He could have been dead. I am so glad that the Lord was watching over him,’’ said the grandmother, Carol Dickie, as she held him. “I believe someone up there pushed him out of the way and made sure nothing happened to him because he could have been dead.’’
The mother, Nina Wilkin, 25, was crossing Fletcher Street at about 5:30 p.m. on Sunday with Jonathan and his younger sister, Katelyn, 2. Two police officers, who were stopped at a red light, saw a car being driven by Chamroeun Theam plow into the family, authorities said.
The boy was knocked out of his stroller, and his mother and sister were knocked to the ground. All three were rushed to Lowell General Hospital and later released.
With the help of a Cambodian interpreter, Theam pleaded not guilty to operating under the influence, second offense operating while under the influence, and causing serious injury and other charges. Judge Neil J. Walker set bail at $5,000 cash.
With tears in their eyes, two of Theam's daughters and a daughter-in-law watched the court proceeding. Afterward, they spoke with reporters and said Theam has been depressed, but has refused their entreaties to get help.
They said that he grew up in Cambodia, survived the terror years in the 1970s of the Khmer Rouge and remains haunted by that experience and often has nightmares.
"He needs help,'' said Sochann Chea, his daughter-in-law. "He doesn't want it.''
Chea said the driver's extended family is concerned for the health of the mother and her two children. Chea said Theam's family -- he has three sons and two daughters -- does not want to see him behind the wheel again any time soon.
"We don't want anything like this to happen again.'' Chea said. "We feel very bad and we hope the family is okay.''
In a report filed in court, Lowell police officers who witnessed the crash said that Wilkin was in the crosswalk and was hurrying to get across Fletcher Street when the light turned green.
Although the family was still in the intersection, Theam allegedly accelerated and drove his Dodge Neon directly into them without slowing, police said in the report.
Police said the car struck Nina Wilkin, "throwing her into the air over the windshield, hitting the ground on the other side of the street.''
The car struck the double stroller, police said, causing the boy to be "ejected out of the stroller and onto the Neon, bouncing off the Neon and onto the pavement.''
Theam's blood alcohol level was .26, according to the police report. The legal limit is .08. Police said he also failed sobriety tests.
"He appeared to be completely unconcerned about what was going on around him,'' Officer Neils Henry Christiansen wrote of Theam. "He sat in his motor vehicle talking to himself and yelling at no one in in particular.''
Theam was convicted of drunk driving in 1994 in Wisconsin, according to Lowell Police. Details of that case were not immediately avaialble.
read more “Kin says [Cambodian-American] driver accused of plowing into family 'depressed' November 23, 2009 By John R. Ellement Boston Globe Staff (Mass., USA)”
The boy, Jonathan Dickie Jr., suffered the most serious injuries when his family was hit by the car, but he has been released from the hospital.
“He could have been dead. I am so glad that the Lord was watching over him,’’ said the grandmother, Carol Dickie, as she held him. “I believe someone up there pushed him out of the way and made sure nothing happened to him because he could have been dead.’’
The mother, Nina Wilkin, 25, was crossing Fletcher Street at about 5:30 p.m. on Sunday with Jonathan and his younger sister, Katelyn, 2. Two police officers, who were stopped at a red light, saw a car being driven by Chamroeun Theam plow into the family, authorities said.
The boy was knocked out of his stroller, and his mother and sister were knocked to the ground. All three were rushed to Lowell General Hospital and later released.
With the help of a Cambodian interpreter, Theam pleaded not guilty to operating under the influence, second offense operating while under the influence, and causing serious injury and other charges. Judge Neil J. Walker set bail at $5,000 cash.
With tears in their eyes, two of Theam's daughters and a daughter-in-law watched the court proceeding. Afterward, they spoke with reporters and said Theam has been depressed, but has refused their entreaties to get help.
They said that he grew up in Cambodia, survived the terror years in the 1970s of the Khmer Rouge and remains haunted by that experience and often has nightmares.
"He needs help,'' said Sochann Chea, his daughter-in-law. "He doesn't want it.''
Chea said the driver's extended family is concerned for the health of the mother and her two children. Chea said Theam's family -- he has three sons and two daughters -- does not want to see him behind the wheel again any time soon.
"We don't want anything like this to happen again.'' Chea said. "We feel very bad and we hope the family is okay.''
In a report filed in court, Lowell police officers who witnessed the crash said that Wilkin was in the crosswalk and was hurrying to get across Fletcher Street when the light turned green.
Although the family was still in the intersection, Theam allegedly accelerated and drove his Dodge Neon directly into them without slowing, police said in the report.
Police said the car struck Nina Wilkin, "throwing her into the air over the windshield, hitting the ground on the other side of the street.''
The car struck the double stroller, police said, causing the boy to be "ejected out of the stroller and onto the Neon, bouncing off the Neon and onto the pavement.''
Theam's blood alcohol level was .26, according to the police report. The legal limit is .08. Police said he also failed sobriety tests.
"He appeared to be completely unconcerned about what was going on around him,'' Officer Neils Henry Christiansen wrote of Theam. "He sat in his motor vehicle talking to himself and yelling at no one in in particular.''
Theam was convicted of drunk driving in 1994 in Wisconsin, according to Lowell Police. Details of that case were not immediately avaialble.
Cambodia flights recover
Air traffic between Thailand and Cambodia has returned to near-normal levels after plummeting at the height of the diplomatic spat earlier this month.
Bangkok-based carriers such as Thai Airways International (THAI) and Bangkok Airways saw bookings start to rebound last week.
Tension between the nations escalated rapidly after fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in Cambodia on Nov 10 to take up his appointment as an economic adviser to the Cambodian government.
Bangkok Airways, which has the largest capacity between the two countries, saw Thais cancel flights to Siem Reap during the dispute. But there was a steady flow of foreign passengers, especially Europeans, said executives at the airline.
Bangkok Airways operates six daily flights to Siem Reap and three daily flights to Phnom Penh.
THAI, which has 14 flights a week between Bangkok and Phnom Penh, saw about 40% of reservations cancelled in the week after Thaksin's visit.
"We're almost back to normal now," said a senior THAI executive.
Bookings show no sign that they will drop in the near future, he said.
"I think that people appreciate that politics and economics are separate issues in the Thai-Cambodian case, so it looks like business as usual," he said.
But Thai AirAsia, which operates daily flights between the two capitals, said it was entirely unaffected by the souring of diplomatic ties.
Thai AirAsia chief executive Tassapon Bijleveld said nothing suggests that its load factor on the route will drop in the near future.
Bangkok has been a gateway to Cambodia, especially among long-haul international travellers, because of easy and frequent connections through Suvarnabhumi airport.
read more “Cambodia flights recover”
Bangkok-based carriers such as Thai Airways International (THAI) and Bangkok Airways saw bookings start to rebound last week.
Tension between the nations escalated rapidly after fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in Cambodia on Nov 10 to take up his appointment as an economic adviser to the Cambodian government.
Bangkok Airways, which has the largest capacity between the two countries, saw Thais cancel flights to Siem Reap during the dispute. But there was a steady flow of foreign passengers, especially Europeans, said executives at the airline.
Bangkok Airways operates six daily flights to Siem Reap and three daily flights to Phnom Penh.
THAI, which has 14 flights a week between Bangkok and Phnom Penh, saw about 40% of reservations cancelled in the week after Thaksin's visit.
"We're almost back to normal now," said a senior THAI executive.
Bookings show no sign that they will drop in the near future, he said.
"I think that people appreciate that politics and economics are separate issues in the Thai-Cambodian case, so it looks like business as usual," he said.
But Thai AirAsia, which operates daily flights between the two capitals, said it was entirely unaffected by the souring of diplomatic ties.
Thai AirAsia chief executive Tassapon Bijleveld said nothing suggests that its load factor on the route will drop in the near future.
Bangkok has been a gateway to Cambodia, especially among long-haul international travellers, because of easy and frequent connections through Suvarnabhumi airport.
Navy slams Chavalit for 'distorting, politicising' spat
The navy has slammed Puea Thai Party chairman Chavalit Yongchaiyudh for trying to "distort and politicise" the spat between Thailand and Cambodia.
The criticism by navy spokesman Prachachart Srisawat followed Gen Chavalit's statement that Cambodia had closed its waterways at the Cambodian province of Koh Kong , opposite Trat.
The navy and the government said Gen Chavalit's account was false. Gen Chavalit said he did not know why Cambodia closed the waterways but it was probably because there was conflict in the area or an illegal action had been committed.
But the navy spokesman said Cambodia was reviewing and regulating fishing concessions for Thai fishermen after the newly-appointed Koh Kong governor had scrapped the concession system initiated by his predecessor, Yuth Pouthang.
The move forced about 120 Thai fishing trawlers to stay anchored in port in Trat.
However, Capt Prachachart said Cambodia's regulating and reviewing of the new concession system was expected to be finished in a few days and the Thai trawlers could then resume operations.
The navy spokesman did not name the new Koh Kong governor. The Phnom Penh Post said on its website that Yuth Pouthang, who had been in the post for more than 10 years, was replaced by Bun Lert on Nov 12.
Acting government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn confirmed checks had found Cambodia did not close the waterways.
He insisted the situation at Koh Kong had nothing to do with the Thai-Cambodian row.
The source said Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wanted to adjust political game plans at Koh Kong, a bustling Cambodian border town.
The source said Hun Sen felt the former Koh Kong governor had been in the post for too long and had developed too close relations with Thais, particularly Democrat MPs in the area.
The source said Hun Sen also wanted the new governor to regulate Koh Kong to facilitate an investment plan by ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his business partners from the Middle East in order to develop Koh Kong into an entertainment complex.
read more “Navy slams Chavalit for 'distorting, politicising' spat”
The criticism by navy spokesman Prachachart Srisawat followed Gen Chavalit's statement that Cambodia had closed its waterways at the Cambodian province of Koh Kong , opposite Trat.
The navy and the government said Gen Chavalit's account was false. Gen Chavalit said he did not know why Cambodia closed the waterways but it was probably because there was conflict in the area or an illegal action had been committed.
But the navy spokesman said Cambodia was reviewing and regulating fishing concessions for Thai fishermen after the newly-appointed Koh Kong governor had scrapped the concession system initiated by his predecessor, Yuth Pouthang.
The move forced about 120 Thai fishing trawlers to stay anchored in port in Trat.
However, Capt Prachachart said Cambodia's regulating and reviewing of the new concession system was expected to be finished in a few days and the Thai trawlers could then resume operations.
The navy spokesman did not name the new Koh Kong governor. The Phnom Penh Post said on its website that Yuth Pouthang, who had been in the post for more than 10 years, was replaced by Bun Lert on Nov 12.
Acting government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn confirmed checks had found Cambodia did not close the waterways.
He insisted the situation at Koh Kong had nothing to do with the Thai-Cambodian row.
The source said Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wanted to adjust political game plans at Koh Kong, a bustling Cambodian border town.
The source said Hun Sen felt the former Koh Kong governor had been in the post for too long and had developed too close relations with Thais, particularly Democrat MPs in the area.
The source said Hun Sen also wanted the new governor to regulate Koh Kong to facilitate an investment plan by ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his business partners from the Middle East in order to develop Koh Kong into an entertainment complex.
Lawyer for Sivarak files bail request
Thai engineer promises to stay for his 'spy' trial
PHNOM PENH : The lawyer for the Thai engineer held on charges of spying on ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra says he has filed a bail request to a Cambodian court.
Sivarak Chutipong, 31, an employee of Cambodia Air Traffic Service (CATS), was arrested on charges of supplying details of Thaksin's flight schedule to the Thai embassy when Thaksin visited Phnom Penh earlier this month.
His arrest deepened a diplomatic crisis between the two countries over Cambodia's appointment of Thaksin as an economic adviser and its refusal to extradite him to Bangkok.
"I filed the bail request with the court this morning, and we assured the court that Sivarak will not return to Thailand before his trial," his Cambodian attorney Kao Soupha said.
The lawyer said Mr Sivarak had confessed to court officials he leaked information about Thaksin's flight to a Thai diplomat. "Sivarak said he reported the information because the Thai diplomat asked him for it," Kao Soupha said.
Mr Sivarak informed the Thai official after Thaksin's private jet landed, and had not known the ex-prime minister was on the plane, he added.
But the lawyer insisted his client said the information was not secret and not stolen.
Cambodia expelled Kamrob Palawatwicha, the first secretary of Thailand's embassy in Phnom Penh, after alleging that Mr Sivarak had passed information to the diplomat. Thailand reciprocated hours later.
Both countries earlier this month withdrew their respective ambassadors in the dispute that broke out over Thaksin's appointment.
All Thai air traffic control staff were last Wednesday suspended from the Thai-owned civil aviation company, which oversees Cambodian air space, after a Cambodian government official was appointed temporary caretaker of the firm.
Chavanond Intarakomalyasut, secretary for the Thai foreign minister, said president of the Lawyers Council of Thailand Dej-udom Krairit will leave for Phnom Penh today with his staff to talk with the Cambodian lawyer about the case. Deputy director-general of the Consul Department Mathurapojjana Ittharong will join the council team to seek ways to help Mr Sivarak.
Cambodia rejected a claim in the Thai media that a daughter of Prime Minister Hun Sen is to take a stake in CATS.
A Cambodian cabinet statement said the government's management of CATS is temporary.
However, the statement did not indicate how long the government's hold over CATS would last.
"The spokesman wishes to stress, once again, that the Royal Government of Cambodia appointed its officials to temporarily supervise and manage the company, only to protect the national security and safety of Cambodian leaders," it said.
read more “Lawyer for Sivarak files bail request”
PHNOM PENH : The lawyer for the Thai engineer held on charges of spying on ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra says he has filed a bail request to a Cambodian court.
Sivarak Chutipong, 31, an employee of Cambodia Air Traffic Service (CATS), was arrested on charges of supplying details of Thaksin's flight schedule to the Thai embassy when Thaksin visited Phnom Penh earlier this month.
His arrest deepened a diplomatic crisis between the two countries over Cambodia's appointment of Thaksin as an economic adviser and its refusal to extradite him to Bangkok.
"I filed the bail request with the court this morning, and we assured the court that Sivarak will not return to Thailand before his trial," his Cambodian attorney Kao Soupha said.
The lawyer said Mr Sivarak had confessed to court officials he leaked information about Thaksin's flight to a Thai diplomat. "Sivarak said he reported the information because the Thai diplomat asked him for it," Kao Soupha said.
Mr Sivarak informed the Thai official after Thaksin's private jet landed, and had not known the ex-prime minister was on the plane, he added.
But the lawyer insisted his client said the information was not secret and not stolen.
Cambodia expelled Kamrob Palawatwicha, the first secretary of Thailand's embassy in Phnom Penh, after alleging that Mr Sivarak had passed information to the diplomat. Thailand reciprocated hours later.
Both countries earlier this month withdrew their respective ambassadors in the dispute that broke out over Thaksin's appointment.
All Thai air traffic control staff were last Wednesday suspended from the Thai-owned civil aviation company, which oversees Cambodian air space, after a Cambodian government official was appointed temporary caretaker of the firm.
Chavanond Intarakomalyasut, secretary for the Thai foreign minister, said president of the Lawyers Council of Thailand Dej-udom Krairit will leave for Phnom Penh today with his staff to talk with the Cambodian lawyer about the case. Deputy director-general of the Consul Department Mathurapojjana Ittharong will join the council team to seek ways to help Mr Sivarak.
Cambodia rejected a claim in the Thai media that a daughter of Prime Minister Hun Sen is to take a stake in CATS.
A Cambodian cabinet statement said the government's management of CATS is temporary.
However, the statement did not indicate how long the government's hold over CATS would last.
"The spokesman wishes to stress, once again, that the Royal Government of Cambodia appointed its officials to temporarily supervise and manage the company, only to protect the national security and safety of Cambodian leaders," it said.
Cambodian gov't rejects report on PM's daughter
PHNOM PENH, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government Monday denied the news report that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's daughter was planning to hold shares in Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS).
A statement issued by the Cambodian government on Monday said "The Spokesman of the Royal Government of Cambodia totally rejects the report of the Thai News Agency on Nov. 21, 2009, which was confirmed by Panitan Wattanayakorn, the Royal Thai Government's acting Spokesman, alleging that the daughter of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Cambodian Prime Minister, was planning to hold shares in Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS), a private company."
"The Spokesman wishes to stress, once again, that the Royal Government of Cambodia appointed its officials to temporarily supervise and manage the company, only to protect the national security and safety for Cambodian leaders," it said.
"In addition," the statement went on that "the temporary supervision and management of CATS by the Royal Government of Cambodia will continue until the court's final decision to bring an end to the case of the Thai staff, who has been accused of disclosing the confidential flight schedule of Thaksin Shinawatra."
"Following the court's final decision, the Royal Government of Cambodia will take position on the company's management," it added.
read more “Cambodian gov't rejects report on PM's daughter”
A statement issued by the Cambodian government on Monday said "The Spokesman of the Royal Government of Cambodia totally rejects the report of the Thai News Agency on Nov. 21, 2009, which was confirmed by Panitan Wattanayakorn, the Royal Thai Government's acting Spokesman, alleging that the daughter of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Cambodian Prime Minister, was planning to hold shares in Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS), a private company."
"The Spokesman wishes to stress, once again, that the Royal Government of Cambodia appointed its officials to temporarily supervise and manage the company, only to protect the national security and safety for Cambodian leaders," it said.
"In addition," the statement went on that "the temporary supervision and management of CATS by the Royal Government of Cambodia will continue until the court's final decision to bring an end to the case of the Thai staff, who has been accused of disclosing the confidential flight schedule of Thaksin Shinawatra."
"Following the court's final decision, the Royal Government of Cambodia will take position on the company's management," it added.
Final arguments begin in trial of Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch
Cambodia's Khmer Rouge war crimes court on Monday began final arguments in the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, bringing the regime's prison chief closer to justice for the "Killing Fields" atrocities 30 years ago.
On Monday, representatives on behalf of 93 victims of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison camp gave testimony. Duch had been responsible for the prison, also known as S21, from 1975-1979, during which time he is thought to have overseen the deaths of 15,000 men, women and children.
According to Nelson Rand, FRANCE 24 correspondent in Phnom Penh, the victims’ legal counsel said that Duch’s apologies were insufficient, and that Duch “failed to disclose the full truth and sought to minimise his role. They said his claim that he was simply obeying orders and that he would have been killed otherwise was nonsense. Duch did have the power to make independent decisions.”
Throughout the trial, Duch’s legal counsel has stressed the defendant’s regret and his full collaboration with the tribunal. In an interview in October with FRANCE 24, Duch’s French lawyer, François Roux, said Duch “was at times a better prosecutor than the prosecutor himself. Even if the international tribunal does not consider the fact that Duch was only following orders, he should nonetheless benefit from mitigating circumstances.”
Though the question of the validity of an apology from Duch might seem trivial, experts say that more is at stake than meets the eye.
Cyril Payen, another FRANCE 24 correspondent reporting from Cambodia, explained the possible strategic importance of the apology: “This trial is reminiscent of Nuremberg, in which Albert Speer, who was close to Adolf Hitler, was not given the maximum penalty for the reason that he apologised.”
The long drawn-out trial began in February. The prosecution is scheduled to begin presenting its closing arguments Tuesday, and on Wednesday Duch’s legal counsel will give testimony. He faces a maximum term of life in prison.
A final verdict is expected at the beginning of 2010.
Duch’s trial is the first in a series involving alleged Khmer Rouge war criminals. Five others await trial, including Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state and founder of Anghkar, the regime’s supreme body. Nun Chea, right-hand man to dictator Pol Pot, is also to stand trial.
read more “Final arguments begin in trial of Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch”
On Monday, representatives on behalf of 93 victims of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison camp gave testimony. Duch had been responsible for the prison, also known as S21, from 1975-1979, during which time he is thought to have overseen the deaths of 15,000 men, women and children.
According to Nelson Rand, FRANCE 24 correspondent in Phnom Penh, the victims’ legal counsel said that Duch’s apologies were insufficient, and that Duch “failed to disclose the full truth and sought to minimise his role. They said his claim that he was simply obeying orders and that he would have been killed otherwise was nonsense. Duch did have the power to make independent decisions.”
Throughout the trial, Duch’s legal counsel has stressed the defendant’s regret and his full collaboration with the tribunal. In an interview in October with FRANCE 24, Duch’s French lawyer, François Roux, said Duch “was at times a better prosecutor than the prosecutor himself. Even if the international tribunal does not consider the fact that Duch was only following orders, he should nonetheless benefit from mitigating circumstances.”
Though the question of the validity of an apology from Duch might seem trivial, experts say that more is at stake than meets the eye.
Cyril Payen, another FRANCE 24 correspondent reporting from Cambodia, explained the possible strategic importance of the apology: “This trial is reminiscent of Nuremberg, in which Albert Speer, who was close to Adolf Hitler, was not given the maximum penalty for the reason that he apologised.”
The long drawn-out trial began in February. The prosecution is scheduled to begin presenting its closing arguments Tuesday, and on Wednesday Duch’s legal counsel will give testimony. He faces a maximum term of life in prison.
A final verdict is expected at the beginning of 2010.
Duch’s trial is the first in a series involving alleged Khmer Rouge war criminals. Five others await trial, including Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state and founder of Anghkar, the regime’s supreme body. Nun Chea, right-hand man to dictator Pol Pot, is also to stand trial.
Mekong artists gather in Cambodia to celebrate regional arts festival
Some 200 delegates from the arts and media circle in the Mekong sub-region gathered on Monday here in the Cambodian capital to celebrate the vibrant culture and tradition along the Mekong River.
In the course of five days, artists from Cambodia, China, Laos,Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam will demonstrate through workshops, performances, forum, conference, film shows, vitual arts and their understanding of life in the era of globalization and economic integration.
Vietnam Youth Theater, Thailand's Wandering Moon, Crescent Moon and Khanda Arts, Myanmar's Mandalay Marionettes Troupe, Laos'Kabong Lao, China's Nengguan Performing Arts & Training Center, and the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) will be joined by artists from the Philippines, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia, to give their creative take on the challenging realities in the region.
"The Mekong Arts and Media Festival 2009 is a unique and important occasion as there are opportunities to provide meaningful exchanges among Mekong artists and advocates from various countries. It is a convergence of people, cultures and visions for a better society," said Lea Espallardo, festival co-director in her opening speech.
According to Espallardo, this convergence allows people to reach out to one another and share a deeper understanding of the various challenges they confront and on how to harness arts and creativity to effect change.
One of the highlights of the festival, which has a theme of "Weaving Cultures, Weaving Visions", will be a Children and Youth Bloc running in parallel to the main festival to present children's own stories and aspirations. The Bloc, designed with the help of Save the Children UK, and international charity for children, and PETA's own children and youth programs, is aimed to provide children and young people with participation opportunities and get their voices heard.
The region along Mekong River, which has its origin from China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, has become a dynamic area in Asia, with an increasing number of people migrating every year across borders as a result of convenient intra-country transport. Regional trade and economic cooperation is also on the rise as a result of globalization.
In recognition of the role of arts and creative media in development efforts, the Philippine Educational Theater Association's Mekong Partnership Project, Phare Ponleu Selpak, Save the Children UK's Cross Border Project, and the Center for Community Health Research & Development join hands in organizing the festival, drawing the creative talents in the Mekong region to work for advocacy and social transformation.
The festival is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, European Union, Japan Foundation, Heinrich Boell Foundation-Southeast Asia, Terres des Hommes and Ambassade au France de Cambodge.
read more “Mekong artists gather in Cambodia to celebrate regional arts festival”
In the course of five days, artists from Cambodia, China, Laos,Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam will demonstrate through workshops, performances, forum, conference, film shows, vitual arts and their understanding of life in the era of globalization and economic integration.
Vietnam Youth Theater, Thailand's Wandering Moon, Crescent Moon and Khanda Arts, Myanmar's Mandalay Marionettes Troupe, Laos'Kabong Lao, China's Nengguan Performing Arts & Training Center, and the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) will be joined by artists from the Philippines, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia, to give their creative take on the challenging realities in the region.
"The Mekong Arts and Media Festival 2009 is a unique and important occasion as there are opportunities to provide meaningful exchanges among Mekong artists and advocates from various countries. It is a convergence of people, cultures and visions for a better society," said Lea Espallardo, festival co-director in her opening speech.
According to Espallardo, this convergence allows people to reach out to one another and share a deeper understanding of the various challenges they confront and on how to harness arts and creativity to effect change.
One of the highlights of the festival, which has a theme of "Weaving Cultures, Weaving Visions", will be a Children and Youth Bloc running in parallel to the main festival to present children's own stories and aspirations. The Bloc, designed with the help of Save the Children UK, and international charity for children, and PETA's own children and youth programs, is aimed to provide children and young people with participation opportunities and get their voices heard.
The region along Mekong River, which has its origin from China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, has become a dynamic area in Asia, with an increasing number of people migrating every year across borders as a result of convenient intra-country transport. Regional trade and economic cooperation is also on the rise as a result of globalization.
In recognition of the role of arts and creative media in development efforts, the Philippine Educational Theater Association's Mekong Partnership Project, Phare Ponleu Selpak, Save the Children UK's Cross Border Project, and the Center for Community Health Research & Development join hands in organizing the festival, drawing the creative talents in the Mekong region to work for advocacy and social transformation.
The festival is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, European Union, Japan Foundation, Heinrich Boell Foundation-Southeast Asia, Terres des Hommes and Ambassade au France de Cambodge.
Khmer Rouge prison chief's trial enters final stage at U.N.-backed tribunal in Cambodia
This photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia shows a general view of the U.N.-backed tribunal court hall while Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, the former chief of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison, now known as the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, is being tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Nov. 23, 2009. Closing arguments are expected to start Monday with both sides wrapping up their cases by the end of the week. Kaing Guek Eav, who pleaded guilty, is expected to testify as soon as Wednesday and to be sentenced early next year. (AP Photo/Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) (Anonymous, ASSOCIATED PRESS / November 23, 2009)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Closing arguments began Monday in the genocide trial of a Khmer Rouge prison chief, with the prosecution accusing Kaing Guek Eav of having pursued his role with zeal despite his expressions of remorse for atrocities.
Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch (pronounced DOIK), is the first high-ranking member of Cambodia's ousted regime to be tried for war crimes at a U.N.-backed tribunal. Judges are expected to issue a ruling and sentence early next year.
The tribunal is seeking justice for an estimated 1.7 million people who died from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition as a result of the ultra-communist group's policies while in power from 1975-79. He faces a maximum penalty of life in jail as Cambodia has no death penalty.
"Look at them, Duch. Look at these men and women who you wanted to smash, and whose parents and loved ones and children you smashed," said Philippe Canonne, one of the lawyers for Khmer Rouge victims, whose family members were also in court Monday. "You can smash insects and animals but you can't smash human beings, because one day they will come back, one way or another, or their successors to demand a reckoning."
As he watched the proceedings, Duch showed no emotion. He is expected to take the stand as early as Wednesday, a day after the prosecution opens its case. Closing arguments will conclude Friday.
Duch commanded S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, where up to 16,000 people were tortured and then taken away to be killed. He is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture.
Despite his admissions of guilt and expressions of remorse, lawyer Karim Khan said much of what has come across at the trial is a man trying to downplay his part in the "awful reality" of the S-21 prison.
"The accused has sought to evade or minimize his role and the reality, the awful reality, that was S-21 and the regime that operated there and the fate and the suffering that befell so many civil parties," Khan said.
Another lawyer for victims, Kong Pisey, dismissed earlier assertions by Duch that he acted out of fear of being persecuted by his superiors. Instead, he portrayed Duch as someone who put everything he had into his job and had no empathy for his victims.
"He was not only proud of his job and convinced of the party line to identify and eradicate the enemy without any sense of guilt," Kong Pisey said. "But moreover, he enjoyed the power as a power-hungry man who performed more than 100 percent without any empathy for his victims."
Duch is the only accused Khmer Rouge leader to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. Four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders are in custody awaiting trial.
"He has said from the start 'I want to explain in front of the judges, in front of public opinion.' This will be the last moment when he can explain," Francois Roux, Duch's lawyer, said Sunday. "So he's worried about what he's going to say and how he's going to say it."
Roux described his client as "nervous and anxious" about taking the stand for one last time and refused to detail what Duch would say. But he said that his client was hopeful the judges would take into consideration the fact he has admitted his guilt and apologized to his victims.
In earlier testimony, Duch accepted responsibility for his role in overseeing the prison and asked for forgiveness from victims' families. He also told the court that he was ready to accept heavy punishment for his actions.
He has denied personally killing or torturing the S-21 prisoners, and said he felt compelled by fear for his own life to follow the orders of senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
"At this moment it's very important to give credit to Duch for his guilty plea. Duch has recognized his responsibility," Roux said. "He has asked forgiveness from his victims."
The tribunal, which opened March 30, has featured testimony from nine expert witnesses, 17 witnesses on facts and seven character witnesses and 22 "civil parties" representing victims. Some Cambodians have expressed frustration over how long the trial is taking, fearing the other aging defendants may die before they can be tried.
Several of the remaining S-21 survivors attended the trial. Chhum Mey, 78, said he had been waiting for justice for a long time and was attending the trial to see whether it would be carried out.
Cambodian gov't rejects report on PM's daughter
PHNOM PENH, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government Monday denied the news report that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's daughter was planning to hold shares in Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS).
A statement issued by the Cambodian government on Monday said "The Spokesman of the Royal Government of Cambodia totally rejects the report of the Thai News Agency on Nov. 21, 2009, which was confirmed by Panitan Wattanayakorn, the Royal Thai Government's acting Spokesman, alleging that the daughter of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Cambodian Prime Minister, was planning to hold shares in Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS), a private company."
"The Spokesman wishes to stress, once again, that the Royal Government of Cambodia appointed its officials to temporarily supervise and manage the company, only to protect the national security and safety for Cambodian leaders," it said.
"In addition," the statement went on that "the temporary supervision and management of CATS by the Royal Government of Cambodia will continue until the court's final decision to bring an end to the case of the Thai staff, who has been accused of disclosing the confidential flight schedule of Thaksin Shinawatra."
"Following the court's final decision, the Royal Government of Cambodia will take position on the company's management," it added.
read more “Cambodian gov't rejects report on PM's daughter”
A statement issued by the Cambodian government on Monday said "The Spokesman of the Royal Government of Cambodia totally rejects the report of the Thai News Agency on Nov. 21, 2009, which was confirmed by Panitan Wattanayakorn, the Royal Thai Government's acting Spokesman, alleging that the daughter of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Cambodian Prime Minister, was planning to hold shares in Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS), a private company."
"The Spokesman wishes to stress, once again, that the Royal Government of Cambodia appointed its officials to temporarily supervise and manage the company, only to protect the national security and safety for Cambodian leaders," it said.
"In addition," the statement went on that "the temporary supervision and management of CATS by the Royal Government of Cambodia will continue until the court's final decision to bring an end to the case of the Thai staff, who has been accused of disclosing the confidential flight schedule of Thaksin Shinawatra."
"Following the court's final decision, the Royal Government of Cambodia will take position on the company's management," it added.
Hank Williams,1923-1953: He Wrote Songs About Love and Heartbreak
VOICE ONE:
PEOPLE IN AMERICA -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.
Every week at this time, we tell you a story about people who played a part in the history of the United States. I'm Tony Riggs. Today, Larry West and I tell the story of country and
western singer and songwriter, Hank Williams.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
That was the record Hank Williams made when he first tried to interest recording companies in his music. None of the companies liked it at the time. But a few years later, the high sharp voice of Hank Williams would cut like a knife through the music world. When he sang his songs, people listened. They are still listening, long after his death.
VOICE ONE:
Hank Williams was born in nineteen twenty-three on a small farm near Mount Olive, Alabama. Like most people at that time in the southern United States, the Williams family was poor. Hank's father could not work. He had been injured in World War One. He spent many years in a hospital when Hank was a boy.
The Williams family did not own many things. But it always had music. Hank sang in church. When he was eight years old, he got an old guitar and taught himself to play. From then on, music would be the most important thing in his life.
VOICE TWO:
By the time Hank was fourteen, he had already put together his own group of musicians. They played at dances and parties. They also played at a small local radio station. They were known as "Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys."
For more than ten years, Hank remained popular locally, but was unknown nationally. Then, in nineteen forty-nine, he recorded his first major hit record. The song was "Lovesick Blues."
(MUSIC)
Hank Williams and his group performed "Lovesick Blues" on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry house in Nashville, Tennessee. People in the theater would not let him stop singing. They made him sing the song six times. After years of hard work, Hank Williams had become a star.
VOICE ONE:![[insert caption here]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ta2wuQ6e-QbludsbbOogJEkZRcrTiiGwGJepzqtoFKmGk5A-paodYItxFD2kb5wVmKzHFtB-yTr9rZZfSvVpZnPsgdsg6sopjyRdhdyzbfNe--I8gnb1WHBcjnKS2Dlq5Oo0wYEJ6kXw2lkNi-kG4h9w=s0-d "[insert caption here]")
Hank Williams wrote both happy songs and sad songs. But the sad songs are remembered best.
When Hank sang a sad song, those who listened knew it was about something that had happened to him. Somehow, he was able to share his feelings in his music. One of the most famous of these sad songs is "Your Cheatin' Heart." One music expert said: "Your Cheatin' Heart" is so sad, it sounds like a judge sentencing somebody to a punishment worse than death itself.”
(MUSIC)
"Your Cheatin' Heart" was written in the early nineteen fifties. It has been recorded by more than fifty singers and groups in almost every style of popular music.
VOICE TWO:
Many years after Hank Williams' death, new fans of his music have asked why he could put so much of his life into his songs. There is no easy answer to that question.
Hank Williams had many problems during his life. He and his wife Audrey did not have a happy marriage. Many of his songs seemed to ask: “Why can't we make this marriage work?” Many people knew that when Hank sang this song, "Cold Cold Heart", he was singing about his wife and their problems. Those who had similar problems felt that Hank was singing about them, too.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Hank Williams drank too much alcohol. Those who knew Hank Williams say he did not have ![[insert caption here]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vNyVn3Pn_Y3rpXCf7GKvzoujbqeWv0isSLvcCK6tRDIXK6JZ8i2ycnPOUw8YeMJeByKmu0xJYKAC-VaICKsqxTkv6lKrrvFoEh1ALOyF8KDMpCffmFLwwz4bVau6pkQDv49lmTCMJF4GR7Wn-4Vg=s0-d "[insert caption here]")
Everything seemed to be moving too fast. He could not stop. And he could not escape. He had money and fame. But they did not cure his loneliness, his drinking, or his marriage problems.
Hank was always surrounded by people, especially after he became famous. None, however, could break through the terrible sadness that seemed to follow him everywhere. One song, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", expresses his feelings of loneliness.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
When Hank Williams began to record his songs, country and western music was not popular with most Americans. It was the music of the poor farming areas of the South. However, because Hank's songs told of real-life troubles with such great emotion, something unusual began to happen to his music.
Radio stations that had never played country and western music began to play Hank Williams' songs. Famous recording stars who never sang country and western music began recording songs written by Hank Williams. He had created a collection of music that stretched far past himself and his times.
Hank Williams' life and career were brief. He died on New Year's Day, nineteen fifty-three. He was twenty-nine years old.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
You have been listening to PEOPLE IN AMERICA, a program in Special English by the Voice of America. Your narrators were Larry West and Tony Riggs. PEOPLE IN AMERICA was written by Paul Thompson.
Words and Their Stories: Ace in the Hole
listenning to rsdio voice
Now, Words and Their Stories, a program in Special English by the Voice of America.
(MUSIC)
It is surprising how many expressions that Americans use every day came from the card game of poker. For example, you hear the expression, ace in the hole, used by many people who would never think of going near a poker table. An ace in the hole is an argument, plan or thing kept hidden until needed. It is used especially when it can turn failure into success.
In poker and most card games, the ace is the highest and most valuable card. It is often a winning card. In one kind of poker game, the first card to each player is given face down. A player does not show this card to the other players. The other cards are dealt face up. The players bet money each time they receive another card.
No one knows until the end of the game whose hidden card is the winner. Often, the ace in the hole wins the game.
Smart card players, especially those who play for large amounts of money, closely watch the person who deals the cards. They are watching to make sure he is dealing honestly. They want to be sure that he is not dealing off the bottom of the stack of cards. A dealer who is doing that has stacked the deck. He has fixed the cards so that he will get higher cards. He will win and you will lose.
The expression, dealing off the bottom, now means cheating in business, as well as in cards. And when someone tells you that the cards are stacked against you, he is saying you do not have a chance to succeed.
In a poker game you do not want to let your opponents know if your cards are good or bad. So having a poker face is important. A poker face never shows any emotion, never expresses either good or bad feelings. No one can learn – by looking at your face – if your cards are good or bad.
People now use poker face in everyday speech to describe someone who shows no emotion.
Someone who has a poker face usually is good at bluffing. Bluffing is trying to trick a person into believing something about you that is not true.
In poker, you bluff when you bet heavily on a poor hand. The idea is make the other players believe you have strong cards and are sure to win. If they believe you have strong cards and are sure to win. If they believe you, they are likely to drop out of the game. This means you win the money they have bet.
You can do a better job of bluffing if you hold your cards close to your vest. You hold your cards close to you so no one can see what you have. In everyday speech, holding your cards close to your vest means not letting other know what you are doing or thinking. You are keeping you plans secret.
We are not bluffing when we say we hope you have enjoyed today’s program.
(MUSIC)
This Special English program, Words and Their Stories, was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano. This is Bob Doughty.
read more “Words and Their Stories: Ace in the Hole”
Now, Words and Their Stories, a program in Special English by the Voice of America.
(MUSIC)
It is surprising how many expressions that Americans use every day came from the card game of poker. For example, you hear the expression, ace in the hole, used by many people who would never think of going near a poker table. An ace in the hole is an argument, plan or thing kept hidden until needed. It is used especially when it can turn failure into success.
In poker and most card games, the ace is the highest and most valuable card. It is often a winning card. In one kind of poker game, the first card to each player is given face down. A player does not show this card to the other players. The other cards are dealt face up. The players bet money each time they receive another card.
No one knows until the end of the game whose hidden card is the winner. Often, the ace in the hole wins the game.
Smart card players, especially those who play for large amounts of money, closely watch the person who deals the cards. They are watching to make sure he is dealing honestly. They want to be sure that he is not dealing off the bottom of the stack of cards. A dealer who is doing that has stacked the deck. He has fixed the cards so that he will get higher cards. He will win and you will lose.
The expression, dealing off the bottom, now means cheating in business, as well as in cards. And when someone tells you that the cards are stacked against you, he is saying you do not have a chance to succeed.
In a poker game you do not want to let your opponents know if your cards are good or bad. So having a poker face is important. A poker face never shows any emotion, never expresses either good or bad feelings. No one can learn – by looking at your face – if your cards are good or bad.
People now use poker face in everyday speech to describe someone who shows no emotion.
Someone who has a poker face usually is good at bluffing. Bluffing is trying to trick a person into believing something about you that is not true.
In poker, you bluff when you bet heavily on a poor hand. The idea is make the other players believe you have strong cards and are sure to win. If they believe you have strong cards and are sure to win. If they believe you, they are likely to drop out of the game. This means you win the money they have bet.
You can do a better job of bluffing if you hold your cards close to your vest. You hold your cards close to you so no one can see what you have. In everyday speech, holding your cards close to your vest means not letting other know what you are doing or thinking. You are keeping you plans secret.
We are not bluffing when we say we hope you have enjoyed today’s program.
(MUSIC)
This Special English program, Words and Their Stories, was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano. This is Bob Doughty.
Results of UN Food Summit Seen as Disappointing
The meeting in Rome produced only limited measures to fight rising hunger.Transcript of radio broadcast:
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
download voice
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks at the World Summit on Food Security
Last week, the United Nations held a World Summit on Food Security. But the three-day meeting in Rome produced only limited measures to fight rising hunger. The U.N. World Food Program says more than a billion people -- one in six worldwide -- do not get enough food to be healthy.
The troubled world economy is not the only cause of recent increases. The poorest countries continue to face high food prices, which have fallen elsewhere. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says more than thirty nations continue to need emergency food assistance.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the food crisis has forced millions of families into poverty and hunger. He said six million children die of hunger every year. And he warned that food security is closely connected to the issue of climate change.
BAN KI-MOON: "At a time when the global population is growing, our global climate is changing. By twenty fifty we will need to grow seventy percent more food. Yet weather is becoming more extreme and unpredictable."
The delegates in Rome promised to continue efforts to reduce by half the number of hungry people by two thousand fifteen. But critics pointed out that world leaders made a similar promise more than ten years ago.
Several countries promised to increase aid for agriculture, to help developing nations become more independent.
Still, critics deplored a lack of greater action. Leaders from more than sixty countries were in Rome. But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the only leader from a major industrial nation in the Group of Eight. An official from Kenya, Adam Barre Duale, said it showed a lack of unity in the fight against hunger.
ADAM BARRE DUALE: "We need both the developed world and the developing countries to come together and to give and support a global initiative in the war against hunger."
The Food and Agriculture Organization says more than forty billion dollars a year needs to be invested in agriculture to defeat world hunger. The growing problem has affected developing countries, but also industrialized nations.
The government estimates that forty-nine million people in the United States were "food insecure" last year. That means their households, at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all members because of a lack of resources. Almost fifteen percent of all households were in that situation. And the Agriculture Department says the numbers may be even higher this year.
read more “Results of UN Food Summit Seen as Disappointing”
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
download voice
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks at the World Summit on Food Security
Last week, the United Nations held a World Summit on Food Security. But the three-day meeting in Rome produced only limited measures to fight rising hunger. The U.N. World Food Program says more than a billion people -- one in six worldwide -- do not get enough food to be healthy.
The troubled world economy is not the only cause of recent increases. The poorest countries continue to face high food prices, which have fallen elsewhere. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says more than thirty nations continue to need emergency food assistance.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the food crisis has forced millions of families into poverty and hunger. He said six million children die of hunger every year. And he warned that food security is closely connected to the issue of climate change.
BAN KI-MOON: "At a time when the global population is growing, our global climate is changing. By twenty fifty we will need to grow seventy percent more food. Yet weather is becoming more extreme and unpredictable."
The delegates in Rome promised to continue efforts to reduce by half the number of hungry people by two thousand fifteen. But critics pointed out that world leaders made a similar promise more than ten years ago.
Several countries promised to increase aid for agriculture, to help developing nations become more independent.
Still, critics deplored a lack of greater action. Leaders from more than sixty countries were in Rome. But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the only leader from a major industrial nation in the Group of Eight. An official from Kenya, Adam Barre Duale, said it showed a lack of unity in the fight against hunger.
ADAM BARRE DUALE: "We need both the developed world and the developing countries to come together and to give and support a global initiative in the war against hunger."
The Food and Agriculture Organization says more than forty billion dollars a year needs to be invested in agriculture to defeat world hunger. The growing problem has affected developing countries, but also industrialized nations.
The government estimates that forty-nine million people in the United States were "food insecure" last year. That means their households, at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all members because of a lack of resources. Almost fifteen percent of all households were in that situation. And the Agriculture Department says the numbers may be even higher this year.
What Thanksgiving Day Means to People in US
Sharing some favorite memories, mixed with cold reality about the effects of the economic downturn. Transcript of radio broadcast:
22 November 2009
listenning to Radio
VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA. I'm Faith Lapidus. This Thursday is a day for families and friends to share a special holiday meal and think about what they are thankful for. This week on our program, we ask some people to share their favorite memories of Thanksgiving Day.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Special English reporters June Simms and Dana Demange talked to people about the holiday.
JIM OLDHAM: "My name is Jim Oldham and I'm from Nashville, Tennessee. I remember my father drove a bus and my mother was a waitress, and so we often didn't get to have Thanksgiving together. And I remember when I was about twelve, her work and his work permitted us all to do that. And we had brothers and sisters, and the traditional turkey and all the trimmings. We always had pumpkin pie, and if we were really lucky, a little bit of whipped cream on top. And it was just a wonderful day."
ANN GEIGER: "I'm Ann Geiger from Tucson, Arizona. Thanksgiving is special for our family because like so many families our adult children live around the country. And we usually get at least part of them together for Thanksgiving."
REPORTER: "And what is one of your fondest Thanksgiving Day memories?"
ANN GEIGER: "Oh, I think a recent Thanksgiving when my son and I had a turkey cook-off. He brined his turkey and I didn't brine mine. And we decided which one was the best."
REPORTER: "Who won?"
ANN GEIGER: "He did."
VOICE ONE:
Brining is a way to prepare meat in a salt solution, whether for a competitive "cook-off" or just any meal. Traditionally the meat served on Thanksgiving is turkey. The bird is usually served with side dishes including a mixture known either as stuffing or dressing.
Many families also bring out their finest table settings -- the "good china" -- for Thanksgiving.
JOEL UPTON: "My name is Joel Upton. I'm from Livingston, Tennessee. Thanksgiving at my family was always a time when brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, we all got together. And someone would bring different dishes. Someone would bring the sweet potatoes. Someone would bring the meat. Someone would bring the dressing. And we would all sort of combine the efforts to have a family Thanksgiving dinner and bring out the good china for that particular event.
And Thanksgiving also, in my early days when I was a child, the kids would all get to play, maybe we hadn't seen each other for a while. The men would always watch a football game on TV. And Thanksgiving was just a really, really special time. And, of course, we had in mind the Pilgrims and what it was all about too. But it was a family time."
VOICE ONE:
The Pilgrims first arrived in America in sixteen twenty. They were separatists from the Church of England and other settlers. The ship that brought the first group was the Mayflower.
An exploring party landed at Plymouth, in what became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The state is named after an American Indian tribe -- a recognition of the groups that came long before the Pilgrims.
The first Pilgrims established a village. Those who survived the first difficult years held harvest festivals and religious celebrations of thanksgiving. These events formed the basis of the holiday that Americans now celebrate.
But there are no official "rules" for a Thanksgiving meal. Some people like to find ways to do things a little differently.
BUTCH HUNSINGER: "Butch Hunsinger from Williamsport, Pennsylvania."
REPORTER: "The bird. What are you going to do differently this year?"
BUTCH HUNSINGER: "Try to shoot it myself, instead of go to the store to buy it. Go to the family cabin, and hunt on the family land and try to call in a turkey and fire away."
REPORTER: "And who's the better shot in the family?"
BUTCH: "Oh my son, by far."
REPORTER: "What about your worst Thanksgiving memory?"
BUTCH: "Worst…[Laughter] The worst was also the funnest, 'cause I got up early Thanksgiving day and we went to the Burwick Marathon, but it's a nine-mile road race. Just a crusher." [Laughter]
HUGUETTE MBELLA: "Hi, my name is Huguette Mbella. And I was born in Cameroon and grew up in France. And I live now in the United States in Washington, D.C. The whole concept of Thanksgiving was a little bit bizarre. In France, the main celebration is Christmas, not Thanksgiving."
REPORTER: "Can you think of one of your most fond Thanksgiving memories?"
HUGUETTE MBELLA: "I would say my first one. It was in New York. Suddenly the turkey comes on the table, and I was amazed by the size. It was huge! The first thing that came to my mind was actually that's a lot of food!"
ELIZABETH BRINKMAN: "My name is Elizabeth Brinkman and I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. It was always a day that my mother did all the cooking. And we had turkey and I got to chop the vegetables for the dressing. And we got out the good china."
GORDON GEIGER: "Gordon Geiger from Tucson, Arizona. We used to get together at my parents' house and all of my relatives would come over and we'd have a big dinner. And after dinner we would watch football games on the television.
I think it's probably really the most important holiday in the United States because it is a day that is not tied to a particular religion. It is not tied as much to commercial activities. It's more a reflection of the fact that we've had a good life and we appreciate it."
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This Thanksgiving, Americans can be thankful that the Great Recession may be over. But the job market faces a long recovery. Unemployment is now above ten percent. And if the underemployed are added, the rate is seventeen and a half percent. The underemployed are people no longer searching for work or only able to find part time jobs.
Last week, the United States Department of Agriculture released its "household food security" report for two thousand eight. The study found that families in seventeen million households had difficulty getting enough food at times during the year. That was almost fifteen percent -- up from eleven percent in two thousand seven. It was the highest level since the current surveys began in nineteen ninety-five.
The Agriculture Department says poverty is the main cause of food insecurity and hunger in the United States.
President Obama, in a statement, called the report unsettling. Especially troubling, he said, is that there were more than five hundred thousand families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times during the year.
He said the first task is to renew job growth, but added that his administration is taking other steps to prevent hunger. These include an increase in aid for people in the government's nutrition assistance program, commonly known as food stamps.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The Continental Congress wrote the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in seventeen seventy-seven, during the Revolutionary War. George Washington issued the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in seventeen eighty-nine. Here is part of what he wrote.
READER:
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor -- and whereas both houses of Congress have by their joint committee requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the twenty-sixth day of November next to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious being, who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be ...
VOICE ONE:
Sarah Josepha Hale was a magazine editor and writer who campaigned for a Thanksgiving holiday. That way, there would be "two great American national festivals," she said, the other being Independence Day on the Fourth of July.
In September of eighteen sixty-three, Sarah Josepha Hale appealed to President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had made proclamations in the spring of eighteen sixty-two and sixty-three. But these gave thanks for victories in battle during the Civil War.
Then came another proclamation on October third, eighteen sixty-three. It gave more general thanks for the blessings of the year. This is part of what it said:
READER:
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. ...
I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.
VOICE ONE:
Lincoln's proclamation began a tradition. Presidents have issued Thanksgiving proclamations every year since eighteen sixty-three. All can be found on the Web site of the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth.
In nineteen forty-one, Franklin Roosevelt was president. Roosevelt approved a resolution by Congress. It established, by law, the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
(MUSIC)
Our program was produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
read more “What Thanksgiving Day Means to People in US”
22 November 2009
listenning to Radio
VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA. I'm Faith Lapidus. This Thursday is a day for families and friends to share a special holiday meal and think about what they are thankful for. This week on our program, we ask some people to share their favorite memories of Thanksgiving Day.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Special English reporters June Simms and Dana Demange talked to people about the holiday.
JIM OLDHAM: "My name is Jim Oldham and I'm from Nashville, Tennessee. I remember my father drove a bus and my mother was a waitress, and so we often didn't get to have Thanksgiving together. And I remember when I was about twelve, her work and his work permitted us all to do that. And we had brothers and sisters, and the traditional turkey and all the trimmings. We always had pumpkin pie, and if we were really lucky, a little bit of whipped cream on top. And it was just a wonderful day."
ANN GEIGER: "I'm Ann Geiger from Tucson, Arizona. Thanksgiving is special for our family because like so many families our adult children live around the country. And we usually get at least part of them together for Thanksgiving."
REPORTER: "And what is one of your fondest Thanksgiving Day memories?"
ANN GEIGER: "Oh, I think a recent Thanksgiving when my son and I had a turkey cook-off. He brined his turkey and I didn't brine mine. And we decided which one was the best."
REPORTER: "Who won?"
ANN GEIGER: "He did."
VOICE ONE:
Brining is a way to prepare meat in a salt solution, whether for a competitive "cook-off" or just any meal. Traditionally the meat served on Thanksgiving is turkey. The bird is usually served with side dishes including a mixture known either as stuffing or dressing.
Many families also bring out their finest table settings -- the "good china" -- for Thanksgiving.
JOEL UPTON: "My name is Joel Upton. I'm from Livingston, Tennessee. Thanksgiving at my family was always a time when brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, we all got together. And someone would bring different dishes. Someone would bring the sweet potatoes. Someone would bring the meat. Someone would bring the dressing. And we would all sort of combine the efforts to have a family Thanksgiving dinner and bring out the good china for that particular event.
And Thanksgiving also, in my early days when I was a child, the kids would all get to play, maybe we hadn't seen each other for a while. The men would always watch a football game on TV. And Thanksgiving was just a really, really special time. And, of course, we had in mind the Pilgrims and what it was all about too. But it was a family time."
VOICE ONE:
The Pilgrims first arrived in America in sixteen twenty. They were separatists from the Church of England and other settlers. The ship that brought the first group was the Mayflower.
An exploring party landed at Plymouth, in what became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The state is named after an American Indian tribe -- a recognition of the groups that came long before the Pilgrims.
The first Pilgrims established a village. Those who survived the first difficult years held harvest festivals and religious celebrations of thanksgiving. These events formed the basis of the holiday that Americans now celebrate.
But there are no official "rules" for a Thanksgiving meal. Some people like to find ways to do things a little differently.
BUTCH HUNSINGER: "Butch Hunsinger from Williamsport, Pennsylvania."
REPORTER: "The bird. What are you going to do differently this year?"
BUTCH HUNSINGER: "Try to shoot it myself, instead of go to the store to buy it. Go to the family cabin, and hunt on the family land and try to call in a turkey and fire away."
REPORTER: "And who's the better shot in the family?"
BUTCH: "Oh my son, by far."
REPORTER: "What about your worst Thanksgiving memory?"
BUTCH: "Worst…[Laughter] The worst was also the funnest, 'cause I got up early Thanksgiving day and we went to the Burwick Marathon, but it's a nine-mile road race. Just a crusher." [Laughter]
HUGUETTE MBELLA: "Hi, my name is Huguette Mbella. And I was born in Cameroon and grew up in France. And I live now in the United States in Washington, D.C. The whole concept of Thanksgiving was a little bit bizarre. In France, the main celebration is Christmas, not Thanksgiving."
REPORTER: "Can you think of one of your most fond Thanksgiving memories?"
HUGUETTE MBELLA: "I would say my first one. It was in New York. Suddenly the turkey comes on the table, and I was amazed by the size. It was huge! The first thing that came to my mind was actually that's a lot of food!"
ELIZABETH BRINKMAN: "My name is Elizabeth Brinkman and I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. It was always a day that my mother did all the cooking. And we had turkey and I got to chop the vegetables for the dressing. And we got out the good china."
GORDON GEIGER: "Gordon Geiger from Tucson, Arizona. We used to get together at my parents' house and all of my relatives would come over and we'd have a big dinner. And after dinner we would watch football games on the television.
I think it's probably really the most important holiday in the United States because it is a day that is not tied to a particular religion. It is not tied as much to commercial activities. It's more a reflection of the fact that we've had a good life and we appreciate it."
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This Thanksgiving, Americans can be thankful that the Great Recession may be over. But the job market faces a long recovery. Unemployment is now above ten percent. And if the underemployed are added, the rate is seventeen and a half percent. The underemployed are people no longer searching for work or only able to find part time jobs.
Last week, the United States Department of Agriculture released its "household food security" report for two thousand eight. The study found that families in seventeen million households had difficulty getting enough food at times during the year. That was almost fifteen percent -- up from eleven percent in two thousand seven. It was the highest level since the current surveys began in nineteen ninety-five.
The Agriculture Department says poverty is the main cause of food insecurity and hunger in the United States.
President Obama, in a statement, called the report unsettling. Especially troubling, he said, is that there were more than five hundred thousand families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times during the year.
He said the first task is to renew job growth, but added that his administration is taking other steps to prevent hunger. These include an increase in aid for people in the government's nutrition assistance program, commonly known as food stamps.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The Continental Congress wrote the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in seventeen seventy-seven, during the Revolutionary War. George Washington issued the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in seventeen eighty-nine. Here is part of what he wrote.
READER:
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor -- and whereas both houses of Congress have by their joint committee requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the twenty-sixth day of November next to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious being, who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be ...
VOICE ONE:
Sarah Josepha Hale was a magazine editor and writer who campaigned for a Thanksgiving holiday. That way, there would be "two great American national festivals," she said, the other being Independence Day on the Fourth of July.
In September of eighteen sixty-three, Sarah Josepha Hale appealed to President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had made proclamations in the spring of eighteen sixty-two and sixty-three. But these gave thanks for victories in battle during the Civil War.
Then came another proclamation on October third, eighteen sixty-three. It gave more general thanks for the blessings of the year. This is part of what it said:
READER:
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. ...
I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.
VOICE ONE:
Lincoln's proclamation began a tradition. Presidents have issued Thanksgiving proclamations every year since eighteen sixty-three. All can be found on the Web site of the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth.
In nineteen forty-one, Franklin Roosevelt was president. Roosevelt approved a resolution by Congress. It established, by law, the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
(MUSIC)
Our program was produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
Duch trial enters final arguments
Prosecution’s strength doubted as landmark KR trial nears end.
IN 1999, photographer Nic Dunlop was on a trip shooting mine-clearance operations in Battambang province when he happened upon the fugitive he had been chasing for more than a year.
At the time, the man was going by the name Hang Pin and working as the head of education in Samlot district, but Dunlop almost immediately recognised him as Tuol Sleng prison commandant Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch.
Writing about his discovery in 2005’s The Lost Executioner, Dunlop speculated on what a trial of Duch might look like, using as models other men who had been made to answer for mass crimes.
“When the table is turned,” he wrote, “the guilty either deny their involvement completely, readily identify with their victims as lesser victims, or create elaborate and complex arguments to muddy the clarity of moral responsibility. In some cases they even continue to attack the veracity of their victims’ claims.”
Ten years after finding Duch, Dunlop has had the chance to watch the 67-year-old former maths teacher reject the first of those strategies while embracing the other three during his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, which enters closing arguments today.
While accepting responsibility for the deaths of more than 12,000 prisoners, Duch has presented himself as a man who lived in fear of top Khmer Rouge leaders and did not participate in the interrogations, torture and executions for which Tuol Sleng became notorious. His defence team has also challenged the applications of nearly one-third of the direct or indirect victims registered as civil parties in the case.
The prosecution, meanwhile, has reportedly been hampered by problems such as high turnover, and civil parties have complained that their role in the case has been too vaguely defined, leaving some with the sense that Duch has been permitted to dominate the proceedings at the expense of his victims.
“There was an expectation raised. The civil parties believed that they would be able to look this man in the eye and finally ask him direct questions about their loved ones and experiences,” Dunlop said by phone from Bangkok. “Some had that chance. But these people were waiting for what was to be their day in court. Not Duch’s day, but theirs.”
Legal strategies
As Khmer Rouge scholar Alex Hinton has noted, the contours of the defence team’s strategy emerged early and haven’t wavered.
“The defence has set Duch up as an almost tragic hero, who, blinded by hubris and a lack of foresight, found himself swept up in great tragedy,” Hinton said via email. “He joined the revolution to help liberate the country only to find himself unwillingly caught in a machine of death that he could not stop. Like a tragic hero, he comes to understand what has happened too late and tries to repent in the end.”
The prosecution’s argument, Hinton said, has been equally clear. “For them, Duch is a highly effective, cold-blooded mass murderer who not only knew what was going on, but actively and eagerly contributed to the process, often in ways that far exceeded his orders. His hands drip with the blood of 12,380 victims.”
Some observers, however, have criticised the prosecution for failing to present a coherent and compelling case.
A report to be released today by the Asian International Justice Initiative highlights logistical problems, including a “noticeable lack of coordination between the different prosecutors assigned to different stages of the proceedings”. Acting international co-prosecutor William Smith told the authors of the report that the resignation of four attorneys, including his predecessor, Robert Petit, had been a “major obstacle to the smooth implementation” of the prosecution’s strategy.
To Dunlop, though, the prosecution’s problem seems more fundamental. “To my mind, in terms of pursuing an argument, they seem to be poorly briefed,” he said.
He cited as an example the case of Sou Sath, a former classmate of Duch’s who appeared as a character witness. Sou Sath told judges that Duch “didn’t say anything” about his political leanings when the two were students, an assertion that went unchallenged by the prosecution even though, Dunlop said, Duch was known to be progressive “even as a schoolboy”. Witness statements to this effect, Dunlop added, “would have described [Duch] as something of a fanatic, as someone who was beating a path towards a fairly fanatical communist supporter, which would obviously inform his later emergence as commandant of S-21”.
Dunlop said the prosecution had also failed to convincingly challenge one of Duch’s central claims: that he was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the torture facility.
“If I were a prosecution lawyer, I’d want to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that, in order for him to maintain that position of authority within this prison, it was essential that he was regularly seen in interrogations, that he participated, and that he killed,” Dunlop said. “In order to maintain this climate of total fear which both victim and perpetrator occupy, he has to have had a hand in that personally. And that hasn’t been established.”
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, also questioned the strength of the prosecution’s case, though he said the format of the hearings was at the root of the issue – in particular the fact that Duch has been able to respond directly to witnesses and civil parties.
He expressed concern about how this would affect the final verdict. “If [the defence] can manage to reduce Duch’s sentence by even a day, then they can declare victory over the millions of victims and continue to condemn the weakness of Cambodia’s rule of law,” he said.
For Bou Meng, one of only a handful of Tuol Sleng survivors and a civil party in the case, the closure expected to result from a verdict will outweigh anything that has emerged in the case thus far. “Right now, I am only 20 percent relieved from the sorrow of the loss of my family and the torture I suffered at S-21,” he said. “The other 80 percent is not yet relieved. I am awaiting the reading of the verdict for Duch.”
The most important open questions, he said, centre on the extent of Duch’s sincerity during the hearings, especially with respect to his professions of remorse. “We’ve wept together,” Bou Meng said. “I know my tears are coming from my sorrow. But I don’t know about Duch’s tears.”
This is a question Dunlop has been grappling with for the past 10 years. The Lost Executioner includes several passages pondering whether Duch’s conversion to Christianity had been “a lie or simply an attempt to avoid arrest”, and whether his statements of remorse had been “just an elaborate smokescreen”.
Dunlop described Duch’s public statements at the trial thus far as scripted and contrived. “When he stands up in court and he reads his apology from a piece of paper, and he’s obviously enjoying his day in court, he has absolutely no idea of how that comes across because the man lacks total empathy,” he said.
But even if Duch strikes a sympathetic chord this week, Dunlop said the question of his sincerity may prove secondary to many survivors of the regime. “From the people I’ve talked to, what they’ve been looking for is an accounting. They want something approaching the truth for what occurred,” he said. “I don’t think any measure of contrition from Duch is enough.”
read more “Duch trial enters final arguments”
IN 1999, photographer Nic Dunlop was on a trip shooting mine-clearance operations in Battambang province when he happened upon the fugitive he had been chasing for more than a year.
At the time, the man was going by the name Hang Pin and working as the head of education in Samlot district, but Dunlop almost immediately recognised him as Tuol Sleng prison commandant Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch.
Writing about his discovery in 2005’s The Lost Executioner, Dunlop speculated on what a trial of Duch might look like, using as models other men who had been made to answer for mass crimes.
“When the table is turned,” he wrote, “the guilty either deny their involvement completely, readily identify with their victims as lesser victims, or create elaborate and complex arguments to muddy the clarity of moral responsibility. In some cases they even continue to attack the veracity of their victims’ claims.”
Ten years after finding Duch, Dunlop has had the chance to watch the 67-year-old former maths teacher reject the first of those strategies while embracing the other three during his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, which enters closing arguments today.
While accepting responsibility for the deaths of more than 12,000 prisoners, Duch has presented himself as a man who lived in fear of top Khmer Rouge leaders and did not participate in the interrogations, torture and executions for which Tuol Sleng became notorious. His defence team has also challenged the applications of nearly one-third of the direct or indirect victims registered as civil parties in the case.
The prosecution, meanwhile, has reportedly been hampered by problems such as high turnover, and civil parties have complained that their role in the case has been too vaguely defined, leaving some with the sense that Duch has been permitted to dominate the proceedings at the expense of his victims.
“There was an expectation raised. The civil parties believed that they would be able to look this man in the eye and finally ask him direct questions about their loved ones and experiences,” Dunlop said by phone from Bangkok. “Some had that chance. But these people were waiting for what was to be their day in court. Not Duch’s day, but theirs.”
Legal strategies
As Khmer Rouge scholar Alex Hinton has noted, the contours of the defence team’s strategy emerged early and haven’t wavered.
“The defence has set Duch up as an almost tragic hero, who, blinded by hubris and a lack of foresight, found himself swept up in great tragedy,” Hinton said via email. “He joined the revolution to help liberate the country only to find himself unwillingly caught in a machine of death that he could not stop. Like a tragic hero, he comes to understand what has happened too late and tries to repent in the end.”
The prosecution’s argument, Hinton said, has been equally clear. “For them, Duch is a highly effective, cold-blooded mass murderer who not only knew what was going on, but actively and eagerly contributed to the process, often in ways that far exceeded his orders. His hands drip with the blood of 12,380 victims.”
Some observers, however, have criticised the prosecution for failing to present a coherent and compelling case.
A report to be released today by the Asian International Justice Initiative highlights logistical problems, including a “noticeable lack of coordination between the different prosecutors assigned to different stages of the proceedings”. Acting international co-prosecutor William Smith told the authors of the report that the resignation of four attorneys, including his predecessor, Robert Petit, had been a “major obstacle to the smooth implementation” of the prosecution’s strategy.
To Dunlop, though, the prosecution’s problem seems more fundamental. “To my mind, in terms of pursuing an argument, they seem to be poorly briefed,” he said.
He cited as an example the case of Sou Sath, a former classmate of Duch’s who appeared as a character witness. Sou Sath told judges that Duch “didn’t say anything” about his political leanings when the two were students, an assertion that went unchallenged by the prosecution even though, Dunlop said, Duch was known to be progressive “even as a schoolboy”. Witness statements to this effect, Dunlop added, “would have described [Duch] as something of a fanatic, as someone who was beating a path towards a fairly fanatical communist supporter, which would obviously inform his later emergence as commandant of S-21”.
Dunlop said the prosecution had also failed to convincingly challenge one of Duch’s central claims: that he was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the torture facility.
“If I were a prosecution lawyer, I’d want to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that, in order for him to maintain that position of authority within this prison, it was essential that he was regularly seen in interrogations, that he participated, and that he killed,” Dunlop said. “In order to maintain this climate of total fear which both victim and perpetrator occupy, he has to have had a hand in that personally. And that hasn’t been established.”
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, also questioned the strength of the prosecution’s case, though he said the format of the hearings was at the root of the issue – in particular the fact that Duch has been able to respond directly to witnesses and civil parties.
He expressed concern about how this would affect the final verdict. “If [the defence] can manage to reduce Duch’s sentence by even a day, then they can declare victory over the millions of victims and continue to condemn the weakness of Cambodia’s rule of law,” he said.
For Bou Meng, one of only a handful of Tuol Sleng survivors and a civil party in the case, the closure expected to result from a verdict will outweigh anything that has emerged in the case thus far. “Right now, I am only 20 percent relieved from the sorrow of the loss of my family and the torture I suffered at S-21,” he said. “The other 80 percent is not yet relieved. I am awaiting the reading of the verdict for Duch.”
The most important open questions, he said, centre on the extent of Duch’s sincerity during the hearings, especially with respect to his professions of remorse. “We’ve wept together,” Bou Meng said. “I know my tears are coming from my sorrow. But I don’t know about Duch’s tears.”
This is a question Dunlop has been grappling with for the past 10 years. The Lost Executioner includes several passages pondering whether Duch’s conversion to Christianity had been “a lie or simply an attempt to avoid arrest”, and whether his statements of remorse had been “just an elaborate smokescreen”.
Dunlop described Duch’s public statements at the trial thus far as scripted and contrived. “When he stands up in court and he reads his apology from a piece of paper, and he’s obviously enjoying his day in court, he has absolutely no idea of how that comes across because the man lacks total empathy,” he said.
But even if Duch strikes a sympathetic chord this week, Dunlop said the question of his sincerity may prove secondary to many survivors of the regime. “From the people I’ve talked to, what they’ve been looking for is an accounting. They want something approaching the truth for what occurred,” he said. “I don’t think any measure of contrition from Duch is enough.”
Officials destroy safrole oil stills
ANTI-DRUG officials say they are one step closer to eradicating illicit drug precursor production in the Cardamom Mountains following a recent patrol that led to the destruction of 18 illegal factories in the region.
The gruelling 10-day foot patrol, carried out by conservation groups in close cooperation with forest rangers from the armed services and Ministry of Environment, targeted jungle stills producing safrole oil, a precursor to the production of MDMA – more commonly known as Ecstasy.
“This latest enforcement action … has delivered a heavy blow to those criminal elements that seek to exploit and destroy Cambodia’s forests for personal gain,” said Tim Wood, an adviser for Flora and Fauna International (FFI) who took part in the patrol, in a statement Sunday.
Safrole-rich oil, which has legitimate uses in the chemical industry as a fragrance agent and in the manufacturing of insecticides, is distilled from the roots of trees belonging to the sassafras family, known in Khmer as m’reah prov phnom.
To produce the oil, operators feed the trees into mechanical shredders and boil down the wood chips to produce a thick, amber-coloured oil that is highly prized on regional drug markets but can have deleterious effects when leaked into the environment.
Thorn Kimhong, director of the Cardamom natural protected areas for the Ministry of Environment, said the 10-day patrol that ended Wednesday followed air surveys by anti-drug authorities that confirmed the presence of 25 safrole stills in the western Cardamoms.
“It is not easy to find them since they produce deep in the jungle, so we use helicopters to monitor from the air and GPS sending foot patrols into the jungle,” he said.
Experts say safrole production began in Cambodia around 2001, linking its growth to a drop-off in production in neighbouring Vietnam after Hanoi
issued a ban on the local production of the substance in 1999.
Bunra Seng, country director of Conservation International, said Vietnamese drug syndicates learned of the presence of m’reah prov phnom trees during the Vietnamese military occupation in the 1980s, and when Vietnamese authorities cracked down on safrole production, drug cartels simply shifted their operations to remote areas of the Cardamoms.
“In each factory there has been one or two Vietnamese experts who build the tanks and run the system,” he said.
Thorn Kimhong confirmed the presence of Vietnamese “technicians” at the factory sites, saying the majority of Cambodia’s safrole is exported to Thailand and Vietnam, presumably for drug production in those countries.
It is unclear, how much Cambodian safrole is worth on local and international markets.
Anand Chaudhuri, project coordinator for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Cambodia, said oil distilled from the m’reah prov phnom was unusually pure, containing between 90 to 95 percent safrole, and put the local wholesale price at between US$5 and $6 per litre.
Bunra Seng cited higher local estimates that drums of the oil were worth $20 per litre in Pursat, a price that rises to $50 in Phnom Penh and up to $100 at the Vietnamese border.
Poisoning the land
As well as supplying a vital ingredient for regional drug producers, safrole production has far-reaching local impacts, environmentalists say.
Bunra Seng said that in addition to the depletion of the endangered m’reah prov tree, which exists only in isolated parts of the Cardamoms, many other trees were felled to feed the massive cauldrons that produce the oil. There are also concerns, he said, that workers living in the jungle resort to poaching in order to feed themselves.
“There is no food from the outside – they just bring salt and rice into the forest. Then they start trapping and shooting animals,” he said.
Wood described the operations as “wholesale destruction”, since an estimated four m’reah prov trees are needed to produce each barrel of safrole oil. He added that the criminals were unaware that the giant stills produce toxic runoff that pollutes local rivers and waterways.
“They’re not interested in sustainable forestry or sustainable environmental practices. They just want to go in and make money,” he said.
The remote location of Cambodia’s safrole operations, which are mostly concentrated in the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary in Koh Kong and Pursat provinces, make them difficult to track, but officials are confident that recent efforts have begun to strangle the elusive trade.
In June 2008, a raid in the western Cardamoms, led jointly by FFI and Cambodian authorities, netted 5.7 tonnes of safrole, which the Australian Federal Police estimated was enough to produce an estimated 245 million Ecstasy tablets with a street value of US$7 billion.
Further raids this year – including the seizure by Conservation International of 2,200 litres of the substance from a truck in September – have led to the confiscation of 15 more tonnes of the substance.
On the right track
Lieutenant General Mok Dara, secretary general of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, hailed the government’s achievements in cracking down on safrole production, saying authorities have destroyed around 30 tonnes of confiscated safrole since raids began in 2001, and that 20 tonnes were scheduled for destruction in the near future.
“Since we started our operation, safrole production has calmed down,” he said.
Wood said that only four of the 18 factories destroyed by the recent patrol had been in use during the previous week, a “great sign” that illicit producers were beating a hasty retreat in the face of official crackdowns.
He said the explosives used to destroy the factories had done “an incredible amount of damage”, rendering their large steel cauldrons and distiling equipment unusable.
“If they want to recommence operations, they will have to bring in new pots, which cost a lot of time and money,” he said.
A report on drug precursors released by the International Narcotics Control Board in 2008 found that approximately 380 kilograms of pure safrole is required to produce 100 kilograms of MDMA.
Thai leaked Thaksin info, attorney says
SIWARAK Chotipong, the 31-year-old Thai national accused of espionage in the theft of fugitive Thai former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s flight schedule, has admitted to leaking information about Thaksin’s flight to the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh, Siwarak’s defence attorney said Sunday, though the attorney denied that this act constituted theft or espionage.
“I acknowledge that my client has confessed to the court that he leaked the information about Thaksin’s flight to the Thai embassy, but I want to confirm that he reported to the embassy 10 minutes after it landed, and he did not know that Thaksin was in the plane at that time,” said Kao Soupha, Siwarak’s attorney.
Kao Soupha added that allegations that Siwarak “stole” the flight schedule make little sense, given that it was his professional responsibility as an employee of Thai-owned Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS) to know the flight information.
“He did not steal the flight records because it is his position to know all the flights. He never thought it was a serious matter,” Kao Soupha said.
Siwarak was arrested on November 12, during Thaksin’s controversial visit to Cambodia in his capacity as government economics adviser. He is being held in pretrial detention at Prey Sar prison, though a date for his trial has yet to be announced.
On Friday, the government held a press conference at the Council of Ministers to explain its actions in taking control of CATS, which employs nine Thai nationals in Cambodia.
“We did not expel the Thai workers – we just banned them from coming near the operating equipment that is related to safety and security,” said Tekreth Samrach, a secretary of state at the Council of Ministers. CATS, he added, has been placed under the caretakership of an official from the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation.
Kao Soupha said the Municipal Court’s investigation of Siwarak had concluded after just one week. He added that he planned to file a bail request for his client on Monday.
read more “Thai leaked Thaksin info, attorney says”
“I acknowledge that my client has confessed to the court that he leaked the information about Thaksin’s flight to the Thai embassy, but I want to confirm that he reported to the embassy 10 minutes after it landed, and he did not know that Thaksin was in the plane at that time,” said Kao Soupha, Siwarak’s attorney.
Kao Soupha added that allegations that Siwarak “stole” the flight schedule make little sense, given that it was his professional responsibility as an employee of Thai-owned Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS) to know the flight information.
“He did not steal the flight records because it is his position to know all the flights. He never thought it was a serious matter,” Kao Soupha said.
Siwarak was arrested on November 12, during Thaksin’s controversial visit to Cambodia in his capacity as government economics adviser. He is being held in pretrial detention at Prey Sar prison, though a date for his trial has yet to be announced.
On Friday, the government held a press conference at the Council of Ministers to explain its actions in taking control of CATS, which employs nine Thai nationals in Cambodia.
“We did not expel the Thai workers – we just banned them from coming near the operating equipment that is related to safety and security,” said Tekreth Samrach, a secretary of state at the Council of Ministers. CATS, he added, has been placed under the caretakership of an official from the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation.
Kao Soupha said the Municipal Court’s investigation of Siwarak had concluded after just one week. He added that he planned to file a bail request for his client on Monday.
LEGISLATION: Graft law to be debated next month
The Council of Ministers is set to debate a draft of the long-awaited Anticorruption Law on December 11, after an order from Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday, council spokesman Phay Siphan said. “In the current stable political climate and due to the passing of the new Penal Code by the National Assembly, it is time for the government to fight against corruption,” he said. Sam Rainsy Party spokesman Yim Sovann said his party welcomed the push for the new bill, but warned that the government must consider recommendations by national and international experts. “We cannot say if the Anticorruption Law will be good or not, but we are concerned about implementation while the judicial system lacks independence,” he said. Thun Saray, president of rights group Adhoc, said it was positive that Hun Sen had kept his promise to pass the law after the new Penal Code, but also expressed some concerns about the mechanisms by which it would punish corrupt activities. “The important thing is what will be the meaning of the law, especially the mechanisms and the independence of the [anticorruption] commission,” he said.
read more “LEGISLATION: Graft law to be debated next month”
Charges follow violent land row
HREE people have been charged with destruction of private property following an anti-eviction uprising in Kampong Thom’s Santuk district that left two people hospitalised and an entire commune under siege, police said.
Seven people have been arrested so far in the long-running dispute, which erupted into violence on November 16 when villagers torched four vehicles belonging to a Vietnamese rubber company, prompting military police to retaliate. Tin Bien was awarded the 8,000-hectare economic land concession in 2007, but hundreds of families contest the sale, saying they have lived on the land since 2004.
Speaking on Sunday, provincial police Deputy Chief Chou Sam An said: “We have plans to arrest three more of the leaders on our blacklist because now they, too, are trying to flee from the village.” If convicted, they face up to six years in prison, he said.
A total of 20 arrest warrants were issued in the wake of last week’s violence, which prompted police to cordon off Kraya commune – temporarily cutting off food supplies in the process.
Prom Saroth, one of the besieged villagers, said four representatives tried to flee to the capital on Friday, but they stopped for dinner in Kampong Cham province and were promptly arrested by police.
“Now we are really worried about our security, and we’ve decided to stop going out because we are afraid they will arrest more of us,” Prom Saroth said. Although police are now allowing women to enter and leave, men cannot, he said. “We are afraid they will play a trick to arrest us when we go out.”
Blaze leaves nearly 2,000 homeless
Almost 2,000 people were left homeless by a massive blaze that tore through a village in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district last week, officials said Sunday, as authorities struggled to explain what sparked the flames.
Officials said 243 houses in Phnom Penh’s Chraing Chamres II commune were destroyed in the fire, leaving 1,934 mostly Cham Muslim villagers without homes.
Now some of the village children are falling sick after playing in the ashes of the village’s wrecked homes, families said.
Tin Ashsimas, 48, said her two children had developed fevers and bowel problems.
“We would like to request the government as well as NGOs to help provide us with toilets and physicians,” Tin Ashsimas said. “Right now, we have nothing.”
Local authorities and Cambodian Red Cross (CRC) officials continued to appeal for help, even as the first supplies of aid were to have been handed out this weekend.
Neth Sophana, the CRC’s director of disaster management, said families were scheduled to receive 50 kilograms each of rice, as well as fish sauce, mosquito nets and blankets.
“We are appealing for more donors to help these families,” Neth Sophana said.
The Thursday morning fire spread quickly in the crowded village, tearing through the police station and commune hall. Many families in what is predominantly a fishing community came home hours later to find their homes destroyed, said Ly Rosamy, the district’s deputy governor.
“Some families were away when the fire struck because they were out selling fish,” she said.
Sok Kheng, 28, said the roaring flames prevented her family from retrieving anything from their home before it was destroyed.
“Everything is gone because of the fire,” she said.
For now, questions still surround the cause of the fire. On Thursday, one witness said she first saw flames shooting up from the house of a local medicine seller.
Commune Chief Van Thorn said officials were still investigating, but acknowledged he had heard the same rumours that the blaze was sparked by an electrical explosion in the medicine seller’s house.
Let evicted villagers harvest rice: groups
A COALITION of NGOs plan to file a joint petition to the provincial governor of Oddar Meanchey on Monday asking that villagers whose homes were destroyed in a violent eviction be allowed to harvest the rice crop on their former land, an NGO representative said on Sunday.
Srey Naren, Adhoc coordinator for Oddar Meanchey, said he has collected thumbprints from representatives of more than 11 NGOs to allow the harvest to go ahead
“Everything is already prepared, and the letter should be sent Monday,” he said.
The harvest controversy is the latest chapter in a dispute over some 1,500 hectares of land claimed by both the residents of Bos village and the Angkor Sugar Company, which is owned by Ly Yongphat, a senator from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
In early October, armed police descended on the village, bulldozing property and burning some houses to the ground.
Thon Nol, Samrong district governor, said he had not received the letter, but that villagers were likely to clash if they were allowed to bring in their own harvest.
“Each family claimed to have planted from 5 to 10 hectares, but when they showed us the plots, it turned out they overlapped,” he said.
Huoy Chhuoy, a representative of the village’s 214 displaced families, said he would allow his family to bring in the harvest, but that he would not return for fear of arrest.
read more “Let evicted villagers harvest rice: groups”
Srey Naren, Adhoc coordinator for Oddar Meanchey, said he has collected thumbprints from representatives of more than 11 NGOs to allow the harvest to go ahead
“Everything is already prepared, and the letter should be sent Monday,” he said.
The harvest controversy is the latest chapter in a dispute over some 1,500 hectares of land claimed by both the residents of Bos village and the Angkor Sugar Company, which is owned by Ly Yongphat, a senator from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
In early October, armed police descended on the village, bulldozing property and burning some houses to the ground.
Thon Nol, Samrong district governor, said he had not received the letter, but that villagers were likely to clash if they were allowed to bring in their own harvest.
“Each family claimed to have planted from 5 to 10 hectares, but when they showed us the plots, it turned out they overlapped,” he said.
Huoy Chhuoy, a representative of the village’s 214 displaced families, said he would allow his family to bring in the harvest, but that he would not return for fear of arrest.
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