Cambodia: Details are Sketchy

The Malaysian group QSR announced today that it will open a KFC outlet in Phnom Penh by years end.

QSR Brands Bhd is expanding its restaurant business under the KFC brand to Cambodia.

The first outlet is expected to be operational in Phnom Penh by year-end, said chairman Tan Sri Muhammad Ali Hashim during a press conference to announce the new venture Thursday.

The group plans to open four outlets initially in the capital as well as in major towns. This would be followed by two new restaurants every year.

The Cambodian Blogger Summit has yet to even start, but already new blog tools are turning up and their presence is quickly spreading across the internets. Even the media is taking note.

UPDATE: Preetam from Global Voices has a bunch of pictures from the summit on Flickr. Oso gives an account of Day One.

In a paper written for the Lowy Institute for International Policy, noted historian Milton Osborne tries to grasp why, exactly, proceedings at the Extraordinary Chambers are moving at such an incredibly slow pace — not why it has taken three decades to get the whole affair started, mind you, but rather, since the Cambodian government and the UN signed an agreement establishing the court in 2003, why it has taken nearly four years to bring the first indictment.

To Mr. Osborne at least, the evidence is clear.

Of even greater importance for assessing [Prime Minister Hun Sen's] approach to dealing with that Khmer Rouge past, and so with the problems posed by the possibility of a Khmer Rouge tribunal being established, is the reported statement that he made to members of the Central Committee of the CPP in February 2000. In this statement, which was reported to Craig Etcheson by a person present at the meeting, Hun Sen stated that CPP members had no reason to fear the eventual establishment of a tribunal since he would act to prevent its taking place before those likely to come before it had died. Etcheson suggests that this statement could be interpreted either as a way of cutting off debate about how to proceed in relation to the tribunal, or as a real statement of purpose. What I will go on to argue is that the latter interpretation is the correct one, and that the way in which Hun Sen and the government have behaved, both before and after the 2003 agreement to establish a tribunal, favours this interpretation overwhelmingly. Moreover, Hun Sen’s determination that there should be no widespread prosecution of former Khmer Rouge figures was reinforced by assurances to former Khmer Rouge soldiers, given at meetings between 2001 and 2003, that they would not be prosecuted.

As today’s lunar eclipse unfolds, Cambodia prays for prosperity.

Cambodian official Royal Palace astrologer In Borin said Tuesday he would be able to announce a prediction which may range from abundance to pestilence and impending disaster after the eclipse passes over Cambodia later this evening local time.

The prediction may have to come via cable television coverage, however, because storm clouds had gathered over the capital as evening drew closer.

‘We are advising all Cambodians to burn candles and incense during the eclipse to help ensure that good luck and prosperity are drawn to the kingdom,’ In Borin said. [...]

Borin and Sarun said if the eclipse does not appear favourable, a Buddhist ceremony will be held to try to avert the bad luck.

Stay tuned.

It’s not how you play the game, it’s whether or not you beat the point spread.

About 200 Cambodian football fans rioted after their youth team failed to score in the second half of an Asean championship match, smashing cars and throwing bottles, officials said yesterday.

The riot broke out late Saturday at the stadium in Phnom Penh, but ended quickly after police fired a warning shot into the air, said Sao Sokha, president of the Football Federation of Cambodia.

While Cambodia beat Brunei 2-0, local fans got angry when their players were shut out in the second half, said Sao Sokha.

Speaking to the Cambodia Daily, Sao Sokha explained that many spectators may have lost bets that Cambodia would win the game by more that two goals.

Francois Bizot, the French ethnologist held captive by the Khmer Rouge and author of The Gate, tells AFP that he wants to testify at the upcoming trial of Duch.

“Whether I’m called by the defense or the prosecution, I will say the same thing: you cannot minimize the torturers’ actions and the terrible suffering endured by the victims and their families.” [...]

Bizot said he was “fascinated by the juxtaposition of the man and the monster” that he has come to see in Duch. He said he fears that Cambodia’s tribunal, like past war crimes trials, could end up demonizing the accused and losing the human aspect to their cases.

“The torturers dehumanize their victims in order to torture and crush them. We need to stop this way of thinking,” said Bizot. [...]

“There are forces that can make a man cowardly, destructive, heartless. When the rule of law disappears, these forces that exist even in normal times suddenly can make us killers, makes us aspire to positions that turn us into monsters, into people we never thought we’d become,” he said.

Duch, of course, ended up murdering most of his victims. And while the documented evidence against him is by most accounts overwhelming, personal testimony and eyewitness accounts are relatively scarce. Bizot’s 3 months of captivity in 1971, however, clearly fall outside the jurisdiction of the court, which is only tasked to investigate crimes committed between 1975 and 1979. So despite being the only known Westerner to survive Khmer Rouge captivity, it seems unlikely that Bizot will get his moment in the Extraordinary Chambers.

Just in case all the sub-decrees and official statements regarding You Bun Leng left anybody confused as to how Cambodia really works, the government issued a tersely worded statement Saturday clarifying that, in Cambodia, no one is above the law. And the law is Hun Sen.

The Cambodian government in Phnom Penh on Friday issued a statement to reject any proposal to lift the immunity from prosecution for former king Norodom Sihanouk.

“The Royal Government of Cambodia feels it must reject absolutely any idea to lift the immunity for prosecution held by His Majesty The King Father, Preah Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk, and to state clearly that this matter was clearly and definitively excluded at the time of the former king’s retirement,” said the statement. [...]

It is the responsibility of the co-prosecutors and co- investigating judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) to decide whom to try, within the jurisdiction of the court, which limited to senior leaders of DK and those most responsible for serious crimes under Cambodian and international laws, it said.

So according to the government, the ECCC is free and independent to try anybody it wants, just so long as the government approves of whom that anybody is. Like Sihanouk’s immunity, this new interpretation of the phrase “free from political interference” must certainly come as a surprise to those serving the court.

At least with You Bun Leng, the government could pretend to claim some shred of legitimacy for its actions. It’s hard to interpret this latest move as anything but a brute display of power, lest the independent court forget to whom it owes its independence.

UPDATE: That’s totally wrong! As the Daily explains Monday morning, kings are protected from prosecution by the constitution. The court had to know this. Contrary to the assertions above, Prime Minister Hun Sen was simply re-affirming the law, not pulling the strings of a puppeteer court.

The relationship between the United States and Cambodia continues to grow more intimate.

The top U.S. military commander in the Pacific says the U-S is ready to help train Cambodia’s military to fight global terrorism.

Hawaii-based Admiral Timothy Keating says U.S. assistance could involve sharing information, training in surveillance techniques and tracking the flow of terrorist finances around the world.

Could interrogation techniques also be on Keating’s list? Interrogation centers? The growing intimacy of the U.S.-Cambodia relationship has many people wondering just what, exactly, the United States is up to. In the absence of any plausible explanation, rumors tend to fill the void. And the latest is that the United States wants to make Cambodia a regional outpost in Uncle Sam’s outlaw world of extraordinary renditions — if it hasn’t done so already.

POSTSCRIPT: Saigon Charlie offers some rather speculative ideas of his own.

Writing for the very serious Epicurious, Karen Coates says that Cambodian rice is the best in the world.

In years of bouncing around Southeast Asia, I’ve had many a conversation with locals and expats about the seeming superiority of Cambodian rice. I am not alone in my assessment. But why? Is it really better than rice in Thailand (my home for the past three years and therefore my natural point of comparison)? Or is it just my imagination?

Karen offers a few observations to support her hypothesis, primarily that nearly all
Cambodian rice is hand-milled, slow-grown rice. Cambodia’s neighbors grow mostly fast rice, which makes for more profits but less delicious rice. And that’s true, of course. But the notion that your average rice eater could taste the difference between slow and fast rice is a bit hard to swallow.

UPDATE: Maytel sets the record straight.

Images of Cambodia as a low yield producer of high quality rice are both untrue and irresponsible in encouraging an over inflated sense of rice nationalism in a country where many are still hungry.

Cambodian police nab candidate for world’s worst hit man

Cambodia’s most unsuccessful assassin was behind bars again after a second string of failed attempts as a hit man for hire, police said Wednesday.

Silent protest ends in death

A Cambodian man died after staging a silent protest against his wife’s alleged infidelity by taping his nose and mouth shut with band-aids, local media reported on Tuesday.

Masked gunmen steal 52 monkeys in Cambodian heist

Masked gunmen made off with 52 macaque monkeys in a daring heist on a Cambodian facility where the primates were being held, police said Wednesday.

Writing in the Asia Sentinel, Mark Fenn takes at look at the reemergence of Cambodian cuisine.

Overshadowed as it is by two of Asia’s most famous and distinctive cuisines – Thai and Vietnamese – and beset by reports of spiders on the menu — what Cambodia eats has long been overlooked, not least because in the wake of the devastation wrought by the Khmer Rouge a generation ago, there was virtually nothing to eat.

But today things are starting to change. Cambodian food is beginning to win an enthusiastic following among gourmands for its freshness and subtle flavors   as well it should. Cambodia’s gastronomic oeuvre draws influences from both of its bigger neighbors, as well as from China and even France, but it is growing in importance in its own right.

As globe-trotting, beer-swilling Phil is quoted in the story saying, not much ever gets written about Cambodian food beyond the country’s infamous fried spiders. Not that the Sentinel story necessarily breaks the mold — spiders are mentioned five times, and the story’s singular photo is of a spider seller — but it does give a pretty good background on Cambodian food, and how the country’s cuisine fits into the larger region.

So while Fenn’s piece might not signal a new beginning in Cambodian food writing, it hopefully signals the beginning of the end for clichéd spider stories. Journalists of the world please take note.

Persecution.org says the UNHCR in Cambodia is a tool of the Hanoi politburo.

Montagnards fleeing repression from the Central Highlands in Vietnam to Cambodia have come to fear a man named Eldon that works for the UNHCR in Phnom Penh.  They don’t trust him and for good reason. They consider him their enemy and the guy who works for the communists in Vietnam.

Just last week, for the first time, the United Nations High Commissioner on refugees in Cambodia has finally admitted that a Montagnard named Y-Phuoc Buon Krong may have been tortured in Vietnam…. The UNHCR says that they can’t talk about his torture for confidentially purposes.

I know about this type of deceit from first hand experience. I passed through Phnom Penh in late 2005 and met Eldon Hagar, UNHCR field rep, and toured the Montagnard refugee camp. On every issue, Hagar parroted the communist party line of the politburo in Vietnam…

The Montagnards I met in the camp told me that they were afraid to talk to Eldon, because when they did, he reported what they said to the communist authorities. Then their families suffered reprisals.

Accusing a UNHCR employee of active involvement in the Vietnamese government’s abuse of indigenous people is a pretty serious criminal indictment. It would be easy to dismiss such anonymous accusations as the political rantings of a religious group that sees Christian persecution in every other corn tortilla. But this is not the first report of such impropriety on the part of the Cambodian UNHCR.

The World Resources Institute takes a look at forest coverage loss along the Thai-Cambodia border between 1990 and 2005.

In 1990, the border region between Thailand and Cambodia was densely forested, but between 2001 and 2005, tree cover change analysis reveals extensive deforestation on the Cambodian side.

The problem of deforestation along the border between these two countries dates back to at least the early 1990s. After severe flooding linked to deforestation in Thailand, the Thai government banned all timber harvesting in 1989. As a result, timber imports from neighboring countries like Cambodia increased, along with allegations of illegal logging inside Cambodia.

Despite attempts to halt the logging in the 1990s, and a 2002 moratorium issued by Cambodia, deforestation has continued.

The Cambodian government is working with a number of independent organizations to address problems of illegal logging.

Global Witness the WRI is not, and the overt subservience to the Cambodian government’s political sensitivities is unlikely to win the institute any points for having a spine. What the WRI does have, however, is satellite photos, and those clearly show the wholesale flattening of forests in what is ostensibly a government-protected area.

The Cambodian Independent Teachers Association is outraged!

To Cambodian people, Angkor Wat is a symbol of Khmer soul, of Khmerness, and whoever touches it or uses it for commercial purposes, they always face protests.

For example, on Monday, Rong Chhun, President of the Cambodia Independent Teacher’s Association (CITA), asked Hor Nam Hong, the deputy prime minister and minister of Foreign Affairs, to order the Cambodian ambassador in France to look into the case of Iradium, a Paris-based company, which distributes phone calling cards under the name of “Meilleur Angkor” (Best Angkor). The calling cards which bear a picture of Angkor Wat, have the letters Viet Nam written above the picture of Angkor Wat, rather than a sign saying Cambodia because Angkor Wat belongs to Cambodians.

Using a likeness of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat to hawk something as trivial as phone cards demonstrates an absolute stunning lack of cultural sensitivity. Beer and cigarettes and Cambodian food blogs are one thing, but phone cards? How could they?

UPDATE: Foreign Minister Hor Namhong responds.

Erik is was in town, and like a lot of people who visit Phnom Penh, he went down to the riverfront to have a drink. As he and his wife are sitting there, enjoying a tasty beverage, their waiter, as waiters are wont to do, strikes up a conversation — you know, the weather, the family, love potions, the waiter’s invisible magic tattoo that stops him from killing people.

“Oh, you’re worried that someone’s going to put something, like their blood, in your food, huh?”
“Yeah!” his eyes widened a little bit. “You know about that stuff? I also have tattoos to protect me from magic like that, and from ampoeur. You know ampouer?” Ampouer is a word merely meaning ‘action,’ but also has the strongly associated meaning of magic in Khmer. Typical effects of being victimized by a magician of this sort is the sudden appearance of nails, knives, or strange animals like snakes in the stomach.

“What tattoos?” I asked him.

“Well, they’re invisible - they used a special kind of ink [check on this word - I don’t know it which disappears. But whenever I’m in danger, or if I get the feeling like I want to do evil to someone, or kill someone, it appears all red.”

(Note to self: stop eating at the Riverside.)

Dead men tell no tales.

One of Cambodia’s most prominent businessman who was being held at the Interior Ministry on drug-related charges died Tuesday after falling head-first from a first-floor window, a ministry spokesman said. General Khieu Sopheak said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Okhna Ou Chhay’s death in Phnom Penh. He added that inquiries into how Chhay was left alone, allowing the incident to occur, were continuing.

“We are also still investigating the drug case he was arrested over,” Sopheak said. “We have not yet determined who is the ringleader.”

Chhay, a member of one of the wealthiest families in the northern tourist town of Siem Reap, was arrested last week in Banteay Meanchey, a north-western province on the Thai border, after returning from a business trip to Thailand. The charges against him included bringing drug-producing equipment into the country.

Chhay was a longtime adherent of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the president of the Banteay Meanchey Chamber of Commerce. His family-owned Chhay Chhay company had secured a prime position in a special economic zone on the border.

His arrest has been linked to heroin production and a massive bust of methamphetamine-producing chemicals earlier this year in the south-western province of Kampong Speu, 40 kilometres from Phnom Penh.

Except for the fact that a man who was supposed to be locked in a jail cell was instead wondering around the cell block where he managed to — incredibly — fall from the first floor to his death, foul play is not suspected. Ha.

UPDATE: Ou Chhay’s death has been ruled a suicide.

LATER UPDATE: Journalists, family members are skeptical of suicide ruling.

On  Friday August 10, logging thugs unhappy with the efforts of journalist Phon Pat waited for Phon and his family to fall asleep and then set fire to the family’s home. It was a noisy, ham-fisted attempt, and Phon quickly awoke and doused the flames. No one was injured.

Undeterred, the logging thugs returned the following Friday and tried again.

A reporter’s house was set on fire for a second time by unknown persons on 17 August 2007, just a week after the first arson attack occurred.

On 10 August, a blaze had partly destroyed the house of Phon Phat, a reporter for the “Chbas Ka” (”Accurate”) newspaper in the western Pursat province.

A day before the fire, an anonymous person called Phon Phat on his telephone, saying, “A ‘gift’ will be offered for your report on illegal logging activities in Pursat.”

Fortunately, Phon Phat and his family escaped unhurt on both occasions.

Pursat is no stranger logging-related violence, and Cambodia has a long history of illegal logging. But you knew that already.

Over hamburgers for breakfast, mythical dude Steve Goodman says he’s back on the blogging scene. Goodman’s photo blog, mythicaldude.net, is a portfolio of cool photography, with a new picture posted each day. Tha Rum’s A Perfect Phnom Penh flickr set continues to grow, and now boasts 71 members and nearly 350 photographs. Although not exclusively limited to Cambodia, the Magnum Blog does carry the occasional post by Phnom Penh-based photographer John Vink.

But that’s apparently it, as far as Cambodian photo blogs go. Maybe Steve can inspire a new generation with his presentation at the Clogger summit on — what else — photo blogging.

A fiction piece in the New Yorker this month tells the story of a man who runs away to Kampot after accidentally killing his son. It’s a strange story, slightly disturbing, crass in places, poetic in others — the kind of gritty fiction that’s always popular in New York lit circles, and vaguely reminiscent, stylistically, of Robert Bingham’s Lightning on the Sun.

People say to me, “Didn’t you hear anything?,” or “Why didn’t you stop when you felt something hit the bumper?” But I don’t know how to answer either question. He was just there with us, alive, one minute, as we were eating barbecue and watching the Super Bowl on TV at my brother-in-law’s house, and then the next minute he was dead—very dead—under our car. I sold the car after that. My wife strongly suggested I do so, and that was when I was still trying to do pretty much anything she strongly suggested. In the end, I suppose that’s what made it possible for me to come to Cambodia. I got something like twelve grand, cash, for that car.

Definitely worth a read.

Since 1997 when Cambodia and the United Nations began discussing a Khmer Rouge tribunal, the process has been poisoned with mistrust on both sides. Cambodia’s leadership has long suspected the United Nations of hostility toward the CPP government, manifest in a million NGOs and UN organizations endlessly harping on about the government’s incredible deficiencies. The UN, for its part, has long held very serious doubts about Cambodia’s wickedly corrupt and hopelessly incompetent judiciary.

That’s hardly the kind of relationship on which to build a hybrid international court. It is perhaps testament to the UN’s stupidity that it even tried. Until last week, though, both sides had managed to keep their collective idiosyncrasies in check — albeit just barely — and at least publicly, give the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia a veneer of legitimacy.

But last week, by royal decree, the Cambodian courtroom kabuki came tumbling down. On the orders of Prime Minister Hun Sen, ECCC Co-Investigating Judge You Bun Leng was whisked away to head another court. The ECCC is already far behind schedule, and the announcement sparked fears of further delays. You Bun Leng tried to allay those fears with promises to stay at the ECCC until an “appropriate and smooth transition” could be made.

It was a nice gesture, but when or even if You Bun Leng stays or goes is hardly the issue. The court is supposed to be free from outside political interference — that is to say, independent. If the prime minister can reach in and replace judges at his pleasure, then independent the ECCC most certainly is not.

That’s hardly news, of course. But such wanton disrespect to notions of judicial propriety is nothing short of breathtaking.

This will be awesome.

The Bangkok Mass Transmit System (BTS) will build two electricity sky train lines in Cambodia’s Phnom Penh City, Chinese News Agency quoted local media as saying on Wednesday.

BTS plans to invest 500 million U.S. dollars to this project, May Vuthy, representative of the BTS Company to Cambodia, was quoted by Cambodian-language magazine Star as saying.

One seven-km sky train line is from Japanese-Cambodian Friendship Bridge to Monivong Bridge, May Vuthy said, adding that another eight km line is from the Central Market to Steung Meanchey, the garment industry hub.

The Cambodian government and BTS from Thailand have studied about the project and they will cooperate to build it, the magazine added.

According to the plan, BTS will build the project from 2008 to 2011, May Vuthy said, adding that the two-way sky train lines will run from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. with about one dollar for a ticket.

That is, this will be awesome after four long grueling years of traffic and construction hell — because that’s exactly what Monivong Blvd. is going to be. Viva la progress!

UPDATE: The Cambodia Daily calls the BTS plan a pipe dream, and says that plans are still in the idea stage. Xinhua has the complete story.

Admittedly, this is fishing from the fever swap, but Cambodians really should know that Angkor Wat was not actually built by Cambodians. Angkor Wat was built by white supremist from New Zealand.

Angkor Wat is being threatened by ‘development’. It’s not a White civilisation, in most people’s eyes, but I think it is, as I think all culture was initiated by Whites, so I think that this ancient civilisation records our own, ancient history. Graham Hancock wrote about it as a part of a ‘lost civilisation’, as a part of a vast, world-wide civilisation which existed to record anti-diluvian civilisations, after the flood. He thought it was one of a series of civilisations brought about by a super-race, e.g. the Atlanteans, after the flood. Atlantis’s location may be disputed, but these places remain to us. Like the European henges, and the Pyramids, it has a lot of astronomical alignments, hence the idea that all of these cultures stemmed from a single source. It’s really fascinating, and yet yet again, ‘developers’ are seeking to ‘develop around it! I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a Leftists attempt to destroy ancient evidence of a lost, ancient, White civilisation, and a link to our anti-diluvian/pre-flood past, to our ancient White ancestors, and therefore to the deepest and most ancient parts of our history.

Those poor sheep.

Vutha wonders just who, exactly, is Cambodia’s first blogger. Nearly everybody agrees that, at least technically, it’s this guy. And, at least technically, that’s probably right. But the man who really inspired what is now the Kingdom’s legion of cloggers, it should be noted, is this fine fellow.

According to Ministry of Tourism statistics, tourism arrivals for the first half of 2007 are up nearly 20 percent. Tourists to Siem Reap account for more than 60% of those arrivals (about 650,00 people so far this year), and MoT estimates that roughly half of those arrive and depart by air. So how many bags do you think the Siem Reap airport loses?

Sherman escorts me to the airport in Siam Reap. From there I am to fly to Bangkok, Amman and finally Tel Aviv. The check-in clerk asks where I am heading after Bangkok and I say Amman, Jordan. At the last second, as my suitcase moves down the conveyor belt toward the airplane, I see the tag says Jordan, U.S.A. Wait. I grab the suitcase, and explain to the clerk that Jordan is not in the United States. I try to explain that it is a country next to the state of Israel. She has never heard of either of these countries, and tells me, “This is what the computer is giving me.”

Never heard of Israel? That is astonishing. All the more so considering that this women, you know, works at the check-in counter in the country’s largest airport. Crikey.

POSTSCRIPT: The story quoted above isn’t at all about Cambodia’s airports, or even the tourism sector. It’s about  prenatal health, or lack thereof, and one doctor’s attempt at helping.

Four months ago Global Witness published a scathing report on the country’s illegal logging syndicates. It accused men at the most senior levels of government of flattening the national forests for personal profit. The report created quite a stir, and ruffled a few feathers. But apparently, that’s all it did.

As VOA reports, illegal logging continues unabated.

A report from a former government forest monitoring group earlier this year has failed to dent the trade of illegal timber, residents of Kampong Cham province say.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, residents said they have stood helplessly and watched as truck after truck laden with high-value trees—illegally cut and harvested—pass them by on National Highway 6A, on their way from the provincial forests to destinations unknown.

The governor who controls Kampong Cham, Hun Neng, brother of the prime minister, could not be reached for comment.

Elsewhere in the country, journalists tracking forest crimes have been threatened. Yesterday IFEX reported on the latest journalist to come under fire.

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Cambodian government to launch an independent investigation into the recent arson attack on the home of Phan Phat, a journalist with the local Khmer language newspaper Chbas Kar.

According to local press freedom groups and news reports, Phat’s wooden house was set ablaze by unknown assailants at around 4 a.m. on August 10 in the Boeng Khnar commune of Porsat province. The small blaze was quickly extinguished and Phat and his family escaped without injury. Phat was quoted by local media as saying that he had received an anonymous phone call threatening to give him a “gift” the day before the attack, according to the same reports.

Commune Police Chief Sann Ly was quoted in a local publication as saying that the attack was likely in “revenge” for Phat’s recent reporting on illegal logging activities in the province’s Bakan district. District Police Chief Youk Yoen told reporters that judging by the small amount of gasoline used in the arson attack, the assailants likely did not mean to kill the reporter and his family. The police official said his office was approaching the case as “an attack on the free press.”

Meanwhile, the donor community watches in silence.

No visit to Cambodia is truly complete without an authentic dining experience.

The Centre for Health Protection is investigating the suspected food poisoning of 10 people who fell ill after eating in Cambodia on August 7.

The man and nine women, aged 22 to 59, were holidaying in the country when they developed abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea after a dinner buffet.

On their return to Hong Kong, two sought treatment at Tuen Mun and Prince of Wales Hospitals while another consulted a private doctor. All are in stable condition and no hospitalisation was required.

I DEMAND BETTER FOOD SAFETY IN CAMBODIA!

Khmer News passes on this bit of rather curious news.

Phnom Penh: According to an American officer’s complaint, an adult was detained by Chamka Mon police for stealing an American’s watch in the afternoon of July 31, 2007 in Chamka Mon district’s Tole Basak commune, said police.

The crook known as Ouk Dey, 19, does not have the specific residence. The American man who, works for the US embassy, accused him of stealing his watch, which made in Swiss. Ouk Dey confessed that he stole the watch. Police gave the watch to the American man.

How do you get your watch stolen?

Speaking at a recent conference on Cambodia’s new criminal code, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that the Kingdom’s controversial “defamation” law would be dropped, but he pleaded with journalists to remain steadfast in their pursuit of responsible journalism.

Samdech Hun Sen said publicly that Cambodia walked ahead one step internationally by removing defamation penalties from the list of criminal offenses. Such situations of defamation penalties are being used also by some developed countries, suing journalists who write defaming articles before they are sent to jail. Besides considering Cambodia to be one step ahead, because it removed defamation penalties from the criminal code, in order to stop suing journalists and sending them to jail. Samdech Prime Minister appealed to journalists to stop cursing others, as such cursing makes only a bad impression, and they should rather write about their opinions with responsibility. Samdech remarked also that to be a good journalist, one should write in a constructive way, but not in a cursing way like the Khmer Rouge did.

Which begs the question, Do Cambodian newspapers routinely print obscene language?

The Internet in Cambodia being what it is — criminally expensive and tragically slow — it really is nothing short of a minor miracle that blogging could become so popular as to necessitate a Cambodian Blogger Summit. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen come August 30-31, 2007.

The summit is a culmination of the work of the Cambodian bloggers team — Dee Dee, Vutha, Vireak, and Lux Mean, among others — who have over the last year organized a series of 14 workshops aimed at educating the masses about the wonderful powers of the blog.

Build[ing] upon the success of the 14 Workshops, the Cloggers Team is organizing a summit called “Cambodian Blogger Summit (aka Cloggers Summit)” on this coming 30-31 August 2007, to bring together students that has been well adopting lessons from the workshop, professional Bloggers, writers, NGO workers, media, and tech gurus from within and outside Cambodia to be together to share and learn more from each others on various topics regarding to the Internet and new technologies including Open Source Softwares and Web2.0 that would make their study, work, digital life more easier.

According to the summit’s blog, the group expects more than 100 Cambodian and international bloggers to attend, as well as dozens of media and IT professionals and related organizations. On the agenda are topics such as cyber safety, self-censorship, and e-community, podcasting, video blogging and Khmer unicode. Nothing about criminally expensive Internet prices, though, or the evil that is the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. At least not yet, anyway.

Using a combination of satellite technology, radar, and more than a decade of good old fashion hard work, researchers have nearly uncovered the mysteries of the Angkorean Empire.

The famous medieval temple at Angkor Wat in Cambodia was once surrounded by a giant urban sprawl of settlements, according to a new map of the area published by an international team of archaeologists. The experts spent years studying Nasa images of the Angkor region and checking possible sightings on the ground, and found enough ruins to conclude that the site was the largest settlement in the pre-industrial world.

Carpeted with vegetation and obscured by low-lying cloud, the ruins spill over 400 square miles around the distinctive temple, and are linked by a complex irrigation system. [...]

The team found evidence of more than 1,000 new man-made ponds and at least 74 ruined temples. One hydraulic system linked the network and was probably used to provide citizens with a stable water supply. They also discovered two mysterious giant earthen structures. [...]

The experts said: “Even on a conservative estimate, greater Angkor at its peak was the world’s most extensive pre-industrial low-density urban complex.”

Researchers studying the new data also concur that, as posited by Bernard-Phillipe Groslier nearly 30 years ago, over-exploitation of the areas natural resources led to the destruction of the massive waterways that nourished the city, eventually leading to Angkor’s demise.

National Geographic has more, including the images.