Can you top these?

Cambodian vendor transport goods on truck across the Cambodia-Vietnam border at Bavet in Svay Rieng province 120km (72miles) east of Phnom Penh, February 26, 2010 . REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Cambodian vendors transport goods using motorcycle at the Cambodia-Vietnam border at Bavet in Svay Rieng province 120 km (72 miles) east of Phnom Penh, February 26, 2010 . REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

READ MORE - Can you top these?

Korea Expressway signs construction deal with Cambodia

Friday, February 26, 2010
The Korea Herald (South Korea)

Korea's state-run Korea Expressway Corp. said Friday it has signed a $2.65 million deal with the Cambodian government to improve and build new roadways for the Southeast Asian country.

The clinching of the deal came after Korea Expressway, in a consortium with Korea's Sambo Engineering Co., submitted a proposal to the Cambodian government for a road project there in October last year, it said.

The project calls for the consortium to design and supervise the improvement of two national highways and one local road and the construction of a detour in the Southeast Asian country. Completion of the project, expected to begin next month, is slated for June 2013, the company said in a statement.

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Viettel conquers Cambodia's mobile market ... just like Hanoi controls Hun Xen's regime?

Viettel conquers Cambodia's mobile market

February, 27 2010
VietNam News (Hanoi)

HA NOI — Viettel Cambodia, a subsidiary of Viet Nam's military-run telecom service provider, now owns 42 per cent of the base transceiver stations (BTS) and 88 per cent the optic-fibre cable in Cambodia.

In terms of subscribers, it now holds the second place just six months after becoming operational.

The telecom provider aims to obtain a turnover of US$250 million this year. It also plans to have 3,000 BTS for 2G services and 1,500 BTS for its 3G network. It is also looking to increase its optic-fibre cable network to between 15,000 and 16,000 kilometres.

Viettel said it was looking to have a 46 per cent share of the fixed-line subscriber market, and 90 per cent of the mobile phone and ADSL markets.

The group is now the leading Vietnamese investor in foreign countries.

This year, it plans to invest in Bangladesh, while expanding its market share in other foreign countries.

The group said its targeted turnover this year was VND75 trillion to VND78 trillion ($4-4.2 billion), an increase of 60 per cent to 70 per cent against last year.

In the domestic market, its BTS and optic-fibre cable infrastructure has increased by 50 per cent. It has 26,000 stations for 2G and 3G services and 90,000 kilometres of cable.

The telecom provider plans to have 7,000 operational BTS for 3G services in Viet Nam.

Viettel deputy general director Nguyen Manh Hung said the group would be responsible for designing its products, while they would be assembled in mainland China or Taiwan.

Hung said his company decided to invest in producing made-in-Viet Nam mobile phone products to meet the demand of Viet Nam's 40 million subscribers. It is anticipated that there will be 50 million subscribers by the end of this year.

READ MORE - Viettel conquers Cambodia's mobile market ... just like Hanoi controls Hun Xen's regime?

Cambodia opens luxury casino [belonging to Hun Xen's crony]

VIP room at the Titan King Casino (Photo: Titan King Casino)

February 26, 2010
Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

Cambodia opened a luxury, $100 million casino Friday hoping to attract more foreign tourists and promote its fast-growing entertainment industry, casino owners said.

The Titan King Casino, located along the Vietnam border, is one of a number that have sprung up along the country's frontiers with Vietnam and Thailand, attracting thousands of gamblers.

The Ministry of Finance says Cambodia earned $19 million from 29 casinos in 2008. But revenue fell to $17 million in 2009 because of a decline in tourist arrivals and a border dispute with Thailand.

The Titan King Casino is owned by Kith Thieng, a business tycoon close to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

In a message posted on the casino's Web site, Kith Thieng said the town of Bavet, where the casino is located, was fast becoming an entertainment center "much like Las Vegas and Macau." Bavet is 68 miles (110 kilometers) southeast of the capital Phnom Penh.

Hear Sopheaktra, assistant to the owner, said the casino would help attract more foreign tourists.

READ MORE - Cambodia opens luxury casino [belonging to Hun Xen's crony]

Govts to move ahead on border demarcation

Friday, 26 February 2010
Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

“It was mostly Vietnamese engineers who planted those posts – there was only one [official] from Cambodia who followed the Vietnamese experts” - Kimsour Phirith, SRP spokesman

CAMBODIAN and Vietnamese officials say they are pushing forward bilateral demarcation efforts on northern stretches of the two countries’ 1,270-kilometre shared border.

The state-run Voice of Vietnam radio station announced on Wednesday that army engineers in the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong were
gearing up for the planting of eight border markers on the frontier with Cambodia’s Mondulkiri province.

Prime Minister Hun Sen also announced Wednesday that, by the end of 2010, the government was hoping to finish the demarcation process for the 500-kilometre stretch of border running from the northernmost point of Ratanakkiri province into Kratie province.

“To the east we are searching to plant the [border] markers. This year [we] are trying to demarcate 500 kilometres [of the border], starting from where the Cambodian, Lao and Vietnamese borders meet down to Kratie province,” he said.

The demarcation of the border with Vietnam has been dogged by controversy in recent months, with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) alleging that four border markers in Svay Rieng province have been placed up to 500 metres inside Cambodia’s legal territory, as defined on French- and American-drawn maps.

Government officials deny the allegations, saying party president Sam Rainsy falsified public documents in order to demonstrate the incursions were real.

SRP spokesman Kimsour Phirith said that the party also planned to investigate the placement of border markers in other provinces, citing a lack of transparency in the placing of the Svay Rieng markers.

“It was mostly Vietnamese engineers who planted those posts – there was only one [official] from Cambodia who followed the Vietnamese experts,” he said, adding that the investigations would begin in Mondulkiri.

When contacted on Thursday, Var Kimhong, senior minister in charge of border affairs, did not give many details on the progress of the demarcation process in the northeast, but said they would be carried out bilaterally, with the involvement of both Cambodian and Vietnamese officials.

“We plan to finish planting demarcation posts in Mondulkiri according to the bilateral plan after we have a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City,” he said.

Mondulkiri provincial Governor Chan Yoeun and Kratie provincial Governor Kham Phoen could not be reached for comment.

Posted by Heng Soy | Permalink |  

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Media progress when reporters are sent to jail for their opinion?

Hang Chakra, editor-in-chief of Khmer Machas Srok newspaper, is still in jail (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Minister hails media progress in ’09

Friday, 26 February 2010
Kim Yuthana
The Phnom Penh Post

CAMBODIA’S media sector improved in both quality and quantity in 2009, providing more Cambodian news and entertainment, and moving the country further along the path to freedom of expression, Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said Thursday.

“The media and broadcasting sector in Cambodia has been improving continually, which means a lot of contribution to the strengthening of democracy and guarantees of press freedom in Cambodia,” he said at the launch of the ministry’s annual report.

The minister also applauded the efforts of journalists, who have all “tried their best” to give people the highest-calibre media services possible and to create information links between citizens and the government.

Khieu Kanharith’s comments, however, come just days after a report by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which documented the government’s legal cases against journalists in 2009.

The report says the jailing of Khmer Machas Srok publisher Hang Chakra in July last year broke a pledge made by Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2006 that journalists would no longer be jailed for what they wrote.

“The jailing of several opposition journalists has cruelly shown that the promise has not been kept. It has been compounded by judicial harassment of government opponents and the journalists who interview them,” it stated.

Moeun Chhean Nariddh, director of the Cambodia Institute for Media Studies, said that even though the media sector in Cambodia had improved remarkably, press freedom had fallen away.

He said that action against journalists now takes the form of defamation lawsuits rather than street violence, but that legal threats are as much an “obstacle” to the proper performance of their profession.

According to a ministry report summing up its work in 2009, Cambodia is now home to 385 national newspapers, 172 national magazines, 43 international newspapers, 28 international magazines, 10 imported newspapers, 11 international news agencies, 21 journalist associations, 133 printing houses and six publishing establishments.

READ MORE - Media progress when reporters are sent to jail for their opinion?

Who will be Big Brother?

Ministers differ on Internet controls

Friday, 26 February 2010
Brooke Lewis and Sam Rith
The Phnom Penh Post

SENIOR ministers on Thursday were in apparent disagreement over the extent to which the state-owned company Telecom Cambodia would be able to block access to individual Web sites if it were granted control of the country’s Internet exchange – a move both company and government officials are reportedly looking to implement as soon as possible.

An official from the company on Tuesday said it would seek to block access to Web sites deemed inappropriate for a range of reasons, a statement that drew fresh outcry from representatives of the private telecommunications sector, one of whom said it could be “very dangerous” for the government to filter online content.

However, Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith on Thursday said the government had not told Telecom Cambodia that it could play a role in blocking Web sites.

“I don’t know what authority they’re saying that under,” he said in reference to the Telecom Cambodia official’s comments.

“The government doesn’t have any policy on that.”

Under the centralisation plan, all Internet service providers (ISPs) would be funneled through exchange points run by TC, which has indicated it will charge for the service. Currently, two domestic Internet exchange points are run by private companies free of charge.

Khieu Kanharith added that although the government is capable of blocking access to Web sites, it has no intention of doing so, and that there are unresolved questions about whether censorship policies should be implemented.

“Who should decide what should be filtered?” he said. “We have the technology, but we don’t think it’s appropriate” to filter content.

However, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications So Khun said Thursday that the practice of monitoring and blocking online content would be entirely consistent with TC’s role in supporting the work of his ministry.

Referring to “inappropriate” Web sites, he said, “After we inform those Web site owners and they still don’t close their Web sites, we will tell TC, which [will have] the right to block Web sites,” he said.

A telecommunications industry representative who spoke on condition of anonymity said Thursday that the two officials’ contradictory statements could be taken as evidence that the MPTC was on the verge of overstepping its role, which is supposed to be that of a free market regulator. “The Ministry of Information is stating the law – only a judge has the authority to decide what can be censored, and they are upholding that,” he said.

So Khun did not fully endorse the statements made earlier this week by the TC’s deputy director, Chin Daro, who said the company would aim to block Web sites that featured pornographic content or material that is critical of the government.

“If any Web site attacks the government, or any Web site displays inappropriate images such as pornography, or it’s against the principle of the government, we can block all of them,” Chin Daro said. “If TC plays the role of the exchange point, it will benefit Cambodian society because the government has trust in us, and we can control Internet consumption.”

On Thursday, So Khun denied that TC would have the authority to block access to Web sites that were critical of the government, or that the government would want those Web sites blocked. “The government blocks only pornographic Web sites,” he said.

In any case, rights groups and private telecommunications sector representatives have expressed concern over the plan to funnel traffic through TC’s exchange point, with some painting it as a threat to freedom of information.

MPTC and TC officials have said that the proposal stems from national security interests and a desire to preserve cultural values, but some private sector representatives have countered that the government is attempting to mask an attempt to make money from Internet traffic.

READ MORE - Who will be Big Brother?

Transportation in Cambodia

Cambodian vendors transport goods using motorcycle at the Cambodia-Vietnam border at Bavet in Svay Rieng province 120 km (72 miles) east of Phnom Penh, February 26, 2010 . REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Cambodian vendor transport goods on truck across the Cambodia-Vietnam border at Bavet in Svay Rieng province 120km (72miles) east of Phnom Penh, February 26, 2010 . REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

READ MORE - Transportation in Cambodia

Cambodia opens luxury casino

Feb 26, 2010
AP

PHNOM PENH (Cambodia) - CAMBODIA opened a luxury, US$100 million casino on Friday hoping to attract more foreign tourists and promote its fast-growing entertainment industry, casino owners said.

The Titan King Casino, located along the Vietnam border, is one of a number that have sprung up along the country's frontiers with Vietnam and Thailand, attracting thousands of gamblers.

The Ministry of Finance says Cambodia earned US$19 million from 29 casinos in 2008. But revenue fell to US$17 million in 2009 because of a decline in tourist arrivals and a border dispute with Thailand.

The Titan King Casino is owned by Mr Kith Thieng, a business tycoon close to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

In a message posted on the casino's website, Mr Kith Thieng said the town of Bavet, where the casino is located, was fast becoming an entertainment centre, 'much like Las Vegas and Macau'. Bavet is 68 miles (110 kilometres) south-east of the capital Phnom Penh.

Mr Hear Sopheaktra, assistant to the owner, said the casino would help attract more foreign tourists.

READ MORE - Cambodia opens luxury casino

Cambodian opposition leader faces new lawsuit

February 26, 2010
Xinhua

Cambodia's opposition leader faced a new lawsuit Friday filed by the government for spreading false information and public document, a government lawyer said.

Ky Tech, a government lawyer said he had submitted a government lawsuit on Friday to a Phnom Penh Court against Sam Rainsy for his spreading false information and public document through website relating to border issues.

Sam Rainsy, was convicted by a provincial court late last month to two years in prison for his involvement in border markers removals and that the court found him guilty of destroying public property.

Sam Rainsy who is now in France was not available for comment, but his party's spokesman, Kim Sourphirith said the latest lawsuit was not a "surprise".

It is not yet known when the court will take action against Sam Rainsy.

Ky Tech said according to the laws, Sam Rainsy might face up to three years in jail for false information charge and 15 years for spreading fake public document relating to border issues.

READ MORE - Cambodian opposition leader faces new lawsuit