100,000 hectares of land concession to the Viets ... 10 times more than the Cambodian Constitution allows: Hun Xen pays Hanoi his debt of gratitude?

Hun Xen is all smile during his meeting with Cao Duc Phat (L) (Photo: DAP News)

http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2009/09/100000-hectares-of-land-concession-to.html
Cambodia, Vietnam sign MOU of rubber investment cooperation

September 23, 2009
Xinhua

Cambodia and Vietnam on Tuesday signed a MOU of rubber investment cooperation to expand area of rubber plantation of Vietnamese companies in Cambodia.

The agreement was signed in Phnom Penh by Chan Sarun, Cambodian minister of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, and Cao Duc Phat, visiting Vietnamese minister of rural development and agriculture.

According to this bilateral agreement, Vietnamese companies will plant rubber crops in 100,000 hectares of land in Cambodia, Chan Sarun told reporters after the signing ceremony.

The Vietnamese companies have already invested in rubber plantations in Cambodia, but through the agreement, they will be able to plant more rubber crops, he said.

According to the agreement, the Vietnamese side will also build a refinery factory of rubber products in Cambodia, he said.

"The agreement will also provide opportunity for local people to sell their rubber products to Vietnamese companies and it will offer more jobs for local poor people," he added.

"So far, our local people and local private companies have planted rubber crops on 100,000 hectares of land," he said, adding that Vietnamese companies already got the economic concession land for planting the rubber crops.

"Through the MOU we will also strengthen the bilateral cooperation on other fields like fighting against communicable diseases and other things including bird flu and swine flu, and encourage investing more on other agro-industrial crops."

This investment will help to push economic development and social affairs in the country, he said, adding that Vietnamese side also will help train human resources for Cambodia.

Belgian paedophile [Philippe Dessart] expelled from Cambodia

Wed, 23 Sep 2009
By Jean Gerrard
DPA

Phnom Penh - A Belgian man convicted twice for child sex offences was expelled from Cambodia seven weeks after a coalition of child protection organizations petitioned authorities to expel him, a media report said Wednesday. Philippe Dessart, 49, was put on a plane to Thailand last week, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported.

"We had enough legal grounds," the national police spokesman told the newspaper. "We didn't decide to deport him to Belgium; we just decided that he should be out of our country. Wherever he went to, it was his right."

Dessart was released from a Cambodian jail in April having spent three years in prison for sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy. On his release, he sparked outrage from child protection organizations by marrying the boy's mother after moving into her home in western Cambodia.

Dessart was previously convicted of child sex offences in his native Belgium, serving time there in the 1990s for child rape and torture.

Dessart's lawyer said his client's deportation was an abuse of his rights.

"He was with his wife; police came to invite him to a commune police station telling him that the national commissioner orders you to be expelled," Dun Vibol told the newspaper. "[On arrival in Thailand Dessart] called me saying he's got nothing with him and said they don't respect the law in Cambodia."

Telecom service in Cambodia cannibalized by the Vietcong army

Viettel becomes largest telecom service provider in Cambodia

09/23/2009
VOV News

Vietnam’s Military Telecom Corporation (Viettel) has become the largest telecommunication service provider in Cambodia after launching the Metfone mobile service network in the Kingdom six months ago.

Metfone currently accounts for 60 percent of the ADSL service and 50 percent of fixed phone markets. It has two million mobile subscribers, ranking second among nine mobile service providers in Cambodia.

To facilitate the Cambodian people’s access to fundamental telecommunication services, Metfone has reduced its mobile service charge from 11 cent per minute to 9 cent per minute and expects to adjust it down in the near future.

Additionally, Metfone is the sole provider of all telecommunication services in Cambodia with its product distribution network covering even remote and isolated communes. It is also the sole provider of wireless fixed phone service with nearly 20,000 subscribers in the country.

Along with business development in Cambodia, Viettel has invested US$5 million in carrying out a three-year programme to introduce the internet in schools, subsidized 50 percent of wireless fixed and mobile phone charges for poor people and sponsored an online television system, connecting the government management to localities.

Metfone is expected to earn a revenue of US$50 million this year and provide 3G services in Cambodia early next year.

Metfone is also expected to have 2.55 million mobile subscribers, 3,000 transceiver stations covering all 24 provinces and cities of Cambodia, and provide affordable, high-quality services for customers by 2010.

We can help build a better world

September 23, 2009
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

Across national boundaries and cultures, humans appear nowadays to be entrenched on a destructive course of intolerance, characterized by a lack of civility. People of strong viewpoints, particularly political/ideological ones, come into conflict. The level of insult and the tendency to demonize opponents has increased.

Three years ago I wrote in this space about Emory University researchers, who found political discourse to be nasty because, during such debates, the unconscious emotional part of the brain takes over the rational part. In other words, a discussion deteriorates from hearing and understanding this "other guy" to personal attacks as the rational brain shuts down and the non-thinking part takes over.

Humility -- to be considerate and respectful of others and their viewpoints, their dignity and their worth -- a virtue preached by the world's major religions, is lacking in many individual persons.

Some 2,500 years ago, Chinese thinker K'ung-fu-tzu (Confucius), whose teachings have influenced the thought and the life of Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and many others, advised: "To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; To put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; To put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; And to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right."

World peace and world order begin with individual persons. Religious teachings, high values and strong beliefs are meaningless unless humans practice them in their life journeys. It's worth reminding, ad infinitum, that humans are capable of learning (Lord Buddha's teachings), unlearning (the harmful), and relearning (channeling the energy of hope in the building of a better future), and that what stands in their way is a lack of belief that they can, and a lack of will to take the first step.

Some people know a lot but have no will to apply their knowledge -- creatures of habit, they talk rather than walk the talk, and they imprison themselves in patterns and blame karma.

Psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, acclaimed as "one of the world's foremost authorities" on positive psychology and moral psychology, says in his book, "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom," that each of us must find "ways to overcome our natural self-righteousness." The chapter begins with two quotes from Jesus and Buddha about human eyes that see failings in others when looking outward, but see not the same when looking inward.

Matthew 7:3-5: "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ... You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."

Buddha: "It is easy to see the faults of others, but difficult to see one's own faults. One shows the faults of others like chaff winnowed in the wind, but one conceals one's own faults as a cunning gambler conceals his dice."

And Haidt quoted a Japanese proverb: "Though you see the seven defects of others, we do not see our own 10 defects."

Thus, in 2007, Haidt organized an interdisciplinary workshop, sponsored by the Princeton University Center for Human Values. As a summary of "goals" of the workshop, Haidt referenced the eighth-century Zen master Sent-Ts'an's poem: "The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose; Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. ... The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease."

As Haidt sees the poem, humans in all cultures possess this "excessive and self-righteous tendency to see the world in terms of good versus evil," or "moralism," which "blinds people to the truth," making agreement and compromise difficult.

On his own home page, Haidt says his research focuses on "the moral foundations of politics, and on ways to transcend the 'culture wars' by using recent discoveries in moral psychology to foster more civil forms of politics." Advances in moral psychology and other fields, says Haidt," provide "new hope for understanding moralism and for finding ways to overcome it."

"We must respect and even learn from those whose morality differs from our own," says Haidt who, on his Web site CivilPolitics.org, writes how political leaders, political parties and media outlets have become, over the last 20 years, "more polarized, strident and moralistic (i.e., excessively concerned with morality, and certain about their own virtue)."

"When political opponents are demonized rather than debated, compromise and cooperation become moral failings and people begin to believe that their righteous ends justify the use of any means," the Web site reads. Haidt says the "goal is to promote 'civil politics,' by which we mean politics in which power and ideas are hotly contested but opponents are respected as fellow citizens who are assumed to be sincere in their beliefs."

Haidt's efforts are the more admirable in today's world in which, among many things, recent polls say, people are generally ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago, and one poll says nearly one in five speaks "rudely to someone" if he or she wasn't served effectively; and a study shows "road rage" by "angry, horn-blasting tailgaters" to be evidence of what doctors called "intermittent explosive disorder," or IED, which affects up to 16 million drivers in the United States.

Confucius's advice "to cultivate our personal life, ... set our hearts right" needs to be followed so we can build a better world.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

Preah Vihear case [in Thailand] to run till Tuesday: Klanarong

Klanarong

September 23, 2009
The Nation

The National Anti Corruption Commission is expected to complete its deliberation on the Preah Vihear impeachment case involving the Samak Sundaravej government by next Tuesday, NACC member Klanarong Chintik said yesterday.

The NACC had already started hearing the case but it would take a week to complete since the proceedings had to cover the individual involvement of each accused, Klanarong said.

"Today's deliberation has covered 12 of 44 accused ministers and officials and the NACC should be able to rule on the case by September 29," he said.

At the heart of the legal wrangling is whether the then prime minister Samak and his ministers intentionally bypassed Parliament when drafting the Cambodian-Thai memorandum of understanding related to Preah Vihear Temple dispute.

Under Article 190 of the Constitution, the government is obligated to seek approval from parliament on the framework to negotiate an international agreement when it has ramifications in regard to borders.

Based on the Constitution Court ruling last year, the government failed to comply with Article 190.

Klanarong said the NACC had to determine the involvement of each accused in order to apportion the wrongdoing involved by each of the accused.

After reviewing the wrongdoing committed by each, the next step was for the NACC to name those targetted for impeachment and those who will face criminal prosecution.

He denied speculation that the NACC might target former foreign minister Noppadon Patama to shoulder the blame alone, saying the deliberation had not even reach halfway to form any conclusion.

Vietnam's subtle colonization of Cambodia: 400 Viet companies, 100,000 hectares of Viet rubber plantations in 5 provinces ... more are still coming!

Did these Viet Bo Dois really leave Cambodia in 1989? (Click here to read Sopheak's comment in Khmer on this issue)

Hun Xen shaking hands with Cao Duc Phat (Photo: DAP news)

Vietnam To Plant 100,000 Hectares of Rubber

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
22 September 2009

The governments of Cambodian and Vietnam signed an agreement Tuesday allowing the development of 100,000 hectares of rubber plantations in five provinces, which will add to the 400 Vietnamese companies already operating here.

The new concessions would come into effect by 2015, according to the agreement, signed Tuesday between Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun and his counterpart, Cao Duc Phat.

“This [agreement] will create more jobs for local people and thus alleviate poverty,” Chan Sarun told reporters following a signing ceremony in Phnom Penh. “Our [Cambodian] people in remote areas, who used to depend on forests, will become rubber processors.”

Cao said the agreement would serve as a basis for other rubber companies to follow in the future. Vietnamese companies planted 10,000 hectares in Cambodia this year and are preparing to plant another 20,000 in 2010; 30,000 the year after; and 40,000 the year after that.

Seven Vietnamese companies are operating in five Cambodian provinces: Ratanakkiri, Mondolkiri, Kratie, Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear.

“We will have leased all 100,000 hectares of land to Vietnamese companies by 2012, three years before our plan,” Chan Sarun said, explaining that Vietnam plans to send more rubber companies to Cambodia.

The two ministers also said a rubber processing factory would be set up in Cambodia by 2012. Rubber and timber are Cambodia’s biggest exports to Vietnam, the Vietnam News Agency reported.