TheCambodiadaily

The Cambodia daily
All the News Without Fear or Favor
Monday, November 9, 2015
Volume 62 issue 86
2,000 riel/50 cents
Police Officer,
Official Shot
Dead by
Illegal Loggers
By Aun PheAP
the cambodia daily
A police officer and a Forestry Administration official were shot dead
by illegal loggers in Preah Vihear
province early Saturday morning in
an attack that also left a second officer injured, according to a local official who gave two different versions
of the incident.
Contacted yesterday morning,
deputy provincial police chief Khat
Hun said the officers were patrolling
Preah Vihear’s northern Preah Roka Protected Forest and had just
confiscated a cache of chainsaws
from a group of loggers when they
came upon a second group and were
attacked.
“Our officials saw a group of three
people cutting trees in the Preah
Roka Protected Forest. The loggers
attacked the officials with an AK-47
and two of the officials were gunned
down at the scene,” he said.
Mr. Hun identified the victims as
Seang Narong, an official in the Forestry Administration’s Chheb division, and Sap Yous, a Chheb district
police officer. He said he was relaying an account of the incident from
border police officer Phet Sophoan,
who was shot in the buttock but escaped with another uninjured officer.
“I am now questioning the
wounded police officer at the provincial hospital to gather information
about the shooting,” he said. “We are
going to investigate after gathering
Continued on page 5
Reuters
People celebrate as they watch election results come in outside the National League for Democracy office in
Mandalay, Burma, yesterday.
Suu Kyi Supporters Confident After Burma Poll
ReuteRs
RANgOON/NAYPYIdAW, Burma - Sup-
porters of Burma’s Aung San Suu
Kyi burst into boisterous celebration
yesterday after the country held its
first free nationwide election in 25
years, the biggest step yet in a journey to democracy from dictatorship.
Although the outcome of the poll
will not be clear for at least 36 hours,
a densely packed crowd blocked a
busy road beside the headquarters
of Suu Kyi’s National League for democracy in Rangoon as they cheered
and waved red flags.
The NLd is expected to win the
largest share of votes cast by an
electorate of about 30 million, who
chose from thousands of candidates
standing for parliament and regional assemblies.
But a legacy of rule by military
junta means Suu Kyi, who led the
campaign for democracy, cannot
become president herself. And whatever the result, Burma is heading into a period of uncertainty over how
she and other ascendant parties negotiate sharing power with the stilldominant military.
A pariah state until a few years
ago, Burma has had little experience
organizing elections. Some 10,000
observers were enlisted to scrutinize
the process. Early indications from
the monitors were that voting was
mostly trouble-free, with only isolated irregularities.
“From the dozens of people we
have spoken to since 6 a.m. today,
everybody feels they have been able
to vote for whoever they wanted to
in security and safety,” said durudee
Sirichanya, one of the international
Continued on page 2
More Arrests Possible in Lawmaker Assault Case
By Khy Sovuthy
the cambodia daily
Sierra Leone Ebola-Free After
18 Months, 11,000 Deaths
Page 18
cambodiadaily.com
Prosecutors are continuing to review video footage of last month’s
attack on opposition CNRP lawmakers Nhay Chamroeun and Kong
Saphea and may order additional
arrests after three soldiers turned
themselves in last week, a court official said yesterday.
Yet authorities continued to claim
ignorance of the military units the
three soldiers belonged to, despite
public calls for their superiors to be
មានដំណឹងបែែសមែួលជាភាសាខ្មែរនៅខាងក្នុង
named and investigated due to allegations that the attacks were well
organized.
Meas Chanpiseth, a deputy prosecutor at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court who is in charge of the
case, repeated claims that authorities
were not sure where the arrested
soldiers came from.
“I just know they are soldiers, but
I do not know what unit they work
for,” Mr. Chanpiseth said. “According to the video, there were many
other fighters, so we are continuing
The Daily Newspaper of Record Since 1993
to investigate.
“I cannot tell you anything in relation to the other people, because this
is an investigation. If I tell you about
this issue, they will know, and will escape,” he said.
Mr. Chanpiseth declined to comment further on the case and referred
questions to Investigating Judge Y
Thavrak, who declined to comment.
Sieng Sen, director of the Interior
Ministry’s internal security department and a member of the eightContinued on page 2
The Cambodia daily
2
monday, noVembeR 9, 2015
and also
UFO! Meteor! No, Just a Missile
ReuteRs
Social media lit up on Saturday
night with reports of streaking lights
across the skies in the Western U.S.,
but the phenomenon turned out to
be a Navy missile test flight launched
off the southern California coast, the
Pentagon said.
A Pentagon public affairs spokesman said a U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs Trident II (d5) missile test flight was conducted at sea
Burma
1
observers.
In the city of Mandalay, about 100
people were stopped from voting
after officials discovered they were
outsiders who had been mysteriously added to the register and then
bussed to the polling station.
The main concern about the election’s fairness arose before the election. Activists estimated that up to 4
million people, mostly citizens working abroad, would not be able to vote.
Religious tension, fanned by Buddhist nationalists whose actions
have intimidated Burma’s Muslim
minority, also marred the election
campaign. Among those excluded
continued from PAge
Arrests...
1
man committee tasked with looking
into the assaults, said they were cautiously continuing to investigate.
“The committee has been continuing to investigate,” Major general
Sen said, explaining that his team
was wary of footage uploaded to social media, as it might be altered.
“The videos on the Facebook
pages cannot be taken as official in
this modern age,” he said.
Social media websites—particularly Facebook—have been awash
with video clips and photographs
of the beatings since they occurred
on October 26, with users attempting to identify the men who can be
seen kicking and stomping on the
lawmakers.
deputy National Police Commissioner Chhay Sinarith, deputy chairman of the investigating committee,
could not be reached. However, Incontinued from PAge
from the USS Kentucky off the coast
of southern California.
Users of social media platforms
such as Twitter and Facebook posted photos, comments and video of
the lights, wondering whether they
might have come from everything
from a meteor to a UFO.
The tests of the unarmed missile
were part of a scheduled, ongoing
system evaluation test, according to
the Pentagon spokesman.
newsmakers
n NEW YORK - AngelinA jolie Pitt and BrAd Pitt teamed up for the first
time on screen in 10 years for “By the Sea,” but Hollywood’s leading power
couple on Friday got scathing early reviews for the movie, which some
deemed a laborious vanity project. “By the Sea” was written and directed
by Jolie Pitt and inspired by the grief she experienced over the death in
2007 of her mother. It focuses on the stale marriage of former dancer
Vanessa (played by Jolie Pitt) and her husband, blocked writer Roland
(played by Pitt). The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy called it “the
kind of vanity project you don’t see much of anymore.” Variety’s Justin
Chang called the movie “an unabashed vanity project” that is “meandering
and overlong in ways that will test the patience of even die-hard Brangelina
fans.” The more than two-hour-long film—Jolie Pitt’s third directorial
feature—opens in U.S. movie theaters on Friday. (Reuters)
from voting were around a million
Rohingya Muslims who are effectively stateless in their own land.
Still, there was excitement among
voters about the first general election since a quasi-civilian government replaced military rule in 2011,
which was widely seen as a referendum on the country’s unsteady reform process.
“I’ve done my bit for change, for
the emergence of democracy,” said
daw Myint, a 55-year-old former
teacher, after she cast her vote for
the NLd in Rangoon.
Suu Kyi’s car inched through a
scrum of news photographers outside the polling station in Rangoon
where the 70-year-old Nobel peace
laureate came to vote.
She was stony-faced as body-
guards shouted at people to move
aside, but a jubilant cry of “Victory!
Victory!” went up from the crowd of
well-wishers as she went inside.
Many voters doubted the military
would accept the outcome of the
vote if the NLd wins.
But in the capital, Naypyidaw,
military Commander in Chief Min
Aung Hlaing said there would be no
repeat of the last free vote in 1990,
when Suu Kyi won but the army ignored the result. She spent most of
the next 20 years under house arrest before her release in 2010.
“If the people choose [the NLd],
there is no reason we would not accept it,” the senior general said.
Results from the election are expected to come in slowly, with a clear
overall picture not likely to emerge
until Tuesday morning.
Suu Kyi is barred from taking the
presidency herself by provisions of
a constitution written by the junta to
preserve its power.
But if she wins a majority and is
able to form Burma’s first democratically elected government since the
early 1960s, Suu Kyi says she will be
the power behind the new president
regardless of a constitution she has
derided as “very silly.”
Suu Kyi started the contest with
a sizeable handicap: Even if the vote
is deemed free and fair, one-quarter
of parliament’s seats will still be held
by unelected military officers.
To form a government and choose
its own president, the NLd on its own
or with allies must win more than
two-thirds of all seats up for grabs.
terior Ministry spokesman Khieu
Sopheak said the committee was
prepared to follow orders from the
municipal court.
“We are waiting for orders from
the court, to see what the court orders,” he said, adding he too did not
know where the soldiers came from,
but was sure they were not from the
Prime Minister Bodyguard Unit.
“[The bodyguard unit] announced
a denial that they are military officials
from the bodyguard unit,” he said.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy,
who left for Mongolia on Thursday,
has called for a wide-reaching investigation and accused Prime Minister
Hun Sen of organizing the attacks
on his lawmakers.
Last week, general Sopheak
said he believed the three arrested
soldiers—Chay Sarith, 33; Mao
Hoeun, 34; and Suth Vanny, 45—
were acting alone and not on orders
of others.
Mr. Hun Sen said he believed the
soldiers had simply been reacting to
verbal insults from the lawmakers
as they left the National Assembly
building, and had lashed out in a fit
of anger.
Yet civil society groups and the
opposition CNRP have noted the
seemingly well-organized nature of
the attacks, which occurred during
a protest against deputy opposition
leader Kem Sokha that was promoted by Mr. Hun Sen the night
before.
They have said that security
guards at the National Assembly
funneled the two lawmakers to the
site of their assault after refusing to
allow them to leave the compound’s
regular gates, and that police posted
nearby allowed the attacks to occur.
Mr. Rainsy has claimed the attacks were carried out in retribution
for protests that met Mr. Hun Sen
overseas, and the premier, while
condemning the attacks, has said the
protest during which they occurred
was indeed organized in retaliation.
“If there’s no fire, there’s no smoke,
and if there were no demonstrations
in New York and Paris, there would
have been no demonstrations in
Phnom Penh either,” Mr. Hun Sen
said in a speech on Thursday.
corrections:The article “gov’t to Take Control of Ticketing at Angkor Wat”
(November 7-8) incorrectly attributed a quote saying that the Sokha Hotel
group requested to end its contract to a statement on Prime Minister Hun
Sen’s Facebook page. The quote was from a separate statement released
by the Council of Ministers.
The headline of an article published on November 5 incorrectly stated
that Hong Sok Hour is a senator for the opposition CNRP. He is a senator
for the Sam Rainsy Party.
National Brief -----Crown Players, Officials Suspended for Match-Fixing
------
Seven players and four officials from domestic football champions Phnom
Penh Crown have been indefinitely suspended for a wide range of matchfixing offenses, the club announced in a statement released yesterday. Players Yok Ary, Thourng da, Sary Matnorotin, Touch Sokheng, Ngoy Srin,
Sos Suhana and San Ursaphea, along with officials Nguon Chansothea, Bouy
dary, Soeu Siha and Tes Sophat, persuaded fellow players to underperform
over the past two months and attempted to injure foreign teammates, the
statement said. “I am extremely saddened to announce a severe punishment
of an indefinite suspension from all club activities for 7 players and 4 officials
of Phnom Penh Crown FC,” Rithy Samnang, the club’s president, said in
the statement. “These suspensions are for gross misconduct and a serious
breach of their employment contracts by way of match manipulation and
the deliberate harming of Phnom Penh Crown FC’s reputation.” despite
being unbeaten in their first 15 games of the season, the C-League champions have seen a surprise dip in form over the past two months, losing three
of their last seven games. (George Wright)
monday, november 9, 2015
The Cambodia daily
3
NatioNal
First Families Get Land Titles in Criticized World Bank Project
B y Z somBor P eter
the cambodia daily
The government has handed out
the first 250 land titles to the more
than 3,000 families in a World
Bank-funded project for poor Cambodians that has been criticized by
a local rights group for sticking
many of those families with unusable land.
With $12.7 million from the
Bank and Germany’s foreign aid
arm, the government has doled out
a total of 10,000 hectares to families
across eight project sites around
the country since 2008. The project,
Land Allocation for Social Economic Development, aims to set up
landless or land-poor families with
their own private property.
Last week, the Bank announced
that the 250 families at a site in
Tbong Khmum province received
their land titles in September for between 2 hectares and 2.5 hectares
each, along with additional “livelihood support” including food, crop
seeds and materials for building a
house.
The Tbong Khmum families, the
Bank said in a statement, “are happy because they are confident that
their land will not be taken away
from them now that they possess a
land title.”
Though the project officially
ended in March, families at the other seven sites—plus six more set
up by Japan—will be eligible for
their own land titles in the coming
years. A family must occupy its plot
for five consecutive years before it
can apply for a title, and some of the
project sites were not set up until
2012.
The Bank and the government
hope that the project will serve as a
model for a pending second phase,
which would make improvements
to the existing 14 sites and add one
more. But rights group Licadho
says the first phase of the project
has been a failure and should not
be replicated.
After surveying all eight sites
supported by the Bank and Germany between October 2014 and
March, Licadho said most families
complained about the land they
got, either because the soil could
not support crops or because it was
covered by forest they could not
afford to clear.
In a report released in June, Licadho said the Tbong Khmum site,
where the 250 families received
their titles in September, was the
only exception. Elsewhere, it said,
many of the families were no better
off than when they got the land or
were doing even worse, having
taken on new debt in order to get
by at the new sites. Many of the
families, it added, had either decided not to move onto the free
land or given up and left, risking
their chances at eventually getting
a title.
The project, it said, “is far from
a replicable model, and nowhere
near a success story by any
standards.”
The Bank did not reply to a re-
quest for comment. A spokesman
for the Land Management Ministry, the Bank’s partner, could not
be reached. In June, however, the
spokesman dismissed Licadho’s
report as ill-informed.
Before it can approve funding for
a second phase to the project, the
Bank will have to lift a moratorium
in place on all new lending to Cambodia in 2011 in protest over the
government’s refusal to accept
land title claims from the residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng
Kak neighborhood.
National Brief -----Tourist Arrested for Flying Drone Over Royal Palace
------
A tourist from Hong Kong was arrested for flying a drone over the
Royal Palace on Saturday but was soon released after agreeing not to
do it again, according to an Interior Ministry official. The Phnom Penh
municipal government banned the use of drones without prior approval
in February on the grounds of privacy and public security, following
their increasing use around the city. Yesterday, Seang Sen, director of
the Interior Ministry’s internal security department, said the tourist,
Wong Tiga, 40, was arrested after flying his video camera-mounted
drone over the palace from the top of his hotel near the National Museum. “The man flew his drone in front of the Royal Palace, then he
flew it over the garden inside the Royal Palace,” he said. “We inspected
his documents and he is a tourist who just came here for pleasure. We
made a contract, educated him and let him go.” In a similar incident, a
pair of Chinese tourists were arrested and released for flying a drone
over the Royal Palace in July. (Ouch Sony)
The Cambodia daily
4
monday, november 9, 2015
NatioNal
Prime Minister Warns ‘Bad Officials’ Over Building Violations
b y k ang s othear
the cambodia daily
Days after City Hall ordered NagaWorld casino to halt its expansion because it was damaging
Phnom Penh’s beauty, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday warned
“bad officials” to stop allowing construction projects to damage the
country’s aesthetic allure.
In a post to his official Facebook
page, Mr. Hun Sen said the NagaWorld expansion had “abused” state
land along the city’s streets and
“affected” the Buddhist Institute,
which is located next to the casino.
“Construction that has abused
and exploited the public roadside
land and public gardens must be
removed immediately. And concerned local authorities and relevant ministries must be responsible,” it said.
The post said that companies
would also be held to account for
construction projects that expanded onto state land or violated their
building permits.
“Even though up to now the
head of government has not
known, all of those things cannot
really be hidden from the eyes of
the public,” it said. “Samdech Hun
Sen absolutely no longer allows
those bad officials to continue to
destroy the nation’s image.”
City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche declined to comment on
the prime minister’s warning.
“I don’t know because this is the
jurisdiction of the Land Management Ministry,” he said.
“Samdech Hun Sen
absolutely no longer
allows those bad officials
to continue to destroy the
nation’s image.”
—prime minister’s
Facebook page
Cheam Phalkunmakara, spokesman for the ministry, said that officials there would inspect, monitor
and punish companies or officials
found to be violating their construction permits.
“During construction, if we
monitor and see if they make any
fault, we will just let them correct
the parts that affect the public land
or public interest, like by asking
Jens Welding ollgaard/the cambodia daily
Motorists drive past a construction site that is part of an expansion of
NagaWorld casino in Phnom Penh yesterday.
them to remove it,” he said.
Asked whether NagaWorld or
officials overseeing the project
would face punishment, Mr. Phalkunmakara said it was too soon to
tell.
“Regarding this, we will look at
the legal aspects,” he said. “And we
also need to have a discussion to
find the scope of the punishment
based on the scope of their fault.”
The spokesman said that the
government would meet with representatives of NagaWorld for a
“negotiation” before any punishment is handed down, and that the
meeting would take place after
NagaWorld had made an official
request to resume building.
“If the company has legal evidence to show us clearly, we would
not take legal action against it,” he
said. “So the result will be shown
after the negotiation meeting.”
Woman Dies in Fire After Car Crash; Drivers Remain at Large
b y a un p heap
the cambodia daily
A 30-year-old woman burned to
death early yesterday morning in
Phnom Penh after two cars traveling alongside each other crashed
then slammed into two houses before bursting into flames, police
said.
Two Toyota Camry sedans
were driving alongside one another on National Road 5 in Russei
Keo district when one veered into
the other, causing both to lose
control and slam into the houses,
which also caught fire, deputy mu-
nicipal police chief Seng Chanthon
said.
“We received information that a
Toyota Camry car collided with
another Camry car at about 1 a.m.
in the middle of Saturday night,
and then the two cars crashed into
the nearby houses,” Mr. Chanthon said.
The dead woman, identified by
police only as Ena, was trapped inside one of the sedans and burned
to death in her seat, while the drivers of both vehicles fled the scene
and are still at large, he said.
Mr. Chanthon said police were
unsure whether the car crash had
been an accident or a deliberate
act.
“We are now investigating to find
the real reason for the crash. We
have to find out what the relationship between the two car owners is
and why the cars crashed,” he said,
adding the vehicles had been
impounded.
District police chief Teang Chansa said the blaze caused by the
crash had been so large that it gutted the two houses.
“We arrived at the scene immediately as two houses were blazing
and stopped the fire,” he said, adding that the two families living in
the houses escaped unharmed.
Mr. Chansa said that he could
not confirm local media reports
that the two cars involved in the
crash had been seen trying to ram
into each other shortly before
slamming into the houses.
“We are now gathering information from people living around the
area. It is difficult for us to get information about the crash because
the accident happened around
midnight and people were asleep,”
he said.
Teenager Kills 8-Year-Old Neighbor for $30 Worth of Jewelry
b y k ang s othear
the cambodia daily
A teenager was arrested in Kandal province on Saturday for
drowning her 8-year-old neighbor
in a rice field in order to steal her
gold jewelry, which was worth
about $30, police said yesterday.
Thach Sovanna, penal police
chief in Ang Snuol district, said
Oeun Sopheap, 16, had noticed the
younger girl’s earrings and ring
and managed to persuade the
child to go with her to bathe in a
stream in Damnak Ampil commune on Friday afternoon.
“They took a bicycle to the
scene, where the suspect strangled the girl and held her head under the water while stepping on
the back of her legs until she
died,” he said, adding that the
murder happened about a kilometer from the girls’ houses.
The teenager then took the earrings and ring to a local market,
where she sold them to separate
gold vendors for a total of 110,000
riel, or about $27.50, he said.
At about 4 p.m. that day, the
mother of Kiet Sievly, the victim,
returned home but couldn’t find
her daughter, Mr. Sovanna said,
so she informed police, who began a community-wide search.
“Some police went to search for
the girl at the market and the vendors gave the jewelry to us and
told us the identity of the seller.
That’s how we got the trail,” he
said.
Officers then went to Sopheap’s
house at about 11 p.m. to question
her, but she ran out the back door
and hid.
The victim’s mother filed an official complaint to police at 9 a.m.
the following morning as the
search continued, according to the
district police chief.
“Then at about 7:30 p.m., the
suspect left and went into her
home from her hiding spot because she wanted to eat dinner but
her mother saw her and called us
secretly and we went to arrest her,”
he said.
After questioning at the district
police station, the teenager took
police to the scene of the crime,
where they were able to recover
the body, he said, adding that the
suspect would be sent to court
today.
monday, november 9, 2015
The Cambodia daily
5
NatioNal
Drivers Arrested With Illegal
Rosewood in Separate Cases
B y S aing S oenthrith
the cambodia daily
Two drivers transporting more
than 1.2 tons of rosewood were
arrested in two separate operations in Stung Treng province and
Siem Reap province on Friday and
Saturday, officials said yesterday.
On Saturday, officials in Stung
Treng’s Thala Barivat district
stopped a Mercedes sedan after
military police noticed that it was
riding suspiciously low to the
ground, according to Sao Sarem,
deputy provincial military police
commander.
“One Mercedes car with 351 kg
of rosewood was illegally transporting without a document giving
permission,” he said.
Mr. Sarem named the driver as
Kong Bunkiet, 33, and said that he
was being detained at the provincial military police headquarters
until Forestry Administration officials processed the case and sent it
to court.
Sam Borin, deputy chief of the
Loggers...
1
the information to find the perpetrators, whether they are people
who have been arrested before,
and who they were logging for.”
Speaking from the hospital, Mr.
Sophoan said he did not see the
attackers.
“We reached the deep forest
and saw that three people were
cutting a tree at about 1:30 a.m.
Then I heard the sound of shooting from both sides and two of
our officials were gunned down. I
tried to escape from the shooting
but I was shot once in the left buttock with an AK-47,” he said.
“I don’t know exactly how many
people there were or how many
guns they had because it was so
dark,” he said. “I think they might
have had two guns because the
sound of shooting came from the
left and right sides.”
Mr. Sophoan speculated that
the assailants may have been a
group of revenge-seeking Division 3 soldiers that he and his officers arrested for illegal logging in
the area a few months ago.
Contacted again yesterday afternoon to find out if the officers
—who were also armed—had shot
back at the loggers, however, Mr.
Hun, the deputy police chief, said
Mr. Sophoan had given him an alternate version of events since the
morning.
This time, he said, the officer told
continued from page
Forestry Administration’s Thala
Barivat triage, said he was working on the case and referred further questions to his boss, who
could not be reached.
On Friday, police in Siem Reap’s
Chi Kreng district arrested the driver of a Toyota Hilux Vigo pickup
truck and confiscated 860 kg of
rosewood from the truck’s bed and
cabin, according to Tea Kimsoth,
chief of the Forestry Administration’s Siem Reap cantonment.
The driver, Tong Mol, 36, attempted to flee from police on foot,
but was chased down and arrested, according to Mr. Kimsoth.
“We arrested one driver of a Vigo pickup vehicle transporting 78
pieces of rosewood from Anlong
Veng district in Oddar Meanchey
province,” he said.
So Phalla, chief of the Forestry
Administration’s Chi Kreng triage
in Siem Reap, said Mr. Mol had
been charged with illegally collecting and transporting rosewood
and sent to the provincial prison.
him that he and the other three
men were all asleep in their hammocks when they were set upon.
“Sophoan told me that the loggers shot Mr. Narong once in the
head and shot Mr. Yous once in the
chest while they were asleep in their
hammocks in the forest,” he said.
“Sophoan gave me the wrong
answer when I asked him the first
time because he did not dare to
tell me the truth,” he added. “The
loggers were probably angry because our officials stopped them
from logging and confiscated their
chainsaws a month ago.”
Police and Forestry Administration officials often complain of confrontations with armed soldiers involved in the country’s rampant illegal logging trade. The fatal shooting of officers by the loggers, however, has been very rare.
Forestry Administration director Chheng Kim Sun said it had
been about two decades since one
of the administration’s officials had
been shot dead by a logger.
“This year we operate very strictly to confiscate the chainsaws, that
is why the bad people are very angry at our people,” he said.
Mr. Kim Sun said the shooting
might prompt his officials to take
more security precautions.
“We need to operate more carefully,” he said. “Maybe the soldiers need to have some people
[stand] guard...and maybe we have
[bigger] teams.”
(Additional reporting by Zsombor Peter)
National Briefs -----Sokimex Says Contract Termination Is Gov’t Decision
------
An executive at Sokimex, the firm that has held the right to sell tickets to the Angkor Archaeological Park since 1999, said yesterday that
the decision to end its contract next year was made by the government,
contradicting a statement saying that it was made at the request of the
company. In a statement released on Friday, the Council of Ministers
said that the decision to take full control of ticketing at the country’s top
tourist destination was made based on a request by the Sokha Hotel
Group, a subsidiary of Sokimex. “At the request of the Sokha Hotel
Group, the Royal Government decided to end its contract to collect fees
from selling tickets to visit Angkor with the Sokha Hotel Group,” it said.
However, Heu Heng, deputy director of Sokimex, said that was not the
case. “We did not submit or hand over a request,” he said, referring further questions to the firm’s chairman, Sok Kong, who could not be
reached. Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said he could
not explain the confusion. “I don’t know how the statement writer
works,” he said, adding that Prime Minister Hun Sen had received the
company’s “consent” before making the decision. (Kang Sothear)
Teen Jailed for Role in Gang Rape, Attempted Murder
Police have arrested a 16-year-old girl suspected of luring her 14-yearold friend to a group of four men who then raped and beat the girl,
putting her in a coma for three weeks, an official said yesterday. Srey
Soda, deputy chief of the Kompong Chhnang provincial police’s serious
crimes bureau, said the girl had been charged by the provincial court
and imprisoned, although he did not know the exact charges. “The
investigating judge questioned and decided to send her to pretrial detention on [Saturday] evening,” he said. On Thursday, police detained
and questioned the teenager along with two men they suspected of
being involved in the rape and beating, which occurred on September
21. The men were released that day. The victim informed her parents
of the incident after she woke from the coma on October 15, and they
filed a complaint with police four days later. Investigating Judge Teng
Ratana declined to comment on the case. (Ouch Sony)
The Cambodia daily
6
monday, november 9, 2015
regional
US Navigation Moves in South
China Sea Will Continue: Official
reuters
sImI valley,
California - The u.s.
will conduct freedom of navigation
operations in the south China sea
again, u.s. Defense secretary ashton Carter said in a speech on saturday, although he gave no timeline for any such actions.
Carter’s comments, delivered at
a defense forum at the ronald reagan presidential library in California, came at the close of a trip to
asia, where he cruised on a u.s.
aircraft carrier operating in the
south China sea and blamed Beijing’s island-building for rising tensions in the region.
In October, a u.s. guided-missile
destroyer, the uss lassen, challenged territorial limits around one
of China’s man-made islands in the
spratly archipelago with a so-called
freedom-of-navigation patrol.
“We’ve done them before, all
over the world,” Carter said, in reference to the operation. “and we
will do them again.”
a rising and more ambitious China and a russia intent on flouting
the international order mean the
u.s. military must adapt its strategies and operations, he said.
“How China behaves will be the
true test of its commitment to peace
and security,” Carter said. “This is
why nations across the region are
watching China’s actions in areas
like the maritime domain and
cyberspace.”
China claims most of the south
China sea, through which more
than $5 trillion in global trade passes
every year. vietnam, malaysia, Brunei, the philippines and Taiwan
have rival claims.
“China has reclaimed more land
than any other country in the entire
history of the region,” Carter said.
The u.s. is “deeply concerned”
about the extent of land reclamation and the prospect of further militarization there, which could lead
to a greater “risk of miscalculation
or conflict,” he said.
The u.s. is responding to China’s moves by putting its “best and
newest” assets in the asia pacific
and investing in space, cyber, missile defense, and electronic warfare, he added.
another challenge for the u.s. is
russia’s “provocations,” including
in europe and the middle east,
Carter said.
Reuters
Contestant Trixie Maristela of the Philippines is kissed by runner-ups
as she was crowned winner on Friday of the Miss International Queen
2015 transgender/transsexual beauty pageant in Pattaya, Thailand.
Regional Brief -----Malaysia Police Question Ex-Prime Minister Mahathir
------
- malaysian police took a statement from former prime
minister mahathir mohamad on Friday in what is believed to be a defamation probe over remarks he made against prime minister Najib razak.
mahathir’s lawyer mohamed Haniff khatri abdulla told reporters that a
team of three police officers questioned the 90-year-old former leader in
the presence of his lawyers for about 45 minutes at his office in the city
center. “The full details we are not at liberty to divulge, but it went very
well,” he said. When met by reporters as he was leaving his office in a
chauffeured-driven car, mahathir said, “They asked questions and I said
I will not answer.” asked what was he being investigated for allegedly
having done, he merely said, “It’s up to them.” mahathir, who ruled for
22 years until 2003, has been Najib’s fiercest critic. (Kyodo)
kuala lumpur
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
The Cambodia daily
7
regional
Taiwan Opposition Says Only Democracy Can Decide Future
ReuteRs
taipei/beijing - Only the people of
taiwan can decide its future and
will do so in elections in january,
the island’s opposition leader and
presidential front-runner said yesterday, as China’s top newspaper
warned peace was at risk if it opted
for independence.
a day after Chinese president
Xi jinping and taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou held historic
talks in Singapore, tsai ing-wen,
leader of taiwan’s independenceleaning Democratic progressive
party, said the leaders’ meeting
had done nothing to make taiwan’s people feel safer.
“Only the majority public opinion on january 16 can decide taiwan’s future and cross-strait relations,” tsai wrote, referring to ties
with the mainland.
at the meeting in neutral Singapore, the first get-together of leaders of the two sides since China’s
civil war ended in 1949, Xi told Ma
they must not let proponents of taiwan’s independence split them.
Ma in return called for mutual
respect for each other’s systems
and said taiwanese people were
concerned about mainland missiles pointing their way.
Reuters
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping
wave to the media during a summit in Singapore on Saturday.
tsai said Ma’s performance had
angered many people in taiwan,
and what he did was not a representation of mainstream public
opinion.
“as a nation’s leader, president
Ma did not make his people proud
or feel safe. instead, he created
more anxiety,” she wrote.
Speaking to reporters on the
flight back to taipei late on Saturday, Ma said while he was not satisfied with Xi’s response on security
and military issues, at least a dialogue had begun.
“this gathering today, if you
want to speak about achievements,
the most important achievement is
that the leaders across the taiwan
Strait finally met and were willing
to discuss related issues,” he said.
Fierce and Frightening
in a commentary, the Communist party’s official people’s Daily
said the two leaders sitting toge-
ther showed a desire not to let the
“tragedy of history” repeat itself
nor to let the fruits of peaceful development be lost.
progress over the past seven
years—during the rule of the Chinafriendly Ma—has been possible
due to a joint political will to oppose taiwan independence and
accept there is “one China,” albeit
with different interpretations, the
paper said.
“if this ‘magic cudgel’ did not
exist, the boat of peace would encounter a fierce and frightening
storm, or even flip over completely,” it wrote.
“Compatriots on both sides of
the taiwan Strait must join together and resolutely oppose the taiwan independence forces and their
separatist activities,” the newspaper added.
While bilateral trade, investment
and tourism have blossomed—
particularly since Ma and his KMt
took power in 2008—there is deep
suspicion on both sides and no
progress has been made on any
sort of political settlement.
in 2005, China enacted an “antisecession law” that allows it to
use force on taiwan if deemed
necessary.
The Cambodia daily
8
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
international
India’s Huge Need for Electricity Is a Problem for the Planet
B y A nnie G owen
The WashingTon posT
chowkipur, india - Dusk descends
on a village in the eastern indian
state of Bihar as residents start
their evening chores. women walk
in a line, balancing packets of animal fodder on their heads. others
lead their water buffalo home before dinner.
overhead loom bare utility
poles—built but never wired for
electricity—casting long shadows
across the landscape.
of the world’s 1.3 billion people
who live without access to power,
a quarter—about 300 million—
live in rural india in states such as
Bihar. Nighttime satellite images
of the sprawling subcontinent show
the story: Vast swaths of the country still lie in darkness.
india, the third-largest emitter of
greenhouses gases after china
and the u.S., has taken steps to address climate change in advance of
the global talks in paris this year—
pledging a steep increase in renewable energy by 2030.
But india’s leaders say the huge
challenge of extending electric service to its citizens means a hard
reality—that the country must continue to increase its fossil fuel consumption, at least in the near term,
on a path that could mean a threefold increase in greenhouse-gas
emissions by 2030, according to
some estimates.
when indian prime Minister
Narendra Modi talked climate
change with u.S. president Barack
obama in September at the u.N.,
he was careful to note that he and
obama share “an uncompromising
commitment on climate change
without affecting our ability to meet
the development aspirations of
humanity.”
here in this little village, a single solar light bulb gleams.
it belongs to the family of Satish
paswan, 35, a farmer who sold a bit
of his family’s land to purchase a
solar panel and light a few months
ago for about $88. he wanted his
five children to be able to do their
homework.
“we feel very ashamed and bad
that other neighboring villages
are enjoying power facility and we
don’t have it,” paswan said. “whenever a small leader or a big leader
belonging to the ruling party comes
here, they promise their first priority is to provide electricity to the
villages. But they have never fulfilled that promise.”
Fossil fuel generation of electricity is the largest single source of
greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide. Yet demand for inexpensive
Reuters
Laborers load coal on trucks at Bari Brahamina on the outskirts of
Jammu, India.
power will rise in a great tide in the
decades to come, especially in
South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa,
the two regions of the globe with
the least access to electricity. All the
countries of Africa, taken together,
have twice as many people without
electricity as india does—622 million. No country is content with that.
“it’s a matter of shame that 68
years after independence we have
not been able to provide a basic
amenity like electricity,” piyush
Goyal, india’s minister of state for
power, coal and new and renewable energy, said recently.
The indian government has
launched an ambitious project to
supply 24-hour power to its towns
and villages by 2022—with plans
for kilometers of new feeder lines,
infrastructure upgrades and solar
microgrids for the remotest areas.
if india’s carbon emissions continue to rise, by 2040 it will overtake the u.S. as the world’s secondhighest emitter, behind only china, according to estimates by the
international Energy Agency.
Yet the indian government has
long argued the u.S. and other industrialized nations bear a greater
responsibility for the cumulative
damage to the environment from
carbon emissions than developing nations—with Modi urging
“climate justice” and chiding western nations to change their wasteful ways.
Total carbon dioxide emissions
for india were 1.7 tons per capita in
2012, the most recent complete data available, compared with 6.9 tons
for china and 16.3 tons for the u.S.,
according to the world resources
institute. officials say they are keenly aware of india’s vulnerability to
the impacts of climate change: rising sea levels, drought, flooding
and food security.
Yet the government says it must
depend on fossil fuels to bring an
estimated 30 percent of the population out of extreme poverty.
“we cannot abandon coal,” said
Jairam ramesh, the former environment minister and climate negotiator, and author of the book
“Green Signals: Ecology, Growth,
and Democracy in india.” “it would
be suicidal on our part to give up
on coal for the next 15 to 20 years,
at least, given the need.”
Although 300 million indians
have no access to power, millions
more in the country of 1.2 billion
people live with spotty supplies of
electricity from the country’s unreliable power grid. The grid failed
spectacularly in 2012, plunging
more than 600 million people into
total blackout.
Estimates show that india’s
power woes cost the economy
anywhere from 1 to 3 percent of
GDp—an impediment to Modi’s
hopes to expand the economy and
make the country more hospitable
to manufacturing, according to
rahul Tongia, a fellow with Brookings india. Electricity demand will
increase sevenfold by mid-century
as the population continues to grow,
experts say.
Business as Usual
Most of the country’s power-generating capacity still comes from
about 125 coal-fired power plants,
but the government has mandated
that plants constructed after 2017
be built with more efficient “super
critical” technology. As many as
140 coal-fired plants are planned or
in the pipeline, according to Arunabha Ghosh, the chief executive of
the council on Energy, Environment and water in New Delhi.
Led by Modi, an early proponent
of solar technology, india is in the
midst of a huge drive to expand its
solar and wind capacity, with plans
for dozens of mega-parks that the
government hopes will move the
country closer to its goal of 100 gigawatts of solar-generating capacity by 2022, plus 75 Gw of other renewable energy, predominantly
wind. The government wants to
expand its hydroelectric and nuclear power capacity as well.
The ambitious goal—which
some say is unrealistic—would
essentially require the country to
double its installed solar-generating capacity every 18 months from
its current capacity of 4 Gw, according to the cEEw estimate.
india also wants to double its
coal production in the next five
years, to more than 1 billion tons
annually, with plans to open 60
more coal mines. india has the
world’s fifth-largest coal reserves,
and officials say cheap, plentiful
coal will make up the lion’s share
of the country’s energy budget
well beyond 2030.
“india could be consuming as
much as 1.8 billion to 3 billion
tons of coal annually by 2050,”
Ghosh said, noting that this is a
“business as usual” calculation
and does not factor in india’s new
push for renewable energy. “This
is still lower than the amount of
coal that was burnt in china on
an annual basis in the last four to
five years.”
At the same time, the indian
government says it wants to develop its economy using green
technology, setting up 100 smart
cities and touting its work with energy efficiency in industrial buildings and making LED light bulbs
affordable.
“Two-thirds of our buildings
have yet to be built, and half of the
roads and infrastructure have yet
to be created,” said Samir Saran,
a senior fellow and vice president
at the observer research Foundation in New Delhi. “There’s an opportunity to build at least some of
them right for the first time—if
we can create the right financial
ecosystem.”
in recent months, the indian government has announced plans to
modernize its national grid and is
preparing to address the financial
woes of the country’s state-owned
utility companies, some of which
are mired in debt, to the tune of
$66 billion. The rescue plan is likely
to include power tariff hikes—a
politically unpopular concept in a
country where many residents are
used to heavily subsidized power.
in 2010, according to a world Bank
estimate, 87 percent of all electricity
consumed by domestic customers
wassubsidized.
The Cambodia daily
10
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
international
India’s Modi Heads for Demoralizing Defeat in Bihar Election
ReuteRs
NeW DelhI - Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi was heading for a
heavy defeat yesterday in a key
election in India’s third most populous state, signaling the waning
power of a leader who until recently had an unrivaled reputation
as a vote winner.
Modi’s second straight regional
election setback will galvanize opposition parties, embolden rivals in
his own party and diminish his
standing with foreign leaders amid
concern he may not win a second
term as prime minister.
“This is a clear indication that
Modi’s popularity may now have
peaked,” said Satish Misra, a political analyst at the observer research Foundation.
The heavy loss in Bihar will also
hamper Modi’s push to pass economic reforms because he needs
to win most state elections in the
next three years to gain full control
of parliament.
In the most significant vote since
he won power 18 months ago, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party crashed
to defeat after running a controversial campaign that sought to polarize voters along caste and religious lines.
It was the most expensive state
election ever fought by the BJP,
with more than 90 top party figures
addressing 600 rallies over the last
six weeks, party officials said.
“The Bihar election was a very
important battle for us. We will
have to analyze each and every aspect of the result,” said ram Madhav, a BJP general-secretary.
an anti-Modi alliance led by
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was
ahead in 164 seats in the 243-seat
regional assembly, an overwhelming majority, tallies compiled by
the election commission showed.
Reuters
Supporters of the Janata Dal (United) party celebrate after learning of the initial election results at their party
office in Patna, India, yesterday.
Modi tweeted that he had called
to congratulate Kumar, whose regional “grand alliance” could now
become a template for politicians
seeking to prevent Modi’s march
toward untrammeled power under
India’s federal system.
The defeat could dampen the
mood as Modi heads to Britain for
the first bilateral visit by an Indian
leader since 2006. Modi is due to
address a sellout crowd next week
at london’s Wembley stadium.
Modi’s BJP-led alliance was
ahead in 61 seats of 239 where
trends were clear. Some regional
party leaders expressed bitterness
over a campaign that thrust Modi
into the spotlight—he addressed
more than 30 rallies—turning the
election into a referendum on his
personal leadership.
“The role of the prime minister is
to govern the country, and not become the lead campaigner in a
state election,” one BJP state leader
said, asking not to be named.
The most pressing challenges
of India prevail in Bihar, including
widespread poverty, corruption
and poor infrastructure. If independent, its 104 million people would
be the world’s 13th-largest nation,
more populous than Germany.
The result is a setback for Modi
because it damages his prestige,
makes parliament more of an obstacle, and complicates politics
within his ruling alliance, according
to Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie
endowment for International
Peace in Washington.
------
The BJP is in a minority in the
upper house of parliament, where
seats are allocated according to a
party’s strength in the states, enabling the opposition to block reforms, including the biggest overhaul of taxes since independence in
1947.
“It raises the likelihood that the
opposition will use this mandate to
block important bills,” Vaishnav
said.
“This loss will give a fillip to dissenters within the party who are
upset with Modi’s governance.”
This may have been Modi’s last
chance to win a state election before the spring of 2017. he faces
five elections next year in regions
where his party has failed to make
inroads.
International Brief ------
Death Toll From Pakistan Factory Collapse Reaches 44
Reuters
Canadian soldiers attend a Remembrance Day ceremony at the British
Embassy in Kabul yesterday to commemorate soldiers who lost their
lives in combat.
lahore, Pakistan - Nearly five days after a Pakistani factory collapsed, the
death toll has reached 44, rescue officials said yesterday, in one of the country’s deadliest industrial accidents in recent years. More than 100 injured
survivors were pulled from the rubble after the factory collapsed on
Wednesday night, but no one had been recovered alive since Friday night,
said Dr. Zulfiqar ahmad, the executive district officer of health in lahore. It
was unclear exactly how many people were in the building when it collapsed, he said, although survivors estimated between 150 to 200 people
had been inside. “Now we are using sniffer dogs to try to find people,” he
said. “only the ground floor is left.... It will take another day to clear all the
rubble after which we will be in a better position to tell the final death toll....
We fear it will increase.” Survivors said the factory’s owner, who was adding
a new floor to the building, had ignored advice from his contractor and
pleas from his workers to stop construction after large cracks appeared in
the building following last month’s 7.5 magnitude earthquake. The owner
was among those killed in the collapse of the factory, which manufactured
plastic bags 20 km south of the eastern city of lahore. (Reuters)
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
The Cambodia daily
15
InternatIonal
Mystery Noise in Russian Plane Recording: Egyptian Official
B y A mro H AssAn
los angeles times
SHarM eL-SHeiK,
egypt - an
egyptian official said Saturday
that a mysterious noise was heard
on the cabin recorder a moment
before a russian passenger jet
plunged out of the skies over the
Sinai Peninsula a week ago.
but despite speculation that a
bomb may have exploded aboard
the commercial charter flight, ayman Moqaddem, who heads a
panel investigating the crash, told
reporters that it was still too early
in the investigation to determine a
cause.
“The gathered debris are not
enough to unveil the main cause,”
he said at a news conference.
“Parts of the found debris will be
transferred for further examinations in cairo.
“our initial observations after
hearing the cabin recorder show
a certain sound that occurred one
second before the crash, but this
also needs further examinations
in specialized laboratories,” said
Moqaddem, whose panel is investigating the fate of the russian
Metrojet that crashed after taking
off from the red Sea resort of
Sharm el-Sheik on october 31,
killing all 224 people aboard.
on Friday, an anonymous
French source close to the probe
said that the sound heard from the
------
Reuters
Passengers whose flights to Egypt were suspended gather at an
information desk at Domodedovo airport outside Moscow on Friday.
cabin recorder revealed a violent
sudden explosion, a cause that was
suggested by british intelligence
sources on Wednesday.
The investigating panel includes
experts from egypt, russia,
France, Germany and ireland, as
well as personnel from the jet’s
manufacturer, airbus.
Militants allied with the islamic
State group in the Sinai have
claimed responsibility for “downing” the plane, without having revealed details. Shortly after the
crash, egyptian authorities said
they ruled out the possibility of a
terrorist attack.
Moqaddem said Saturday that
the sound heard on the recovered
recorder is not the only evidence
at the investigative panel’s disposal, adding that all scenarios that
could have led to the crash are still
being studied.
The statement also came one
day after russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the suspension
of all russian airline flights to egypt
“until a proper security level is ensured.” Two days earlier, britain
started emergency measures to
evacuate over 20,000 of its citizens
from Sinai.
Flights taking british tourists
back home continued on Saturday
after only eight of 29 scheduled
flights departed from Sharm elSheik’s airport on Friday. an airport
official said that eight regular flights
per day would be taking british
vacationers home over the next few
days. Passengers were only being
allowed to take handbags aboard;
no checked-in luggage was being
allowed aboard flights, at the
british carriers’ request.
Some among the hundreds of
british passengers stranded at the
airport seemed relieved on Saturday knowing that a british inspection team had been sent to
handle security checks for their
coming flights.
“This is my sixth time in town
and every time i came i could see
lax security at the airport,” said
Tony Wyles, 57, who had been on
holiday with his wife. “We were
really worried upon hearing the
suggestion of a bomb and in all fairness, i was not too surprised. i
could see something like that coming with the level of airport security
here.”
russian tourist Svetlana Vasileva,
47, seemed content to remain in
Sharm el-Sheik until the end of her
scheduled vacation. “actually i do
not think that this is the best time to
board a plane from here. i feel safe
and i’d very much like to enjoy the
rest of my holiday,” she said.
International Briefs ------
Islamic State Frees 37 Assyrian Christians: Monitors
beirUT - The islamic State group has released 37 elderly assyrian christians
who were among about 200 seized by the militants in February in northeastern Syria, two human rights monitoring groups said on Saturday. elders from arab tribes had mediated with the jihadis for their release, the
britain-based Syrian observatory for Human rights said. The assyrian Human rights Network said the captives had been returned to the town of Tel
Tamer and that they were in good health. it posted a picture showing several people, including one woman. The hard-line Sunni Muslim militants
have now released 88 from the original group, it said in a statement on its
Facebook page, and negotiations were continuing to secure the freedom of
the remaining 124. They were captured during battles with the Syrian
Kurdish YPG militia when i.S. fighters overran more than a dozen villages
inhabited by the ancient christian minority near the Syrian city of Hasaka,
close to the iraqi border. i.S. fighters killed three of the assyrians last
month, according to the two monitoring groups. (Reuters)
Iran Plans to Attend Next Round of Syria Peace Talks
DUbai - iran will attend the next round of Syria peace talks, an adviser to Su-
preme Leader ayatollah ali Khamenei was quoted as saying on Saturday, a
week after Tehran threatened to withdraw from the process. World and
regional powers including iran met in Vienna on october 30 to discuss a
political solution to Syria’s civil war. Days later, iran threatened to pull out of
the next round of talks, blaming the “negative role” played by regional rival
Saudi arabia. “iran will be actively present in [Syria peace] talks, while announcing its standards and preserving its red lines,” ali akbar Velayati,
Khamenei’s top foreign policy adviser, was quoted as saying by the Tasnim
news agency. “We will support our ally, Syria, not only in defense field, but
also in political arena,” he added. iran supports Syrian President bashar alassad against rebels backed by other regional powers including Saudi
arabia, Qatar and Turkey. (Reuters)
Reuters
People salvage furniture from the rubble of a house destroyed by a
Saudi-led airstrike in Yemen's capital of Sanaa on Saturday.
Fighting in Yemen Kills More Than 50 Residents
cairo - More than 50 people were killed in Yemen in the past two days
in fighting pitting an arab coalition against Houthi fighters backed by
troops loyal to former President ali abdullah Saleh, medical sources
and residents said yesterday. in Taiz, medical sources told reporters 29
people, including eight civilians, were killed in clashes in Yemen’s thirdlargest city, where relief workers have said fighting left thousands of
people in extreme hunger amid food shortages. about 30 people were
killed in fighting in Damt district in Dhalea governorate in the south, residents said. at least 5,600 people have been killed in seven months of
war in Yemen, the poorest country on the arabian Peninsula, and the
U.N. says that the humanitarian situation is getting worse. (Reuters)
The Cambodia daily
16
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
INterNAtIoNAl
British PM to Make European Union Wish List This Week
ReuteRs
- sometime this week,
british Prime Minister David Cameron will send a wish list to european union partners,
News launching a formal
Analysis
negotiation that could
lead to the u.K.’s exit from the 28nation bloc or subtly change the
nature of the union if it stays.
David Cameron hopes britons
will vote in a referendum to stay if
he secures concessions that make
the country’s membership even
more semi-detached than it already
is.
While eager to keep london in,
other e.u. leaders have to choose
how far they are willing to risk an
unraveling of their troubled union
to satisfy britain, europe’s secondbiggest economy, free trade champion and one of its two main military powers.
Cameron’s list, likely to be
vaguely worded, has been honed
in exploratory talks to set achievable demands he can sell to voters as giving britain “the best
of both worlds,” while taking
credit for reforms already in the
works to make europe’s energy,
digital and capital markets more
competitive.
brussels
Reuters
British Prime Minister David Cameron, left, is welcomed by European
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels in October, ahead
of a discussion on new EU membership terms for Britain.
If he gets his way, the u.K. will
be released from the e.u. goal of
“ever closer union” and safeguarded from any move by the 19
countries that share the euro currency to impose rules by majority
vote on london’s financial services sector.
He is also seeking ways to bar
migrants from other e.u. states
from receiving british welfare or
in-work benefits for up to four
years after they settle there, and
to empower groups of national
parliaments to block or reverse
e.u. legislation.
e.u. officials and diplomats can
accommodate many of britain’s requests with clever drafting and
promises of amendments when
the bloc’s governing treaty is eventually revised to permit closer integration of the eurozone.
european officials tend to
shrug off britain’s demand to be
exempted from the clause incor-
porated in the founding 1957
Treaty of rome and every e.u.
treaty since declaring the goal of
“an ever closer union among the
peoples of europe.”
After all, it has no binding operational force and does not commit
signatories to any particular common policy or institution. It’s what
the southern French call “verbal
words”: a symbolic statement.
Cameron wants the change to
convince britons they are not on a
conveyor belt to a european
“superstate.”
Asked what assurances he
could give partners that london
would not come back for more
concessions in the future, british
europe Minister David lidington
told reporters: “I don’t think we
should be afraid of renegotiations.... The e.u. is a constant
process of renegotiation.”
Cameron is also telling e.u. partners that once it gets its guarantees,
britain will not stand in the way of
closer eurozone integration.
For now, those are just “verbal
words” too. e.u. leaders would do
well to seek binding commitments
from london that if it gets the desired assurances, britain won’t
stand in the way of the eurozone.
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
The Cambodia daily
17
InternatIonal
Two Dozen Missing in Vast Mudflow of Brazil Mine Disaster
ReuteRs
mAriAnA,
Brazil - Brazilian authorities late on Saturday were investigating a second suspected death
after two dams at a major mine in
the country’s southeast burst and
unleashed a massive mudflow that
wreaked havoc across more than
80 km.
A dozen residents of villages
downstream from the burst dams
remain missing, along with 13
workers from the mine. officials
warned of a higher death toll even
as they struggle to find bodies probably swept away by the torrent.
one death from the disaster was
confirmed on Friday, and authorities reported the body of someone
believed to be a second victim on
Saturday evening.
“The death toll will rise for sure,”
said Duarte Junior, mayor of mariana. “Some people still aren’t
accounted for.”
The city is near the hard-hit town
of Bento rodrigues, whose residents are still providing authorities
with names of people believed
missing.
City officials released a partial list
of missing people, including three
children aged 4 to 7 and a 60-yearold woman from the village, which
was swamped by mudslides within
a half-hour of public warnings after
the dams burst on Thursday.
As rescue crews worked during
the weekend, Brazilians once again
raised longstanding questions
about the regulatory rigor and the
health and environmental risks of
mining, one of the country’s biggest industries and a key driver of
exports.
The governor of the mineral-rich
state of minas Gerais has already
characterized the accident, which
soaked much of the area beyond
the dams with mine waste, as the
state’s worst-ever environmental
disaster.
------
Reuters
Residents observe the Bento Rodrigues district covered with mud after
a dam owned by Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd burst in Mariana,
Brazil, on Friday.
The mine’s operator, Samarco, is
co-owned by the world’s largest
mining company BHP Billiton Ltd.
and the biggest iron ore miner Vale
SA. Cleanup and repairs along kilometers of flooded river could cost
the companies a fortune.
A state public prosecutor based
in mariana said on Saturday that he
would seek $130,000 in personal
damages for each of about 200 families most affected by the dam
burst.
BHP Billiton said yesterday it
would send its chief executive,
Andrew mackenzie, to the mine
this week.
mackenzie would meet with
communities there and Samarco’s
response team to see the impact of
the incident in order “to understand first-hand the human, environmental and operational effects
of the incident,” BHP said in a
statement.
while it is still unclear what
caused the collapses, Samarco said
Saturday that workers were doing
normal scheduled work on one of
the dams to increase its size when
it burst and swept them away in the
flood.
walls of water cascaded downhill, engulfing the village of Bento
rodrigues and its 600 residents in a
sea of mud while also flooding others far removed from the open-pit
mine.
“They didn’t tell us the mud
would come through with such
force,” said Losangeles Freitas, resident of Barra Longa. The town
nearly 80 km downstream was
flooded by the 60 million cubic
meters of waste water and mud.
“we lost everything,” she said.
“it moved so fast.”
Her neighbor, 58-year-old
plumber Bernardo Trinidade, said
authorities warned that the river
behind his house would swell by a
meter or two. But the waters rose
more than 10 meters, he said,
sweeping into his home at 3 a.m.—
nearly half a day after the dam
broke.
“we took what we could and ran
upstairs,” said Trinidade. “we were
told it wouldn’t be so bad.”
Half a dozen jeeps with water
and emergency supplies rolled
through Barra Longa on their way
to Gesteira, one of several remote
villages along the river that rescuers had not yet reached.
As rescue teams labored to
reach isolated communities, state
officials were taking precautions to
contain the environmental fallout
from the burst dams.
The dams held back so-called
tailings ponds, masses of finely
ground waste rock and water left
over from extracting more valuable
minerals, which can contain harmful chemicals.
Civil defense officials said state
sanitation authorities would test
the toxicity of the rivers. meanwhile, residents who came in contact with the thick mud were advised to shower and dispose of
their clothing.
Samarco sought to play down
those fears, saying there were no
chemical elements in the tailings
dams that posed health risks when
the accident occurred.
Samarco’s chief executive officer
said the mine’s environmental licenses were up to date and the
dams had been inspected in July.
executives have said a tremor in
the vicinity of the mine may have
caused the dams to burst, but it
was too early to establish the exact
cause.
Samarco said it had set no date
to restart the mine, which produces
about 30 million tons of iron ore
annually. output is shipped to Brazil’s coast and converted into pellets
for export to steel mills.
The cleanup bill and potential environmental lawsuits could be more
costly than the loss of output. BHP
Billiton and Vale already face the
lowest iron ore prices in a decade.
International Brief ------
US to Suspend Search for Man Who Fell From Ship
new york - The U.S. Coast Guard said on Saturday it had suspended its
search for a 35-year-old Brazilian man who fell from a cruise ship early
Friday as it sailed through the night in waters off the Bahamas. The
royal Caribbean Cruises ship oasis of the Seas reported the man missing at about 1 a.m. on Friday, saying in a statement that crew members
saw him “intentionally going over the side of the ship.” “we would like
to extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones and all that have
been affected by this tragedy,” said Captain Todd Coggeshall, the chief
of response management for the Coast Guard 7th District. A video posted on youTube appeared to show passengers on the ship calling to a
man in shorts holding on to a life boat support bracket, as the ship
moved swiftly through the sea at night. “Because of you, this happened
.... Let go of me! Get off of me!” he shouted in english, before seeming
to lose his grip and fall into the ocean out of view. The video was later
removed from youTube. (Reuters)
Reuters
A man poses at the 2015 Just For Men National Beard & Moustache
Championships at the Kings Theater in the Brooklyn borough of New
York City on Saturday. Hundreds of facial hair enthusiasts attended
the event, competing in 18 different categories.
The Cambodia daily
18
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
InternatIonal
Sierra Leone Free of Ebola After 18 Months, 11,000 Deaths
B y K evin S ieff
the washington post
naIroBI - about a year and a half
after it emerged, the ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone has officially ended.
more than 11,000 Sierra Leoneans died of the disease, and at
least 17,000 survived it. It came
upon some slums and villages like
a wave, infecting scores overnight
and posing one of the most significant public health challenges in recent history.
Global health officials and members of the country’s government
gathered Saturday in the capital to
mark the milestone. The World
Health organization said 42 days
had passed since the last recorded
case, the agency’s criteria for declaring the end of an outbreak.
“It’s been a very, very long journey,” said anders nordstrom,
WHo’s representative in Sierra Leone. “People are both relieved,
tired and sad. There’s a feeling of
‘Yes, we did it.’ But also recognition
of the many people who suffered.”
The outbreak began in december 2013 in Guinea, where efforts
continue to eradicate the disease,
but quickly crossed into Sierra Leone and Liberia, all among the
world’s poorest countries, with limited medical systems. International
health organizations were slow to
respond, mobilizing only after the
disease had spread across vast
Reuters
A health care worker takes a blood sample from an Ebola survivor as
part of a study on the disease in Monrovia, Liberia, earlier this year.
stretches of West africa.
although Liberia was declared
ebola-free in September, neighboring Guinea is still trying to
stamp out the virus. WHo recorded seven new cases of the disease
in Guinea in the past three weeks.
Sierra Leone had only 120 doctors before the epidemic, and at
least 11 of them died of the disease.
now, the country will have to rebuild its health care system as it
reels from the economic blow delivered by the virus. even before the
disease struck, Sierra Leone had
one of the world’s highest maternal
and child mortality rates. International aid groups have pledged to
help the country recover.
Before ebola arrived, Sierra Leone’s economy was expected to
grow by about 11 percent in 2014
—making the country one of
West africa’s economic bright
spots. The World Bank now estimates that Sierra Leone’s economy will shrink by 23.5 percent this
year and will lose $1.4 billion in
growth as a result of the outbreak.
In trying to stem the spread of
the virus, officials experimented
with quarantines and tracing the
contacts of victims. Those practices initially angered rural communities, where residents saw the disease as a kind of curse that tore
families apart. as public cemeteries overflowed, many victims went
into hiding, causing the virus to expand even further. The government response was widely criticized as ineffective.
“When ebola proved real
enough, political machinations
and manipulation needlessly hindered the early response,” said a
report released in late october by
the International Crisis Group, a
research organization.
It took roughly a year before
public health officials saw the impact of their work and the transmission numbers began to decline.
even then, cases continued to
emerge in parts of the country.
many treatment centers and
labs have already been removed,
but others will remain in case the
virus has a resurgence. They may
also be used to treat other illnesses.
“We still have to be watchful at
all time,” said Ishmael Foday, the
paramount chief of Kalahoun district, where the disease first
emerged in Sierra Leone. “This
can be reversed. The way ebola
comes is forgetfulness.”
Foday, who lost his son to the
disease, now walks through the
district, scanning the rooms
where victims once lived.
“We look at the empty houses
where entire families died. They
serve as constant reminders to us,”
he said.
Morocco Continues Stance Against Western Sahara Independence
ReuteRs
raBaT,
morocco - morocco’s king
said he will offer no more than autonomy for the disputed Western
Sahara, a few days after U.n. chief
called for “true negotiations” to
end the four-decade deadlock over
the region.
morocco has controlled most
of Western Sahara since 1975 and
claims the sparsely populated
stretch of desert, which has offshore fishing, phosphate reserves
and oil field potential, as its own
territory.
However, the algeria-backed Polisario Front seeks independence
and a U.n. mission was formed
more than 20 years ago ahead of an
expected referendum on Western
Sahara’s political future which has
never taken place.
U.n. special envoy to Western
Sahara Christopher ross has intensified visits to the region and
europe recently to facilitate negotiations without preconditions and
in good faith, Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon said in a statement
last week.
“This initiative is the maximum
morocco can offer,” morocco’s
King mohamed said, referring to
the autonomy plan for the region.
“Its implementation depends on
reaching a final political agreement
under the backing of the United
nations.”
The king was speaking late on
Friday in a televised speech commemorating the 40th anniversary
of the Green march day, when
thousands of moroccans marched
on Western Sahara.
“morocco refuses any adventure with an uncertain result and
that could be potentially dangerous,” he said.
The Western Sahara dispute returned to the headlines last month
when morocco said it was considering a boycott of Swedish companies operating in the north african kingdom because of Sweden’s position on the conflict.
The government said Sweden
has been campaigning to boycott
products from Western Sahara
and international companies with
a presence there.
“Whoever wants to boycott moroccan products is free to do so,
but they should assume the consequences of their decisions,” the
king said.
Sweden and other Scandinavian
countries have backed Western
Saharan self-determination, while
France and Spain have been accused by activists and human
rights organizations of supporting
the moroccan line.
Polisario’s planned Sahrawi
republic was recognized by some
countries, mainly from the african
Union, but by no Western powers.
morocco said it will revive the
region through investment, including a new roads program and an
international airport serving the
rest of africa. It has called for moroccan and foreign investors to
seize opportunities there.
amnesty International has accused morocco of repressing political freedom in Western Sahara.
International Brief -----Suspected Boko Haram Suicide Attack Kills 3 in Chad
------
n’djamena, Chad - Female suicide bombers killed at least three people
and wounded a dozen others on Sunday in an attack on a village in Chad,
a police spokesman said. ngouboua is home to displaced Chadians as
well as nigerian refugees who have fled the violence in Islamist group
Boko Haram’s strongholds in northeast nigeria, and the militants have
attacked it several times in the past year. The two bombers also died in
the twin blasts in ngouboua, a fishing village on the shores of Lake Chad.
“I can confirm that there was an attack in ngouboua,” said national police
spokesman Paul manga, who added that both bombers were believed to
have been women, but gave no further details. The number of those
killed was provisional and could rise, he said. (Reuters)
business
The Cambodia daily
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
Briefing
Nissan Also Drops
Takata Air-Bag Inflators
- nissan Motor Co. said on
saturday it will not use air-bag inflators made by Japanese auto parts
supplier takata Corp. in its cars.
nissan joins most major automakers, including toyota Motor Corp.
and honda Motor Co., that decided
to stop using takata’s inflators that
have led to extensive recalls around
the world. “we have decided to no
longer use [takata’s] inflators containing ammonium nitrate in air
bags for future models,” nissan
said in a statement. “we will continue to put our customers’ safety first
and work to replace the inflators in
vehicles under recall as quickly as
possible,” it said. U.s. auto safety
regulators have said takata’s inflators containing ammonium nitrate
may cause air bags to explode with
excessive force, spraying shrapnel
in the vehicle. More than 30 million
cars have been recalled worldwide
since 2008 over the takata air-bag
inflators. Defective inflators have
been linked to eight deaths and
more than 100 injuries worldwide.
nissan said last Monday it would
carry out a repeat inspection of vehicles in Japan which had initially
been cleared of air-bag defects after
a passenger was injured when her
takata air bag deployed during a
collision last week. (Reuters)
tokyo
Weak Trade Clouds
China’s Outlook
BeiJing - China’s trade figures disap-
pointed analyst expectations by a
wide margin in october, reinforcing views that the world’s secondlargest economy will have to do
more to stimulate domestic demand given softness in overseas
markets. while Beijing has repeatedly cut interest rates, the latest
data showing an eighth monthly
drop in net trade indicates persistent weakness in demand at home
and abroad. october exports fell 6.9
percent from a year ago, down for a
fourth month, while imports
slipped 18.8 percent, leaving the
country with a record high trade
surplus of $61.64 billion, the general administration of Customs said
yesterday. economists polled by
reuters had expected dollardenominated exports to fall 3 percent and imports to decline 16 percent, an improvement over september’s drop of 3.7 percent and 20.4
percent, respectively. (Reuters)
19
Sanction Fears Cause US-Burma Trade to Slow
ReuteRs
washington/new york/rangoon
western banks are cutting trade
finance in Burma after learning that
part of the country’s main port is
controlled by a man blacklisted by
washington, threatening to stop
nascent U.s. economic ties with the
southeast asian nation in their
tracks.
U.s. shipments to Burma have
slowed to a crawl in recent months,
after several banks including
Citigroup inc., Bank of america,
hsBC and PnC Financial curtailed
their financial backing of trade with
the country, according to sanctions
lawyers and other people familiar
with the matter.
studying trade documents, Citigroup noticed in June that the Port
of rangoon’s main terminal is controlled by steven Law, who is subject to U.s. sanctions because of his
alleged ties to Burma’s military,
they said.
Citi then alerted other banks, and
their compliance officers warned
that further financing could violate
remaining U.s. sanctions, according
to several sources, who asked not to
be named because they were not
authorized to speak publicly.
at stake are embryonic, but fast
developing economic ties between
the U.s. and Burma, which U.s.
diplomats see as crucial to maintaining washington’s influence during a critical period in the country’s
transition to democracy.
washington and the european
Union started lifting economic
sanctions in 2012 to encourage
Burmese authorities to stay the reform course.
since then, the total volume of
trade between the U.s. and Burma
has risen from less than $10 million
in 2010 to over $185 million last
year, according to the U.s. Commerce Department.
that is still a tiny fraction of the
country’s over $27 billion trade
dominated by its asian partners—
thailand, China, singapore, hong
kong, india and south korea.
But the political importance of
trade with the U.s. goes far beyond
what the modest amounts would
suggest, said Jose Fernandez, a former assistant secretary of state who
was an architect of sanctions policy
in Burma.
“it is a way for the leaders to
prove to the world that they are no
longer global pariahs,” Fernandez
told reporters.
Developing economic ties with
washington also helps Burma
counterbalance the influence of
Beijing, said Peter harrell, a former
deputy assistant secretary of state
who played a key role in easing the
sanctions. “[Burma] doesn’t want
to be overly dependent on the
Chinese.”
From that perspective, the
slump in U.s. exports to Burma to
$5.5 million in september from
over $50 million in June is a source
of concern.
Fernandez said Burma offers a
preview of challenges washington
will face in implementing an international deal that removes some sanctions on iran in return for curbs on
its nuclear program, and in its reengagement with Cuba.
“i think some of these sanctions
programs were created at a time
when we didn’t think about the
need to remove them,” Fernandez
said.
Burma’s trade finance snag highlights how unwinding sanctions
while some key economic players
remain blacklisted creates a minefield for companies that could undermine washington’s broader
political objectives.
Law’s business conglomerate
asia world is a case in point.
Cutting off financing of shipments handled by Law’s firm
“could amount to a de facto trade
embargo” because half of all
Burma’s trade flows through the
asia world terminal, two banking
associations said in a letter to the
U.s. treasury Department in July.
Foreign institutions could also be
affected. about a dozen international banks that have U.s. presence,
mostly european, have been stung
by more than $14 billion in U.s.
penalties since 2009 for various
sanctions violations.
in the letter, the Clearing house
association and the Bankers association of Finance and trade
asked the U.s. treasury’s office of
Foreign assets Control, which enforces U.s. sanctions, for a legal
workaround that would allow shipments to pass through asia
world.
the U.s. state Department and
oFaC are considering possible solutions, according to sources familiar with their deliberations. But in
the meantime, oFaC warned
banks to refrain from financing any
shipments that asia world might
handle, according to the letter.
asked about a possible solution
a treasury spokeswoman said in
an emailed statement that the
agency was working with the U.s.
state Department to support Burma’s democratic transition, “while
also ensuring that illicit actors do
not benefit.”
More than a hundred individuals
and businesses—many, like Law,
key players in Burma—are still
subject to U.s. sanctions.
U.s. diplomats have encouraged
them to apply for the sanctions to
be removed, but the process can
take years. so far only nine Burmarelated entities have been taken off
the list—two of those were people
who had already died.
while they wait for a legal fix,
U.s. banks are also freezing or
delaying payments for shipments
that have already arrived in rangoon, according to those familiar
with the matter.
Banks, mindful of record fines
for sanctions violations, will play it
safe given the relatively little money
they make in Burma, said a former
senior sanctions adviser at the U.s.
treasury.
Reuters
Workers chat near a ship at Asia World port in Rangoon. Western banks
are walking away from trade finance in Burma after discovering that
part of the port is controlled by a man blacklisted by US authorities.
The CamBodia daily
20
monday, november 9, 2015
Business
Beer, Marijuana Entrepreneurship Is Flourishing in Oregon
B y J im T ankersley
the washington post
lAke oSWego, oregon - At first, Jon
turner was just a software guy
who really liked to brew beer. He
cooked up two batches a week in
his kitchen and kept his harddrinking friends well supplied. He
once brewed one pale ale over and
over for a year to get it just right. In
2011, at a national conference of
home brewers, he fell under the
spell of a panel called “going pro.”
this is how turner came to cash
out a large chunk of his retirement
savings and launch a 16-tap brew
pub on the shores of a private lake
in a swanky suburb south of
portland.
Drive around the portland area
today and you’ll see dozens of
stories—small pubs and breweries that have sprung to life in
the past half-decade and endured,
in spite of fierce competition from
rivals large and small.
In the past month, portland has
seen a similar proliferation of startups in the cannabis industry, ignited by a new state law that allows
legal marijuana sales to the general
public.
microbreweries and pot dispensaries aren’t the major drivers of
portland’s economy, but they loom
much larger here than in most U.S.
cities. In both those industries,
small startups are thriving.
that’s a sharp contrast to the
U.S. economy at large. Don’t let
Silicon Valley fool you: the nation
has long had a startup problem.
the rate at which new businesses
are formed has fallen steadily since
1984, a trend that accelerated during and after the great Recession,
according to research by University of maryland economist John
Haltiwanger and several coauthors. Since the recession ended,
more businesses have failed every
year than have sprung to life.
Breweries and dispensaries offer
lessons for how policymakers
might nurture a small-business
comeback in the U.S. But they offer
very different lessons, one focused
on government intervention, the
other on reducing hurdles for entrepreneurs to enter a market—
and their ultimate lesson could
prove to be, the big guys tend to
win in the end.
In oregon’s sin industries,
“We’ve had a renaissance of startups, which is almost the exact opposite of what we’ve seen almost
everywhere else in the economy,”
said Joshua lehner, a state economist in oregon. “It’s going to be
challenging to maintain this.”
the beer industry is more
dominated by big players than
almost any other in the U.S. Its
four largest companies account
for nearly 90 percent of all sales.
that’s a function of a wave of
brewery consolidation in recent
years, culminating in an announcement last month that the
world’s two largest beer companies, SAB miller and AnheuserBusch InBev, plan to merge.
And yet, for all that market
power, the beer giants are acting
scared of their smallest competitors—perhaps because there are
more of them every day, especially in oregon.
the number of breweries and
brew pubs in oregon has roughly quadrupled since 2001, to more
than 200 today. Since the end of
the recession, the state’s total
beer production for consumption
by oregonians has grown from
about 30,000 barrels a year to
nearly 50,000. All but a few drops
of that increase has come from
startup brewers, according to
state statistics.
there are simple reasons why
brewing is so friendly to startups. It
doesn’t cost much to learn to
Business Brief -----Fed Rate Increase Sensible, Says US Central Banker
------
tempe,
Arizona - Now that the U.S. is closing in on full employment and
inflation is likely to rise to target levels, the “next step” should be to start
gradually increasing rates, a top U.S. central banker said on Saturday. “I do
think it makes sense to gradually remove the policy of accommodation that
helped get the economy to where we are,” San Francisco Federal Reserve
Bank president John Williams told the Arizona Council on economic
education. the comments suggest that Williams, a centrist policymaker
who was Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s chief researcher when she had his job
before moving to Washington, is leaning toward support of a December
rate hike. Asked afterward by a reporter whether that is so, Williams
declined to say, adding that he expects “a lot of data” between now and
then. “I am going to wait and see on that,” he said. the Fed has kept interest rates near zero for almost seven years, and the central bank last month
said it would consider a rate increase at its December 15 to 16 meeting, the
last of the year. A Reuters poll of top bond dealers showed a growing number expected borrowing costs to go up next month. (Reuters)
Creative Commons
A man tastes a range of beers at the Stickmen Brewing Company,
owned by Jon Turner and Tim Schoenheit, in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
brew—just $100 or so for a starter
kit and a handbook, more for hops
and grains when you begin to
experiment.
the other reason it’s easier to
start a brewery in oregon is that
oregonians really love beer, and
they’re willing to pay a premium for
new and interesting varieties or for
better beer closer to home.
turner says government regulations of his brewery are minimal
and that other small producers
help one another out—all advantages in a startup culture. “It’s not
like we’re competing with each
other,” he said, “as much as we’re
competing with the big guys.”
Some beer bloggers, though,
have begun to worry that lax government oversight could endanger
startup brewers, whom the large
players are targeting on multiple
fronts. AB InBev has bought a
string of craft brewers across the
country, including one called 10
Barrel in oregon.
In the early days of oregon’s
legal marijuana industry, state
officials are already taking steps
to keep any big guys out of the
game. they have proposed limits
on the size of growing operations,
along with mandating that they
be majority-owned by oregon
residents—a move widely expect-
ed to limit outside investment in
the industry. they’ve also approved annual licensing fees,
from $4,000 to $6,000, for growers and retail vendors.
Some of the industry’s more
established players—veterans
of the state’s smaller medicalmarijuana trade, which has been
legal for nearly two decades—
warn that the mom-and-pop newcomers will struggle to survive
once the market matures, and
they say state regulators will
inevitably loosen size and ownership restrictions.
the pot industry’s approach to
startup cultivation is the opposite of
the beer industry—higher barriers
to entry, coupled with strict regulations. And yet, some cannabis
entrepreneurs think they can copy
a secret of microbrewers’ success:
artisanal differentiation.
In oregon, said William Simpson, the president and founder of
Chalice Farms, which operates
four dispensaries that are decked
out like pinot Noir tasting rooms,
“people didn’t understand there
could be so many varieties of beer,
cannabis or wine.”
In other words, consumers don’t
want a miller High life of marijuana. they want the equivalent of a
fresh-hop IpA.
cambodia securities exchange
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Index
CSX
Stock
PPWSA
Grand Twins
Value
399.75
Change
-
Open
-
High
-
Low
-
Volume
-
Value
4,960
4,440
Change
-
Open
-
High
-
Low
-
Volume
-
foreign exchange
¥/US$ ..........................123.170
£/US$ ............................0.6643
AU$/US$........................1.4196
HK$/US$ .......................7.7510
SwissF/US$ ...................1.0056
Source: L y H our E xcHangE
Sing$/US$ .....................1.4209
Euro/US$ ......................0.9309
SKoreaW/US$ .............1,152.60
ThaiB
//US$ .......................35.86
Riel/US$ ..........................4,050
The Cambodia daily
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
21
sports
------
Sports Briefs ------
Ex-NFL Star McNabb Gets 18 Days in Jail for DUI
PHoEnIx - Former national Football league star quarterback donovan
Mcnabb was sentenced to 18 days in jail on Friday after pleading guilty to
misdemeanor drunken driving in Arizona, a court official said. Mcnabb, an
ex-Philadelphia Eagles standout, also received 72 days of home detention
following the jail sentence and must complete 30 hours of community service and undergo counseling under the plea deal in Gilbert Municipal
Court, administrator Adam Walterson said. Police said the retired nFl veteran was arrested on June 28 after rear-ending a vehicle stopped at an intersection for a red light at about 11:30 p.m. in Gilbert, Arizona, a suburb southeast of Phoenix. laboratory results showed Mcnabb’s blood-alcohol content was 0.171 percent, considered to be “extreme dUI” under Arizona law,
police said. “He made a mistake and he readily admits it,” Connolly told
reporters by telephone, adding that Mcnabb already has completed the
counseling requirement. “He’s learned that if you have something to drink
you don’t drive. Period.” Under the sentence, Mcnabb will be able to work
during the day and spend the rest of the time in county jail. Video released
by police showed the 38-year-old Mcnabb denying he had consumed alcohol and telling an officer he had taken cough medicine. (Reuters)
Mourinho Under Fire After Chelsea Defeated Again
london - Jose Mourinho’s future at Chelsea was pushed further under the
spotlight on Saturday when the manager, absent through a stadium ban,
may have watched in solitary misery as the champions lost yet again at
Stoke City. on a day when Jamie Vardy kept his amazing scoring exploits
going for leicester City to help Claudio Ranieri’s side join Manchester City
and Arsenal on 25 points at the top of the Premier league, the latest crisis
for Mourinho still eclipsed all else. The Portuguese had said his one-match
suspension might force him to watch the match on a street corner on his
iPad but, if media reports that he saw it at a nearby hotel are to be believed,
Marko Arnautovic’s 53rd-minute volley in Stoke’s 1-0 home win will have
made for wretched viewing. It meant Mourinho was left surveying the
wreckage of his worst-ever season in management, an unprecedented seventh league defeat in 12 matches being sealed by Arnautovic’s acrobatic
close-range effort. Mourinho received the English Football Association
ban for making abusive comments to referee Jon Moss during last
month’s defeat at West Ham United. (Reuters)
Chin Long
Ke Leng is greeted by supporters upon arriving at Phnom Penh
International Airport last night after winning the petanque world
championship in Bangkok on Friday.
Cambodian Wins Petanque World Championship
Cambodian petanque player Ke leng won her second world championship in three years on Friday, beating out competitors from 41 countries to win the gold medal at the Women’s Petanque World Championship in Bangkok. Ms. leng, 48, won her first world championship
in 2013, an accomplishment that saw her feted in a ceremony about two
years later in which Prime Minister Hun Sen bestowed her with the title
“hero with the best hand for petanque.” In this year’s tournament, Ms.
leng finished atop competitors from Tunisia, France and Madagascar,
who took second and tied for third, respectively. Ros Salin, spokesman
for the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, confirmed the victory
and said Ms. leng had made her country proud. “I’m proud of her, and
it’s also a chance for Cambodia to raise up its flag to show the world,” he
said. “Through this, the world will get to know Cambodia more.” Ms.
leng could not be reached yesterday. Following a ceremony in April
celebrating her 2013 victory, the petanque powerhouse said she would
continue playing the sport as long as her body allowed. “I will only retire
when I can no longer lift the ball,” she said at the time. (Ouch Sony)
Masters Record-Chaser Djokovic Sets Up Murray Showdown
ReuteRs
PARIS - World no. 1 novak djokovic
survived a second-set blip to reach
the Paris Masters final with a 6-3,
3-6, 6-0 win over Stan Wawrinka on
Saturday—his 21st victory in a row.
The Serb, looking to become
the first man to win six Masters
titles in a season, briefly lost focus
as Swiss Wawrinka, who beat
djokovic in the French open final,
ended his 29-set winning streak to
claim the second set.
But the fourth seed, who
knocked out Rafael nadal in a late
thriller the night before, was made
to pay as he lost the last six games
to a relentless djokovic, who had
the chance yesterday to claim an
unprecedented third consecutive
Bercy crown when he played Andy Murray in yesterday’s final.
Britain’s Murray beat Spain’s
david Ferrer 6-4, 6-3.
djokovic was in a class of his
own in the first set, as Wawrinka
made too many unforced errors.
But the Swiss loosened up in
the second set as djokovic failed to
contain his frustration.
It was only a minor disruption
Reuters
Novak Djokovic of Serbia reacts after defeating Stan Wawrinka of
Switzerland in their men's singles semifinal tennis match at the Paris
Masters tennis tournament in Paris on Saturday.
though for the 10-time grand slam
champion who allowed davis Cup
winner Wawrinka a mere nine
points in the decider.
“I still felt like I was hitting the
ball well [in the second set],”
djokovic told a news conference.
“You know, with this kind of
feeling and approach, I got to the
third set and played the best set of
the tournament so far.”
Wawrinka bowed out with a
forehand long, and said the quick
turnaround after a 1 a.m. finish
against nadal had hurt him.
“It was tough the next day to
play against novak, who is very
difficult to play in those conditions,” Wawrinka said.
“And of course I felt the tired-
ness. It was extremely tough for
me to fight.”
British second seed Murray lost
his focus at times against Ferrer
but had too much guile for the
2012 Bercy champion.
“I managed to shorten a lot of
the points. There was some variety
in there with the way the points finished, which was pleasing for me,”
Murray told a news conference.
Murray started strong, breaking
to love in the first game, but the
Spaniard leveled for 3-3 when two
Murray unforced errors gave him
a break in the sixth game.
In a seesaw opening set, Ferrer
set up four more break points in
the eighth game but Murray
saved them all and stole the serve
of the Spaniard who made a string
of unforced errors.
The Scot finished a superb exchange at the net with a fine sliced
lob to set up two set points and on
the first one Ferrer netted a routine backhand.
Ferrer got straight back down to
business and raced to a 3-1 lead in
the second set, but Murray then
reeled off five games in a row.
The Cambodia daily
22
monday, november 9, 2015
OpiniOn
Why Focus on the Past When Age of Autonomous Vehicles Nears?
B y S teven S trauSS
I
Los angeLes Times
n 1898, just before the dawn of
the automobile age, delegates
from around the world came
to New York for the world’s first
international urban planning conference. One topic dominated the
discussion. It wasn’t the effects of
the coming car revolution on urban land use, the need for gasoline stations or the implications
for economic development. It was
horse manure. At that time, Americans used roughly 20 million horses
for transport, and cities were drowning in their muck.
But we shouldn’t mock our forebears because our current planning debates are just as rooted in
the present, just as ignorant of the
oncoming avalanche of changes.
Just as the delegates in New York
obsessed over horses when they
should have been thinking about
cars, our policy wonks obsess over
cars when they should be thinking
about autonomous vehicles.
Consider that the first semiautonomous vehicles are already
on the roads. Fully autonomous
cars could be available for purchase as soon as 2020.
It’s widely expected that AVs
will be cheaper to operate and travel faster than cars; be fleet-owned
(individual ownership won’t be
worthwhile if AVs are both affordable and guaranteed to arrive
promptly); and mostly use electric
and/or hybrid power.
Given these assumptions, let me
sketch out a few high-level implications. Fleet ownership of AVs could
reduce the number of cars on the
road by 60 percent to 90 percent
due to more efficient usage and,
consequently, reduce car sales by
an equivalent percentage. Many of
the 1 million jobs in U.S. auto manufacturing will probably disappear.
More than 2.5 million driving
jobs (there are 1.7 million truck
drivers, 650,000 bus drivers
and 230,000 taxi drivers—about 2
percent of the U.S. workforce) will
also be eliminated or transformed.
In terms of the resulting human
disruption, remember that all of
these workers are part of families
and communities; the loss of their
jobs will produce a ripple effect.
On a positive note, AVs will make
our roads safer and bring major savings in health care and auto repair.
About 33,000 people die each year
in auto accidents. In 80 percent of
the cases, the cause is alcohol consumption, driving in excess of the
speed limit or a distracted driver.
Computers should have none of
these problems. Highway accidents
have direct costs of about $240 billion a year and more than $800
billion a year if quality-of-life issues
are included. AVs have the potential
to eliminate most of these deaths
and costs.
Relatedly, the automobile insurance industry (which now has revenue of about $200 billion), will
shrink dramatically. Fewer accidents will mean fewer claims and
lower premiums. The benefit to
the economy from these savings
could be $400 billion to $1 trillion
a year, and should be reflected in
lower transportation costs.
More good news is that land
currently tied up for parking can
be repurposed for other uses. Again,
assuming expanded fleet ownership and less individual ownership,
AVs won’t need to park in city centers. Of course, changes in land
use won’t benefit everyone equally.
AVs could facilitate a significant
shift to housing away from city
centers, thereby reducing central
urban property values and increasing values in outlying areas. For
example, New York has several
neighborhoods not accessible to
mass transit, but AVs may open
these areas to development.
In 1898, the U.S. population was
about 74 million, and there were
only 800 registered cars. By 1927
—less than 30 years—the U.S. had
more than 19 million cars on the
road, and more than 55 percent of
American families owned one. The
20th century shift to automobiles,
within the span of a normal human
life, destroyed many existing sectors (anything to do with maintaining 20 million horses, for example).
Entirely new laws, regulations and
infrastructure (roads, tunnels and
bridges suitable for motor vehicles,
gasoline distribution and much
else) had to be created.
The delegates to the 1898 urban planning conference failed to
recognize the developments that
would transform their world. Today’s transportation infrastructure
discussions—about building a $10
billion bus terminal in New York,
or a $70 billion high-speed rail system in California—may prove similarly shortsighted. These trans-
portation megaprojects don’t seem
to take AVs into account. Yet by
the time these initiatives are completed, AVs will be a major part of
the transportation landscape. AV
minibuses, providing home to office direct service, may completely replace traditional buses. And
there’s little doubt that AVs will radically change the economic calculations and assumptions that make
high-speed rail projects seem worthwhile (i.e. the speed and cost of
travel by conventional car).
Policy leaders need to seriously consider winding down vocational schools that teach bus and
truck driving as a career. Cities
need to start rethinking their housing policies. And that’s not all. As
AVs facilitate a shift to electric and
hybrid vehicles, highway trust fund
revenue, which comes from the
gasoline sales tax and pays for
most federal road work, will collapse. How will road repair be funded going forward?
All sorts of technological, legal
and regulatory barriers must be
addressed for AVs to deliver their
full potential. But these barriers
aren’t higher than those encountered in the shift from horses to
conventional cars. Autonomous vehicles are coming. We need to stop
thinking within the limitations of
the past and focus instead on the
tectonic shifts of the future.
Steven Strauss is a visiting professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He has advised
senior public sector leaders in Europe, the Middle East and the U.S.
Scary Stuff From Space: The Sun Could Wreak Havoc on Society
editorial
S
The WashingTon posT
olar flares, coronal mass ejections, solar particle events,
solar wind—these aren’t
terms that only science fiction characters and astronauts need worry about. Though the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protect humanity from a wide range
of deadly space hazards, the safety blanket is not impermeable.
The boisterous, volatile sun regularly throws off plasma, other
particles and radiation that, with
the right intensity and heading,
could wreak havoc on modern
society. In fact, extreme “space
weather” recently came scarily
close to slamming into Earth—
and it has a shockingly high chance
of knocking out power grids and
doing other damage in the next
10 years, according to scientists’
best estimates.
That’s why it’s good the White
House recently released a strategy
to prepare for disastrous space
weather. Now comes the hard part
—putting time and money into the
strategy. Congress and the private
sector will need to pitch in.
A huge coronal mass ejection—
a discharge of plasma from the
sun’s corona—hit Earth in 1859,
scrambling telegraph networks
and even causing some telegraph
stations to burn down. Nowadays,
human society is far more dependent on all sorts of electronics, from
the satellites in orbit to the power
stations on the ground, that are vulnerable to interference from solar
events. A relatively small solar discharge hit the planet in 1989, knocking out power to millions in Quebec. A much larger one nearly hit
Earth in 2012. “We’ve dodged a lot
of bullets,” says the University of
Colorado’s Daniel Baker, a space
weather expert.
A 2009 U.S. National Academy
of Sciences study concluded that
a head-on collision with a largescale geomagnetic storm could
do astounding amounts of damage, costing $2 trillion in the first
year of recovery. Gas pipelines and
drinking water pumps could be
knocked out. Experts estimate
that there is a 12 percent chance of
such an event occurring within
the next 10 years—in the same
ballpark as a magnitude 8 earthquake striking the U.S.
Given the severity of the risk,
the U.S. is only in the rudimentary
stages of preparing. The new
White House strategy largely consists of getting various agencies,
states, utilities and Congress on
the same page. Under the plan,
scientists would establish ways
simply to describe the magnitude
of solar events, emergency re-
sponse organizations would consider space weather in their planning and communications would
be enhanced. Utilities, meanwhile,
should have a better sense of what
infrastructure needs to be hardened and how to manage a major event.
Above all, improving space
weather forecasting will be crucial. That starts with developing
better prediction models. But it
also requires sustained investment
in ground and satellite-based sensors. With some warning, power
companies and others could minimize the damage a major solar
event would cause.
Congress has a record of inconstancy when it comes to funding
satellite programs to study Earth
and its surroundings. Space weather is just one important reason for
lawmakers to guard against such
shortsightedness.
MONDAy, NOVEMBER 9, 2015
The Cambodia daily
23
OpInIOn
Angela Merkel’s Migrant Dilemma After Selfies With Refugees
B y R uth M aRcus
THE WASHINGTON POST
A
bdulela Alhajjar is a big
fan of Angela Merkel,
which is simultaneously
the German chancellor’s finest
tribute and her biggest threat.
Like many others crowding a refugee processing center here, the
21-year-old Syrian saw pictures of
Merkel taking selfies with migrants and took her message of
welcome to heart.
“We will be treated good here,”
Alhajjar, a civil engineering student, said as he waited to register, a step still not accomplished a
week after his arrival.
To speak to Alhajjar and other
refugees is to grasp the magnitude of the challenge facing Merkel and the kaleidoscope of migrants drawn here at a rate of
10,000 a day—many fleeing violence and persecution, others simply seeking a better life in this
prosperous country:
An Iraqi man, 53, who says he
worked with U.S. troops and can
no longer live there safely. A Serbian woman, grasping her toddler’s hand, who pulls down her
collar to display bruises from her
abusive husband. Three Palestinian brothers, unable to find work.
A 20-year-old Afghan man whose
father was killed by the Taliban,
worrying about where his mother will sleep that night.
This deluge presents an enormous logistical undertaking, but
even more, a societal and political test in a country devoted to
orderliness.
On a societal level, the question
is how to integrate these diverse
people into a relatively homogenous and very different society—
a task Germany fumbled decades
ago with Turkish guest workers.
The U.S., for all the clamor over
illegal immigration, is a nation of
immigrants; the metaphor of the
melting pot is foundational. In Germany, immigration “is not part of
the narrative,” said Astrid Ziebarth,
migration fellow at the German
Marshall Fund of the U.S.
On a more immediate, political
level, the question is how to tamp
down the anxieties, and the consequent political risks, posed by
the migrants. The initial reaction
to Merkel’s approach was largely
positive, with Germans flocking
to train stations with food and
clothing. That charitable instinct
remains on display at the center
here, with its bustling village of
volunteer services.
It is easy for U.S. observers to interpret this reaction as atonement
for World War II atrocities. The better explanation is that it illustrates
Germans’ pride in their country’s
emergence as the continent’s leader. Germany is no longer the postreunification sick man of Europe.
“It’s the ‘Generation Merkel,’”
Ziebarth said. “People have been
faring quite well economically and
feel that they want to give something back.”
Yet as the flood shows no sign
of abating, that positive stance has
given way to increasing alarm and,
occasionally, violence. Public polling has flipped, with a majority
now saying they fear the influx;
Merkel’s job approval has plum-
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meted 26 points since April, albeit
from an astonishing 75 percent. In
Bavaria, which has received the
bulk of the refugees, Premier Horst
Seehofer, normally a Merkel ally,
has sharply criticized her migrant
policy.
Merkel’s boldness has surprised
Germans because she is notoriously cautious, even spawning a verb,
“merkeln,” meaning to be indecisive or withhold opinion. Merkel’s
background—a pastor’s daughter,
an East German empathetic to
those fleeing oppression—may explain some of her uncharacteristic
passion on the migrant situation.
Still, even in this instance she
may have been something of an
accidental humanitarian, having
failed to grasp how her soothing
words—and those selfies—would
be instantly transmitted to mobilephone-toting refugees.
Likewise, her statement that Germany expected 800,000 migrants
this year—the final tally could be
close to a million—was seen as a
welcoming invitation, rather than
a statement of reality.
In recent weeks, Merkel has
been careful to emphasize that
Germany’s generosity, and capacity, have limits. While the country
has a legal obligation to shelter
refugees, she said, “we don’t have
the task of keeping everyone
here for life.”
Last week, Merkel reached a
deal with Seehofer to establish
“transit zones” at borders to process asylum requests, only to face
a revolt from her liberal Social Democrat coalition partners, who denounced the proposed sites as prisons. Instead, there will be “reception centers” inside Germany, quicker removal of those from “safe”
countries, primarily the Balkans,
and limits on family reunification.
The turmoil has raised inevitable questions about dangers to
Merkel’s political future. But the
chancellor, now in her third term,
is a dominant figure, with no obvious successor or rival. “Wir schaffen das,” she likes to say of the
refugee crisis: We can do it, but,
more precisely, we can manage
this. Betting against Merkel’s
managerial skills is never the wisest course.
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The Cambodia daily
24
monday, novembeR 9, 2015
science
Religion Doesn’t Make Kids More Altruistic, Study Finds
B y K aren K aplan
los angeles times
Here’s a discovery that could
make secular parents say hallelujah: Children who grow up in nonreligious homes are more generous and altruistic than children
from observant families.
A series of experiments involving 1,170 kids from a variety of religious backgrounds found that the
nonbelievers were more likely to
share stickers with their classmates and less likely to endorse
harsh punishments for people who
pushed or bumped into others.
The results “contradict the
common-sense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind toward others,” according to a study published this week
in the journal Current Biology.
Worldwide, about 5.8 billion people consider themselves religious,
and religion is a primary way for
cultures to express their ideas
about proper moral behavior—
especially behavior that involves
self-sacrifice for the sake of others.
It’s often taken as an article of
faith that religion promotes altruism. If that is true, then “children
reared in religious families should
Reuters
A girl joins other Tibetans at a morning chanting session in remote Sertar
county, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China, last week.
show stronger altruistic behavior,”
wrote the members of the research
team, which was led by University
of Chicago neuroscientist Jean
Decety.
To see whether this was indeed
the case, Decety and his colleagues
recruited children from seven cities
around the world: Chicago; Toronto; Amman, Jordan; Izmir and
Istanbul in Turkey; Cape Town,
South Africa; and Guangzhou, China. All of the kids were between 5
and 12 years old.
Among them, 24 percent were
from Christian households, 43 percent were Muslim, 2.5 percent
were Jewish, 1.6 percent were Buddhist, 0.4 percent were Hindu, 0.2
percent were agnostic and 0.5 percent were classified as “other.” In
addition, 28 percent of the kids
came from families described as
“not religious.”
The researchers showed each
child a collection of 30 stickers and
told the kids they could keep the 10
they liked best. Then the research-
ers told their subjects they wouldn’t
have time to play the sticker game
with every student in the school, so
some kids wouldn’t get any.
The children responded by sharing some of the stickers with their
classmates—and the kids from
secular households shared more
stickers than their religious counterparts. When the researchers examined the three biggest groups of
kids, they found that the generosity
scores for Christians and Muslims
were essentially the same, and that
the scores for nonreligious children were 23 percent to 28 percent
higher.
The researchers also found that
the more religious the family, the
less altruistic the child. This pattern
held up for all religions in the study.
The researchers also noted that
the relationship between religiousness and altruism was more pronounced among the older kids
(those between the ages of 8 and
12). That was notable, they wrote,
because older children had more
years of religious experience under
their belts than younger children.
The study was funded by the
John Templeton Foundation,
which supports scientific research
on spirituality.