Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)Sunday, August 31, 2008
Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Thai-Circus
Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)
Politiktoons No. 40: Sondhi, PAD Movement's Leader
Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.comand also at http://politiktoons.blogspot.com)
Thai thieves stealing motorbikes to sell in Cambodia
MOTORBIKE THEFT TO SELL IN CAMBODIA ARRESTED
August 30, 2008
Pattaya Daily News
Banglamung police arrested motorbike thieves and confiscated 10 motorbikes to return to the owners. Suspects confessed of dividing them to sell in Cambodia.
At 2pm, on August 29th, 2008, Pol.Col. Sarayut Sa-gnuen-bpo-kai, Banglamung superintendent, Chonburi, Pol.lt.Col. Samrit Khunchit, deputy suppressing superintendent, Pol.Maj.Kamol Thaweesri and investigation team, joined to release the news on the arrest of 4 suspects in a motorbike theft and a theft shop gang.
Mr. Art and Mr. Phong (Alias), (16), were arrested for motorbike theft. Mr. Nak Sosude (27), from Pijit province, the owner of a motorbike repair shop in Chonburi and Mr. Weerachai Pholdaharn or nickname "Tong", (42), from Nakornrachasima province, were arrested for running a motorbike theft shop with the evidence of dismantled tools, 10 motorbikes and many motorbike parts.
Pol.Col.Sarayut Sa-gnuen-bpo-kai, Banglamung superintendent, declared that police had found two suspects, Mr. Art and Mr. Phong (Alias), riding on a black and white Honda Click, license No. 306, Bangkok, coming into Nantha Apartment, Moo 13, Nongprue, Banglamung, Chonburi. Both of them looked suspicious then police had inspected, and found the motorbike that they were on, was stolen from Poi Pet market, Soi Nern-plub-warn, Moo 5, Nongprue.
Police arrested Mr. Art and Mr.Phong and extended the case to find out that they had joined with Mr. Chachawan Suthina or nickname "Lek" (22), Mr. Tong and Mr. Gap (no real names were identified and they had escaped), going around to steal motorbikes in Pattaya and Banglamung area. They sold the stolen bikes to Mr. Nak Sosude and Mr. Weerachai Poldaharn or nickname "Tong" for 1,800 – 2,000 each. The stolen motorbikes would be resell through Thai-Cambodia border , Sra-gaew province.
Police had confiscated 10 motorbikes from different area and also confiscated many motorbike parts from the theft shop. All motorbike's owners would be contacted to take their motorbikes back. Police would investigate to arrest the rest of the gang and bring them to the justice.
At 2pm, on August 29th, 2008, Pol.Col. Sarayut Sa-gnuen-bpo-kai, Banglamung superintendent, Chonburi, Pol.lt.Col. Samrit Khunchit, deputy suppressing superintendent, Pol.Maj.Kamol Thaweesri and investigation team, joined to release the news on the arrest of 4 suspects in a motorbike theft and a theft shop gang.
Mr. Art and Mr. Phong (Alias), (16), were arrested for motorbike theft. Mr. Nak Sosude (27), from Pijit province, the owner of a motorbike repair shop in Chonburi and Mr. Weerachai Pholdaharn or nickname "Tong", (42), from Nakornrachasima province, were arrested for running a motorbike theft shop with the evidence of dismantled tools, 10 motorbikes and many motorbike parts.
Pol.Col.Sarayut Sa-gnuen-bpo-kai, Banglamung superintendent, declared that police had found two suspects, Mr. Art and Mr. Phong (Alias), riding on a black and white Honda Click, license No. 306, Bangkok, coming into Nantha Apartment, Moo 13, Nongprue, Banglamung, Chonburi. Both of them looked suspicious then police had inspected, and found the motorbike that they were on, was stolen from Poi Pet market, Soi Nern-plub-warn, Moo 5, Nongprue.
Police arrested Mr. Art and Mr.Phong and extended the case to find out that they had joined with Mr. Chachawan Suthina or nickname "Lek" (22), Mr. Tong and Mr. Gap (no real names were identified and they had escaped), going around to steal motorbikes in Pattaya and Banglamung area. They sold the stolen bikes to Mr. Nak Sosude and Mr. Weerachai Poldaharn or nickname "Tong" for 1,800 – 2,000 each. The stolen motorbikes would be resell through Thai-Cambodia border , Sra-gaew province.
Police had confiscated 10 motorbikes from different area and also confiscated many motorbike parts from the theft shop. All motorbike's owners would be contacted to take their motorbikes back. Police would investigate to arrest the rest of the gang and bring them to the justice.
Cambodia introduces new regulations for developers and real estate agents
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Property Wire
Property Wire
Cambodia introduces new real estate regulation
New regulations are being introduced in Cambodia to protect property investors from fraud as the country's real estate industry booms.
Developers will be required to deposit a sum with the National Bank of Cambodia before being allowed to begin construction on a project under new regulations aimed at curbing fraud.
Payments from buyers will be held in this account with the aim of making the whole payment system more transparent and avoid developers using money illegally. It will also allow the government to intervene if developers fail to honour their contracts.
Real estate agents and developers will have to obtain a licence from the Ministry of Economy and Finance to sell projects and face legal action and even closure if they fail to do so.
The new rules mean developers and agents must comply by the end of September, a spokesman for the Economy and Finance ministry said.
There will be costs to the developers and agents involved but officials believe this will deter cowboys. 'Real estate developers will be required to deposit 2% of the projects' total value at the National Bank of Cambodia,' said Mao Pao deputy chief of the ministry's real estate division.
'We will require a developer to open a housing development account at any commercial bank to enable buyers to make payments through the bank,' he added.
The price for the new licences for selling or renting will depend on the scale of the project. Until now developers only needed a letter of permission from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction and an investment licence from the Council for the Development of Cambodia.
There are estimated to be around 100 developers currently operating in Cambodia, many of them quite small. Some said the new regulations will be too costly and put them out of business.
Capital Phnom Penh has undergone an unprecedented construction boom over the last several years, including a number of residential and commercial mega-projects that are set to transform the capital from a sleepy backwater.
New regulations are being introduced in Cambodia to protect property investors from fraud as the country's real estate industry booms.
Developers will be required to deposit a sum with the National Bank of Cambodia before being allowed to begin construction on a project under new regulations aimed at curbing fraud.
Payments from buyers will be held in this account with the aim of making the whole payment system more transparent and avoid developers using money illegally. It will also allow the government to intervene if developers fail to honour their contracts.
Real estate agents and developers will have to obtain a licence from the Ministry of Economy and Finance to sell projects and face legal action and even closure if they fail to do so.
The new rules mean developers and agents must comply by the end of September, a spokesman for the Economy and Finance ministry said.
There will be costs to the developers and agents involved but officials believe this will deter cowboys. 'Real estate developers will be required to deposit 2% of the projects' total value at the National Bank of Cambodia,' said Mao Pao deputy chief of the ministry's real estate division.
'We will require a developer to open a housing development account at any commercial bank to enable buyers to make payments through the bank,' he added.
The price for the new licences for selling or renting will depend on the scale of the project. Until now developers only needed a letter of permission from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction and an investment licence from the Council for the Development of Cambodia.
There are estimated to be around 100 developers currently operating in Cambodia, many of them quite small. Some said the new regulations will be too costly and put them out of business.
Capital Phnom Penh has undergone an unprecedented construction boom over the last several years, including a number of residential and commercial mega-projects that are set to transform the capital from a sleepy backwater.
PEACE IN EVERY STEP: The late Maha Ghosananda of Cambodia proved the healing power of wisdom and compassion
Maha Ghosananda during a Dhammayietra walkSunday August 31, 2008
VASANA CHINVARAKORN
Bangkok Post
There was some inexpressibly cool and unhurried sense of peacefulness that exuded from the man. The year was 1997, November 5 to be exact. I was attending an inter-faith conference at a small town about an hour's drive from Phnom Penh. He was there among the crowds who came to give their blessing to the opening of the auspicious event. I felt something special about this frail but ever-smiling monk although I couldn't tell why. "Oh, that is Venerable Maha Ghosananda; he is very famous in Cambodia," whispered Buddhist scholar Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, urging me to interview him.
So I did. But as obliging as Maha Ghosananda was with a then green-horn journalist like me, I found it extremely difficult to write an article on him. He talked very little about his personal life, which Acharn Chatsumarn (who was later ordained as Bhikkhuni Dhammananda) said was so fascinating. Throughout the brief conversation I had with him, Maha Ghosananda would make extensive references to "dharma" - the importance of keeping oneself aware of the rising and ebbing away of mental phenomena, pleasant or not, how to constantly cultivate loving-kindness toward every sentient being, and last but not least, how not to cling to anything. I accept the truth of the adages, but they were, well, (given my ignorance at the time) hard to put in a newspaper.
His name, and that mysteriously cool aura, has however been an enigma for me. Every now and then I would come across some mention about or by him. He has been called the "Gandhi of Cambodia", the "Buddha of the Battlefields", and in the words of the late Dith Pran (whose life inspired the film The Killing Fields), the "dreamkeeper" of his homeland. In the 1990s, King Sihanouk conferred on him the special title of "Leader of Religion and Peace", and later "International Patriarch". He received numerous awards for his peace activism, including being nominated a few times for the Nobel Prize. His dharmayietra (literally "Pilgrimage of Truth") movement, which he initiated in 1992 with friends from different denominations, has since been carried on in his homeland, and later adopted elsewhere, including in Thailand (albeit totally different from the one recently staged during the dispute over the Preah Vihear world heritage site). In the late '70s, he helped set up hut temples at the refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian borders, and later to rebuild temples and provide education to hundreds of monks and nuns in Cambodia (it was estimated that of about 65,000 monastics, only 3,000 survived the Khmer Rouge era). He also founded over 30 home-based temples in North America, Europe and Australia for the Cambodian migrant communities there.
The more I learned about Maha Ghosananda's biography and the tortuous history of Cambodia, the more I appreciate and marvel at his ability to remain unperturbed, so refreshingly serene in the midst of raging fires.
I would have the same question once raised by Benedictine monk James Wiseman: "Looking at the Venerable Ghosananda, one has the impression that not only his smile, but his whole body is radiant. It seems as if his skin has been washed so clean that it shines. One can only wonder what this man has seen, what he has experienced of the terrible killing fields in his home country (considering that all the members of Maha Ghosananda's family died under the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot).
"One thing however is obvious: Whatever his experience has been, it has brought forth extraordinary growth in the spiritual life."
Of his early years, there is sketchy, rather scattered information. His date of birth varies - it was some time in the 1920s - depending on the source. It was reckoned, though, that Maha Ghosananda's potential may have been recognised not long after his ordination, for he came under the tutelage of Venerable Chuon Nath, later appointed to be the Supreme Patriarch and a key leader of the reformist movement in Cambodian Buddhism in the early 20th century.
In 1951, he left for a study at Nalanda University in India (where he would be eventually granted a PhD which he jokingly translated as "Person Has Dukkha" - suffering). Importantly, while in India, Maha Ghosananda had an opportunity to learn about the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence with Nichidatsu Fujii, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and the founder of Nipponsan Myohoji, a Japanese Buddhist order dedicated to world peace.
After his time in India, Maha Ghosananda reportedly travelled extensively to different temples throughout Asia, returned to Cambodia briefly before a long spell of residence in Thailand (the exact number of years is not known). It was said he studied Vipassana (insight) meditation with Ajahn Dhammadaro in Nakhon Si Thammarat, but an obituary written by his long-time friend Sulak Sivaraksa last year also mentioned reformist monk Buddhadasa as another mentor of Maha Ghosananda.
It was at this very juncture in Thailand where all the years of dharma practice came to fruition. At a forest monastery in the South, Maha Ghosananda heard news about the series of tragedies that beset his homeland: The American bombing raids, which dropped over 2.7 million tonnes of bombs and killed an estimated 600,000 Cambodians, the successive changes of regimes and ensuing bloodshed, the brutal genocide of the Khmer Rouge ...
A biography written by American monk Venerable Santidhammo described the tenacious struggle the Cambodian monk had to go through:
"He learned that his parents and all his brothers and sisters had been murdered. He was told, over time, of the death of many of his fellow monks and nuns. And of course, he said, he wept for so many losses. He wept for his country. He wept, he said, every day and could not stop weeping. But his teacher urged him to stop. Don't weep, he was told, Be mindful.
"Having mindfulness, his teacher said, is like knowing when to open and when to close your windows and doors. Mindfulness tells us when is the appropriate time to do things - you can't stop the fighting. Instead, fight your impulses toward sorrow and anger. Be mindful. Prepare for the day when you can truly be useful to your country. Stop weeping, and be mindful!"
We will never know how and for how long before the inner battle came to an end. By 1978, Maha Ghosananda embarked on a mission to bring peace to his fellow Cambodians. In an introduction to his only book, titled Step by Step - Meditations on Wisdom and Compassion, editors Jane Sharada Mahoney and Philip Edmonds related the monk's visit to a refugee camp in Sakeo. Amid the bleak and dilapidated atmosphere, Maha Ghosananda's presence was like a glowing candle that rekindled the spiritual warmth long suppressed by the protracted wars.
"In that moment," Mahoney and Edmonds write, "great suffering and great love merged. Centuries of Buddhist devotion rushed into the consciousness of the refugees. Waves of survivors fell to their knees and prostrated, wailing loudly, their cries reverberating throughout the camp. Many say that the Dharma, which had slept gently in their hearts as the Bodhi tree burned, was reawakened that day."
Maha Ghosananda himself would later stress the duty of socially-engaged Buddhists: "We must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to the Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettoes and the battlefields will then become our temples."
There is no discrimination either between ideologies or on the basis of past conflicts. Maha Ghosananda's temple huts catered to all refugees alike, including former Khmer Rouge soldiers. "We have great compassion for them because they do not know the truth," he later told film producer Alan Channer. "They suffer so much; they burn themselves. They want peace; they want happiness and Buddhism gives them peace and happiness.
"I do not question that loving one's oppressors - Cambodians loving the Khmer Rouge - may be the most difficult attitude to achieve. But it is a law of the universe that retaliation, hatred, and revenge only continue the cycle and never stop it. Reconciliation does not mean that we surrender rights and conditions, but rather that we use love in our negotiations. It means that we see ourselves in the opponent - for what is the opponent but a being in ignorance, and we ourselves are also ignorant of many things. Therefore, only loving-kindness and right mindfulness can free us."
It is a message that he would repeat the rest of his life. During the top-level talks between different Cambodian warring factions in France, Switzerland, and Indonesia, Maha Ghosananda led his contingency of monks, "the fifth army of peace", to open daily sessions with prayer and meditation; they implored the leaders to recall their Buddha nature, and reminded everyone of the power of non-violence. Sulak recalled the monk had personally asked him to seek holy water from the Supreme Patriarch at Wat Bowon Niwet in Bangkok to sprinkle on the Cambodian representatives - an initiative that was unanimously welcomed by all parties.
In her article on the dharmayietra movement in Cambodia, Kathryn Poethig wrote: "For Maha Ghosananda, the essence of Buddhist dharma is the practice of peacemaking. It requires skilful means, the ability to listen with compassion to the perspective of the one who has done you and others harm, and being mindful and selfless in negotiating a peaceful resolution to conflict."
Ingenuity and patience are certainly key. Maha Ghosananda often talked about how "wisdom and compassion must walk together. Having one without the other is like walking on one foot; you will fall. Balancing the two, you will walk very well, step by step."
In 1992, as the refugee camps were preparing to close with the planned repatriation of some 350,000 Cambodians, Maha Ghosananda and his friends from various faith groups launched the first dharmayietra. Over a hundred Cambodian refugees, escorted by international walkers including monks from Thailand, Sri Lanka and Japan, did the arduous 450km trek from the Thai borders back into their homeland. Every day, the returning Cambodians found their long-lost family members. By the time the band reached Phnom Penh, their number had swollen to more than a thousand.
The first few walks have been wrought with great difficulty. For the inaugural walk, most of the senior monks invited declined to join; it took a while to get permission from the Thai, Cambodian, and UN officials for the refugees to cross the borders. The subsequent ones fared no better; landmines and exchanges of gunshots and grenades between the Khmer Rouge and government troops were still the norm. During the third walk, in 1994, a skirmish caused by a misunderstanding ended with a monk and a nun killed, a few participants injured, and some taken hostage (though they were later released).
But the peace walkers did not waiver. For Maha Ghosananda, the dharmayietra was not a political demonstration - they discouraged any effort by public figures to co-opt the event - or a new innovation into Cambodian Buddhism. It was simply following the example of the Buddha, he cited, who long ago had walked right onto the battlefield in an effort to end a war and bring reconciliation to two hostile factions of his own clan.
In Venerable Santidhammo's biography, moving accounts of those who participated in the walks reveal the beauty of humanity, if given a chance to grow. The dharmayietra heralded the end of the war, reunited families, inspired new vision. A number called the experience Dhamma Teak Tong, or "Dhamma Contact". For at that very moment, all the boundaries melt; any notions of "us" versus "them" are tossed away.
One local woman said: "We Khmer haven't seen peace for so long. We've never known it. Now seeing the monks and all these people walking makes me think they've come to teach us to love one another, to unite. When I see them I feel speechless. Maybe we will have true peace after all."
Due to his fragile health, by 2000, Maha Ghosananda could no longer attend the dharmayietra walks, which have since been done on more localised scales, with the themes ranging from environmental to human rights, Aids, and youth issues. According to Peter Gyallay-Pap, founder and executive director of the Khmer-Buddhist Educational Assistance Project (KEAP), the spirit of the monk has been carried on by his followers who seek "change in terms of actively following the middle path, not in social or political confrontation".
But will true transformation ever come? To Cambodia and the rest of the world? On the last page of his book Step by Step, Maha Ghosananda expressed his faith in the practice of mindfulness as "the only way to peace".
"Slowly, slowly, step by step," he urges. "Each step is a meditation. Each step is a prayer."
On March 12, 2007, Maha Ghosananda passed away at a temple in Lowell, Massachusetts, one of the many sanctuaries he had built for his fellow Cambodians around the world.
So I did. But as obliging as Maha Ghosananda was with a then green-horn journalist like me, I found it extremely difficult to write an article on him. He talked very little about his personal life, which Acharn Chatsumarn (who was later ordained as Bhikkhuni Dhammananda) said was so fascinating. Throughout the brief conversation I had with him, Maha Ghosananda would make extensive references to "dharma" - the importance of keeping oneself aware of the rising and ebbing away of mental phenomena, pleasant or not, how to constantly cultivate loving-kindness toward every sentient being, and last but not least, how not to cling to anything. I accept the truth of the adages, but they were, well, (given my ignorance at the time) hard to put in a newspaper.
His name, and that mysteriously cool aura, has however been an enigma for me. Every now and then I would come across some mention about or by him. He has been called the "Gandhi of Cambodia", the "Buddha of the Battlefields", and in the words of the late Dith Pran (whose life inspired the film The Killing Fields), the "dreamkeeper" of his homeland. In the 1990s, King Sihanouk conferred on him the special title of "Leader of Religion and Peace", and later "International Patriarch". He received numerous awards for his peace activism, including being nominated a few times for the Nobel Prize. His dharmayietra (literally "Pilgrimage of Truth") movement, which he initiated in 1992 with friends from different denominations, has since been carried on in his homeland, and later adopted elsewhere, including in Thailand (albeit totally different from the one recently staged during the dispute over the Preah Vihear world heritage site). In the late '70s, he helped set up hut temples at the refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian borders, and later to rebuild temples and provide education to hundreds of monks and nuns in Cambodia (it was estimated that of about 65,000 monastics, only 3,000 survived the Khmer Rouge era). He also founded over 30 home-based temples in North America, Europe and Australia for the Cambodian migrant communities there.
The more I learned about Maha Ghosananda's biography and the tortuous history of Cambodia, the more I appreciate and marvel at his ability to remain unperturbed, so refreshingly serene in the midst of raging fires.
I would have the same question once raised by Benedictine monk James Wiseman: "Looking at the Venerable Ghosananda, one has the impression that not only his smile, but his whole body is radiant. It seems as if his skin has been washed so clean that it shines. One can only wonder what this man has seen, what he has experienced of the terrible killing fields in his home country (considering that all the members of Maha Ghosananda's family died under the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot).
"One thing however is obvious: Whatever his experience has been, it has brought forth extraordinary growth in the spiritual life."
Of his early years, there is sketchy, rather scattered information. His date of birth varies - it was some time in the 1920s - depending on the source. It was reckoned, though, that Maha Ghosananda's potential may have been recognised not long after his ordination, for he came under the tutelage of Venerable Chuon Nath, later appointed to be the Supreme Patriarch and a key leader of the reformist movement in Cambodian Buddhism in the early 20th century.
In 1951, he left for a study at Nalanda University in India (where he would be eventually granted a PhD which he jokingly translated as "Person Has Dukkha" - suffering). Importantly, while in India, Maha Ghosananda had an opportunity to learn about the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence with Nichidatsu Fujii, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and the founder of Nipponsan Myohoji, a Japanese Buddhist order dedicated to world peace.
After his time in India, Maha Ghosananda reportedly travelled extensively to different temples throughout Asia, returned to Cambodia briefly before a long spell of residence in Thailand (the exact number of years is not known). It was said he studied Vipassana (insight) meditation with Ajahn Dhammadaro in Nakhon Si Thammarat, but an obituary written by his long-time friend Sulak Sivaraksa last year also mentioned reformist monk Buddhadasa as another mentor of Maha Ghosananda.
It was at this very juncture in Thailand where all the years of dharma practice came to fruition. At a forest monastery in the South, Maha Ghosananda heard news about the series of tragedies that beset his homeland: The American bombing raids, which dropped over 2.7 million tonnes of bombs and killed an estimated 600,000 Cambodians, the successive changes of regimes and ensuing bloodshed, the brutal genocide of the Khmer Rouge ...
A biography written by American monk Venerable Santidhammo described the tenacious struggle the Cambodian monk had to go through:
"He learned that his parents and all his brothers and sisters had been murdered. He was told, over time, of the death of many of his fellow monks and nuns. And of course, he said, he wept for so many losses. He wept for his country. He wept, he said, every day and could not stop weeping. But his teacher urged him to stop. Don't weep, he was told, Be mindful.
"Having mindfulness, his teacher said, is like knowing when to open and when to close your windows and doors. Mindfulness tells us when is the appropriate time to do things - you can't stop the fighting. Instead, fight your impulses toward sorrow and anger. Be mindful. Prepare for the day when you can truly be useful to your country. Stop weeping, and be mindful!"
We will never know how and for how long before the inner battle came to an end. By 1978, Maha Ghosananda embarked on a mission to bring peace to his fellow Cambodians. In an introduction to his only book, titled Step by Step - Meditations on Wisdom and Compassion, editors Jane Sharada Mahoney and Philip Edmonds related the monk's visit to a refugee camp in Sakeo. Amid the bleak and dilapidated atmosphere, Maha Ghosananda's presence was like a glowing candle that rekindled the spiritual warmth long suppressed by the protracted wars.
"In that moment," Mahoney and Edmonds write, "great suffering and great love merged. Centuries of Buddhist devotion rushed into the consciousness of the refugees. Waves of survivors fell to their knees and prostrated, wailing loudly, their cries reverberating throughout the camp. Many say that the Dharma, which had slept gently in their hearts as the Bodhi tree burned, was reawakened that day."
Maha Ghosananda himself would later stress the duty of socially-engaged Buddhists: "We must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to the Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettoes and the battlefields will then become our temples."
There is no discrimination either between ideologies or on the basis of past conflicts. Maha Ghosananda's temple huts catered to all refugees alike, including former Khmer Rouge soldiers. "We have great compassion for them because they do not know the truth," he later told film producer Alan Channer. "They suffer so much; they burn themselves. They want peace; they want happiness and Buddhism gives them peace and happiness.
"I do not question that loving one's oppressors - Cambodians loving the Khmer Rouge - may be the most difficult attitude to achieve. But it is a law of the universe that retaliation, hatred, and revenge only continue the cycle and never stop it. Reconciliation does not mean that we surrender rights and conditions, but rather that we use love in our negotiations. It means that we see ourselves in the opponent - for what is the opponent but a being in ignorance, and we ourselves are also ignorant of many things. Therefore, only loving-kindness and right mindfulness can free us."
It is a message that he would repeat the rest of his life. During the top-level talks between different Cambodian warring factions in France, Switzerland, and Indonesia, Maha Ghosananda led his contingency of monks, "the fifth army of peace", to open daily sessions with prayer and meditation; they implored the leaders to recall their Buddha nature, and reminded everyone of the power of non-violence. Sulak recalled the monk had personally asked him to seek holy water from the Supreme Patriarch at Wat Bowon Niwet in Bangkok to sprinkle on the Cambodian representatives - an initiative that was unanimously welcomed by all parties.
In her article on the dharmayietra movement in Cambodia, Kathryn Poethig wrote: "For Maha Ghosananda, the essence of Buddhist dharma is the practice of peacemaking. It requires skilful means, the ability to listen with compassion to the perspective of the one who has done you and others harm, and being mindful and selfless in negotiating a peaceful resolution to conflict."
Ingenuity and patience are certainly key. Maha Ghosananda often talked about how "wisdom and compassion must walk together. Having one without the other is like walking on one foot; you will fall. Balancing the two, you will walk very well, step by step."
In 1992, as the refugee camps were preparing to close with the planned repatriation of some 350,000 Cambodians, Maha Ghosananda and his friends from various faith groups launched the first dharmayietra. Over a hundred Cambodian refugees, escorted by international walkers including monks from Thailand, Sri Lanka and Japan, did the arduous 450km trek from the Thai borders back into their homeland. Every day, the returning Cambodians found their long-lost family members. By the time the band reached Phnom Penh, their number had swollen to more than a thousand.
The first few walks have been wrought with great difficulty. For the inaugural walk, most of the senior monks invited declined to join; it took a while to get permission from the Thai, Cambodian, and UN officials for the refugees to cross the borders. The subsequent ones fared no better; landmines and exchanges of gunshots and grenades between the Khmer Rouge and government troops were still the norm. During the third walk, in 1994, a skirmish caused by a misunderstanding ended with a monk and a nun killed, a few participants injured, and some taken hostage (though they were later released).
But the peace walkers did not waiver. For Maha Ghosananda, the dharmayietra was not a political demonstration - they discouraged any effort by public figures to co-opt the event - or a new innovation into Cambodian Buddhism. It was simply following the example of the Buddha, he cited, who long ago had walked right onto the battlefield in an effort to end a war and bring reconciliation to two hostile factions of his own clan.
The suffering of Cambodia has been deep.
From this suffering comes Great Compassion.
Great Compassion makes a Peaceful Heart.
A Peaceful Heart makes a Peaceful Person.
A Peaceful Person makes a Peaceful Family.
A Peaceful Family makes a Peaceful Community.
A Peaceful Community makes a Peaceful Nation.
And a Peaceful Nation makes a Peaceful World.
May all beings live in Happiness and Peace.
From this suffering comes Great Compassion.
Great Compassion makes a Peaceful Heart.
A Peaceful Heart makes a Peaceful Person.
A Peaceful Person makes a Peaceful Family.
A Peaceful Family makes a Peaceful Community.
A Peaceful Community makes a Peaceful Nation.
And a Peaceful Nation makes a Peaceful World.
May all beings live in Happiness and Peace.
In Venerable Santidhammo's biography, moving accounts of those who participated in the walks reveal the beauty of humanity, if given a chance to grow. The dharmayietra heralded the end of the war, reunited families, inspired new vision. A number called the experience Dhamma Teak Tong, or "Dhamma Contact". For at that very moment, all the boundaries melt; any notions of "us" versus "them" are tossed away.
One local woman said: "We Khmer haven't seen peace for so long. We've never known it. Now seeing the monks and all these people walking makes me think they've come to teach us to love one another, to unite. When I see them I feel speechless. Maybe we will have true peace after all."
Due to his fragile health, by 2000, Maha Ghosananda could no longer attend the dharmayietra walks, which have since been done on more localised scales, with the themes ranging from environmental to human rights, Aids, and youth issues. According to Peter Gyallay-Pap, founder and executive director of the Khmer-Buddhist Educational Assistance Project (KEAP), the spirit of the monk has been carried on by his followers who seek "change in terms of actively following the middle path, not in social or political confrontation".
But will true transformation ever come? To Cambodia and the rest of the world? On the last page of his book Step by Step, Maha Ghosananda expressed his faith in the practice of mindfulness as "the only way to peace".
"Slowly, slowly, step by step," he urges. "Each step is a meditation. Each step is a prayer."
On March 12, 2007, Maha Ghosananda passed away at a temple in Lowell, Massachusetts, one of the many sanctuaries he had built for his fellow Cambodians around the world.
Cambodia, UN-FAO launch emergency project for farmers
PHNOM PENH, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Cambodia and UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are launching an emergency project through its Technical Cooperation Program (TCP) in Cambodia to help impoverished farmers boost agricultural production, said a joint press release received here Saturday.
The project is part of the FAO Initiative on Soaring Food Prices (ISFP) started in December 2007 and aims to boost the local food supply to soften the blow of soaring food prices, it said.
The FAO is focusing on immediate activities during this rainy season from July 2008 to Sept. 2008 and within the dry season from Nov. 2008 until Jan. 2009, so that by the next harvests there will be more food available locally at lower prices, it said.
In addition, the project is providing fertilizers, which are petroleum-based and thus out of reach of poor farmers as oil prices break new records every day, it said.
As the latest step of the project, a rice seed distribution ceremony to vulnerable farmers was held on Aug. 28 at Bati district, Takeo province, with the attendance of Chan Sarun, Cambodian Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, as well as Omar Salah Ahmed, FAO Representative in Cambodia, said the press release.
For the medium and long term plan, the FAO aims at a more comprehensive assistance program towards agricultural development by focusing on increased productivities, irrigation and improving the storage, it added.
The project is part of the FAO Initiative on Soaring Food Prices (ISFP) started in December 2007 and aims to boost the local food supply to soften the blow of soaring food prices, it said.
The FAO is focusing on immediate activities during this rainy season from July 2008 to Sept. 2008 and within the dry season from Nov. 2008 until Jan. 2009, so that by the next harvests there will be more food available locally at lower prices, it said.
In addition, the project is providing fertilizers, which are petroleum-based and thus out of reach of poor farmers as oil prices break new records every day, it said.
As the latest step of the project, a rice seed distribution ceremony to vulnerable farmers was held on Aug. 28 at Bati district, Takeo province, with the attendance of Chan Sarun, Cambodian Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, as well as Omar Salah Ahmed, FAO Representative in Cambodia, said the press release.
For the medium and long term plan, the FAO aims at a more comprehensive assistance program towards agricultural development by focusing on increased productivities, irrigation and improving the storage, it added.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Warning signs from the centre of the boom [-China economic bust?]
Friday, August 29, 2008
MARCUS GEE, BRIAN MILNER AND GEOFFREY YORK
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
MARCUS GEE, BRIAN MILNER AND GEOFFREY YORK
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
TORONTO, BEIJING — Just two years ago, the Shangxing Furniture Company was expanding as fast as it could. Almost all of its profits – about $4-million – were plowed back into new warehouses for the wooden furniture that it churned out for North American and European customers.
And then the slowdown hit. Costs soared and exports slumped. Since the start of this year, its profits have virtually disappeared. “We're spending our savings to keep it running,” says the company's export director, who prefers to be identified only by his surname, Liu.
“If the situation gets worse, we might have to rent out our new warehouses to other companies,” he said. “We're suffering a cold winter in the middle of summer.”
His company is just one of a growing number of struggling producers in China's furniture capital, the southern city of Dalingshan. Traditionally one of the biggest furniture production bases in Asia, the city is in trouble these days. Of its 280 biggest factories, at least 30 to 40 are in serious difficulty, according to a recent survey by the China National Furniture Association.
Furniture is not the only Chinese industry facing unexpected difficulties this year. After three decades of pell-mell rise from peasant society to economic powerhouse, there are signs that China's race to riches may finally be slowing, with repercussions that could spread around the globe.
Most China watchers think the slump will be shallow and relatively brief. Still, there are enough signs of trouble to cause a buzz about China's “post-Olympic slowdown.”
New orders at factories are down sharply. Bankruptcies are up. Last month, industrial production grew at the slowest pace since the spring of 2007. Stock prices are down about 60 per cent since last October. Property is showing signs of weakness too, especially in the booming southeast where flagging exports would have the most impact. Even the Chinese lust for new cars is beginning to cool.
A slowdown in export growth caused in part by the shrinking spending of North American and European consumers is “rippling across the economy,” Jing Ulrich, a China watcher with JPMorgan in Hong Kong, says in her research note this month (though she remains an optimist on China).
Worry at the top
The ruling Communist Party is worried enough that Premier Wen Jiabao and other leading officials toured coastal export industries last month. Mr. Wen professed himself “very concerned about the difficulties they are up against.” Since then, the Politburo has met to underline its support for “steady and fast” economic growth, a shift from the previous emphasis on reining in the excesses of the economy.
After fretting for the past five years or so about how to keep the economy from overheating, Beijing is now faced with the novel problem of how to keep it from cooling. “If you're sitting in Beijing, you're saying, ‘We've already lost two percentage points of economic growth. How much more are we going to lose?'” said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington.
“That's a big turning point for the Chinese economy. That means questions of profitability, questions of unemployment, questions of social stability.”
China's gross domestic product growth peaked at a frantic annualized 12.6 per cent in the second of quarter of 2007. Since then it has eased to 10.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year and 10.1 per cent in the second. Most economists are predicting growth in the coming year of between 8 and 10 per cent – still a breakneck pace compared with most economies, but a comedown for China.
If China's growth does slow significantly – even to, say 6 or 7 per cent a year – it would sting every developed economy, including Canada's. China's hunger for oil, metals, potash and other commodities have helped buoy the Canadian economy. Commodities represent half of Canada's exports and China has been the biggest driver of soaring commodity prices. China has been the engine of the global economy, contributing 30 per cent of its growth last year.
To absorb the countless workers streaming from China's poorer interior to work in coastal factories, Beijing reckons it needs to create nine million new jobs a year. Even a drop in economic growth to 8 per cent could compromise that goal and undermine a key pillar of the Communist's Party's strategy for staying in power: sustained, rapid economic growth.
There is no more government talk of discouraging low-cost industries such as textiles and toys and promoting higher-value high-tech sectors. Instead, Beijing has taken steps to shore up the mass-production factories that are the foundation of its economic success, for instance by easing limits on the size of the loans local banks can make to manufacturers and by effectively reducing export taxes.
“The Chinese economy is still beset with problems, including persistent prices rises, uncertainties in demand abroad, squeezed corporate profit margins, difficulty in ensuring energy and power supplies, and undue expansion of foreign exchanges reserves,” the state news agency Xinhua said in a recent report.
Sales of sedans, SUVs and light trucks were up 6.8 per cent in July from the same month in 2007, the lowest monthly growth rate in two years. As with many other measures, the slowdown is relative – a matter of slowing, not stalling or much less shrinking, growth. Still, the moderating demand for the country's most prized consumer possession shows that Chinese shoppers are feeling the first puffs of an ill wind.
A purchasing managers' survey found that manufacturing output may actually have contracted last month for the first time since the survey began in 2005. Official bankruptcy statistics, which may well be understated, show that more than 67,000 small and mid-sized businesses shuttered their doors in the first half of this year, putting millions of people out of work. And factory closings designed to control pollution during the Olympics may end up depressing economic growth this year, Goldman Sachs said in a report this month.
Moving production
In the textile industry, which employs 25 million workers, increasing wages and the rise of the Chinese currency, the yuan, have raised costs and made it more expensive for other countries to buy Chinese-made clothing. Energy costs are up too, and a new law forcing companies to provide social benefits to workers has increased labour costs for employers. As a result, hundreds of companies have moved their production to cheaper countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh.
Furniture, another long-thriving industry, saw profit margins fall to 1.1 per cent from 3.2 per cent in the first five months of the year. One industry estimate said 9,000 of the 40,000 Chinese furniture factories will be forced out of business because of rising energy prices and labour costs, the increasing value of the Chinese currency, and a substantial drop in export orders in the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States.
“For many of us, it's hard to raise our prices, because the orders from our old clients are based on the earlier cheaper prices,” said Mr. Liu, the export director at the Shangxing Furniture Company.
“Some people say that the more they produce, the more they lose money.”
Huitianli Furniture Company, which employs about 500 workers in Dalingshan, is frantically trying to switch to the domestic market because of a sharp drop in orders from overseas customers. The company laid off 100 workers and shut down one of its three production lines last December because of the slump in export sales. It estimates that profit is down at least 50 per cent this year.
“We're getting almost no profits from our overseas orders because of the rising cost of material, labour and transportation,” said Li Yuhua, the company's manager.
Zhu Changling, vice-director of the China National Furniture Association, says the value of China's wood furniture exports increased 7 per cent in the first half of this year – but most of the gain was offset by rising costs and the appreciation of the Chinese currency. The actual volume of wood furniture exports is down 6 per cent this year, mainly because of the U.S. economic slowdown and the subprime crisis, he said.
“American clients are hesitating to send us orders because they're afraid that they won't be able to sell the furniture, and Chinese exporters are reluctant to accept the orders because the profit margins are so low,” he said.
China's problems stem in part from its very success at turning itself into the world colossus in low-cost global manufacturing, an export dynamo whose rapid growth has been fuelled by cheap labour, energy, capital and a willingness to accept narrow profit margins.
It's a condition that Vitaliy Katsenelson labels “late-stage growth obesity.”
The director of research with Investment Management Associates in Denver, he coined the expression to describe what happens when economies and corporations expand at such a rapid clip they fall victim to inefficiencies that worsen as time goes on, particularly in a case like China's, where tight government control over the banking system, rampant crony capitalism and continuing corruption mean that capital is not always allocated on the basis of merit or need.
As a result, growth may be high, but its quality is low, which makes it even more likely that decisions on asset allocation will be poor.
He cites the famous case of the vast South China Mall, which was opened with much fanfare in Dongguan in 2005. Although larger than the West Edmonton Mall, it draws no more traffic than a typical small Canadian strip plaza and most of the 1,500 stores are vacant.
China's long-term future remains bright, Mr. Katsenelson says. “But over the next several years – and I don't know when it's going to start – the next leg is likely to be down. And when the economy declines, it's not going to be a soft recession.”
Trouble at the factories
China's worst short-term problems lie in manufacturing, the engine of its spectacular growth.
As any Canadian producer can attest, manufacturing can be a volatile activity, prone to booms and busts. But the Chinese have enjoyed nothing but growth for 30 years, leaving industry with rising fixed costs, lots of excess capacity and workers they can't easily shed when demand finally declines.
As it becomes harder to meet payments on debt (the primary source of capital) and maintain payrolls, all those millions of people who were encouraged to migrate from farms to urban factory jobs will find their meagre livelihoods threatened.
“This is when you discover how dysfunctional this economy was,” Mr. Katsenelson says.
“It's a highly vulnerable country,” agrees George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor, an Austin, Tex.-based company that provides global intelligence to clients. “With energy prices rising dramatically as a [cost] component, the ability of the Chinese economy to keep functioning the way it used to is in severe doubt.”
To begin with, China's financial system is not as solid as it looks. According to Mr. Friedman, the government's conservative estimate on the level of Chinese loans on which no principal or interest is being collected is $600-billion (U.S.). Stratfor's research places the actual figure at closer to $1.1-trillion, held by commercial banks as well as so-called asset management corporations, government entities set up to buy debts.
“Japan went south when non-performing loans got to about 20 per cent of GDP. South Korea, about 25 per cent,” Mr. Friedman says. “These guys [Chinese] are conservatively at 40 per cent of GDP. And then they get hit by commodity prices. So for China, it's the perfect storm.”
Most China watchers aren't so gloomy. The country's many foreign boosters list a number of things in its favour, starting with its deep cash reserves – a world-leading $1.8-trillion at the end of June – a growing domestic consumer market, a gradual shift to higher-value manufacturing and a strong savings and investment rate (more than 35 per cent of income, compared with 2 per cent in the U.S.).
“Is it going to grow at 12 per cent forever? Of course not,” says Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief executive of Pacific Investment Management Co. of Newport Beach, Calif., and an expert on emerging markets. “But it can grow at 6 to 10 per cent for the next five years. Most people would be happy with that, especially as the base is getting bigger.”
David Dollar, the World Bank's country director for China, says that “over all, I remain pretty optimistic about China.” Productivity continues to grow rapidly, he says, and millions of workers continue to move from the country to the cities, giving manufacturers a ready supply of labour that should last for years to come.
Most economists say any Olympic effect on the economy should be slight. Though Beijing spent $43-billion on the games and related infrastructure, that's only a sliver of the $3.6-trillion economy.
Fiscal ammunition
China bulls argue that even if the slowdown worsens, China has lots of ways to dig its way out of trouble. Credit Suisse says that with a budget surplus equivalent to 1.5 per cent of GDP, Beijing has more than enough fiscal ammunition to stimulate the economy through government spending. With inflation easing, it should have more room to cut interest rates too.
But inflation isn't licked yet. Though it has indeed moderated after a worrying runup earlier in the year, falling to 6.3 per cent in July from 7.1 per cent in June, a rate of 6 or 7 per cent is far above the average for the past decade of 1.3 per cent a year. And while the consumer price index is down, producer prices – which are what affect companies – rose 10 per cent last month.
Some economists think it is also a mistake to think that increasingly prosperous Chinese consumers will take up the slack in the economy by buying more goods and services. The Peterson Institute's Mr. Lardy notes that, measured as a share of economic output, household consumption has been falling for the past seven years. Chinese consumption is the lowest for any economy in modern times, mainly because Chinese save so much. At 35 per cent of GDP, consumption is as low as it was in the United States at the height of the Second World War, when rationing was in effect and Americans were putting a lot of their money into war bonds.
In any case, it is hard for companies accustomed to serving overseas markets to switch suddenly to the domestic market.
“We have to spend a lot of money on brand promotion and sales networks to develop the domestic market for our furniture,” said Mr. Li of the Huitianli Furniture Company in Dalingshan. “We don't have enough experience and expertise in the domestic market. And about 50 to 60 per cent of the furniture factories in Dalingshan have switched to the domestic market, so we're facing severe competition. It's a real headache for all of us here.”
China's economy has been through tough times before. It weathered a bout of inflation and economic overheating in the late 1980s and sailed through the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.
But since the era of economic reform began 30 years ago this December, the economy has grown more than tenfold and per capita income has grown at an average of 8 per cent a year, lifting countless Chinese out of poverty. It has been a remarkably consistent performance by any measure, so remarkable that any sustained slowing would come as a shock.
Whether that shock will come, or whether instead China is simply experiencing a modest slowdown, is still an open question. But in factory cities like Dalingshan, they are bracing for trouble.
And then the slowdown hit. Costs soared and exports slumped. Since the start of this year, its profits have virtually disappeared. “We're spending our savings to keep it running,” says the company's export director, who prefers to be identified only by his surname, Liu.
“If the situation gets worse, we might have to rent out our new warehouses to other companies,” he said. “We're suffering a cold winter in the middle of summer.”
His company is just one of a growing number of struggling producers in China's furniture capital, the southern city of Dalingshan. Traditionally one of the biggest furniture production bases in Asia, the city is in trouble these days. Of its 280 biggest factories, at least 30 to 40 are in serious difficulty, according to a recent survey by the China National Furniture Association.
Furniture is not the only Chinese industry facing unexpected difficulties this year. After three decades of pell-mell rise from peasant society to economic powerhouse, there are signs that China's race to riches may finally be slowing, with repercussions that could spread around the globe.
Most China watchers think the slump will be shallow and relatively brief. Still, there are enough signs of trouble to cause a buzz about China's “post-Olympic slowdown.”
New orders at factories are down sharply. Bankruptcies are up. Last month, industrial production grew at the slowest pace since the spring of 2007. Stock prices are down about 60 per cent since last October. Property is showing signs of weakness too, especially in the booming southeast where flagging exports would have the most impact. Even the Chinese lust for new cars is beginning to cool.
A slowdown in export growth caused in part by the shrinking spending of North American and European consumers is “rippling across the economy,” Jing Ulrich, a China watcher with JPMorgan in Hong Kong, says in her research note this month (though she remains an optimist on China).
Worry at the top
The ruling Communist Party is worried enough that Premier Wen Jiabao and other leading officials toured coastal export industries last month. Mr. Wen professed himself “very concerned about the difficulties they are up against.” Since then, the Politburo has met to underline its support for “steady and fast” economic growth, a shift from the previous emphasis on reining in the excesses of the economy.
After fretting for the past five years or so about how to keep the economy from overheating, Beijing is now faced with the novel problem of how to keep it from cooling. “If you're sitting in Beijing, you're saying, ‘We've already lost two percentage points of economic growth. How much more are we going to lose?'” said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington.
“That's a big turning point for the Chinese economy. That means questions of profitability, questions of unemployment, questions of social stability.”
China's gross domestic product growth peaked at a frantic annualized 12.6 per cent in the second of quarter of 2007. Since then it has eased to 10.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year and 10.1 per cent in the second. Most economists are predicting growth in the coming year of between 8 and 10 per cent – still a breakneck pace compared with most economies, but a comedown for China.
If China's growth does slow significantly – even to, say 6 or 7 per cent a year – it would sting every developed economy, including Canada's. China's hunger for oil, metals, potash and other commodities have helped buoy the Canadian economy. Commodities represent half of Canada's exports and China has been the biggest driver of soaring commodity prices. China has been the engine of the global economy, contributing 30 per cent of its growth last year.
To absorb the countless workers streaming from China's poorer interior to work in coastal factories, Beijing reckons it needs to create nine million new jobs a year. Even a drop in economic growth to 8 per cent could compromise that goal and undermine a key pillar of the Communist's Party's strategy for staying in power: sustained, rapid economic growth.
There is no more government talk of discouraging low-cost industries such as textiles and toys and promoting higher-value high-tech sectors. Instead, Beijing has taken steps to shore up the mass-production factories that are the foundation of its economic success, for instance by easing limits on the size of the loans local banks can make to manufacturers and by effectively reducing export taxes.
“The Chinese economy is still beset with problems, including persistent prices rises, uncertainties in demand abroad, squeezed corporate profit margins, difficulty in ensuring energy and power supplies, and undue expansion of foreign exchanges reserves,” the state news agency Xinhua said in a recent report.
Sales of sedans, SUVs and light trucks were up 6.8 per cent in July from the same month in 2007, the lowest monthly growth rate in two years. As with many other measures, the slowdown is relative – a matter of slowing, not stalling or much less shrinking, growth. Still, the moderating demand for the country's most prized consumer possession shows that Chinese shoppers are feeling the first puffs of an ill wind.
A purchasing managers' survey found that manufacturing output may actually have contracted last month for the first time since the survey began in 2005. Official bankruptcy statistics, which may well be understated, show that more than 67,000 small and mid-sized businesses shuttered their doors in the first half of this year, putting millions of people out of work. And factory closings designed to control pollution during the Olympics may end up depressing economic growth this year, Goldman Sachs said in a report this month.
Moving production
In the textile industry, which employs 25 million workers, increasing wages and the rise of the Chinese currency, the yuan, have raised costs and made it more expensive for other countries to buy Chinese-made clothing. Energy costs are up too, and a new law forcing companies to provide social benefits to workers has increased labour costs for employers. As a result, hundreds of companies have moved their production to cheaper countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh.
Furniture, another long-thriving industry, saw profit margins fall to 1.1 per cent from 3.2 per cent in the first five months of the year. One industry estimate said 9,000 of the 40,000 Chinese furniture factories will be forced out of business because of rising energy prices and labour costs, the increasing value of the Chinese currency, and a substantial drop in export orders in the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States.
“For many of us, it's hard to raise our prices, because the orders from our old clients are based on the earlier cheaper prices,” said Mr. Liu, the export director at the Shangxing Furniture Company.
“Some people say that the more they produce, the more they lose money.”
Huitianli Furniture Company, which employs about 500 workers in Dalingshan, is frantically trying to switch to the domestic market because of a sharp drop in orders from overseas customers. The company laid off 100 workers and shut down one of its three production lines last December because of the slump in export sales. It estimates that profit is down at least 50 per cent this year.
“We're getting almost no profits from our overseas orders because of the rising cost of material, labour and transportation,” said Li Yuhua, the company's manager.
Zhu Changling, vice-director of the China National Furniture Association, says the value of China's wood furniture exports increased 7 per cent in the first half of this year – but most of the gain was offset by rising costs and the appreciation of the Chinese currency. The actual volume of wood furniture exports is down 6 per cent this year, mainly because of the U.S. economic slowdown and the subprime crisis, he said.
“American clients are hesitating to send us orders because they're afraid that they won't be able to sell the furniture, and Chinese exporters are reluctant to accept the orders because the profit margins are so low,” he said.
China's problems stem in part from its very success at turning itself into the world colossus in low-cost global manufacturing, an export dynamo whose rapid growth has been fuelled by cheap labour, energy, capital and a willingness to accept narrow profit margins.
It's a condition that Vitaliy Katsenelson labels “late-stage growth obesity.”
The director of research with Investment Management Associates in Denver, he coined the expression to describe what happens when economies and corporations expand at such a rapid clip they fall victim to inefficiencies that worsen as time goes on, particularly in a case like China's, where tight government control over the banking system, rampant crony capitalism and continuing corruption mean that capital is not always allocated on the basis of merit or need.
As a result, growth may be high, but its quality is low, which makes it even more likely that decisions on asset allocation will be poor.
He cites the famous case of the vast South China Mall, which was opened with much fanfare in Dongguan in 2005. Although larger than the West Edmonton Mall, it draws no more traffic than a typical small Canadian strip plaza and most of the 1,500 stores are vacant.
China's long-term future remains bright, Mr. Katsenelson says. “But over the next several years – and I don't know when it's going to start – the next leg is likely to be down. And when the economy declines, it's not going to be a soft recession.”
Trouble at the factories
China's worst short-term problems lie in manufacturing, the engine of its spectacular growth.
As any Canadian producer can attest, manufacturing can be a volatile activity, prone to booms and busts. But the Chinese have enjoyed nothing but growth for 30 years, leaving industry with rising fixed costs, lots of excess capacity and workers they can't easily shed when demand finally declines.
As it becomes harder to meet payments on debt (the primary source of capital) and maintain payrolls, all those millions of people who were encouraged to migrate from farms to urban factory jobs will find their meagre livelihoods threatened.
“This is when you discover how dysfunctional this economy was,” Mr. Katsenelson says.
“It's a highly vulnerable country,” agrees George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor, an Austin, Tex.-based company that provides global intelligence to clients. “With energy prices rising dramatically as a [cost] component, the ability of the Chinese economy to keep functioning the way it used to is in severe doubt.”
To begin with, China's financial system is not as solid as it looks. According to Mr. Friedman, the government's conservative estimate on the level of Chinese loans on which no principal or interest is being collected is $600-billion (U.S.). Stratfor's research places the actual figure at closer to $1.1-trillion, held by commercial banks as well as so-called asset management corporations, government entities set up to buy debts.
“Japan went south when non-performing loans got to about 20 per cent of GDP. South Korea, about 25 per cent,” Mr. Friedman says. “These guys [Chinese] are conservatively at 40 per cent of GDP. And then they get hit by commodity prices. So for China, it's the perfect storm.”
Most China watchers aren't so gloomy. The country's many foreign boosters list a number of things in its favour, starting with its deep cash reserves – a world-leading $1.8-trillion at the end of June – a growing domestic consumer market, a gradual shift to higher-value manufacturing and a strong savings and investment rate (more than 35 per cent of income, compared with 2 per cent in the U.S.).
“Is it going to grow at 12 per cent forever? Of course not,” says Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief executive of Pacific Investment Management Co. of Newport Beach, Calif., and an expert on emerging markets. “But it can grow at 6 to 10 per cent for the next five years. Most people would be happy with that, especially as the base is getting bigger.”
David Dollar, the World Bank's country director for China, says that “over all, I remain pretty optimistic about China.” Productivity continues to grow rapidly, he says, and millions of workers continue to move from the country to the cities, giving manufacturers a ready supply of labour that should last for years to come.
Most economists say any Olympic effect on the economy should be slight. Though Beijing spent $43-billion on the games and related infrastructure, that's only a sliver of the $3.6-trillion economy.
Fiscal ammunition
China bulls argue that even if the slowdown worsens, China has lots of ways to dig its way out of trouble. Credit Suisse says that with a budget surplus equivalent to 1.5 per cent of GDP, Beijing has more than enough fiscal ammunition to stimulate the economy through government spending. With inflation easing, it should have more room to cut interest rates too.
But inflation isn't licked yet. Though it has indeed moderated after a worrying runup earlier in the year, falling to 6.3 per cent in July from 7.1 per cent in June, a rate of 6 or 7 per cent is far above the average for the past decade of 1.3 per cent a year. And while the consumer price index is down, producer prices – which are what affect companies – rose 10 per cent last month.
Some economists think it is also a mistake to think that increasingly prosperous Chinese consumers will take up the slack in the economy by buying more goods and services. The Peterson Institute's Mr. Lardy notes that, measured as a share of economic output, household consumption has been falling for the past seven years. Chinese consumption is the lowest for any economy in modern times, mainly because Chinese save so much. At 35 per cent of GDP, consumption is as low as it was in the United States at the height of the Second World War, when rationing was in effect and Americans were putting a lot of their money into war bonds.
In any case, it is hard for companies accustomed to serving overseas markets to switch suddenly to the domestic market.
“We have to spend a lot of money on brand promotion and sales networks to develop the domestic market for our furniture,” said Mr. Li of the Huitianli Furniture Company in Dalingshan. “We don't have enough experience and expertise in the domestic market. And about 50 to 60 per cent of the furniture factories in Dalingshan have switched to the domestic market, so we're facing severe competition. It's a real headache for all of us here.”
China's economy has been through tough times before. It weathered a bout of inflation and economic overheating in the late 1980s and sailed through the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.
But since the era of economic reform began 30 years ago this December, the economy has grown more than tenfold and per capita income has grown at an average of 8 per cent a year, lifting countless Chinese out of poverty. It has been a remarkably consistent performance by any measure, so remarkable that any sustained slowing would come as a shock.
Whether that shock will come, or whether instead China is simply experiencing a modest slowdown, is still an open question. But in factory cities like Dalingshan, they are bracing for trouble.
Cambodia town - stuff of dreams and seafood
A boat pushes off from the Kep marina, above. This hut, below, is just east of the crab market in Kep. (John Bonne / The Chronicle)
A hut just east of the crab market in Kep. (John Bonne / The Chronicle)Friday, August 29, 2008
Jon Bonné San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Kep, Cambodia -- Kam Noeun must be some sort of genius.
His Kimly restaurant appeared no different from any of a half-dozen others along the attached row of corrugated-roof shacks that serve as the local crab market. Yet Noeun and his family have honed to perfection their version of the local specialty, pepper crab, freshly stir-fried not just with black pepper but also with fresh whole stalks of green peppercorns, grown in the nearby local plantations.
The crabs are fresh and briny, caught that day by one of the fishing boats moored outside. Smaller than the meaty Sri Lanka crabs that dominate in Singapore, they squirm on their way to the wok. But the pepper stalks, with their fragrant, herbal heat, buoy the crabs' sweetness in an unforgettable combination. Here in a crab shack at land's end in Cambodia, Noeun serves one of the finest seafood dishes I've ever had.
Besides the crab, Noeun's wine list would put to shame plenty of this country's seaside bistros. He brought us a 2006 white Bordeaux, a Premieres Cotes de Blaye. At $13, it was twice the cost of dinner. Inevitably, we returned for another helping the following night. Noeun looked up, sighed, then smiled. "You're back!"
Quaint and decrepit, the seaside town of Kep (once called Kep-sur-Mer) is like a tattered telegram from Cambodia's colonial days. Founded in 1908 during the French era on a small cape less than 10 miles from the Vietnamese border, it was once a sparkling resort.
During the reformist era of Prince Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s and '60s, French and Khmer alike journeyed to its balmy shores for the tranquil sunsets over the Gulf of Thailand and relief from the bustling heat of the capital. One of Sihanouk's planned palaces, now in disrepair, lies not far above the town's main road. The French connection and Cambodia's brief cultural heyday explain the architectural blend of colonial and Khmer take on Midcentury Modernism.
The Khmer Rouge explains the rest. Quite simply, Kep was all but destroyed during years of civil strife in the 1970s. Kampot province, where the town is situated, remained one of the Khmer Rouge's final holdouts. It still reputedly harbors former loyalists. In the intervening years, looting and neglect wore Kep down even further.
Kep remains a near-relic, seemingly unreconstructed with the exception of a few municipal buildings and an increasingly posh set of guesthouses. Roads are lined with evidence of the years of unrest. Quaint terraces are worn away by old bullet holes. Tree-shaded steps lead to ragged concrete skeletons of villas that once were.
No raves, please
I'd promised my partner Kristina a proper beach stay on our trip through Southeast Asia. But Bali and Thailand evoked thoughts of backpackers and bad Irish bars. We wanted something remote and rave-free.
At first glance, Kep had little to offer: seafood, solitude and a glimpse of the former charms of Cambodia, filtered through the remains of war.
That is precisely its charm, not just for us but for the handful of Khmer families who still visit for the weekend. Though Westerners are slowly rediscovering Kep - seaside villas were for sale at $80,000 - it has largely escaped the rapid transformation that has crept along the Cambodian coast.
To the northwest, the city of Sihanoukville, once Kep's rival as a resort, is now a key stop on the backpacker circuit. Australian-owned guesthouses line its streets, rooms at the Sokha Beach Resort start at $250, and a $2 billion resort is planned on the nearby island of Koh Rong. Though the airport closed last year after a fatal crash, flights are expected to resume later this year. Sihanoukville, obviously, is being groomed as Cambodia's Phuket.
The route to Kep
The route to Kep begins in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's chaotic capital. Five years ago, when I last visited, Phnom Penh felt very much like a frontier outpost itself - a slightly lawless enclave of aid workers, beggar children and French-speaking moto drivers who would speed you across town for 1 American dollar. Though the country's poverty is still visible at every turn, the changes are remarkable. A lone cash-advance booth off Monivong Boulevard has been supplanted by spotless ATMs run by Australia's ANZ Bank. Muddy Toyota Land Cruisers with Croix Rouge logos have morphed into Lexus SUVs. Thai-style tuk-tuks - three-wheeled open taxis - have invaded. Ambitious office buildings are being added to the skyline.
Unless you manage to find a private taxi (around $45), the strenuous five-hour, 105-mile journey to Kep is via twice-daily buses that depart near Phnom Penh's Central Market, a relatively new convenience, thanks to newly passable roads. The route through Phnom Penh's dusty suburbs, past garment factories and swarms of Khmer schoolchildren in uniform, seemed to take forever. But we eventually wound south on two-lane National Route 3, traversing the monotone Cambodian plain. Only as the temperature dipped and we approached the coastal mountains did the scenery gain intrigue, just as the paved road ended for a bone-jarring 20-mile-drive to the outskirts of Kep.
High point of the day
The bus stopped near Kep's municipal beach, and we staggered off. Its arrival was clearly a high point of the day.
Kristina and I hopped a tuk-tuk, which struggled up the hillside where most lodgings can be found. It stalled about halfway up, so we left our bags in the back and trekked behind to the stone entryway of the Veranda Guesthouse, located near the hiking trails to Kep's hilltop national park.
The Chinese-run Veranda is known not only for its picturesque bungalows - reached by a series of elevated walkways - but also for its picturesque bar and restaurant, offering a view that encompasses all of Kep. Our thatched bungalow was tidy and compact, with a full bath and a hammock-equipped patio looking directly out over town. A mosquito net was essential, but we also were constantly foiled by what we deduced to be a lizard that ate a new hole through Kristina's backpack each day. As the bungalow was already on 10-foot-high stilts, we preferred not to contemplate what precisely our visitor might be.
It was time for an ice-cold Angkor ("My Country, My Beer") and a remarkably well-made gin and tonic. (The lodge also offers a surprisingly good, if overpriced, wine selection.) We gazed at the outline of Phu Quoc Island, the crumbling villas and low-hanging tropical cumulus clouds that gathered each day around dusk. Squeezed between the hills' thick vegetation and the sea, the impression was undeniable that we had quietly come to the edge of the world.
The Elephant Mountains
By no means affluent, Kep gets by as a humble fishing town with a middling beach, nonpareil scenery and the reputation of its seafood.
It has fared better than its neighbors. To the northwest lies the atmospheric, if grungy, river town of Kampot, in the shadow of the Elephant Mountains. Until last year, this onetime port city served as staging point for trips to the Bokor Hill Station, perched at an elevation of 3,500 feet at the end of a bone-jarring 26-mile ride.
A former French settlement, Bokor once epitomized colonial civility with its Catholic church and opulent hotel-casino, the Bokor Palace. With the Khmer Rouge, it became the site of battles between Khmer combatants and the Vietnamese army, leaving it in such disrepair that its ghostlike status amid the mountain fog provided a steady stream of visitors, many of whom would pay $5 to stay the night. All that ended this winter when the Cambodian government leased the whole area to energy company Sokimex, which intends to resurrect Bokor as a posh resort, supplanting bullet holes with blackjack. The road is now closed except to a few well-connected tour guides.
Kampot also gave its name to the peppercorns grown throughout the province. As early as the 19th century, Kampot pepper was exported; through much of the 20th century, it was cherished by French gastronomes. The dried peppercorns have a unique fruitiness and pungency; they are readily found for sale in jars along the beach in Kep for a dollar or two. It is fresh Kampot pepper that makes Kep's pepper crab quite so distinctive.
A worthwhile excursion is a visit to Koh Tonsay (Rabbit Island), 3 miles offshore. We made our way to the local marina near the east end of town, where for $15 to $20 you can hire your own boat and boatman for the day.
The island, once a penal colony, is now inhabited by a half-dozen families who operate beachside cabanas, serve seafood and cold beer, and rent rustic huts on stilts.
Koh Tonsay's beaches are far more pristine than Kep's, with calm, clear waters. Over beer and a plate of pepper squid, we watched the occasional pig wander by as a pair of Englishmen docked, aided by a swarm of helpers unloading camping getup worthy of Kipling.
We left this well-outfitted bunch behind and took a walk. A rough path encircles most of the island, leading to even more remote inlets where you can see the looming hills of Phu Quoc in the distance. Just don't ask your skipper to take you farther south. Koh Tonsay is about equidistant from the mainland and Vietnam's territorial boundary. Given frequent border tensions, a pleasure cruise into Vietnamese waters is ill advised.
We returned to shore in time for a sunset stroll along Kep's shoreline. As the single main road is just a mile or two long, almost everything in town can be reached on foot. A full loop can be achieved in a morning. Near the municipal beach, we passed beyond Kep's other landmark - a towering plaster statue of a Khmer woman, sometimes called a mermaid, placed dramatically on the end of a pier. Its appearance from the bus signals your arrival in Kep, and it guards over the town pleasantly.
Limestone caves
With one day left, we wanted to explore inland. We negotiated with the Veranda's clerk for a moped (the guesthouses will also arrange guided tours). He scored a brand-new Suzuki - clearly borrowed from one of the staff - that, despite inadequate seat padding, turned out to be the best vehicle we rode in Cambodia, thanks to the luxury of a functional speedometer.
Armed with a hand-sketched map, we set out first for Kampong Trach, site of dramatic limestone caves, where the Khmer Rouge held several kidnapped Westerners in 1994. Beyond Kampong Trach lies the road to Vietnam, so we backtracked to hunt for pepper plantations, querying several puzzled roadside police officers - Mrek? we asked ("Pepper?") - before heading on to Kampot.
With the day ending, we puttered back to the roundabout, with a statue of a white horse that marks the turnoff to Kep. We turned south and approached the seaside for one final evening of pepper crab. Soon enough, we encountered a string of ruined shoreside villas - elaborate concrete and iron walls covered with moss and tropical grime, the homes they once protected crumbled to the foundations. As we stopped for a closer look, children pedaled by, shouting "Hello!" in unison.
There, as we approached the traffic circle that marked our turnoff, was Kep in full, half-destroyed and full of life.
Five cool things about Kep
1. Kep and nearby Kampot (specifically the Traditional Music School) have cameo appearances in the 2007 documentary "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong," about the L.A. band Dengue Fever.
2. The name Kep is thought to come from French - "le cap" ("the cape"). A more fanciful version evokes the tale of a Khmer king who once fell off his horse and lost a saddle ("kep she"), which provided the area with its name until it was shortened.
3. Though Norodom Sihanouk had a palace built in Kep, he never resided in it.
4. As elsewhere in Cambodia, gasoline for motos is usually sold on roadside stands in 1-liter soda bottles. A liter costs about $1.
5. Though some Kep destinations have Web sites, the town itself lacks Internet service. Leave the laptop at home.
If you go
GETTING THERE
There are no direct U.S. flights to Phnom Penh. But it's a short connecting flight from Bangkok (Thai Airways, Air Asia, Bangkok Airways), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam Airlines) or Kuala Lumpur (Malaysian Airlines, Air Asia). Flights are also available from Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and elsewhere.
From Phnom Penh, it will be a five-hour bus trip ($3 to $4 per person). Hour Lean (011-855-12-939-917) runs comfortable air-conditioned coaches. If your hotel or travel office books the bus, be insistent in your selection of bus company. We requested Hour Lean but were booked on Sorya for the ride down to Kep; the coach not only lacked the promised air conditioning but most of the seats were on the verge of collapse. Coaches typically play Khmer-language videos, which are charming for the first 45 minutes of the five-hour trip. Private taxis can also be arranged for around $45 each way.
WHERE TO STAY
Most lodgings are clustered on the west side of Kep.
Tucked into a wooded hillside, Veranda Guesthouse and Resort offers bungalows ($25-$60 a night) with panoramic ocean views, all connected by a raised walkway. 011-855-12-888-619, www.veranda-resort.com.
Vanna Bungalows, just down the road from Veranda, offers a similar setup ($10-$20), though with more basic amenities. They take only phone reservations, which can be a challenge if you're booking from the U.S. 011-85 -12 -755-038, www.vannabungalows.com.
Going sharply upscale, Knai Bang Chatt evokes Kep's full prewar glamour. Situated in villas designed by a student of architect Vann Molyvann, the Khmer protege of Le Corbusier, its rooms ($110-$392), swimming pool and sleek design wouldn't seem out of place in Malibu. Amenities include yoga and a sailing club. After making Conde Nast Traveler's 2007 Hot List, it hasn't been wanting for business. 011-855-128-794-86, knaibangchatt.com.
The huts on Koh Tonsay (around $10-$15) also offer a charming, isolated stay, though bring your own mosquito net, bedding and plenty of DEET-enabled bug spray.
WHERE TO EAT
The crab market along Kep's shore provides most of the town's options. Any of the restaurants will prepare the local pepper-laced specialties. Kimly offers not only crab and squid with green peppercorns but also traditional Khmer soups and rice dishes (entrees $3-$8), along with its wine list. 011-855-12-345-753.
Both Veranda and Vanna have restaurants. Vanna's menu is more traditional Khmer, while Veranda's open-air Jungle restaurant offers Italian dishes in addition to the usual Khmer fare (entrees $4-$10), plus a solid wine list and bar.
Just above Veranda, Le Bout du Monde has a similar open-air setup and view, offering local seafood dishes (entrees $4-$8). It also has several basic guest rooms.
WHAT TO DO
The beaches in Kep are adequate, but the best beach option is on Koh Tonsay. Private boats ($15-$20) can be chartered on request and carry at least eight people. Buy a ticket at the marina on the east end of town, near the municipal offices. Arrange a return time, unless you plan to stay overnight on Koh Tonsay.
Sights farther afield include the limestone caves at Kampong Trach; the three hills of Phnom Sar Sear, with caves and a Buddhist retreat, en route to Kampot; and pepper plantations. Mopeds ($5-$7/day) and bicycles ($3/day) can be rented from most guesthouses or from stands in the town center. They allow you to explore the local area, and mopeds will carry you all the way to the towns of Kampot or Kampong Trach. For a more effective tour, you may want to arrange a tour or taxi ($20-30) with your guesthouse.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Kep: www.kepcity.com
Cambodian Ministry of Tourism: www.mot.gov.kh
Kampot Pepper Farmers' Associations: www.kampotpepper.biz/en/associations.html
Jon Bonné is The Chronicle's wine editor. To comment, visit sfgate.com/travel and follow the links.
His Kimly restaurant appeared no different from any of a half-dozen others along the attached row of corrugated-roof shacks that serve as the local crab market. Yet Noeun and his family have honed to perfection their version of the local specialty, pepper crab, freshly stir-fried not just with black pepper but also with fresh whole stalks of green peppercorns, grown in the nearby local plantations.
The crabs are fresh and briny, caught that day by one of the fishing boats moored outside. Smaller than the meaty Sri Lanka crabs that dominate in Singapore, they squirm on their way to the wok. But the pepper stalks, with their fragrant, herbal heat, buoy the crabs' sweetness in an unforgettable combination. Here in a crab shack at land's end in Cambodia, Noeun serves one of the finest seafood dishes I've ever had.
Besides the crab, Noeun's wine list would put to shame plenty of this country's seaside bistros. He brought us a 2006 white Bordeaux, a Premieres Cotes de Blaye. At $13, it was twice the cost of dinner. Inevitably, we returned for another helping the following night. Noeun looked up, sighed, then smiled. "You're back!"
Quaint and decrepit, the seaside town of Kep (once called Kep-sur-Mer) is like a tattered telegram from Cambodia's colonial days. Founded in 1908 during the French era on a small cape less than 10 miles from the Vietnamese border, it was once a sparkling resort.
During the reformist era of Prince Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s and '60s, French and Khmer alike journeyed to its balmy shores for the tranquil sunsets over the Gulf of Thailand and relief from the bustling heat of the capital. One of Sihanouk's planned palaces, now in disrepair, lies not far above the town's main road. The French connection and Cambodia's brief cultural heyday explain the architectural blend of colonial and Khmer take on Midcentury Modernism.
The Khmer Rouge explains the rest. Quite simply, Kep was all but destroyed during years of civil strife in the 1970s. Kampot province, where the town is situated, remained one of the Khmer Rouge's final holdouts. It still reputedly harbors former loyalists. In the intervening years, looting and neglect wore Kep down even further.
Kep remains a near-relic, seemingly unreconstructed with the exception of a few municipal buildings and an increasingly posh set of guesthouses. Roads are lined with evidence of the years of unrest. Quaint terraces are worn away by old bullet holes. Tree-shaded steps lead to ragged concrete skeletons of villas that once were.
No raves, please
I'd promised my partner Kristina a proper beach stay on our trip through Southeast Asia. But Bali and Thailand evoked thoughts of backpackers and bad Irish bars. We wanted something remote and rave-free.
At first glance, Kep had little to offer: seafood, solitude and a glimpse of the former charms of Cambodia, filtered through the remains of war.
That is precisely its charm, not just for us but for the handful of Khmer families who still visit for the weekend. Though Westerners are slowly rediscovering Kep - seaside villas were for sale at $80,000 - it has largely escaped the rapid transformation that has crept along the Cambodian coast.
To the northwest, the city of Sihanoukville, once Kep's rival as a resort, is now a key stop on the backpacker circuit. Australian-owned guesthouses line its streets, rooms at the Sokha Beach Resort start at $250, and a $2 billion resort is planned on the nearby island of Koh Rong. Though the airport closed last year after a fatal crash, flights are expected to resume later this year. Sihanoukville, obviously, is being groomed as Cambodia's Phuket.
The route to Kep
The route to Kep begins in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's chaotic capital. Five years ago, when I last visited, Phnom Penh felt very much like a frontier outpost itself - a slightly lawless enclave of aid workers, beggar children and French-speaking moto drivers who would speed you across town for 1 American dollar. Though the country's poverty is still visible at every turn, the changes are remarkable. A lone cash-advance booth off Monivong Boulevard has been supplanted by spotless ATMs run by Australia's ANZ Bank. Muddy Toyota Land Cruisers with Croix Rouge logos have morphed into Lexus SUVs. Thai-style tuk-tuks - three-wheeled open taxis - have invaded. Ambitious office buildings are being added to the skyline.
Unless you manage to find a private taxi (around $45), the strenuous five-hour, 105-mile journey to Kep is via twice-daily buses that depart near Phnom Penh's Central Market, a relatively new convenience, thanks to newly passable roads. The route through Phnom Penh's dusty suburbs, past garment factories and swarms of Khmer schoolchildren in uniform, seemed to take forever. But we eventually wound south on two-lane National Route 3, traversing the monotone Cambodian plain. Only as the temperature dipped and we approached the coastal mountains did the scenery gain intrigue, just as the paved road ended for a bone-jarring 20-mile-drive to the outskirts of Kep.
High point of the day
The bus stopped near Kep's municipal beach, and we staggered off. Its arrival was clearly a high point of the day.
Kristina and I hopped a tuk-tuk, which struggled up the hillside where most lodgings can be found. It stalled about halfway up, so we left our bags in the back and trekked behind to the stone entryway of the Veranda Guesthouse, located near the hiking trails to Kep's hilltop national park.
The Chinese-run Veranda is known not only for its picturesque bungalows - reached by a series of elevated walkways - but also for its picturesque bar and restaurant, offering a view that encompasses all of Kep. Our thatched bungalow was tidy and compact, with a full bath and a hammock-equipped patio looking directly out over town. A mosquito net was essential, but we also were constantly foiled by what we deduced to be a lizard that ate a new hole through Kristina's backpack each day. As the bungalow was already on 10-foot-high stilts, we preferred not to contemplate what precisely our visitor might be.
It was time for an ice-cold Angkor ("My Country, My Beer") and a remarkably well-made gin and tonic. (The lodge also offers a surprisingly good, if overpriced, wine selection.) We gazed at the outline of Phu Quoc Island, the crumbling villas and low-hanging tropical cumulus clouds that gathered each day around dusk. Squeezed between the hills' thick vegetation and the sea, the impression was undeniable that we had quietly come to the edge of the world.
The Elephant Mountains
By no means affluent, Kep gets by as a humble fishing town with a middling beach, nonpareil scenery and the reputation of its seafood.
It has fared better than its neighbors. To the northwest lies the atmospheric, if grungy, river town of Kampot, in the shadow of the Elephant Mountains. Until last year, this onetime port city served as staging point for trips to the Bokor Hill Station, perched at an elevation of 3,500 feet at the end of a bone-jarring 26-mile ride.
A former French settlement, Bokor once epitomized colonial civility with its Catholic church and opulent hotel-casino, the Bokor Palace. With the Khmer Rouge, it became the site of battles between Khmer combatants and the Vietnamese army, leaving it in such disrepair that its ghostlike status amid the mountain fog provided a steady stream of visitors, many of whom would pay $5 to stay the night. All that ended this winter when the Cambodian government leased the whole area to energy company Sokimex, which intends to resurrect Bokor as a posh resort, supplanting bullet holes with blackjack. The road is now closed except to a few well-connected tour guides.
Kampot also gave its name to the peppercorns grown throughout the province. As early as the 19th century, Kampot pepper was exported; through much of the 20th century, it was cherished by French gastronomes. The dried peppercorns have a unique fruitiness and pungency; they are readily found for sale in jars along the beach in Kep for a dollar or two. It is fresh Kampot pepper that makes Kep's pepper crab quite so distinctive.
A worthwhile excursion is a visit to Koh Tonsay (Rabbit Island), 3 miles offshore. We made our way to the local marina near the east end of town, where for $15 to $20 you can hire your own boat and boatman for the day.
The island, once a penal colony, is now inhabited by a half-dozen families who operate beachside cabanas, serve seafood and cold beer, and rent rustic huts on stilts.
Koh Tonsay's beaches are far more pristine than Kep's, with calm, clear waters. Over beer and a plate of pepper squid, we watched the occasional pig wander by as a pair of Englishmen docked, aided by a swarm of helpers unloading camping getup worthy of Kipling.
We left this well-outfitted bunch behind and took a walk. A rough path encircles most of the island, leading to even more remote inlets where you can see the looming hills of Phu Quoc in the distance. Just don't ask your skipper to take you farther south. Koh Tonsay is about equidistant from the mainland and Vietnam's territorial boundary. Given frequent border tensions, a pleasure cruise into Vietnamese waters is ill advised.
We returned to shore in time for a sunset stroll along Kep's shoreline. As the single main road is just a mile or two long, almost everything in town can be reached on foot. A full loop can be achieved in a morning. Near the municipal beach, we passed beyond Kep's other landmark - a towering plaster statue of a Khmer woman, sometimes called a mermaid, placed dramatically on the end of a pier. Its appearance from the bus signals your arrival in Kep, and it guards over the town pleasantly.
Limestone caves
With one day left, we wanted to explore inland. We negotiated with the Veranda's clerk for a moped (the guesthouses will also arrange guided tours). He scored a brand-new Suzuki - clearly borrowed from one of the staff - that, despite inadequate seat padding, turned out to be the best vehicle we rode in Cambodia, thanks to the luxury of a functional speedometer.
Armed with a hand-sketched map, we set out first for Kampong Trach, site of dramatic limestone caves, where the Khmer Rouge held several kidnapped Westerners in 1994. Beyond Kampong Trach lies the road to Vietnam, so we backtracked to hunt for pepper plantations, querying several puzzled roadside police officers - Mrek? we asked ("Pepper?") - before heading on to Kampot.
With the day ending, we puttered back to the roundabout, with a statue of a white horse that marks the turnoff to Kep. We turned south and approached the seaside for one final evening of pepper crab. Soon enough, we encountered a string of ruined shoreside villas - elaborate concrete and iron walls covered with moss and tropical grime, the homes they once protected crumbled to the foundations. As we stopped for a closer look, children pedaled by, shouting "Hello!" in unison.
There, as we approached the traffic circle that marked our turnoff, was Kep in full, half-destroyed and full of life.
Five cool things about Kep
1. Kep and nearby Kampot (specifically the Traditional Music School) have cameo appearances in the 2007 documentary "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong," about the L.A. band Dengue Fever.
2. The name Kep is thought to come from French - "le cap" ("the cape"). A more fanciful version evokes the tale of a Khmer king who once fell off his horse and lost a saddle ("kep she"), which provided the area with its name until it was shortened.
3. Though Norodom Sihanouk had a palace built in Kep, he never resided in it.
4. As elsewhere in Cambodia, gasoline for motos is usually sold on roadside stands in 1-liter soda bottles. A liter costs about $1.
5. Though some Kep destinations have Web sites, the town itself lacks Internet service. Leave the laptop at home.
If you go
GETTING THERE
There are no direct U.S. flights to Phnom Penh. But it's a short connecting flight from Bangkok (Thai Airways, Air Asia, Bangkok Airways), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam Airlines) or Kuala Lumpur (Malaysian Airlines, Air Asia). Flights are also available from Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and elsewhere.
From Phnom Penh, it will be a five-hour bus trip ($3 to $4 per person). Hour Lean (011-855-12-939-917) runs comfortable air-conditioned coaches. If your hotel or travel office books the bus, be insistent in your selection of bus company. We requested Hour Lean but were booked on Sorya for the ride down to Kep; the coach not only lacked the promised air conditioning but most of the seats were on the verge of collapse. Coaches typically play Khmer-language videos, which are charming for the first 45 minutes of the five-hour trip. Private taxis can also be arranged for around $45 each way.
WHERE TO STAY
Most lodgings are clustered on the west side of Kep.
Tucked into a wooded hillside, Veranda Guesthouse and Resort offers bungalows ($25-$60 a night) with panoramic ocean views, all connected by a raised walkway. 011-855-12-888-619, www.veranda-resort.com.
Vanna Bungalows, just down the road from Veranda, offers a similar setup ($10-$20), though with more basic amenities. They take only phone reservations, which can be a challenge if you're booking from the U.S. 011-85 -12 -755-038, www.vannabungalows.com.
Going sharply upscale, Knai Bang Chatt evokes Kep's full prewar glamour. Situated in villas designed by a student of architect Vann Molyvann, the Khmer protege of Le Corbusier, its rooms ($110-$392), swimming pool and sleek design wouldn't seem out of place in Malibu. Amenities include yoga and a sailing club. After making Conde Nast Traveler's 2007 Hot List, it hasn't been wanting for business. 011-855-128-794-86, knaibangchatt.com.
The huts on Koh Tonsay (around $10-$15) also offer a charming, isolated stay, though bring your own mosquito net, bedding and plenty of DEET-enabled bug spray.
WHERE TO EAT
The crab market along Kep's shore provides most of the town's options. Any of the restaurants will prepare the local pepper-laced specialties. Kimly offers not only crab and squid with green peppercorns but also traditional Khmer soups and rice dishes (entrees $3-$8), along with its wine list. 011-855-12-345-753.
Both Veranda and Vanna have restaurants. Vanna's menu is more traditional Khmer, while Veranda's open-air Jungle restaurant offers Italian dishes in addition to the usual Khmer fare (entrees $4-$10), plus a solid wine list and bar.
Just above Veranda, Le Bout du Monde has a similar open-air setup and view, offering local seafood dishes (entrees $4-$8). It also has several basic guest rooms.
WHAT TO DO
The beaches in Kep are adequate, but the best beach option is on Koh Tonsay. Private boats ($15-$20) can be chartered on request and carry at least eight people. Buy a ticket at the marina on the east end of town, near the municipal offices. Arrange a return time, unless you plan to stay overnight on Koh Tonsay.
Sights farther afield include the limestone caves at Kampong Trach; the three hills of Phnom Sar Sear, with caves and a Buddhist retreat, en route to Kampot; and pepper plantations. Mopeds ($5-$7/day) and bicycles ($3/day) can be rented from most guesthouses or from stands in the town center. They allow you to explore the local area, and mopeds will carry you all the way to the towns of Kampot or Kampong Trach. For a more effective tour, you may want to arrange a tour or taxi ($20-30) with your guesthouse.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Kep: www.kepcity.com
Cambodian Ministry of Tourism: www.mot.gov.kh
Kampot Pepper Farmers' Associations: www.kampotpepper.biz/en/associations.html
Jon Bonné is The Chronicle's wine editor. To comment, visit sfgate.com/travel and follow the links.
Doctor refuses to recognize borders [-Richard Heinzl's book: Cambodia Calling]
MEMORIES: Oakville doctor, Richard Heinzl, is the founder of Doctors Without Borders Canada. He has written a memoir of his time in Cambodia, doing field work for the organization. (Photo: Riziero Vertolli, Beaver photographer)Aug 30, 2008
By Hiba Kesebi
Special to the Beaver News (Ontario, Canada)
With his passport sewn to his pants and armed with a piece of paper containing the names and addresses of two Canadian pediatricians who worked in Uganda, 22-year-old Dr. Richard Heinzl crossed the border that separated Kenya and Uganda -- on foot and alone.
It was hot. There was no shadow and very little mid-day wind.
But he was accustomed to Africa's climate.
He had been in Kenya with several other medical students from McMaster University on elective in Africa.
But visiting Kenya didn't give the doctor much satisfaction. He wanted to visit war-torn Uganda.
It was 1985, and the entire world knew that neighbouring Uganda was not a safe haven.
A military coup in 1971, and a shift in power from former Prime Minister Milton Obote to dictator Idi Amin, had left the country in horrific circumstances. Amin, who titled himself as Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular, was ruthless. Those who threatened his rule were persecuted and murdered.
"The country was really just committing suicide," recalled the 45 year-old doctor of International Health.
That did not deter Heinzl from going, rather the circumstances made him more keen, more persistent and more determined to visit the country.
"I don't have a reason," said Heinzl, when asked why he left Kenya for Uganda. "I just had to see it...and make some sense of it and how it can possibly happen... how people can get into war.
"My overall objective was to really see what happens to people in populations that are caught up in war."
Through the help of residents, Heinzl was able to get to Kampala, Uganda's capital, where two Canadian pediatricians were working at Mulago Hospital.
The journey to the capital proved to be more life altering than he thought. It was during that trip that he saw the flag of the organization that would change his perspectives and goals in life for the years to follow.
The flag had the image of a "red-on-white cross but the reverse of it, like a colour negative," and it was that of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or Doctors Without Borders). The organization, which was based solely in Europe, before Heinzl brought it to Canada, is an international, humanitarian aid organization that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger in more than 70 countries.
In July 1985, Heinzl returned to Hamilton, Canada.
But the images of Africa, the images of war, and the image of MSF, remained carved in his heart and memory.
"Like everybody here, I had seen this stuff (world crisis) on TV and for whatever reason, I had an interest in international health and human rights and wanted to do something for this important cause."
In 1988, with luck and networking connections by his side, Heinzl was able to meet with Jacques de Milliano, the president of MSF Holland.
Together, they schemed ways to open an MSF chapter in Canada. Heinzl already knew two other people who were interested in taking part in this vision. All that was left was to get the support and approval from the French.
But that proved to be a difficult task. France refused. Francis Charron, one of the French leaders for MSF at the time, said there wasn't going to be a chapter in Canada and that there weren't going to be any new sections, especially outside of Europe.
The refusal did not deter Heinzl.
Just as he was determined to visit Uganda, Heinzl, along with other supporters, was determined to bring MSF to Canada.
"There were a whole bunch of people that came together to build this organization. At the beginning, we had no name recognition and people kind of thought it was a slightly crazy idea," he recalled.
"But we had a group of very idealistic people who believed in the cause and wanted to do whatever it took."
In 1991, Heinzl and supporters of MSF Canada saw their dream realized. Thanks to France's approval, Heinzl was sent to Cambodia.
Cambodia, an ancient Buddhist nation and a former French colony, avoided most of the Vietnam War, however in 1975 the pro-Western government started to crack. The communists and Maoists took charge, opening the door for the Maoist Khmer Rouge.
In 1976 and 1977 the killing was intense. Dump trucks filled with corpses were driven around the capital. In 1979 the Vietnamese moved in and, for a decade, occupied most of the country.
The situation, although slightly improved, saw millions of broken families and fractured cities.
And like many other previous missions, MSF was there to help.
For Heinzl, the most touching and memorable experiences involved kids.
"Kids are important to me, they're pretty much the same all over the world," said Heinzl, his lips stretching across his face to reveal a caring smile.
During his stay in Cambodia, Heinzl grew to know and care for the communities in which he worked.
He would wake up in the morning to the sight of children hiding behind bushes waiting to see him.
"When I'd get up, they would come, calling me uncle, asking for treats," he laughed.
"I had nicknames for all of them."
Cambodia only marked the beginning of Heinzl and MSF's journey though.
Since its establishment in Canada, Canadians have taken on more than 1,800 field assignments with MSF in more than 85 countries. MSF Canada has also managed healthcare projects in Colombia, Cote D'Ivoire, Haiti, Nigeria and Republic of Congo. Aside from carrying on with humanitarian medical assistance, the foundation also seeks to raise awareness of crisis situations, by acting and speaking out as a witness about the troubles of populations in danger.
To date, Heinzl has worked in and travelled to 75 countries including Indonesia (to help out during the Tsunami), Iraq (during the Kurdish Refugee Crises), Colombia, South Africa, Haiti, Grenada and the Dominican Republic.
But of all 75 countries, Africa and Cambodia, remain dearest to his heart.
"There's something very, very special about Cambodia and Africa in general. People are just so strong, so patient and so deep. It's very unique."
His experiences in Cambodia and with MSF Canada have stayed in his memory.
And this year, he's made them available for the public to read about with his new book, Cambodia Calling: A Memoir from the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid.
"Three years ago, I just disappeared into the cottage and wrote a first draft and shared it with Don Coles, a Governor General Award-winning poet in Canada," recalled Dr. Heinzl. "He (Coles) was very supportive and essential in sort of guiding me in terms of the writing in the beginning."
Cambodia Calling is a memoir of Heinzl's life in Cambodia. It is filled with details and imagery of his day-to-day life in the country.
"I probably have 50 Grumbacher notebooks in my study, with my sketches, ideas, pictures and I relied on some of that," said Heinzl, when asked how he was able to put so much detail into his book.
After writing his first draft, Heinzl disappeared again.
This time he travelled to Cyprus and sat on the ocean coast and wrote the second draft.
His book is not the typical memoir about a doctor's heroic actions. Rather, it depicts the doctor's challenges and obstacles in the country, such as confronting self-doubt and the reality of treating many who cannot be saved.
"I write about unusual things and odd things -- stuff that, for whatever reason, touched me and shaped me and were impressive," he explained.
Heinzl edited his book in Oakville, where he currently resides with his wife, Carrie and his two children.
He admits he's still in love with travelling and Cambodia Calling: A Memoir from the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid, written in three different places, is reflective of this passion. The book, published by Wiley Canada, is available in Canada for $29.95.
It was hot. There was no shadow and very little mid-day wind.
But he was accustomed to Africa's climate.
He had been in Kenya with several other medical students from McMaster University on elective in Africa.
But visiting Kenya didn't give the doctor much satisfaction. He wanted to visit war-torn Uganda.
It was 1985, and the entire world knew that neighbouring Uganda was not a safe haven.
A military coup in 1971, and a shift in power from former Prime Minister Milton Obote to dictator Idi Amin, had left the country in horrific circumstances. Amin, who titled himself as Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular, was ruthless. Those who threatened his rule were persecuted and murdered.
"The country was really just committing suicide," recalled the 45 year-old doctor of International Health.
That did not deter Heinzl from going, rather the circumstances made him more keen, more persistent and more determined to visit the country.
"I don't have a reason," said Heinzl, when asked why he left Kenya for Uganda. "I just had to see it...and make some sense of it and how it can possibly happen... how people can get into war.
"My overall objective was to really see what happens to people in populations that are caught up in war."
Through the help of residents, Heinzl was able to get to Kampala, Uganda's capital, where two Canadian pediatricians were working at Mulago Hospital.
The journey to the capital proved to be more life altering than he thought. It was during that trip that he saw the flag of the organization that would change his perspectives and goals in life for the years to follow.
The flag had the image of a "red-on-white cross but the reverse of it, like a colour negative," and it was that of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or Doctors Without Borders). The organization, which was based solely in Europe, before Heinzl brought it to Canada, is an international, humanitarian aid organization that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger in more than 70 countries.
In July 1985, Heinzl returned to Hamilton, Canada.
But the images of Africa, the images of war, and the image of MSF, remained carved in his heart and memory.
"Like everybody here, I had seen this stuff (world crisis) on TV and for whatever reason, I had an interest in international health and human rights and wanted to do something for this important cause."
In 1988, with luck and networking connections by his side, Heinzl was able to meet with Jacques de Milliano, the president of MSF Holland.
Together, they schemed ways to open an MSF chapter in Canada. Heinzl already knew two other people who were interested in taking part in this vision. All that was left was to get the support and approval from the French.
But that proved to be a difficult task. France refused. Francis Charron, one of the French leaders for MSF at the time, said there wasn't going to be a chapter in Canada and that there weren't going to be any new sections, especially outside of Europe.
The refusal did not deter Heinzl.
Just as he was determined to visit Uganda, Heinzl, along with other supporters, was determined to bring MSF to Canada.
"There were a whole bunch of people that came together to build this organization. At the beginning, we had no name recognition and people kind of thought it was a slightly crazy idea," he recalled.
"But we had a group of very idealistic people who believed in the cause and wanted to do whatever it took."
In 1991, Heinzl and supporters of MSF Canada saw their dream realized. Thanks to France's approval, Heinzl was sent to Cambodia.
Cambodia, an ancient Buddhist nation and a former French colony, avoided most of the Vietnam War, however in 1975 the pro-Western government started to crack. The communists and Maoists took charge, opening the door for the Maoist Khmer Rouge.
In 1976 and 1977 the killing was intense. Dump trucks filled with corpses were driven around the capital. In 1979 the Vietnamese moved in and, for a decade, occupied most of the country.
The situation, although slightly improved, saw millions of broken families and fractured cities.
And like many other previous missions, MSF was there to help.
For Heinzl, the most touching and memorable experiences involved kids.
"Kids are important to me, they're pretty much the same all over the world," said Heinzl, his lips stretching across his face to reveal a caring smile.
During his stay in Cambodia, Heinzl grew to know and care for the communities in which he worked.
He would wake up in the morning to the sight of children hiding behind bushes waiting to see him.
"When I'd get up, they would come, calling me uncle, asking for treats," he laughed.
"I had nicknames for all of them."
Cambodia only marked the beginning of Heinzl and MSF's journey though.
Since its establishment in Canada, Canadians have taken on more than 1,800 field assignments with MSF in more than 85 countries. MSF Canada has also managed healthcare projects in Colombia, Cote D'Ivoire, Haiti, Nigeria and Republic of Congo. Aside from carrying on with humanitarian medical assistance, the foundation also seeks to raise awareness of crisis situations, by acting and speaking out as a witness about the troubles of populations in danger.
To date, Heinzl has worked in and travelled to 75 countries including Indonesia (to help out during the Tsunami), Iraq (during the Kurdish Refugee Crises), Colombia, South Africa, Haiti, Grenada and the Dominican Republic.
But of all 75 countries, Africa and Cambodia, remain dearest to his heart.
"There's something very, very special about Cambodia and Africa in general. People are just so strong, so patient and so deep. It's very unique."
His experiences in Cambodia and with MSF Canada have stayed in his memory.
And this year, he's made them available for the public to read about with his new book, Cambodia Calling: A Memoir from the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid.
"Three years ago, I just disappeared into the cottage and wrote a first draft and shared it with Don Coles, a Governor General Award-winning poet in Canada," recalled Dr. Heinzl. "He (Coles) was very supportive and essential in sort of guiding me in terms of the writing in the beginning."
Cambodia Calling is a memoir of Heinzl's life in Cambodia. It is filled with details and imagery of his day-to-day life in the country.
"I probably have 50 Grumbacher notebooks in my study, with my sketches, ideas, pictures and I relied on some of that," said Heinzl, when asked how he was able to put so much detail into his book.
After writing his first draft, Heinzl disappeared again.
This time he travelled to Cyprus and sat on the ocean coast and wrote the second draft.
His book is not the typical memoir about a doctor's heroic actions. Rather, it depicts the doctor's challenges and obstacles in the country, such as confronting self-doubt and the reality of treating many who cannot be saved.
"I write about unusual things and odd things -- stuff that, for whatever reason, touched me and shaped me and were impressive," he explained.
Heinzl edited his book in Oakville, where he currently resides with his wife, Carrie and his two children.
He admits he's still in love with travelling and Cambodia Calling: A Memoir from the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid, written in three different places, is reflective of this passion. The book, published by Wiley Canada, is available in Canada for $29.95.
US Republican Presidential candidate John McCain picks Sarah Palin as his running mate
Sen. John McCain smiles after introducing his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in Dayton, Ohio on Friday. (Photo: AP Photo)McCain picks 'hockey mom,' first-term Alaska governor as running mate
August 30, 2008
By Michale Cooper and Elisabeth Bumiller
The New York Times
DAYTON, Ohio — Sen. John McCain astonished the political world on Friday by naming Sarah Palin, a little-known governor of Alaska and self-described "hockey mom" with almost no foreign policy experience, as his running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.
Palin, 44, a social conservative, former union member and mother of five who has been governor for two years, was on none of the widely discussed McCain campaign short lists for vice president. In selecting her, McCain reached far outside the Washington Beltway in an election year in which the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, is running on a platform of change.
"She's not from these parts, and she's not from Washington, but when you get to know her, you're going to be as impressed as I am," McCain told a midday rally of 15,000 people in a basketball arena here shortly before Palin, with her husband and four of her children, strode out onto the stage.
Within moments, Palin made an explicit appeal to the disappointed supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by praising not only Clinton but also the only other woman in American history who has been on a presidential ticket, Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale's running mate for the Democratic nomination in 1984.
"Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America, but it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all," Palin said to huge applause. Palin and McCain then embarked on a bus tour across Ohio and north into western Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, a route that took in a wide swath of the central battleground in this year's presidential campaign.
McCain's pick, Palin, who opposes abortion, played especially well among evangelicals and other social conservatives, who have always viewed McCain warily and who have been jittery in recent weeks because of reports that McCain was considering naming a running mate who favors abortion rights.
The McCain campaign sees her as a kindred spirit to McCain, particularly in her history of taking heat from fellow Republicans for bucking them on issues and spotlighting their ethical failings. Like McCain, her political profile is built in part on her opposition to questionable government spending projects.
But they differ on a number of policies. Palin opposed McCain on one of the most prominent Alaskan issues: She supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and McCain opposes it, much to the consternation of some Republicans. McCain's environmental policy accepts that global warming is driven by man-made pollution; Palin has said she is not convinced. A spokeswoman for Palin, Maria Comella, said, "Governor Palin not only stands with John McCain in his belief that global warming is a critical issue that must be addressed, but she has been a leader in addressing climate change."
Palin, a former mayor of the small town of Wasilla, an Anchorage suburb, first rose to prominence as a whistle-blower uncovering ethical misconduct in state government. Her selection amounted to a gamble that an infusion of new leadership — and the novelty of the Republican Party's first female candidate for vice president — would more than compensate for the risk that Palin could undercut one of the McCain campaign's central arguments, that Obama is too inexperienced to be president.
Democrats and at least some shocked Republicans questioned the judgment of McCain, who has said repeatedly on the campaign trail that his running mate should have the qualifications to immediately step into the role of commander-in-chief.
McCain's words on the matter have had more than usual resonance this year because of his age — he turned 72 on Friday, and hopes to be the oldest person ever elected to a first term — and his history with skin cancer.
Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States. In July 2007, she had to get a passport before she visited members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait, according to her deputy communications director, Sharon Leighow. She also visited wounded troops in Germany during that trip.
McCain's announcement of Palin came in the immediate afterglow that Democrats were enjoying from their nomination of Obama, and for one news cycle at least, as Republicans intended, Palin effectively muffled the news coverage of Obama's acceptance speech to 80,000 people at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Thursday night.
Obama wished her well in a call from his campaign bus.
"He also wished her good luck, but not too much luck," said Robert Gibbs, a senior strategist to Obama.
Obama's fellow Democrats were considerably less welcoming, and most said they were flabbergasted by what they characterized as a desperate, cynical or dangerous choice, given Palin's lack of any experience in national security.
"On his 72nd birthday, this is the guy's judgment of who he wants one heartbeat from the presidency?" said Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, who said the selection smacked of political panic. "Please."
McCain's advisers said Friday that McCain was well aware that Palin would be criticized for her lack of foreign policy experience, but that he viewed her as exceptionally talented and intelligent and that he felt she would be able to be educated quickly.
"She's going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he'll be around at least that long," said Charlie Black, one of McCain's top advisers, making light of concerns about McCain's health, which McCain's doctors reported as excellent in May.
Many conservatives said that the choice would energize them, giving McCain the support of a highly active group of voters and volunteers whose support was crucial to both of President Bush's victories.
"They're beyond ecstatic," said Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition.
Palin is known to conservatives for opting not to have an abortion after learning that the child she was carrying, her youngest, had Down syndrome. "It is almost impossible to exaggerate how important that is to the conservative faith community," Reed said.
The choice of Palin was reminiscent of former President George H.W. Bush's selection of Dan Quayle, then a barely known senator from Indiana as his running mate in 1988.
It was far from clear Friday whether adding a woman to the ticket would convince Clinton supporters to come over to the Republicans, given Palin's differences with Clinton on issues from abortion rights to her positions on health care and climate change. Some women said that the pick could be seen as patronizing, a suggestion that women would vote based on a candidate's gender rather than on positions. But others saw the choice of Palin as a welcome step.
"I think it's absolutely fantastic," said Kimberly Myers, a retired transit worker in Pittsburgh who had originally supported Clinton but who said that McCain's choice would win him her vote. "She's actually broken the glass ceiling."
As they began gathering in Minneapolis-St. Paul for the start of their convention on Monday, some Republican delegates said they were concerned that Palin did not have the experience in foreign policy or national security to be commander-in-chief.
"We're in a global war, we're in a global economy, so it's less than honest if someone says that this woman is qualified to lead America right now," said Todd Burkhalter, a Republican delegate from Mobile, Ala..
Her selection was kept secret until Friday morning, after the two men who had been rumored to be on McCain's short list, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, let it be known they were out of the running.
The McCain campaign said that McCain first met Palin in February this year at the National Governor's Association meeting in Washington and came away "extraordinarily impressed." But McCain apparently has spent little time with her.
Palin flew to Flagstaff, Ariz., on Wednesday evening to meet with two of McCain's senior campaign aides, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, said Jill Hazelbaker, a campaign spokeswoman. The group met at the Flagstaff home of Bob Delgado, the chief executive officer of Hensley Corp., the family business of Cindy McCain, McCain's wife.
After meeting with Cindy McCain there the next morning, Palin was brought to the McCain vacation compound near Sedona, where John McCain offered her a spot on the ticket at 11 a.m.
She flew to Ohio later that day with Schmidt and Salter, and checked into a hotel as the Upton family. Palin's children, who had been told they were going to Ohio to celebrate their parents' 20th wedding anniversary on Friday, were informed there that their mother would be the Republican vice-presidential nominee.
Thursday evening she had a final meeting with McCain. One adviser suggested that although McCain was sure about his choice, he wanted to sit down with Palin one last time before he made what he knew would be an astonishing announcement the next morning.
As recently as last month, Palin appeared to dismiss the importance of the vice presidency in an interview with Larry Kudlow of CNBC, who asked her about her prospects for the job.
"I'll tell ya, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me, what is it exactly that the VP does every day?" Palin told Kudlow. "I'm used to being very productive and working real hard."
Palin, 44, a social conservative, former union member and mother of five who has been governor for two years, was on none of the widely discussed McCain campaign short lists for vice president. In selecting her, McCain reached far outside the Washington Beltway in an election year in which the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, is running on a platform of change.
"She's not from these parts, and she's not from Washington, but when you get to know her, you're going to be as impressed as I am," McCain told a midday rally of 15,000 people in a basketball arena here shortly before Palin, with her husband and four of her children, strode out onto the stage.
Within moments, Palin made an explicit appeal to the disappointed supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by praising not only Clinton but also the only other woman in American history who has been on a presidential ticket, Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale's running mate for the Democratic nomination in 1984.
"Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America, but it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all," Palin said to huge applause. Palin and McCain then embarked on a bus tour across Ohio and north into western Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, a route that took in a wide swath of the central battleground in this year's presidential campaign.
McCain's pick, Palin, who opposes abortion, played especially well among evangelicals and other social conservatives, who have always viewed McCain warily and who have been jittery in recent weeks because of reports that McCain was considering naming a running mate who favors abortion rights.
The McCain campaign sees her as a kindred spirit to McCain, particularly in her history of taking heat from fellow Republicans for bucking them on issues and spotlighting their ethical failings. Like McCain, her political profile is built in part on her opposition to questionable government spending projects.
But they differ on a number of policies. Palin opposed McCain on one of the most prominent Alaskan issues: She supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and McCain opposes it, much to the consternation of some Republicans. McCain's environmental policy accepts that global warming is driven by man-made pollution; Palin has said she is not convinced. A spokeswoman for Palin, Maria Comella, said, "Governor Palin not only stands with John McCain in his belief that global warming is a critical issue that must be addressed, but she has been a leader in addressing climate change."
Palin, a former mayor of the small town of Wasilla, an Anchorage suburb, first rose to prominence as a whistle-blower uncovering ethical misconduct in state government. Her selection amounted to a gamble that an infusion of new leadership — and the novelty of the Republican Party's first female candidate for vice president — would more than compensate for the risk that Palin could undercut one of the McCain campaign's central arguments, that Obama is too inexperienced to be president.
Democrats and at least some shocked Republicans questioned the judgment of McCain, who has said repeatedly on the campaign trail that his running mate should have the qualifications to immediately step into the role of commander-in-chief.
McCain's words on the matter have had more than usual resonance this year because of his age — he turned 72 on Friday, and hopes to be the oldest person ever elected to a first term — and his history with skin cancer.
Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States. In July 2007, she had to get a passport before she visited members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait, according to her deputy communications director, Sharon Leighow. She also visited wounded troops in Germany during that trip.
McCain's announcement of Palin came in the immediate afterglow that Democrats were enjoying from their nomination of Obama, and for one news cycle at least, as Republicans intended, Palin effectively muffled the news coverage of Obama's acceptance speech to 80,000 people at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Thursday night.
Obama wished her well in a call from his campaign bus.
"He also wished her good luck, but not too much luck," said Robert Gibbs, a senior strategist to Obama.
Obama's fellow Democrats were considerably less welcoming, and most said they were flabbergasted by what they characterized as a desperate, cynical or dangerous choice, given Palin's lack of any experience in national security.
"On his 72nd birthday, this is the guy's judgment of who he wants one heartbeat from the presidency?" said Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, who said the selection smacked of political panic. "Please."
McCain's advisers said Friday that McCain was well aware that Palin would be criticized for her lack of foreign policy experience, but that he viewed her as exceptionally talented and intelligent and that he felt she would be able to be educated quickly.
"She's going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he'll be around at least that long," said Charlie Black, one of McCain's top advisers, making light of concerns about McCain's health, which McCain's doctors reported as excellent in May.
Many conservatives said that the choice would energize them, giving McCain the support of a highly active group of voters and volunteers whose support was crucial to both of President Bush's victories.
"They're beyond ecstatic," said Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition.
Palin is known to conservatives for opting not to have an abortion after learning that the child she was carrying, her youngest, had Down syndrome. "It is almost impossible to exaggerate how important that is to the conservative faith community," Reed said.
The choice of Palin was reminiscent of former President George H.W. Bush's selection of Dan Quayle, then a barely known senator from Indiana as his running mate in 1988.
It was far from clear Friday whether adding a woman to the ticket would convince Clinton supporters to come over to the Republicans, given Palin's differences with Clinton on issues from abortion rights to her positions on health care and climate change. Some women said that the pick could be seen as patronizing, a suggestion that women would vote based on a candidate's gender rather than on positions. But others saw the choice of Palin as a welcome step.
"I think it's absolutely fantastic," said Kimberly Myers, a retired transit worker in Pittsburgh who had originally supported Clinton but who said that McCain's choice would win him her vote. "She's actually broken the glass ceiling."
As they began gathering in Minneapolis-St. Paul for the start of their convention on Monday, some Republican delegates said they were concerned that Palin did not have the experience in foreign policy or national security to be commander-in-chief.
"We're in a global war, we're in a global economy, so it's less than honest if someone says that this woman is qualified to lead America right now," said Todd Burkhalter, a Republican delegate from Mobile, Ala..
Her selection was kept secret until Friday morning, after the two men who had been rumored to be on McCain's short list, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, let it be known they were out of the running.
The McCain campaign said that McCain first met Palin in February this year at the National Governor's Association meeting in Washington and came away "extraordinarily impressed." But McCain apparently has spent little time with her.
Palin flew to Flagstaff, Ariz., on Wednesday evening to meet with two of McCain's senior campaign aides, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, said Jill Hazelbaker, a campaign spokeswoman. The group met at the Flagstaff home of Bob Delgado, the chief executive officer of Hensley Corp., the family business of Cindy McCain, McCain's wife.
After meeting with Cindy McCain there the next morning, Palin was brought to the McCain vacation compound near Sedona, where John McCain offered her a spot on the ticket at 11 a.m.
She flew to Ohio later that day with Schmidt and Salter, and checked into a hotel as the Upton family. Palin's children, who had been told they were going to Ohio to celebrate their parents' 20th wedding anniversary on Friday, were informed there that their mother would be the Republican vice-presidential nominee.
Thursday evening she had a final meeting with McCain. One adviser suggested that although McCain was sure about his choice, he wanted to sit down with Palin one last time before he made what he knew would be an astonishing announcement the next morning.
As recently as last month, Palin appeared to dismiss the importance of the vice presidency in an interview with Larry Kudlow of CNBC, who asked her about her prospects for the job.
"I'll tell ya, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me, what is it exactly that the VP does every day?" Palin told Kudlow. "I'm used to being very productive and working real hard."
Thai Protest of Premier Stops Trains and Planes
The riot police and protesters scuffled Friday outside the United Nations Building in Bangkok, near the government compound. (Photo: Wally Santana/Associated Press)August 30, 2008
By THOMAS FULLER
The New York Times (USA)
BANGKOK — Protesters in Thailand ratcheted up their campaign to oust the government on Friday, broadening their occupation to stop trains and block provincial airports, as well as waging an unsuccessful attack on police headquarters here.
Police officers responded forcefully on Friday to protesters who approached the metropolitan police headquarters, firing tear gas into the crowd that marched beside a truck emblazoned with a sign saying, “This evil government must get out.”
About 30,000 protesters continued to occupy the prime minister’s compound in central Bangkok, forcing Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and his advisers to work out of a military command post on the outskirts of the city.
Calls by the People’s Alliance for Democracy, the umbrella group of protesters, for wider participation in their movement bore some fruit on Friday, with two major labor unions representing railway workers and employees of Thai Airways, the national carrier, calling for partial strikes.
About 35 trains between Bangkok and the provinces were canceled, and images broadcast on Thai television showed groups of protesters raiding the tarmac of the airport on the resort island of Phuket as bewildered tourists looked on. Sixteen flights were canceled or diverted.
Protesters also blocked the entrance of the airports in Krabi and Hat Yai, two other tourist destinations in southern Thailand.
The antigovernment activists have been protesting almost daily since May 25, demanding that the government resign. The activists, who have strong ties to members of Thailand’s elite, accuse Mr. Samak and his allies of being proxies of Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire tycoon turned politician who was removed as prime minister in a 2006 military coup and who is now in Britain.
Mr. Samak and his government have shown what many analysts say is notable restraint in dealing with the protesters. The occupation of the government compound has prevented civil servants working in the prime minister’s office from coming to work since Tuesday and has shut down schools and offices in the area.
“I am the one who ordered the police to step back,” Mr. Samak said late Friday. “I promised people in this country that I would be soft and gentle,” he said. “I’ve been patient up until now. But others may not be as patient.”
Mr. Samak said Friday that he would consider declaring a state of emergency but only if the situation worsened considerably.
Sondhi Limthongkul, one of the leaders of the protests, vowed to continue occupying the prime minister’s compound until the government stepped down.
Police officers issued arrest warrants for Mr. Sondhi and eight other protest leaders on charges of insurrection, conspiracy, illegal assembly and refusing orders to disperse.
Police officers responded forcefully on Friday to protesters who approached the metropolitan police headquarters, firing tear gas into the crowd that marched beside a truck emblazoned with a sign saying, “This evil government must get out.”
About 30,000 protesters continued to occupy the prime minister’s compound in central Bangkok, forcing Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and his advisers to work out of a military command post on the outskirts of the city.
Calls by the People’s Alliance for Democracy, the umbrella group of protesters, for wider participation in their movement bore some fruit on Friday, with two major labor unions representing railway workers and employees of Thai Airways, the national carrier, calling for partial strikes.
About 35 trains between Bangkok and the provinces were canceled, and images broadcast on Thai television showed groups of protesters raiding the tarmac of the airport on the resort island of Phuket as bewildered tourists looked on. Sixteen flights were canceled or diverted.
Protesters also blocked the entrance of the airports in Krabi and Hat Yai, two other tourist destinations in southern Thailand.
The antigovernment activists have been protesting almost daily since May 25, demanding that the government resign. The activists, who have strong ties to members of Thailand’s elite, accuse Mr. Samak and his allies of being proxies of Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire tycoon turned politician who was removed as prime minister in a 2006 military coup and who is now in Britain.
Mr. Samak and his government have shown what many analysts say is notable restraint in dealing with the protesters. The occupation of the government compound has prevented civil servants working in the prime minister’s office from coming to work since Tuesday and has shut down schools and offices in the area.
“I am the one who ordered the police to step back,” Mr. Samak said late Friday. “I promised people in this country that I would be soft and gentle,” he said. “I’ve been patient up until now. But others may not be as patient.”
Mr. Samak said Friday that he would consider declaring a state of emergency but only if the situation worsened considerably.
Sondhi Limthongkul, one of the leaders of the protests, vowed to continue occupying the prime minister’s compound until the government stepped down.
Police officers issued arrest warrants for Mr. Sondhi and eight other protest leaders on charges of insurrection, conspiracy, illegal assembly and refusing orders to disperse.
Protesters enter Thai PM's offices, King consulted as protests spread
Anti-government protesters battle with Thai riot policemen
Anti-government protesters carry a woman injured from tear gasSaturday, August 30, 2008
BANGKOK (AFP) — About 45 protesters used bolt cutters to break into Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's abandoned office Saturday, after five days of occupying the grounds surrounding the building in Bangkok.
One of the activists told AFP that protest leader Chamlong Srimuang had ordered them to force open the doors so that he could use the offices himself.
The so-called People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has led thousands of protesters in anti-government rallies since May, but they stepped up their campaign on Tuesday as they marched into the Government House compound and set up camp.
Thai news of the office invasion comes as Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej met with the nation's revered king on escalating protests that have closed three key airports and sparked clashes with riot police, an official said.
After the protests erupted into skirmishes with police Friday, causing minor injuries and rattling nerves in the coup-prone kingdom, Samak flew from Bangkok around midnight to the nearby town of Hua Hin to meet the king at his seaside palace.
"He reported to the king on the current situation and he will return to Bangkok today," the government official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The protesters from the so-called People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have squatted on the grounds of Samak's Government House compound for five days, demanding that he resign and accusing him of acting as a puppet for ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The same group helped topple Thaksin in 2006, and has openly called for the palace, the military and Thailand's traditional elite to take a greater role in politics.
The PAD rails against popular democracy, saying it has encouraged corruption, and in July unveiled a plan for a new system of government in which 70 percent of the seats in parliament would be appointed rather than elected.
Although the demonstrators regularly invoke the king, both in speeches and with royalist imagery, he has remained silent in the current standoff, staying away from the protests in his beachfront Klaikangwon palace, whose name means "Far from worries."
The king has little formal political power, but he holds enormous sway over his subjects and has acted as a referee during past political crises in his six decades on the throne.
After returning to Bangkok early Saturday, Samak Sundaravej was set to meet with Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn at a previously scheduled event on national reconciliation.
Despite torrential rains early Saturday, at least 6,000 protesters barricaded themselves for a fifth day inside Bangkok's main government complex.
A handful of activists wearing motorcycle helmets practiced combat techniques with homemade shields and bamboo rods. Nearby, free food was distributed to the protesters.
"We will not quit. We will not go home until we win," one woman shouted from a makeshift stage set up in their camp.
The airport on the holiday isle of Phuket -- a key magnet for international tourists -- was shut down after protesters marched on it Friday, causing the cancellation of more than 30 international and domestic flights, said Sereerat Prasutanont, president of Airports of Thailand.
"It's up to PAD protesters when they will allow the operation to resume," he told AFP.
The State Railways of Thailand, meanwhile, said about one quarter of all services had been halted since Friday, after nearly 250 drivers and mechanics called in sick to support the protests.
PAD protestors have been demonstrating against Samak since May, but they stepped up their movement on Tuesday by storming a TV station and the Government House grounds.
The turmoil has raised fears of a new coup in a country that has seen 18 military takeovers since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932.
The powerful army chief, General Anupong Paojinda has so far insisted that the military will not return to the streets.
Hoping to defuse the crisis, Samak has called for an emergency parliamentary debate on Sunday, but has refused to step down or call new elections.
One of the activists told AFP that protest leader Chamlong Srimuang had ordered them to force open the doors so that he could use the offices himself.
The so-called People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has led thousands of protesters in anti-government rallies since May, but they stepped up their campaign on Tuesday as they marched into the Government House compound and set up camp.
Thai news of the office invasion comes as Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej met with the nation's revered king on escalating protests that have closed three key airports and sparked clashes with riot police, an official said.
After the protests erupted into skirmishes with police Friday, causing minor injuries and rattling nerves in the coup-prone kingdom, Samak flew from Bangkok around midnight to the nearby town of Hua Hin to meet the king at his seaside palace.
"He reported to the king on the current situation and he will return to Bangkok today," the government official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The protesters from the so-called People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have squatted on the grounds of Samak's Government House compound for five days, demanding that he resign and accusing him of acting as a puppet for ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The same group helped topple Thaksin in 2006, and has openly called for the palace, the military and Thailand's traditional elite to take a greater role in politics.
The PAD rails against popular democracy, saying it has encouraged corruption, and in July unveiled a plan for a new system of government in which 70 percent of the seats in parliament would be appointed rather than elected.
Although the demonstrators regularly invoke the king, both in speeches and with royalist imagery, he has remained silent in the current standoff, staying away from the protests in his beachfront Klaikangwon palace, whose name means "Far from worries."
The king has little formal political power, but he holds enormous sway over his subjects and has acted as a referee during past political crises in his six decades on the throne.
After returning to Bangkok early Saturday, Samak Sundaravej was set to meet with Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn at a previously scheduled event on national reconciliation.
Despite torrential rains early Saturday, at least 6,000 protesters barricaded themselves for a fifth day inside Bangkok's main government complex.
A handful of activists wearing motorcycle helmets practiced combat techniques with homemade shields and bamboo rods. Nearby, free food was distributed to the protesters.
"We will not quit. We will not go home until we win," one woman shouted from a makeshift stage set up in their camp.
The airport on the holiday isle of Phuket -- a key magnet for international tourists -- was shut down after protesters marched on it Friday, causing the cancellation of more than 30 international and domestic flights, said Sereerat Prasutanont, president of Airports of Thailand.
"It's up to PAD protesters when they will allow the operation to resume," he told AFP.
The State Railways of Thailand, meanwhile, said about one quarter of all services had been halted since Friday, after nearly 250 drivers and mechanics called in sick to support the protests.
PAD protestors have been demonstrating against Samak since May, but they stepped up their movement on Tuesday by storming a TV station and the Government House grounds.
The turmoil has raised fears of a new coup in a country that has seen 18 military takeovers since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932.
The powerful army chief, General Anupong Paojinda has so far insisted that the military will not return to the streets.
Hoping to defuse the crisis, Samak has called for an emergency parliamentary debate on Sunday, but has refused to step down or call new elections.
Parties Warn World of 'Death' of Democracy
Kem Sokha, Sam Rainsy and Mu Sochua (Photo: Ung Chamroeun, Cambodge Soir Hebdo)By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 August 2008
Two opposition leaders said Friday they would continue to push the international community to support their denial of July's election results, following a series of hearings this week that dismissed their complaints of fraud and calls for a re-vote.
The Sam Rainsy and Human Rights parties maintain the election results were fraudulent and have called for a nationwide re-vote, citing a number of irregularities during the run-up to the election and on the day of the polls.
The parties are now seeking international lawyers to complain of irregularities to the US government, the EU and the UN, and to call on them "to review their relationship with the fourth mandate of the Phnom Penh government," opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Friday. "The Phnom Penh government has come from an illegal National Assembly, which came from unfair elections."
Kem Sokha, president of the Human Rights Party, said a failure of the international community to intervene would lead to "the death of the democratic process in Cambodia."
Both the National Election Committee and the Constitutional Council maintain that the elections were legitimate, with the ruling Cambodian People's Party claiming to have won 90 or 123 National Assembly seats.
According to the NEC, the Sam Rainsy Party won 26 seats and the Human Rights Party won three.
CPP, Funcinpec and Norodom Ranariddh Party officials say they will go ahead with a swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected National Assembly on Sept. 24, but both opposition leaders said Friday their representatives would boycott the ceremony.
A boycott of the ceremony could lead to a further delay in the formation of a new government.
The Sam Rainsy and Human Rights parties maintain the election results were fraudulent and have called for a nationwide re-vote, citing a number of irregularities during the run-up to the election and on the day of the polls.
The parties are now seeking international lawyers to complain of irregularities to the US government, the EU and the UN, and to call on them "to review their relationship with the fourth mandate of the Phnom Penh government," opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Friday. "The Phnom Penh government has come from an illegal National Assembly, which came from unfair elections."
Kem Sokha, president of the Human Rights Party, said a failure of the international community to intervene would lead to "the death of the democratic process in Cambodia."
Both the National Election Committee and the Constitutional Council maintain that the elections were legitimate, with the ruling Cambodian People's Party claiming to have won 90 or 123 National Assembly seats.
According to the NEC, the Sam Rainsy Party won 26 seats and the Human Rights Party won three.
CPP, Funcinpec and Norodom Ranariddh Party officials say they will go ahead with a swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected National Assembly on Sept. 24, but both opposition leaders said Friday their representatives would boycott the ceremony.
A boycott of the ceremony could lead to a further delay in the formation of a new government.
Regime Survivor to Victims: Exercise Rights [-Not much have changed under Hun Sen's regime?]
Workers under the Khmer Rouge file past a rice field in 1978, a period in which the regime gave no rights to its victims, a Tuol Sleng prison survivor says.By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 August 2008
Tuol Sleng prison survivor Chum Mey on Friday called on living victims of the Khmer Rouge to file further complaints against five former regime leaders now in the custody of the tribunal.
Chum Mey, who was imprisoned at Tuol Sleng until Vietnamese forces pushed the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh in January 1979, said victims must exercise their right to complain, as no such rights existed under Democratic Kampuchea.
"They closed our mouths and our ears, and they banned our eyes from seeing," he told seminar on victim compensation in Phnom Penh Friday. "But now I tell you we have full rights. I need to ask you to file complaints as much as possible to try those five."
Chum Mey, who is 77 now, spoke during a seminar held by the rights group Adhoc to discuss possible reparations for victims following potential trials of the five former leaders: "Brother No. 2" Nuon Chea, nominal president Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Ieng Sary, social affairs minister Ieng Thirith and Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Kek Iev, better known by his revolutionary name, Duch.
"Do not let them go free," said Chum Mey, who himself has filed a complaint to the Khmer Rouge tribunal as a civil party. "If we file many complaints, the evidence will be more solid to prove there was mass killing."
The Victims Unit of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, located behind the Cambodian Red Cross Hospital on Norodom Boulevard, estimates about 1,800 people have so far filed complaints. Not all of them have been accepted by the courts, but more than 60 complaints will be used against Duch, whose case is nearing the trial stage.
Victims still lack access to information on filing complaints, said Hisham Mousar, who monitors the courts for the rights group Adhoc.
The tribunal should have a budget to support victims in the complaint process, he added.
Some people know they can complain, but they don't know where to go, Chum Mey said. Many of them are poor and are more concerned about making a living than making a trip to Phnom Penh to file a complaint.
Chea Sorn, 71, who attended Friday's seminar, said she was among those who want to file but do not know how.
"I alone am still alive; 10 others died," she said, weeping. "I don't know how to file a complaint. I earn money by keeping a parcel of land for one owner. I would rather die and forget all these difficulties."
Chum Mey, who was imprisoned at Tuol Sleng until Vietnamese forces pushed the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh in January 1979, said victims must exercise their right to complain, as no such rights existed under Democratic Kampuchea.
"They closed our mouths and our ears, and they banned our eyes from seeing," he told seminar on victim compensation in Phnom Penh Friday. "But now I tell you we have full rights. I need to ask you to file complaints as much as possible to try those five."
Chum Mey, who is 77 now, spoke during a seminar held by the rights group Adhoc to discuss possible reparations for victims following potential trials of the five former leaders: "Brother No. 2" Nuon Chea, nominal president Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Ieng Sary, social affairs minister Ieng Thirith and Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Kek Iev, better known by his revolutionary name, Duch.
"Do not let them go free," said Chum Mey, who himself has filed a complaint to the Khmer Rouge tribunal as a civil party. "If we file many complaints, the evidence will be more solid to prove there was mass killing."
The Victims Unit of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, located behind the Cambodian Red Cross Hospital on Norodom Boulevard, estimates about 1,800 people have so far filed complaints. Not all of them have been accepted by the courts, but more than 60 complaints will be used against Duch, whose case is nearing the trial stage.
Victims still lack access to information on filing complaints, said Hisham Mousar, who monitors the courts for the rights group Adhoc.
The tribunal should have a budget to support victims in the complaint process, he added.
Some people know they can complain, but they don't know where to go, Chum Mey said. Many of them are poor and are more concerned about making a living than making a trip to Phnom Penh to file a complaint.
Chea Sorn, 71, who attended Friday's seminar, said she was among those who want to file but do not know how.
"I alone am still alive; 10 others died," she said, weeping. "I don't know how to file a complaint. I earn money by keeping a parcel of land for one owner. I would rather die and forget all these difficulties."
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