Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)
Showing posts with label Cambodia for sale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cambodia for sale. Show all posts
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Sacrava's Political Cartoon: July 14, 2009's Parade
Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)
Friday, March 06, 2009
Eating at Dey Krahom
05 March 2009
By Phil Lees
SBS Blog (Australia)
By Phil Lees
SBS Blog (Australia)
Progress or wanton destruction of Phnom Penh's street food?
It is strange to spend your Sunday evening watching somewhere that you occasionally picked up a cup of coffee be razed to the ground on television, along with the entire suburb that contained it.
On Sunday, SBS televised the destruction of one of the joints where I’d stop in for coffee while I was in Phnom Penh. The flattening of Dey Krahom, documented in last week’s episode of Dateline, was directly opposite my plush, air-conditioned office. I could stare out the window into the barely organised maze of houses while I worked. I still recognise the remains of those houses as they were being knocked down. Some mornings I’d drop into Dey Krahom for a coffee from one of the roadside vendors, more often than not, when I forgot to get petrol for my motorbike and ground to an embarrassing halt.
There was a small roadside breakfast vendor there who cooked the classic Cambodian breakfast of flame-grilled, marinated pork, pickles and rice (bai sach chrouk); and for a few cents also did overroasted black coffee thickened and sweetened with condensed milk.
I never really developed a taste for the coffee but a glass of the local brew was one brutal hit of caffeine and sugar in the early morning. The pork and rice in Dey Krahom was nothing special. But there was a well-stocked petrol stand next to it.
Dey Krahom also housed a concentration of mobile fruit vendors who parked their flatbed fruit trolleys there during the day. In the late afternoons, a truck would arrive and divide up a selection of seasonal fruit amongst the vendors who would then head out into the evening to hawk their wares along Phnom Penh’s riverfront until late into the night. Somewhere towards the centre of the suburb was a small, shambolic market – official reports document 200 stallholders – but I had only ever skirted around the edges of it. I probably missed something.
Apart from the “systematic lack of due process and procedural protections; inadequate compensation; lack of effective remedies for communities facing eviction; excessive use of force; and harassment, intimidation and criminalization of NGOs and lawyers working on this issue”, I wonder how much street food and street life is being squeezed out of the city in the process of evictions. Part of the charm of the Phnom Penh are the array of informal food vendors; the families eking out a living behind a pork-and-rice stand and small market stalls. Poverty is in no way charming but all of my favoured vendors had homes (and presumably, land title). Many were doing well from their trade. Many were in the suburbs like Boeung Kak and Dey Krahom which have been destroyed and their residents pushed out to the uninhabitable edges of town.
--------
Phil Lees grew up in rural Victoria, the first generation in his family to not have lived on the farm and thereby not slaughter their own meat.
In 2005 he moved to Cambodia and started the nation’s first food blog, Phnomenon.com, named after the best pun that he has ever made. It turns out that Cambodian food is delicious and unlike the warnings in most guidebooks, is not likely to kill you with any immediacy. Gridskipper called him a “national treasure”. Lonely Planet’s Greater Mekong guide called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”. The New York Times laughed at a funny hotdog he saw.
Phil makes a mean sausage, a hoppy pale ale, a modest laksa. He owns three barbecues and is in the market for a fourth. He’s never eaten at a Michelin-starred restaurant. There is more important food in the world to be eaten.
It is strange to spend your Sunday evening watching somewhere that you occasionally picked up a cup of coffee be razed to the ground on television, along with the entire suburb that contained it.
On Sunday, SBS televised the destruction of one of the joints where I’d stop in for coffee while I was in Phnom Penh. The flattening of Dey Krahom, documented in last week’s episode of Dateline, was directly opposite my plush, air-conditioned office. I could stare out the window into the barely organised maze of houses while I worked. I still recognise the remains of those houses as they were being knocked down. Some mornings I’d drop into Dey Krahom for a coffee from one of the roadside vendors, more often than not, when I forgot to get petrol for my motorbike and ground to an embarrassing halt.
There was a small roadside breakfast vendor there who cooked the classic Cambodian breakfast of flame-grilled, marinated pork, pickles and rice (bai sach chrouk); and for a few cents also did overroasted black coffee thickened and sweetened with condensed milk.
I never really developed a taste for the coffee but a glass of the local brew was one brutal hit of caffeine and sugar in the early morning. The pork and rice in Dey Krahom was nothing special. But there was a well-stocked petrol stand next to it.
Dey Krahom also housed a concentration of mobile fruit vendors who parked their flatbed fruit trolleys there during the day. In the late afternoons, a truck would arrive and divide up a selection of seasonal fruit amongst the vendors who would then head out into the evening to hawk their wares along Phnom Penh’s riverfront until late into the night. Somewhere towards the centre of the suburb was a small, shambolic market – official reports document 200 stallholders – but I had only ever skirted around the edges of it. I probably missed something.
Apart from the “systematic lack of due process and procedural protections; inadequate compensation; lack of effective remedies for communities facing eviction; excessive use of force; and harassment, intimidation and criminalization of NGOs and lawyers working on this issue”, I wonder how much street food and street life is being squeezed out of the city in the process of evictions. Part of the charm of the Phnom Penh are the array of informal food vendors; the families eking out a living behind a pork-and-rice stand and small market stalls. Poverty is in no way charming but all of my favoured vendors had homes (and presumably, land title). Many were doing well from their trade. Many were in the suburbs like Boeung Kak and Dey Krahom which have been destroyed and their residents pushed out to the uninhabitable edges of town.
--------
Phil Lees grew up in rural Victoria, the first generation in his family to not have lived on the farm and thereby not slaughter their own meat.
In 2005 he moved to Cambodia and started the nation’s first food blog, Phnomenon.com, named after the best pun that he has ever made. It turns out that Cambodian food is delicious and unlike the warnings in most guidebooks, is not likely to kill you with any immediacy. Gridskipper called him a “national treasure”. Lonely Planet’s Greater Mekong guide called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”. The New York Times laughed at a funny hotdog he saw.
Phil makes a mean sausage, a hoppy pale ale, a modest laksa. He owns three barbecues and is in the market for a fourth. He’s never eaten at a Michelin-starred restaurant. There is more important food in the world to be eaten.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Cambodia For Sale - SBS Australia Video
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Video Journalist David O'Shea reports from Cambodia, where locals are now faced with a new peril - rampant land developers literally smashing entire communities, leaving thousands homeless.
Aussie Ambassador to Cambodia on violent and illegal evictions at the doorstep of her embassy: "I don't find it embarrassing, no"
Margaret Adamson, Australian ambassador to Cambodia (Photo: Australian embassy)Excerpt from Cambodia for Sale
Dateline SBS (Australia)
It's Australia Day at Ambassador Margaret Adamson's residence.
REPORTER: Are you concerned that violent and illegal evictions are going on on the doorstep of the new Australian embassy?
MARGARET ADAMSON, AMBASSADOR TO CAMBODIA: Well, Of course we have concerns about how the Cambodian Government manages the issue of land tenure. It's a long-standing issue in the country and we have concerns which we express to the Cambodian Government on a regular basis.
REPORTER: This was right on the doorstep of the new Australian embassy, so it must be... doubly embarrassing for you at this stage, no?
MARGARET ADAMSON: I'm conscious of the location. .. I don't find it embarrassing, no. I find it a matter as I've said before to you, that is a matter which is played out in different parts of the country, so I don't see find on the doorstep of the Australian embassy any less deserving of our attention than anywhere else in the country.
REPORTER: Under the 2001 law, don't they have residency rights or possession rights?
MARGARET ADAMSON: It's very difficult to prove, though, isn't it? It's very difficult to prove...
REPORTER: If they've been there for longer than five years noticeably without violence... I understand what you say.
MARGARET ADAMSON: Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I understand what the principles are, but it is difficult indeed to actually have the documentation, documentation that is accepted, to enable those claims to be respected.
REPORTER: Are you concerned that violent and illegal evictions are going on on the doorstep of the new Australian embassy?
MARGARET ADAMSON, AMBASSADOR TO CAMBODIA: Well, Of course we have concerns about how the Cambodian Government manages the issue of land tenure. It's a long-standing issue in the country and we have concerns which we express to the Cambodian Government on a regular basis.
REPORTER: This was right on the doorstep of the new Australian embassy, so it must be... doubly embarrassing for you at this stage, no?
MARGARET ADAMSON: I'm conscious of the location. .. I don't find it embarrassing, no. I find it a matter as I've said before to you, that is a matter which is played out in different parts of the country, so I don't see find on the doorstep of the Australian embassy any less deserving of our attention than anywhere else in the country.
REPORTER: Under the 2001 law, don't they have residency rights or possession rights?
MARGARET ADAMSON: It's very difficult to prove, though, isn't it? It's very difficult to prove...
REPORTER: If they've been there for longer than five years noticeably without violence... I understand what you say.
MARGARET ADAMSON: Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I understand what the principles are, but it is difficult indeed to actually have the documentation, documentation that is accepted, to enable those claims to be respected.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Rich countries launch great land grab to safeguard food supply
- States and companies target developing nations
- Small farmers at risk from industrial-scale deals
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The Guardian (UK)
Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.
The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, has warned that the controversial rise in land deals could create a form of "neo-colonialism", with poor states producing food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people.
Rising food prices have already set off a second "scramble for Africa". This week, the South Korean firm Daewoo Logistics announced plans to buy a 99-year lease on a million hectares in Madagascar. Its aim is to grow 5m tonnes of corn a year by 2023, and produce palm oil from a further lease of 120,000 hectares (296,000 acres), relying on a largely South African workforce. Production would be mainly earmarked for South Korea, which wants to lessen dependence on imports.
"These deals can be purely commercial ventures on one level, but sitting behind it is often a food security imperative backed by a government," said Carl Atkin, a consultant at Bidwells Agribusiness, a Cambridge firm helping to arrange some of the big international land deals.
Madagascar's government said that an environmental impact assessment would have to be carried out before the Daewoo deal could be approved, but it welcomed the investment. The massive lease is the largest so far in an accelerating number of land deals that have been arranged since the surge in food prices late last year.
"In the context of arable land sales, this is unprecedented," Atkin said. "We're used to seeing 100,000-hectare sales. This is more than 10 times as much."
At a food security summit in Rome, in June, there was agreement to channel more investment and development aid to African farmers to help them respond to higher prices by producing more. But governments and corporations in some cash-rich but land-poor states, mostly in the Middle East, have opted not to wait for world markets to respond and are trying to guarantee their own long-term access to food by buying up land in poorer countries.
According to diplomats, the Saudi Binladin Group is planning an investment in Indonesia to grow basmati rice, while tens of thousands of hectares in Pakistan have been sold to Abu Dhabi investors.
Arab investors, including the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, have also bought direct stakes in Sudanese agriculture. The president of the UEA, Khalifa bin Zayed, has said his country was considering large-scale agricultural projects in Kazakhstan to ensure a stable food supply.
Even China, which has plenty of land but is now getting short of water as it pursues breakneck industrialisation, has begun to explore land deals in south-east Asia. Laos, meanwhile, has signed away between 2m-3m hectares, or 15% of its viable farmland. Libya has secured 250,000 hectares of Ukrainian farmland, and Egypt is believed to want similar access. Kuwait and Qatar have been chasing deals for prime tracts of Cambodia rice fields.
Eager buyers generally have been welcomed by sellers in developing world governments desperate for capital in a recession. Madagascar's land reform minister said revenue would go to infrastructure and development in flood-prone areas.
Sudan is trying to attract investors for almost 900,000 hectares of its land, and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has been courting would-be Saudi investors.
"If this was a negotiation between equals, it could be a good thing. It could bring investment, stable prices and predictability to the market," said Duncan Green, Oxfam's head of research. "But the problem is, [in] this scramble for soil I don't see any place for the small farmers."
Alex Evans, at the Centre on International Cooperation, at New York University, said: "The small farmers are losing out already. People without solid title are likely to be turfed off the land."
Details of land deals have been kept secret so it is unknown whether they have built-in safeguards for local populations.
Steve Wiggins, a rural development expert at the Overseas Development Institute, said: "There are very few economies of scale in most agriculture above the level of family farm because managing [the] labour is extremely difficult." Investors might also have to contend with hostility. "If I was a political-risk adviser to [investors] I'd say 'you are taking a very big risk'. Land is an extremely sensitive thing. This could go horribly wrong if you don't learn the lessons of history."
The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, has warned that the controversial rise in land deals could create a form of "neo-colonialism", with poor states producing food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people.
Rising food prices have already set off a second "scramble for Africa". This week, the South Korean firm Daewoo Logistics announced plans to buy a 99-year lease on a million hectares in Madagascar. Its aim is to grow 5m tonnes of corn a year by 2023, and produce palm oil from a further lease of 120,000 hectares (296,000 acres), relying on a largely South African workforce. Production would be mainly earmarked for South Korea, which wants to lessen dependence on imports.
"These deals can be purely commercial ventures on one level, but sitting behind it is often a food security imperative backed by a government," said Carl Atkin, a consultant at Bidwells Agribusiness, a Cambridge firm helping to arrange some of the big international land deals.
Madagascar's government said that an environmental impact assessment would have to be carried out before the Daewoo deal could be approved, but it welcomed the investment. The massive lease is the largest so far in an accelerating number of land deals that have been arranged since the surge in food prices late last year.
"In the context of arable land sales, this is unprecedented," Atkin said. "We're used to seeing 100,000-hectare sales. This is more than 10 times as much."
At a food security summit in Rome, in June, there was agreement to channel more investment and development aid to African farmers to help them respond to higher prices by producing more. But governments and corporations in some cash-rich but land-poor states, mostly in the Middle East, have opted not to wait for world markets to respond and are trying to guarantee their own long-term access to food by buying up land in poorer countries.
According to diplomats, the Saudi Binladin Group is planning an investment in Indonesia to grow basmati rice, while tens of thousands of hectares in Pakistan have been sold to Abu Dhabi investors.
Arab investors, including the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, have also bought direct stakes in Sudanese agriculture. The president of the UEA, Khalifa bin Zayed, has said his country was considering large-scale agricultural projects in Kazakhstan to ensure a stable food supply.
Even China, which has plenty of land but is now getting short of water as it pursues breakneck industrialisation, has begun to explore land deals in south-east Asia. Laos, meanwhile, has signed away between 2m-3m hectares, or 15% of its viable farmland. Libya has secured 250,000 hectares of Ukrainian farmland, and Egypt is believed to want similar access. Kuwait and Qatar have been chasing deals for prime tracts of Cambodia rice fields.
Eager buyers generally have been welcomed by sellers in developing world governments desperate for capital in a recession. Madagascar's land reform minister said revenue would go to infrastructure and development in flood-prone areas.
Sudan is trying to attract investors for almost 900,000 hectares of its land, and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has been courting would-be Saudi investors.
"If this was a negotiation between equals, it could be a good thing. It could bring investment, stable prices and predictability to the market," said Duncan Green, Oxfam's head of research. "But the problem is, [in] this scramble for soil I don't see any place for the small farmers."
Alex Evans, at the Centre on International Cooperation, at New York University, said: "The small farmers are losing out already. People without solid title are likely to be turfed off the land."
Details of land deals have been kept secret so it is unknown whether they have built-in safeguards for local populations.
Steve Wiggins, a rural development expert at the Overseas Development Institute, said: "There are very few economies of scale in most agriculture above the level of family farm because managing [the] labour is extremely difficult." Investors might also have to contend with hostility. "If I was a political-risk adviser to [investors] I'd say 'you are taking a very big risk'. Land is an extremely sensitive thing. This could go horribly wrong if you don't learn the lessons of history."
Friday, November 21, 2008
Cambodia for sale by Hun Sen: Price tag $3 bln
Cambodia holds land deal talks
November 20 2008
By Raphael Minder in Hong Kong
Financial Times (Hong Kong)
November 20 2008
By Raphael Minder in Hong Kong
Financial Times (Hong Kong)
Cambodia is in talks with several Asian and Middle Eastern governments to receive as much as $3bn in agricultural investment in return for millions of hectares in land concessions, according to a senior government official.
Some of the deals would be finalised “in coming months”, said Suos Yara, under-secretary of state responsible for economic co-operation.
The revelation comes as impoverished countries rich in fertile land and water such as Cambodia, but also nations in east Africa, seek agriculture investments from resource-poor but capital-rich countries.
Kuwait and Qatar were “very strongly interested” in securing more farming land, he said, with South Korea and the Philippines, which suffered from rice shortages this year, among potential Asian investors.
“Food prices have recently fallen but that really makes little difference because the food supply issue will be there for the long term,” he said. “With this financial crisis, we need to seize this opportunity to develop our farming and switch [foreign] investment from construction to agriculture.”
Kuwait has already agreed to give Cambodia loans totalling $546m (€436m, £369m) to develop agriculture, the second largest aid pledge ever received by Cambodia, after aid and loans totalling $601m offered by China last year.
This week, Daewoo Logistics of South Korea secured a landmark deal with Madagascar to grow food crops to send back to Seoul on a 99-year lease. Daewoo hopes to farm its Madagascar lease for free but is promising local jobs and infrastructure investments in road and irrigation.
Suos Yara would not detail the terms of the potential deals but said leases would run between 70 and 90 years. He did not say how much investors will pay for the leases, with the $3bn more likely in infrastructure investments than rent.
Phnom Penh calculates that Cambodia has 6m hectares available for farming, of which 2.5m are under cultivation. By comparison, the Korean deal with Madagascar covers 1.3m hectares.
Apart from boosting farming acreage, Suos Yara said the deals would make an equally significant contribution in terms of infrastructure and technology upgrades in a country that has emerged from decades of war and a 1970s genocide.
Last year, Cambodia produced 2.5m tonnes of rice, of which about 1.3m was exported, from a sector that relies on a single annual harvest and family-run farms. “With better technology and irrigation, rice production could double in some areas,” he said.
Cambodia’s farming push comes as the government faces an abrupt economic slowdown after averaging growth of 9 per cent over the past decade, as Korean property developers and other cash-strapped foreign investors start to shelve real estate projects.
Cambodia attracted about $3bn of foreign direct investment in 2007, of which 45 per cent was in real estate projects and 25 per cent in agriculture. Suos Yara said the land deals would help maintain foreign investment at such levels but with about half of the total coming from farming investments.
The country has suffered a food crisis, with the Asian Development Bank providing $35m in emergency food assistance last month. However, Suos Yara said conditions had returned to normal. “It was a distribution problem and not a food shortage problem,” he said.
While most of the potential investors were seeking to bolster their food reserves, Phnom Penh had also been talking to biofuel producers, including Indonesia, about ceding land for crops such as jatropha, a succulent plant becoming increasingly popular in the production of biofuels.
Some of the deals would be finalised “in coming months”, said Suos Yara, under-secretary of state responsible for economic co-operation.
The revelation comes as impoverished countries rich in fertile land and water such as Cambodia, but also nations in east Africa, seek agriculture investments from resource-poor but capital-rich countries.
Kuwait and Qatar were “very strongly interested” in securing more farming land, he said, with South Korea and the Philippines, which suffered from rice shortages this year, among potential Asian investors.
“Food prices have recently fallen but that really makes little difference because the food supply issue will be there for the long term,” he said. “With this financial crisis, we need to seize this opportunity to develop our farming and switch [foreign] investment from construction to agriculture.”
Kuwait has already agreed to give Cambodia loans totalling $546m (€436m, £369m) to develop agriculture, the second largest aid pledge ever received by Cambodia, after aid and loans totalling $601m offered by China last year.
This week, Daewoo Logistics of South Korea secured a landmark deal with Madagascar to grow food crops to send back to Seoul on a 99-year lease. Daewoo hopes to farm its Madagascar lease for free but is promising local jobs and infrastructure investments in road and irrigation.
Suos Yara would not detail the terms of the potential deals but said leases would run between 70 and 90 years. He did not say how much investors will pay for the leases, with the $3bn more likely in infrastructure investments than rent.
Phnom Penh calculates that Cambodia has 6m hectares available for farming, of which 2.5m are under cultivation. By comparison, the Korean deal with Madagascar covers 1.3m hectares.
Apart from boosting farming acreage, Suos Yara said the deals would make an equally significant contribution in terms of infrastructure and technology upgrades in a country that has emerged from decades of war and a 1970s genocide.
Last year, Cambodia produced 2.5m tonnes of rice, of which about 1.3m was exported, from a sector that relies on a single annual harvest and family-run farms. “With better technology and irrigation, rice production could double in some areas,” he said.
Cambodia’s farming push comes as the government faces an abrupt economic slowdown after averaging growth of 9 per cent over the past decade, as Korean property developers and other cash-strapped foreign investors start to shelve real estate projects.
Cambodia attracted about $3bn of foreign direct investment in 2007, of which 45 per cent was in real estate projects and 25 per cent in agriculture. Suos Yara said the land deals would help maintain foreign investment at such levels but with about half of the total coming from farming investments.
The country has suffered a food crisis, with the Asian Development Bank providing $35m in emergency food assistance last month. However, Suos Yara said conditions had returned to normal. “It was a distribution problem and not a food shortage problem,” he said.
While most of the potential investors were seeking to bolster their food reserves, Phnom Penh had also been talking to biofuel producers, including Indonesia, about ceding land for crops such as jatropha, a succulent plant becoming increasingly popular in the production of biofuels.
Monday, October 06, 2008
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