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Cambodia National Rescue Party leaders Sam Rainsy (right) and Kem Sokha (centre) lead supporters on a march through Phnom Penh to their party headquarters yesterday.

PHA LINA

Slight change of plans

Meas Sokchea and Kevin Ponniah

FEW thousand opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party supporters marched through central Phnom Penh yesterday as the party held its largest public gathering in the capital since protesters were chased out of Freedom Park in early January. Although Prime Minister Hun Sen suggested in late February that a ban on public assembly in the capital had been lifted, authorities had denied a

Freedom Park off-limits as CNRP marches

request from the CNRP to hold a peoples congress at Freedom Park yesterday, citing ongoing investigations into clashes at protests on January 2 and 3 that left at least four dead. The government had, however, granted permission for the party to hold a ceremony at Wat Botum Park to commemorate the 17th anniversary of a grenade attack on an opposition rally at the site that killed at least 16 people and injured more than 100. With security forces deployed in droves to Freedom Park to thwart any attempt to defy the ban, CNRP leaders decided to hold the congress at their Meanchey district headquarters instead, and following the ceremony at Wat Botum, led a few thousand supporters on a boisterous, hour-long traipse through the city. Though surrounding streets had been blocked off ahead of the memorial ceremony, police stood idly by as the flag-waving crowds moved down Sothearos and then Norodom Boulevard, over the Kbal Thnal flyover, and down National Road 2 to the party office. Speaking to supporters who had gathered outside, partially blocking the road, opposition leader Sam Rain-

sy lambasted the government for blocking access to Freedom Park, or Democracy Square, the capitals designated protest space. We want to change the name of Democracy Square to Dictators Square [seeing as] citizens are not allowed to gather there, he said. Rainsy also mocked a reported ban instituted in the wake of Januarys violence on gatherings of more than nine people, boasting that his party had Continues on page 2

ISSUE NUMBER 1896

THE PHNOM PENH POST march 31, 2014

National

Ieng Thiriths health not improving: son

Cheang Sokha

Cambodia National Rescue Party leader Sam Rainsy pays his respects to the 1997 grenade attack victims at Phnom Penhs Wat Botum Park.

phA LINA

Slight change of plans for CNRP march

Continued from page 1

been able to march unimpeded. Ahead of yesterday, Rainsy had said the events would be a test for the government and invited observers to witness any act of provocation on the part of CPP-controlled forces, whose objective would be to create violence so as to have a pretext to further reduce the democratic space in Cambodia. Prominent human rights group Amnesty International on Saturday had called on the government to allow yesterdays assemblies, and a protest planned by independent broadcaster Mam Sonando for today, to take place without undue interference and without harassment from security forces. General Khieu Sopheak, spokesman at the Interior Ministry, yesterday said that the authorities had followed the [CNRP] march very closely. We didnt take any action to stop the march, but [we] just monitored. If they march and if they stand still to occupy any space, action should be taken, he said. City Hall spokesman Long

Dimanche said the Phnom Penh Municipality considered the march illegal and had received traffic complaints, but that authorities were trying to be patient. Let people evaluate [how] the opposition party has always made problems. I also receive information that there were many people who were unhappy with the way that traffic was blocked, he said. Following the Peoples Congress, which saw supporters take to a stage to air their grievances and explain what course of action they want the CNRP to take, the party released a resolution stating that it would continue to either demand an investigation into election irregularities or an early poll. It also states that if the National Election Committee is not significantly reformed a sticking point in negotiations with the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party the CNRPs boycott of parliament, which began in September, would continue. In such a case, the CNRP would continue large scale non-violent demonstrations nationwide, the resolution

says. At Wat Botum yesterday morning, where relatives of those killed in the 1997 grenade attack joined monks and opposition supporters to mourn and honour the dead, Rainsy spoke of alleged interference by Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, the basis for allegations of genocide recently made in an International Criminal Court complaint not linked to the CNRP. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal summoned Mr Hor Namhong, deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister [to the court]. In [foreign countries], if the judge summons someone and they do not go, he would be jailed. But in our country, they do not think of the court ... He does not go because he has a leader to defend him that says its not necessary to go, he said. Another one is named Keat Chhon, the deputy prime minister and former Finance Minister and [adviser to] Pol Pot ... Keat Chhon [was summonsed] but did not go ... [Because someone above him] told him not to go. [That person] defends criminals, this is

a big problem. It has been alleged that Namhong was, for a time, in charge of the Boeung Trabek prison under the Khmer Rouge, which he has strongly and repeatedly denied, calling such accusations defamatory. Chhon worked at the Foreign Affairs ministry under Democratic Kampuchea, according to witnesses at the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Rainsy added that 2014 was the most hopeful year for Cambodians to find justice, citing the appointment of a new judge to investigate the 1997 grenade attack in a French court. The CNRP leader and other Cambodians present at the attack have French nationality in addition to Cambodian. No one has yet been held account for the attack, which saw four grenades thrown at a protest led by Rainsy against a lack of independence and corruption in the judiciary. Witnesses claimed to have seen the Prime Ministers Bodyguard Unit, which was deployed to the protest, allowing the grenade-throwers to escape through their lines while blocking pursuers.

ESPITE travelling to Thailand this month to receive medical treatment for a host of ailments, former Khmer Rouge tribunal defendant Ieng Thiriths condition is worsening, and she is likely to remain hospitalised there for some time, her son said yesterday. According to Ieng Vuth, the deputy governor of Pailin province and Thiriths son, the former Khmer Rouge Minister of Social Affairs suffered a broken hip in a fall from her bed, a condition that isnt healing, because pain caused by a heart condition prevents the 82year-old from lying still. Her health has not improved; instead it is worsening. Vuth said. And we do not know how long she will stay in the hospital. Though Thirith remains under judicial supervision, she was released from detention and court proceedings against her were stayed in September 2012 after she was found unt to stand trial due to advancing dementia. The dementia, Vuth said yesterday, makes it more difcult for doctors to treat her, and more difcult for Thirith to understand their instructions. Of course, we are really

concerned about her condition, he said, adding that the family was closely monitoring the situation. A ling in which Thirith requested permission to travel to Thailand notes that in addition to conditions affecting both the spine and the artery that carries blood to the lower body, Thirith showed evidence of cerebral atrophy as well as two small strokes in a CT scan in January. Thiriths treatment in Thailand coincides with the courts reassessment of the tness to stand trial of its remaining defendants 82-year-old exhead of state Khieu Samphan and 87-year-old Brother No 2, Nuon Chea. The two underwent a physical and psychological assessment on Tuesday, but an optional public hearing on the ndings that had been tentatively scheduled for Friday wasnt held because none of the legal teams requested it. The medical reports are condential, however the two reports indicate that both accused are t to stand trial, said prosecutor William Smith in an email yesterday. There is no information in the reports that presents any immediate concern as to their health in the foreseeable future. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STUART WHITE

Ieng Thirith in a seat at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in 2011 during a preliminary hearing on her tness to stand trial. ECCC

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THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

National

Hundreds protest Laos dam

Phak Seangly Stung Treng province

IN Vuth, one of hundreds of Cambodians who protested against the Don Sahong dam over the weekend, said that if construction on the project in Laos goes ahead, the sh will disappear, and once the sh disappear, the dolphins will be next. All we will have left will be water contaminated by the dam, said Vuth, 53, who runs a dolphin-spotting tourism business about 2 kilometres from the construction site in Laoss Champasak province, just over the border from Cambodia. About 400 protesters traversed the Mekong River on 50 or so longboats through Kratie provinces Sambor district and Stung Trengs Thala Barivat district near the two countries border in the northeast. The demonstrators wore white shirts and unfurled banners as they negotiated the waterway, calling for the preservation of the river system and the cancellation of the multimillion-dollar dam. They called on the governments of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam to axe

Demonstrators in Stung Trengs Thala Barivat district on the weekend sail a boat sporting banners protesting against the Don Sahong dam project in Laos. VIREAK MAI

the development at a meeting of the Mekong River Commission later this week, which will be attended by Prime Minister Hun Sen. This dam was established against international law and the Mekong Agreement of 1995, which was signed by Laos, and it was not discussed with the people in other countries either, Vong Kosal, legal aid of-

cer at the NGO Forum, said. The Mekong basin has been chopped up into stairs for building the hydro-electric dams, and it brings more disadvantages, Kosal said. Sean Kin, Kratie provincial director of sheries, said that the river was his constituents spiritual home, a source of essential nutrition and tourism income.

Fresh water dolphins are our living heritage, which brings in more tourists, he said. The dam will slow down the water currents, and the environment will be changed for both animals and people. The 260-megawatt Don Sahong dam is one of 12 largescale hydropower projects planned for the lower Mekong river basin. It has drawn strong

criticism from rights groups and local communities. In a recent report on the dam, the World Wildlife Fund said that judging by the low standards of an environmental impact assessment for the project, the negative impact on millions of people could be severe. If it depends on this weak evaluation, Mekong river shery resources and the 60 million people who are living in the sub-Mekong river basin will face high risks, the report said. The WWF estimates there are only about 85 Mekong River dolphins left in the wild. If Laos really constructs the dam, we will lose our rare resources, especially the dolphins rst, said Sam Sovann, an executive ofcer of local NGO Northeastern Rural Development. Dolphins bring in money, but do not need money to be fed, like pigs or chickens. But if they die, the resources will not be able to be replaced by spending money, he added. According to Sovann, the communities gathered more than 3,000 signatures to submit to Hun Sen ahead of the MRC summit on Saturday.

Two killed in separate UXO blasts

Lieng Sarith

A 12-YEAR-OLD boy and a 37-year-old farmer lost their lives over the weekend in UXO explosions in Battambang and Pailin provinces. A 1970s anti-tank mine exploded on Friday morning, when two men drove a minitractor over the explosive, which lay just 20cm to 30cm beneath a new road in Battambangs Rattanak Mondul district. The blast, which saw the vehicle flung 10 metres into the air, killed one man, identified by the police as Chert Chum, 37. The other, Suon Piset, 22, was sent to the provincial referral hospital. On Saturday, Prom Pov, 12, from Pailins Salakrov district, was killed when a rusty 60mm artillery shell he was playing with exploded. Seventeenyear-old Rat Da, who was standing some 20 metres away, was seriously injured in the blast, Stung Trang commune police chief Ry Dara said. That place is an old military base, and we do not know how many unexploded ordnances still lay there, he said.

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

National Workers to le stories from the factory oor

Mom Kunthear

Brands failing their workers

Alice Cuddy

THE Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) is hoping to turn a select group of garment workers into muckrakers by offering a journalism program through the Voice of Democracy news outlet. Free of charge, the course will last until October and have a rm focus on covering day-to-day life in an industry that employs hundreds of thousands. There are 10 garment workers from different factories in Phnom Penh who were selected to join in the project, and we expect that they will become good reporters and report on the situation of the workers inside and outside the factory to the media, especially to us, said Hok Narin, who is in charge of the project for CCIM. They can report about strikes, fainting or working conditions. Narin said that the trainees were provided with one smartphone each for the duration of the course. VOD will collect their photos, video or text and publish some of the stories on its website,

paying trainees $2 each per story. The workers are also free to distribute information over their own social media accounts. So far, the participants, who were selected by the Community Legal Education Center, have taken two courses covering social media and how to write basic news stories. For workers like Kong Srey Mao, 31, who sews at M&V International garment factory in Phnom Penh, the new freelance work is welcome. It is not difcult for me if I compare it to my current job, but it is new and strange, because I used to carry the needle and now I have to carry a pen, notebook and smartphone for taking pictures. I will try the best to catch it until I can write the story, she said. Srey Mao said she has wanted to be a journalist since she was young, but living standards in her family forced her to abandon her education at grade 6. I hope that once we understand how to write the story, news of our problem will be spread out more and more, to everybody outside the factory, she said. Then, I will change my career.

UROPEAN mega-brands are not doing enough to ensure that the Cambodian workers who make their products receive a basic living wage, according to a report released today. Tailored Wages, an analysis of 50 of Europes biggest clothing brands, found that many major high-street chains are doing little to combat the meagre wages of Cambodian garment workers. The report was produced by the Clean Clothes Campaign, an alliance of organisations in 16 European countries, in cooperation with the Asia Floor Wage, an alliance of trade unions and labour rights activists. A living wage is a human right. Yet the scandalous truth is that the majority of workers in the global fashion industry cannot afford to live with dignity, the report says. Calls for a monthly minimum wage of $160 reached a breaking point in January when security forces cracked down on protesters, killing at least four and detaining 23. Twenty-one remain in prison. According to the report, as per United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, in cases where the state fails to protect human rights such as when the legal minimum wage fails to meet the minimum subsistence level (living wage) business still has an obligation to respect the human right to a living wage. The monthly minimum wage of garment workers across Cambodia stands at just $100. Using questionnaires, which asked com-

A garment worker yells slogans while holding a placard during protests in Phnom Penhs Russian Boulevard in January calling for a $160 minimum wage. VIREAK MAI

panies to provide practical, concrete information about their work, the report found that none of those surveyed, including H&M and Puma, are as yet paying a living wage. One of the brands slammed for its inaction was Gap, which the report said showed little proof of real work that will improve wages for workers making its clothes. While fairing better in the survey, the efforts of H&M, Puma and New Look are also described as unconvincing. Levi Strauss & Co, one of 15 brands that declined to respond to the survey, is described as lacking any real commitment to increase wages.

Joel Preston, a consultant with the Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), said yesterday that aside from a living wage, brands are not doing enough to ensure that even the basic needs of Cambodian garment workers are met. There is a huge gap between what the brands say and what the brands do. Theres a lot of rhetoric, roadmaps, guidelines, but in terms of tangible benets for the workers we havent seen any, he said. If brands want to say they are socially responsible and get the marketing benets from that, they need to start taking concrete action.

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

National
Veng Sreng trial

Lawyer has hopes clients will be freed

LAWYER representing three of the 23 people arrested during garment strike clashes on January 2 and 3 hopes the capitals court will drop charges against her clients when it hears their case on April 18, she said yesterday. San Sokunthear, a lawyer from human-rights group Licadho representing three of the accused, said she had been told that on April 18, Phnom Penh Municipal Court will hear the case of 13 people arrested during the deadly Veng Sreng Boulevard shootings of January 3. I strongly hope the court will drop the charges, she said. But Sokunthear had not heard when the court will hear the case of the 10 arrested outside the Yakjin factory elsewhere in the capital on January 2. All but two of the 23 remain locked in prison in Kampong Cham province. They face charges of causing intentional violence and intentionally damaging property. Security forces shot dead at least four people on January 3.
SHANE WORRELL

to Big dip in illegal fishing: govt Ofcials rotate after

Sen David

AMBODIAN authorities intervened in far fewer illegal shing cases last year compared to 2012, when Prime Minister Hun Sen rst banned commercial angling nationwide in a bid to replenish waterways and aid small-scale shermen. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which released an annual report on Friday, there were 3,802 cases in which authorities cracked down on the practice last year, down from 5,307 in 2012. Some of the decline, however, may be connected to the simple fact that the ban was handed down in March 2012, leaving the government fewer months to enforce the directive, which excluded shing for lobster and linh, the small sh used in the making of prahok. Regardless of the drop, Hun Sen, who presided over the meeting at Chaktomuk hall, was unsatised, and urged those in attendance to confront the problem more aggressively. Since the government cancelled shing lots to provide for residents, we still have illegal shing. So today, I suggest all to strengthen the crackdown

eight years
Vong Sokheng

A woman sits on one of about 40 small boats that were conscated from local shermen by ofcials in 2012 to prevent them from shing in certain areas on the Tonle Sap in Phnom Penh. HONG MENEA

on illegal shing to defend our natural resources, he said. The overwhelming majority of the governments enforcement efforts never reached the level of an arrest. The sheries administration ned violators a total of $39,345 last year, and seized large amounts of shing equipment, including nets, electronic devices, 120 motorised boats and 55 smaller skiffs, according to the report. Ninety-six of the 3,802 cases ac-

tually made it to court, but only 51 were jailed over the practice. The report did not provide comparable 2012 data for arrests and court cases. Since the ban, 158 commercial lots totalling 953,861 hectares have been cancelled. Of those, most were freed up for subsistence shing, while a little less than 98,000 hectares were set aside as conservation areas. Local production has increased dramatically, according

to the report, which said shermen netted 718,000 tons in 2013, compared to 360,000 tons in 2012. Noa Thouk, head of the Cambodian Fisheries Administration, said despite the admirable results, the government was far from obtaining its goals. We cannot stop illegally sheries 100 per cent. We still have illegal sheries even with the ofcial effort to crack down on them, he said.

THE Ministry of Interior on Friday announced that provincial and municipal governors and deputy governors will now be reshuffled between provinces every eight years in a move that the ministry maintained would help improve services. Speaking at a ceremony in which former Takeo governor Ieng Auny replaced Phnom Penh deputy governor Cham Sam An who is moving to the Interior Ministry Secretary of State Sak Setha said on Friday that reshuffling governors would allow them to share experience between provinces. The power transfer will take place no later than every eight years, and it will be a normal exchange of work and powers between civil servants in order to improve services for people, Setha said. But opposition lawmakerelect Son Chhay said the new system would provide the ruling party with more opportunities for corruption. The exchange of individual officials in the ruling party comes through bribery and partisanship, and will create more corruption, he said.

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

National NGOs issue one more plea to stop Xayaburi

Laignee Barron

Confessions coerced
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea and Laignee Barron

POLICE BLOttER
Cutting-edge fighting technique leads to jail
HAVING an axe to grind is one thing, but wielding one during a nighttime brawl is taking it too far. Two men were seriously injured during such a scrap in the capitals Por Sen Chey district on Saturday night. After beers that were meant to take the edge off, tensions instead flared between partygoers, and one man began taking the edge off his opponents. Police intervened, telling the group to bury the hatchet and sending three to court. Axe and you shall receive ... prison. KOh santEphEap

WITH time running short before Laoss Xayaburi hydropower dam enters its nal, potentially irreversible stages of construction, a group of NGOs has made another call for its suspension. In a joint declaration released today, 39 organisations based in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Australia set a oneyear deadline for Thailand and Laos to call off the 1,285-megawatt hydropower dam and demanded Thailand, which is set to buy 95 per cent of the generated electricity, cancel its power purchase agreement. The statement comes just days ahead of the international Mekong Summit where Lower Mekong country heads are expected to discuss regional waterway cooperation. Cambodia and Vietnam have never approved of the Xayaburi dam, Kraisak Choonhavan,formerchairman of Thailands Senate Foreign Affairs Committee says in todays statement. The Mekong Summit is the critical moment for Cambodia and Vietnam to take a strong stance and make their concerns heard loud and clear before its too late.

Last week, Laos told the Post the $3.8 million project was already 30 per cent built and on track for completion in 2019. But construction of the dam remains a divisive issue, with Laos unilaterally declaring intergovernmental discussions through the Mekong River Commission over, even as its neighbours requested transboundary assessments. It is not too late for the Thai banks funding the Xayaburi dam to re-evaluate the project, in order to see how the potential costs far outweigh potential benets from a dam that Thailand neither needs ... nor should they want to be a catalyst of a regional dispute in the era of closer ASEAN integration and cooperation, Marc Goichot, WWFs sustainable hydropower expert, said. NGOs have stressed the importance of reinstating regional dialogue before the rst mainstream hydropower project causes irreparable harm. Its important the governments speak out about what Laos has done and make a commitment to good faith dialogue so this issue never happens again, said Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia coordinator for International Rivers.

EVEN defendants being tried on charges of plotting to overthrow the government accused police on Friday of fabricating their personal statements. Advocates of the accused Khmer and Khmer Krom men supported those claims yesterday and said they were worried that much of the prosecutions evidence was extracted from the suspects under duress. While in police custody, all of the accused were threatened or forced to thumbprint confessions and statements they did not say, Ang Chanrith, executive director of the Minority Rights Organization, said. The men were told that if they confessed, they would probably be released. The seven are among 13 suspects facing up to 10 years imprisonment for alleged involvement in the Khmer National Liberation Front, a group the government claims planned armed, hostile acts against Cambodia and Vietnam. One of the accused, Yann Yoeub, 25, the younger brother of KNLF president Sam Serey, said that after he was arrested in Thailand last year, he was detained and interrogated for

Khmer Krom Buddhist monk Thach Koung (right) arrives at Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday. hENG CHIVOAN

three months at the Ministry of Interior, an allegation ofcials from that ministry refused to respond to yesterday. The police threatened not only my client but all the clients to try to get evidence, said a defence lawyer who asked to remain anonymous until after the verdict is read on April 11. He added that his client and another defendant were tortured by police after initially refusing to confess. Warrants were issued for the 13 suspects in 2012, after the group distributed anti-government leaets in Phnom Penh and Takeo, according to Rith Savoeun, the ministrys deputy chief of internal security. But advocates of the accused questioned the ministrys claim

that the Denmark-based group conducts terrorist activities. They say their movement just wants to advocate for human rights and victims of forced evictions, Chanrith said. Defence lawyers said the limited evidence presented on Friday included a list of 5,000 KNLF members conscated from a defendants computer. But when interviewed by the lawyers, most on the list, like many of the defendants, said they had no involvement in the group and had only attended a human rights workshop. I did not join Sam Sereys activities, and was not a member of Khmer National Liberation Front, Yin Yav, a Khmer Krom defendant, said.

Busy traffic puts paid to high-speed getaway

PEAK-HOUR phone-jackings are never a good idea. Two men found this out in the capitals Prampi Makara district on Friday when they whizzed by an unsuspecting pedestrian and helped themselves to his mobile phone. Their planned ride to freedom on a motorbike was easier said than done: bumper-to-bumper traffic boxed them in long enough for the police to arrive and haul them in. DEum ampiL

Lazy man executes lazy scam, too lazy to flee

ITS the oldest trick in the book. You borrow your friends moto, you pawn it and you lie low until it all blows over. After doing the first two things in Kandal province last week, one man, 28, made the mindless and all-too-common mistake of choosing his own home as a hideout. After realising he had been duped, the victim simply called the police, who wandered round to the thiefs home on Friday and slapped on the cuffs. DEum ampiL

Tough talk on ELCs

May Titthara and Daniel Pye

Cambodia Community Justice Assistance Partnership

Further exciting opportunities on an Australian Aid funded donor project Excellent remuneration and conditions Positions based in Phnom Penh with provincial travel

URS has been appointed as the Implementing Service Provider for the Cambodia Community Justice Assistance Partnership(CCJAP) program and we are seeking suitably qualied individuals for several roles in our project team. The Cambodia Community Justice Assistance Partnership (CCJAP) continues the support that Australia has provided over the past 17 years in the criminal justice sector in Cambodia; the assistance has moved from being donor-driven and institutionally focussed to an increasingly community oriented and locally owned and administered program of support to provide communities with equitable access to justice. The aim of CCJAPis to provide safer communities for women, youth and children through less crime. CCJAP will work toward strengthening court and prison systems through more effective management of pre-trial arrangements, use of non-custodial sentencing and improved prisons. We are seeking people for the following roles: Management for Development Results Ofcer- (job code 596) TheMfDR ofcerwill lead and manageeld work to establish outcomes from CCJAP supported activities to allow the accuratecollection,analysisandfeedbackofresultsfro minvestmentsinsmall-scale infrastructure,WorkingGroup pilot activities, and national and sub-national Crime Prevention and Community Safetyactivities. Thematic Adviser: Gender and Vulnerability- (job code 597) The Gender and Vulnerability Adviser will be responsible for supporting the mainstreaming of gender and vulnerability issues within the CCJAP program and for providing technical support to the program as it engages with and supports broader gender and vulnerability activities within the Cambodian law and justice sector.

ECONOMIC land concessionaires not abiding by their contracts could have their licences revoked if they have seriously breached the terms, Prime Minister Hun Sen has said. Illegally seizing forest land would be punished under the Law on Forestry, he said on Friday, speaking at an annual general meeting of the agricultural sector in Phnom Penh. The land would be reclaimed by the state and turned over to military veterans as social land concessions, he added. We must continue to promote reform of forest boundaries and permanent forest assets, enhance classication to identify areas of forest degradation and restore the forests. But rights groups and the opposition yesterday said Hun

Sens comments didnt make any difference. The appeal ... is too late, because concessions have seriously affected natural resources and peoples livelihoods since 2008, Chan Soveth, senior monitor at rights group Adhoc, said. If [he] wants to have some natural resources left, he should take huge measures against any company that has senior government ofcials behind it. Cambodia National Rescue Party whip Son Chhay agreed. It is not the rst time the prime minister has said that. But it doesnt make any difference. If they [companies] violate the contract, then take the land away. Its that simple. The real soldiers who need land, theres not a lot of them. This land will go into the hands of corrupt generals.

Vale car, taken too soon by phony valet

CARS stolen while you wait. That was the deal on offer at a service station in Poipet town on Saturday. Arriving to have his car washed, a 30-year-old was also eager to have his hair cut so eager, in fact, that he handed his keys to a complete stranger thinking he was in charge of washing the cars. After a short-back-and-sides, the man returned to the garage to collect his ride. What car? and What employee? were words uttered by the lone attendant in the ensuing argument. DEum ampiL

Union bosses called in

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

You must be eligible to work in Cambodia to apply. For further information on these roles and to apply go to http://www.ap.urscorp.com/ InternationalDevelopment/ProjectRecruitmentand enter the relevant job code. Applications close 11th April, 2014. Enquiries can be directed to internationaldevelopment@urs.com Australian Aidmanaged by URS on behalf of the Australian Government URS is an equal opportunity employer of choice and is committed to child protection. We encourage women and men to apply

PHNOM Penh Municipal Court on Friday summonsed three senior leaders of Cambodias largest independent garment union for questioning over claims they embezzled money meant to be paid to workers in compensation following an industrial dispute, a court ofcial has said. Prak Savuth, head of administration at the court, said Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) president Ath Thorn, vice-president Kong Athit and secretary-general Ek Sopheakdey have been called in over claims they embezzled nearly $93,000 from workers at Kandals E Garment factory.

Twenty-nine garment workers led a complaint ... on March 3, Savuth said. Thorn said the case was brought by former C.CAWDU members Um Visal and Roeun Chanthan to destroy [his] honour and reputation. They got angry with us [when we ended their contracts]. So they have prepared the plot for other workers to sue us, he said. Thorn added he would appear on April 2, but plans to le his own defamation lawsuit against Visal and Chanthan. Visal said yesterday he is not worried. I am waiting to see their complaint, and then I will prepare my own complaint to sue them back. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MOM KUNTHEAR

Slice the hand, because the face aint listening

A MAN is nursing some rather painful wounds after he insisted his rival talk to the hand a demand that resulted in said hand being sliced with a knife. The slasher, 26, was arrested on Saturday after the incident, which police said stemmed from a tangling of feet on a nightclub dance floor in Kratie. Rather than settling it by way of a dance-off, the men took it outside. The victim is recovering in hospital. kOh santEphEap
Translated by Sen David

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

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NZD / USD

GBP / USD

USD /CNY

USD / JPY

USD / HKD

USD / SGD

USD / THB

4,000

1.3746

0.9275

0.8678

1.662

6.2121

102.1

7.7575

1.261

32.51

Customers inspect smartphones at a shop in Phnom Penh. Aeon Micronance is shifting its focus to mobile phones, electric appliances and motorbikes amid rising demand from young people.

HoNG MENEA

Aeon MFI to expand in Cambodia

Hor Kimsay

EON Micronance (Cambodia) plans to expand its branches in Cambodia this year and also diversify its products from the current base after two years of operating in the Kingdom, ofcials with the company say. Until now, the micronance institution (MFI) which is part of the same Japan-based conglomerate building a mega-mall next to the Sotel in Phnom Penh has provided nancing for motorcycles, home appliances, computers and mobile phones. Daisuke Maeda, manag-

ing director of Aeon, said last week that Cambodia is a highgrowth market. Aeon says it has received a total of 50,000 applications for loan instalments since starting up in December 2011 and now gets about 3,500 new applications every month. The outstanding loan portfolio was about $2.2 million at the end of 2012, and increased almost ve-fold to $10.9 million by the end of 2013. Our business expansion in Cambodia is quite successful and this year we expect our sales [to reach] $24 million, which will increase 163 per cent from 2013, Maeda said, adding that as the company

is focusing on mobile phones, electric appliances and motorbikes, demand from younger applicants has increased. At the same time, Aeon is heading in new directions. This year we would like to expand the agriculture equipment as now we provide the instalment service for agricultural equipment such as cultivator or big tractor, Maeda said. He added that Aeons other new service is the personal loan. Since March, the rm has been allowing customers to apply for cash loans without putting up any collateral at interest rates of 2.7 per cent to 2.9 per cent per month.

Aeon Cambodia has more than 1,000 merchants using the service; almost all are electrical appliance, mobile phone or motorbike shops in Phnom Penh or Siem Reap. The rm has also said its planning to extend its service coverage to other provinces soon. Vong Chhoung, the owner of Lucky Motorbike Shop on Sihanouk Boulevard in Phnom Penh, said that buying instalment services via Aeon signicantly helped her business last year, with about 30 customers coming in to buy a new motorbike using an Aeon loan. She said that her popular motorbikes cost less than $1,000 each suitable for her buyers,

the majority of whom work in garment factories, hotels, restaurants or other private rms where they earn between $150 and $200 per month. It is the big help to increase our sales via this instalment service which is provided by this MFI to make the customers who have low income have more ability to buy, Chhoung said. Nhim Tola, 26, who owns a phone shop in Phnom Penh, said he applied to buy a motorbike via the service last week. He earns around $200 per month and wants to buy a Scoopy model that costs $680. Under the terms of the loan, he will pay $48 per month at

an interest rate of 2 per cent until the debt is paid off. Of course, we do know that we have to pay them the interest fee; however, I think the instalment service is still good for me because I still have money to buy some other products for sale in my shop and can earn much more than what I will pay for the interest of my bike instalment, he said. In a Bangkok Post report last week, Yasuhiko Kondo, managing director of Aeon Thana Sinsap (Thailand), which oversees micronance and leasing businesses in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, described Aeon Cambodia as a high-growth market.

Thailands tourism operators fear visitor decrease

Chadamas Chinmaneevong

THAILANDS 2014 tourism revenue target of 2 trillion baht ($61.5 billion) is in danger if the caretaker government does not campaign to restore tourist confidence damaged by the political unrest of the past five months, the Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT) warned late last week. It suggests the government urgently approve an additional 250 million baht for a new tourism campaign. Thats such a small amount of mon-

ey compared with the tourism revenue we stand to lose otherwise, TCT president Piyaman Techapaiboon said. She said the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) would get the lions share, or 80 per cent, to entice foreign travellers to return after the political tension ends. The remaining 50 million baht would support campaigns by private tourism operators. The tourism confidence index is expected to increase to 98 points in this years second quarter from 96 in the first quarter, which was the lowest

since the turmoil began. A reading under 100 is considered negative. The TCT now projects Thailand will lose tourism revenue of 82.7 billion baht in the first half of this year, extending that to 116 billion baht if protest violence ratchets up again. Piyaman said revocation of the emergency decree has not benefited the tourism sector as expected, as 50 countries and territories were maintaining their travel advisories and warning their citizens to avoid Bangkok. International tourists and travel

agents were closely monitoring the political situation in Thailand. If we do nothing, the political problems will hurt the Thai tourism industry in the coming high season [November 2014 to March 2015], as many travellers will instead book to other destinations such as Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia. Normally buyers make reservations six months in advance, Piyaman said. The TCT has proposed three government measures aimed at boosting the tourism sector. The first is to promote

domestic tourism, particularly in Greater Bangkok. Second, penetrating potential markets such as Hong Kong, China and Japan. Third, helping tourism operators with staff training. The TCT is not confident about tourism prospects, but the TAT is maintaining its 2015 tourism revenue target of 2 trillion baht, as well as the 2014 tourist arrivals target of 28 million. In the first quarter, the TAT recorded 6.5 million foreign tourist arrivals, lower than the projection of 7.6 million. BANGKOK POST

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Business
Jumbo jet

URVIVORS and families of victims of Bangladeshs worst industrial disaster that killed more than 1,100 people last year started receiving compensation on Friday, a senior union ofcial said. British fashion clothing retailer Primark sent payments of $640 to survivors and victims families, Roy Ramesh, a union leader who also belongs to a group coordinating compensation, said. Primark was one of more than two dozen Western retailers which had clothing made at the Rana Plaza complex housing ve factories that collapsed on Dhakas outskirts in April last year, killing 1,135 workers and injuring more than 1,500. Around 430 employees of Primarks supplier have got the money today. Some 130 workers were left out because of some technical problem, but they will get the instalment soon, Ramesh said. Other brands which had clothes being made at the factory complex are providing compensation through an ILO-backed trust fund. The workers employed by those brands will receive the same amount of compensation on April 15 from the trust fund, which is seeking to raise $40 million from leading Western retailers to fully compensate the victims, Ramesh said. Primarks payments to survivors and the families of those who died

Japanese bid Rana Plaza payments start farewell to Boeings 747 S J

of the impoverished countrys 3,500 garment factories, but retailers have been criticised for failing to swiftly compensate the victims. Earlier this month, local and international labour and rights groups urged the 27 brands linked to the doomed Rana Plaza factories to contribute to the ILO-backed fund before the rst anniversary of the tragedy on April 24. Unions and injured workers have staged almost daily protests at the rubble-strewn ruins of the complex since the tragedy, demanding compensation for victims. Primark has also paid nine months of salary to help families of the dead and those who survived the accident meet expenses, while the Canadian group Loblaw has paid three months of wages, ofcials said. Primark could not be reached immediately for comment on Fridays payment. But it said earlier this month on its website that it will pay $9 million to families of dead and injured workers who worked for its supplier New Wave Bottoms, one of the ve factories based at the Plaza. The payments will be met in full, in cash, it said, adding that it was paying a total of $12 million including the salaries to injured workers and dead victims families and plans to contribute another $1 million to the Trust Fund. AFP
APANESE plane buffs will say a fond farewell to the jumbo jet this month as the Boeing 747 makes its nal scheduled ight in the country. The two-deck carrier, loved for its broad-shouldered look, will ferry holiday-makers and aviation enthusiasts on an All Nippon Airways ight from Naha, in Okinawa, to Tokyos Haneda airport on March 31. The jumbo jet, 70 metres (229 feet) long and 60 metres wide, was rst introduced to the country by Japan Airlines (JAL) in 1970 and became a workhorse on both domestic and international routes. But as well as its place in Japans affections, the 747 is also remembered for its involvement in the nations worst aviation accident and the deadliest singleaircraft disaster in history. In 1985, JAL Flight 123, ying from Tokyo to Osaka with 524 people aboard, crashed 120 kilometres (75 miles) northwest of Tokyo, killing all but four people on board. The jumbo jet has been replaced by more fuelefcient models, most notably the lightweight 787 Dreamliner, the rst mid-sized plane able to y long-haul. The 747 is still in use in other countries. AFP

Bangladeshi volunteers and rescue workers at the the Rana Plaza complex which collapsed in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, in 2013. AFp

were being supervised by the trust fund. This instalment of 50,000 taka is being paid as an advance payment on the victims total compensation claims, Ramesh said. Further compensation will be paid on the basis of injuries sustained by workers and in the case of those who died on the basis of their age and

their wage-earning potential, ofcials said. The tragedy highlighted appalling safety conditions in Bangladesh, the worlds second-largest garment industry. Since the disaster, nearly 200 Western retailers from Europe and America have formed two umbrella groups to launch safety inspections

THE PHNOM PENH POST march 31, 2014

Markets Business

Debt sales ramp up in Singapore

Tanya Angerer

INGAPORE Airlines Ltd sold its rst bond in more than three years as an outperforming economy drives the citys busiest debt sales in six quarters. Southeast Asias biggest carrier, whose iconic Singapore Girl travels the globe in a new advertising campaign inspecting items served to yers, raised S$500 million ($396 million) selling seven- and 10-year notes priced to yield 3.145 per cent and 3.75 per cent respectively. Singapore dollar-denominated offerings rose 24 per cent from the nal three months of 2013 to S$6.4 billion. Localcurrency note sales in ASEAN slid 23 per cent to $16.1 billion. A pickup in manufacturing and growth of 3.8 per cent this year, faster than Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand, is giving companies the condence to expand and take on more debt. Las Vegas Sands Corp chairman Sheldon Adelson wants more land for his casino resort, while Mohamed Mustafa & Samsudin Co, operator of a 24-hour department store in Singapores Little In-

dia, sold a debut note in the islands currency. Optimism in Singapore as a whole is giving borrowers the condence to sell bonds, said Clifford Lee, the Singaporebased head of xed income at DBS Group Holdings Ltd, the top arranger of Singaporedollar notes for the last ve years running. The country has always had a resilient, open and stable market but what distracted companies previously was the attraction of dollar bonds. Offerings in Singapore dollars fell 36 per cent to S$19.8 billion last year from 2012 while US dollar issuance in Asia outside Japan touched a record $126.6 billion. Localcurrency yields in the Lion City average 2.52 per cent after spiking to 2.75 per cent in September, the highest since November 2008, as fears Federal Reserve tapering may limit the appeal of regional Asian economies infected markets. Notes in the city-states currency have returned 1.11 per cent this year compared with 1.04 per cent for local-currency bonds in Malaysia, 1.89 per cent for baht notes in Thailand and a loss of 1.03 per cent for securities in the Philippines,

A Singapore Airlines passenger plane sits at a terminal at Changi International Airport in Singapore in February. AFP

HSBC Holdings Plc indexes show. The Singapore dollar has gained 0.13 per cent this year, even as the Chinese yuan slumped 2.6 per cent. Singapore Airlines, founded in 1972, has a route network spanning six continents, according to its website. It was the rst airline to offer free headsets and drinks in economy class in the 1970s and the rst to y an Airbus A380, from Singapore to Sydney, in October 2007. It sold bonds this week while the interest rate environment is relatively favour-

able, according to spokesman Nicholas Ionides. Funds will be used for general corporate and operational purposes. We went with Singapore dollars given our functional currency is Singapore dollars, which makes it more cost effective for us to tap that market. US dollar borrowing costs for Singaporean companies average 4.04 per cent, down from 4.31 per cent at the start of the quarter, JPMorgan Chase & Co indexes show. Manufacturing output in Singapore increased 12.8

per cent in February from a year ago, the fastest pace of expansion since December 2011, Economic Development Board data show. Exports are expected to rise 1 to 3 per cent in 2014, the trade promotion agency said last month, amid increased projections for global growth by the International Monetary Fund. Shoppers willingness to spend will also increase as price rises cool, according to Bloomberg Industries analysts. Food ination fell to a seven-month low 2.3 per cent in February from 3 per cent in January. The slowdown, which ended a four-month run of accelerating price increases, may boost sales of premium-priced branded food and beverages, they said in a March 25 note. Aspial Corp, which runs a chain of jewellery stores, sold S$80 million of three-year 4.5 per cent notes in January, just six months after its previous bond transaction. Mohamed Mustafa & Samsudin, which runs the Mustafa store, raised S$75 million selling similarmaturity notes at 4.75 per cent, the rst time its tapped debt capital markets.

Investors in Singapore bought about 90 per cent of Singapore Airlines bonds, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identied because the details are private. The carrier plans to start a joint-venture airline with the Tata Group in the second half of this year to service a surge in demand for air travel in India, the worlds second-most populous nation. It posted a 65 per cent decline in prot to S$50.1 million for the three months ended December 31 as losses from associated companies such as budget airline Tiger Airways Holdings Ltd crimped earnings. Passenger numbers for the period increased 2.1 per cent to 4.78 million and the carrier packed 79.4 per cent of available seats. As well as establishing itself as a transport hub for ights to Europe and beyond, Singapore has also become home to a swathe of private banks and hedge funds. It overtook Japan as the biggest foreignexchange center last year and Indonesias PT Bank Mandiri opened its rst branch in the city this week. BLOOMBERG

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THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Business Modern-day silk road connects China with Germanys economy

Estelle Peard

ONE of the worlds longest railways, a modern-day silk road, covers some 11,000 kilometres (24,000 miles) en route from the Chinese megacity of Chongqing to Duisburg, a key commercial hub in western Germany. On Saturday, as part of his landmark visit to Germany, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the last stop on the Yuxinou rail line, an industrial feat that promises to revolutionise transport between Europe and Asia. Duisburg is a steel-making town of around half a million on the conuence of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers that boasts the worlds biggest inland port and is one of Germanys most important transport and commercial hubs. Despite the vast distances between them, it takes just 16 days for trains to travel to Duisburg from Chongqing, a sprawling metropolitan symbol of rising China with a population of more than 30 million people. Xi, accompanied by a large delegation and German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, ceremoniously welcomed a freight train crammed with laptops and electronics after it completed its journey through Central Asia, Russia, Belarus and Poland. Set up in 2011 by a group of rail companies, the Yuxinou is just 2,000 kilometres short of the worlds longest rail line that links Germany to Shanghai. It has shaved more than 20 days off the sea route. The route is particularly useful for Chongqing, home to vast car parts and IT factories, since it lies 1,500 kilometres from Chinas main seaports. The value of this rail link, known in China as the new silk road, is more than just

symbolic, the spokesman of the port of Duisburg, Julian Boecker, said. It has found itself a position in the market and now operates up to three weekly services, he said. But one of the biggest challenges will be to boost trafc in both directions to make it more protable. It is not uncommon for the Yuxinou trains, which can transport as many as 50 containers, to be full when they arrive in Duisburg but empty when they return to China. At the moment, the amount of goods travelling from China to Europe is much larger than the other way round. Thats a problem, said Maria Leenen, director of market research group SCI Verkehr. It was sea transport that gradually supplanted the historic Silk Road trade route linking Asia with Europe centuries ago. Sea transport still accounts for more than 95 per cent of goods trading between the two regions, said Burkhard Lemper of the logistics consultants ISL. Rails share of the market remains fractional, and for now, the Yuxinou link only complements existing transport systems. But rail is twice as fast as sea transport and twice as cheap as air freight, according to Erich Staake, head of the company that operates the Duisburg port. For Leenen, both sides benet from the link. Europe can meet a sudden surge in demand in industry or trade, say in textiles, while China can reach its markets more rapidly, she said. The link provides a welcome transport connection and gateway for Chinese provinces situated deep inside the country. AFP

A bartender pours Jack Daniels whiskey into a jigger during a media preview of the Jack Daniels Lynchburg Barrel House in Tokyo in January.

AFP

Whiskey wars heating up as Jack Daniels touts its recipe

Juliette Michel

Fixed Deposit Interest Rates

Financial Institutions
As of MARCH 28, 2014

Cambodian

On Deposits
3 Months
USD
5.50% 3.50% 2.50% 1.35% 2.25% 3.50%

6 Months
USD
6.50% 4.50% 3.75% 2.50% 3.00% 4.50% 3.25% 3.25% 3.50% 3.25% 3.00% 3.50% 3.50% 4.50%

12 Months
USD
8.00% 5.50% 5.00% 3.50% 4.00% 5.50% 3.50% 4.00% 4.75% 4.25% 4.50% 4.75% 4.50% 5.50%

RIEL
6.50% N/A 5.00% 3.50% N/A N/A N/A N/A 5.00% N/A 2.00% 4.00% N/A N/A

RIEL
7.50% N/A 6.00% 4.00% N/A N/A N/A N/A 6.00% N/A 3.00% 5.00% N/A N/A

RIEL
9.75% N/A 7.00% 5.50% N/A N/A N/A N/A 7.00% N/A 4.50% 6.00% N/A N/A

PrAsAC ABA Bank ACLEDA Bank ANZ Royal Bank Bank of India Cambodia Asia Bank

Cambodia Mekong Bank 2.75% Cambodian Public Bank 2.25% Canadia Bank Maybank MAruHAn Japan Bank RHB Indochina Bank SBC Bank
2.50% 2.25% 2.00% 2.75% 3.00%

OR Jack Daniels, Tennessees worldfamous corn-based whiskey should be made according to a strict recipe. Basically, its own. But to rivals, some with their roots in ginning up moonshine in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, Jack Daniels wants to effectively lock them out of a booming business. In a battle of two global giants of liquor distribution, Diageo versus BrownForman, Jack Daniels wants legislators in the state capital Nashville to implement clear standards on what spirit can wear the Tennessee Whiskey label. The industry powerhouse says only the drink that is made from at least 51 per cent corn fermented mash, aged in new barrels of charred oak, ltered through maple charcoal and at least 40 per cent alcohol should qualify as Tennessee whiskey. Unsurprisingly, that is how the 148-year-old Jack Daniels makes its own bourbonstyle whiskey. The distiller, owned by Brown-Forman, was able to push that standard through the Tennessee general assembly last year before

competitors could mount any resistance. Diageo, whose George Dickel brand is the states number two whiskey, and is already made to the new ofcial code, said Brown-Forman engineered the change through misleading and deceptive political moves that gives it an advantage. Establishing the pro-Jack Daniels denition amounts to effectively reversing the exibility that has been enjoyed for more than 130 years by Tennessee whiskey distillers, said Guy Smith, Diageo executive vice president for North America. Diageo is willing to consider a standard for Tennessee whiskey, he said. However, it is imperative that standard be reective of the collective input from Tennessee whiskey distillers large and small, not just from one oppressive company as is currently the case. Jack Daniels dominates the business from its headquarters in Lynchburg, just west of the Appalachians. It produced 11 million cases last year, compared to just 130,000 by George Dickel, located just a few miles away. The ght is over principle, for one, but also over an economic issue that disadvantages especially the many

smaller independent distilleries trying to make a mark in the spirits business. The rule requiring the use of new barrels, rather than reusing them, can be a heavy cost, at hundreds of dollars each. Phil Prichard, owner of Prichards distillery, said the state law violates other laws against monopolies and gives Jack Daniels an unfair competitive advantage. We have plenty of federal regulations that dene our product type. But it is our choice how to combine those ingredients, how to manage the techniques that allow us to create those products, he said. The nal arbiter of quality, those who will judge our quality best, are those who buy our products. Jack Daniels says that the move is not geared towards protecting its market power but instead to helping the Tennessee whiskey brand, in the same way that other famous drinks, such as champagne, cognac, and scotch whiskey, are dened by strict production guidelines. Not any kind of sparkling wine can call itself champagne, said Jeff Arnett, the master distiller at Jack Daniels. By maintaining a production standard, he said,

champagne is held in a higher esteem as a higher quality product . . . It does not mean that all champagnes will taste the same. It is the same for cognac or armagnac. The new rules, he argued, will help small distillers. They dont mind being held to a higher standard. They dont want to create cheap products that would become synonymous with the state name, Arnett said. The ght has brought the weight of two industry giants down on the capital of the southern state. Brown-Forman, based in Louisville, Kentucky, distributes Finlandia vodka, Pepe Lopez Tequila, Canadian Mist, Southern Comfort and Early Times whiskies, and Korbel champagne. Diageo is much larger. Its brands include Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Baileys, Crown Royal and Guinness. On Tuesday, the opponents of the Jack Daniels standard scored a minor victory in the states general assembly. It has decided to put the rule under study that would take input from the entire industry. But it stopped short of revoking the rule, which George Dickel and Diageo had demanded. AFP

Union Commercial Bank 3.50%

THE PHNOM PENH POST mARCh 31, 2014

11

World
Kerry and Lavrov tackle crisis
Jo Biddle with Dmitry Zaks

S SECRETARY of State John Kerry met his Russian counterpart yeserday hoping to ease global tensions over the Kremlins annexation of Crimea and sudden buildup of troops near Ukraine. The latest attempt to resolve the standoff follows a sudden call placed by Vladimir Putin on Friday to US President Barack Obama the rst by the Russian leader since he sent troops into Ukraines Black Sea peninsula in response to the February 22 fall in Kiev of a pro-Kremlin regime. Obama had spent the prior week touring Europe in a bid to reassure jittery allies of Washingtons rm resolve to dampen Putins expansionist passions with the threat of punishing economic sanctions and the reinforcement of NATO forces along Russias western ank. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said ahead of his Paris meeting with Kerry expected to start at 1630 GMT that Moscow had absolutely no intention and no interests in crossing the Ukrainian border. But the two sides still remain far apart on both the content and format of the talks. The Russians in particular are seething at the idea that they are responding to a diplomatic solution drafted by the Obama administrations. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov insisted on Saturday that it is the United States that is responding to our proposals on Ukraine. To say that we are working off US proposals is simply in-

A Ukrainian internal soldier stands with his machine gun at a military base in Donetsk on Saturday.

AFP

correct, he told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency. We have no single plan, Ryabkov stressed. We have differing views of the situation. Our discussions involve an exchange of ideas, but one cannot say that we have some sort of single approach. Washington has a different take on the discussion. US diplomats say Kerry is hoping to get Putins written response to proposals drafted by the Obama administration after it became clear from earlier meetings in Paris and London that Lavrov was not authorised to negotiate over Crimea. They add that under discussion is a specic onepage document that has been redrawn repeatedly in the past weeks. At the heart of the US initiative is a commitment by Russia to halt its military build-up near its former So-

viet neighbour estimated by US and EU diplomats to have reached between 30,000 and 40,000 soldiers in recent days and to order its Crimean forces back to their bases. Western nations would for their part agree to deploy monitors to protect the interests of Russian speakers who Putin says have been coming under increasing attack in southeastern Ukraine since last months rise to power in Kiev of a pro-European regime that relies on the support of the countrys more nationalist forces. The announced portions of Russias approach avoid any mention of a possible movement of troops either away from Ukraine or back to their Crimean installations. Moscow has also rejected holding direct negotiations with the new Kiev leaders under the auspices of either Washington or some inter-

national contact group an idea particularly favoured by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At the same time Putins spokesman told German TV yesterday that the Russian leader found his telephone talks with Merkel on the Ukraine crisis were worth their weight in gold and we hope that [the dialogue] is continued. Moscow has insisted on a new constitution being drafted in Ukraine that would offer much broader autonomy to the heavily Russied eastern regions such as Kharkiv and Donetsk. Moscows plan would allow these parts of Ukraine to declare Russian as a second ofcial language and secure more independence from Kiev a move analysts view as a bid to weaken the authority of what is likely to be a permanent new pro-Western leadership whose make-up

will become clear after May 25 snap president polls. Lavrov told Russian state television yesterday that Kiev appears to be strongly resistant to Moscows solution. Ukraines interim Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya said that our proposals are unacceptable because federalism contradicts the basic principles of his state, Lavrov said in reference to the two diplomats rst and only meeting in The Hague on March 24. Russia further wants the constitution to proclaim Ukraine a neutral country that will never join forces with NATO membership which Kievs interim leaders say they are not seeking now. The rst contours of Ukraines new leadership began to emerge on Saturday when boxer-turned-opposition leader Vitali Klitschko dropped out of the presidential election and backed the candidacy of business baron Petro Poroshenko. The charismatic tycoon known at home as the chocolate king because of his vast Roshen sweets empire has a healthy lead in opinion polls over former premier and 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution co-leader Yulia Tymoshenko. Both candidates support Ukraines future membership in the European Union and are furious over the loss of Crimea views that may complicate relations between Moscow and Kiev for years to come. But Tymoshenko further wants Ukraine to join NATO and advocates trying the Russians responsible for the Crimean incursion at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. AFP

Relatives demand Malaysia apology

DoZEns of angry relatives of Chinese passengers aboard the missing flight MH370 have demanded that Malaysia apologise for its handling of the investigation as they arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Beijing yesterday. About 50 more family members joined those who had earlier flown to Malaysia, saying they hoped to get more information from officials in the capital. Around two thirds of the 239 people on board the flight were Chinese. As the hunt enters its fourth week, search crews are no closer to finding the plane. Ten ships and as many aircraft were scanning a vast area of the southern Indian Ocean yesterday, far off the western coast of Australia. We want evidence. We want the truth. We want our relatives, the group chanted in Chinese as they staged a protest at a hotel near the Malaysian capital, holding banners reading: We want evidence, truth, dignity in Chinese, and Hand us the murderer. Tell us the truth. Give us our relatives back in English. Representing the relatives, Jiang Hui said they wanted Malaysia to apologise for what they see as mistakes in its initial handling of the disaster and last Mondays declaration that it had crashed into the southern Indian Ocean with the loss of all lives. They argue that conclusion based on radar and satellite analysis was premature given the lack of physical evidence. Jiang said they wanted to meet senior officials from the airline and government as well as technical teams, complaining that they had not received satisfactory answers during meetings with Malaysian representatives in Beijing. Malaysia Airlines has said it will fly families to Australia if the wreckage of the plane is found. Both Chinese and Australian vessels have found debris since authorities moved the search about 700 miles closer to Perth on Friday, but officials said the objects turned out to be unconnected to the missing Boeing-777. Commodore Peter Leavy of the Australian navy said the teams needed to find items, establish they were from flight MH370 and then try to establish where the plane might have hit the water. Experts say that currents could have carried floating wreckage hundreds of miles from the main crash site by now. Only then can specialist equipment be used to photograph possible debris on the seabed and help track the aircrafts flight data and cockpit voice recorders. THE GUaRDIaN

Thais vote for Senate as PM showdown looms

ThAis voted yesterday to elect the upper house of parliament in a poll that could hold the key to the fate of the prime minister, who faces possible impeachment for negligence after months of street protests. While the Senate is officially nonpartisan, in reality the two main political camps are vying for control of the chamber in the absence of a functioning lower house following incomplete February polls. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has resisted massive pressure to step down despite months of street protests and a slew of legal moves against her including over her alleged role in a rice subsidy scheme that could lead to an impeachment vote in the Senate. Polls closed yesterday afternoon, according to an election official, who said there was no repeat of the widespread disruption caused by anti-government protesters to a February 2 general election, which was also boycotted by the main opposition party. That vote was voided by the Constitutional Court earlier this month. [Yesterdays] election went smoothly . . . if the parties concerned create a stable political situation then an election can be successful, Election Commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn told reporters. With Thailands political crisis lurching towards its sixth month, the Senate polls have taken on fresh importance. Experts say the elected portion a narrow majority of the 150-seat chamber could install many pro-government senators to help bolster the administration in the face of looming legal challenges. The other, unelected senators are appointed by institutions seen as allied to the anti-government establishment, such as the Constitutional Court and the Election Commission. Preliminary results were due late yesterday but the official list of newly elected senators could potentially take days to approve. At a central Bangkok polling station a steady streams of voters cast their vote, according to reports. Elections are best for democracy. Whatever we do, we must have elections, said 65-year-old voter Amnuay Aransri. Thailand has seen years of political conflict and rival street protests by opponents a nd suppor ters of Yinglucks brother, fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a coup in 2006. The billionaire tycoon-turned-politician, who clashed with the royalist establishment, fled overseas in 2008 to avoid jail for a corruption conviction, but he is seen as the de facto leader of his sisters Pheu Thai party. Yingluck has faced months of mass rallies demanding she step down to make way for an unelected interim government to oversee reforms. Political violence, often targeting protesters, has left 23 people dead and hundreds wounded in grenade attacks and shootings in recent months, although the bloodshed has abated since the demonstrations were scaled back at the start of March. Observers say the crisis now appears to be entering a crucial new phase. Yingluck has been summoned to appear before the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) by today to defend herself against negligence charges linked to the rice scheme although it was unclear if she will attend in person. The anti-graft body says she ignored warnings of corruption and financial losses in the flagship policy. If indicted she would face an impeachment vote in the upper house that could result in her removal from office and a five-year ban from politics. It means the balance of power in the Senate could be pivotal to her survival as premier. The Senate could actually begin to hasten the end of the Yingluck government within two weeks of the NACC decisions on whether to impeach, according to Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs at Chiang Mai University. That being said, if the elected senators are mostly pro-Thaksin, and they likely will be, then this development may sustain the Yingluck government, he added. AFP

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THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

World

Spanish journos released in Syria

TWO Spanish journalists taken hostage in Syria by an alQaeda-linked group walked free after six months in captivity and were heading back to Spain yesterday, their friends and colleagues said. El Mundo correspondent Javier Espinosa, 49, and freelance photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova, 42, were freed and handed over to the Turkish military, the Spanish newspaper said. Espinosa called El Mundos ofces on Saturday evening and said they were in good health, it added. Pure happiness, wrote Espinosas girlfriend, journalist Monica Garcia Prieto, on Twitter early yesterday, without giving further details. Their relatives are feeling excitement and joy because this puts an end to a nightmare that has lasted six months, a spokesman for their families, Gervasio Sanchez, said. Espinosa and Vilanova were seized on September 16 as they tried to cross the Syrian border to Turkey, the latest of scores of journalists captured covering Syrias civil war. There was no immediate word yesterday on whether any demands were made by their kidnappers or if any ransom had been paid. The Spanish Defence Ministry said a military aeroplane bringing the two journalists back from Turkey was scheduled to land in Madrid about 4pm (1400 GMT). El Mundo identied the captors as members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham, a jihadist faction in Syria with roots in al-Qaedas Iraqi afliate. The group has fought against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria but has also been battling other rebel groups. The newspaper had kept the kidnapping quiet until December while it contacted the captors via intermediaries. It said at that time that the kidnappers had made not made any demands. It has been a hard few months. We knew the wait would be long but you never get used to it, said the director of El Mundos international pages, Ana Alonso Montes, yesterday. You never know when the moment of liberation will come, although we never doubted it would, she told national radio. AFP

Erdogan facing poll test

Dilay Gundogan

URKisH citizens voted yesterday in local elections seen as a referendum on the rule of Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan after turbulent months of mass protests, corruption scandals and internet blocks. The recent turmoil fought out in erce street clashes and explosive online leaks has left the country of 75 million deeply polarised between Erdogans Muslim conservative supporters and a secular political camp. The premiers heavy-handed response, including blocks on Twitter and YouTube, has detracted from his muchlauded 11-year record of driving an economic boom and transforming Turkey into an emerging global player. One Erdogan supporter casting her vote was Nurcan Caliskan, 38, an Istanbul mother of three wearing a headscarf, who said were here to show with our votes that Erdogan can weather all kinds of attacks. She dismissed corruption charges against Erdogan allies and relatives and praised him for modernising the

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) casts his vote in Istanbul yesterday. AFP

country, saying, dont you see all the hospitals, schools and roads he has built? An opposition supporter charged meanwhile that Prime Minister Erdogan is damaging democracy and freedom of expression. If he really cared about the Turkish people, he would have resigned a long time ago, added Gonca Gurses, 28, a nancial director voting in Istanbuls upmarket Sisli district. More than 50 million eligible voters were set to cast

their ballots through the day in mayoral and municipal polls nationwide, from remote Anatolian villages to the capital Ankara and the megacity of Istanbul. The outcome will be a crucial popularity test for Erdogan, who has been eyeing a run for the presidency in August, the rst time voters directly elect the head of state. In much of the country, his Justice and Development Party (AKP) commands solid support. Admiring crowds have loudly cheered the man

they dub the sultan during his marathon of campaign speeches. I dont think he has taken a sinful bite, said Istanbul mother Caliskan, referring to the claims of bribes and kickbacks. Even if he did, I believe he has done it for the good of his country. The current crisis started with a police crackdown last year in June against protesters in Istanbuls Gezi Park which subsequently sparked off weeks of street clashes that left eight people dead and thousands wounded. The damaging online leaks followed in December, with wide-ranging bribery and sleaze claims against Erdogans inner circle going viral in the youthful country, leading to several cabinet resignations. The governments response especially blocking Twitter and YouTube has sparked a chorus of condemnation from Turkeys NATO allies and international human rights groups. Erdogan has accused Fethullah Gulen, an inuential US-based Muslim cleric, and his loyalists in the Turkish police and justice system, of being behind the leaks and plotting his downfall. AFP

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World

Lebanon vows to fight terror after killings

LEBaNONS army vowed to battle terrorism hours after a suicide bomber killed three soldiers at a checkpoint in the east near the border with Syria. The army knows that it is now more than ever targeted by terrorists who want to prevent the establishment of the authority of the state and its attempts to eliminate discord, the military said on Saturday. It came as a new security plan came into effect yesterday aimed at quelling spillover violence from the conflict in Syria. Lebanons north and east have seen clashes between those who support the rebellion and those who back Assad. AFP

Afghan voters rush to register

Emal Haidary

European disunity

Chad troops kill civilians

CHaDiaN soldiers sent to repatriate their compatriots from the Central African Republic killed at least eight civilians when they opened fire on crowds in Bangui, the African peacekeeping force MISCA said yesterday. We dont know at present what led to the firing on the residents . . . but we are trying to gather information to find out what happened in the incident on Saturday, an officer with the MISCA force said anonymously. He said the incident occurred in a mainly Christian district in the north of Bangui and that the casualty toll could rise. AFP

ROWDS queued up outside voter registration centres in Afghanistan yesterday and presidential candidates held large campaign rallies, six days ahead of elections that have been shaken by Taliban attacks. The vote, which will choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai, comes as USled foreign troops withdraw after 13 years of ghting the fierce Islamist insurgency raging across the south and east of the country. One Romanian soldier was killed yesterday by an improvised explosive device (IED) in the southern province of Zabul, taking the US-led coalition death toll to 3,429 since operations began over a decade ago in 2001. On Saturday, the Kabul headquarters of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) was attacked when ve Taliban militants occupied a nearby building and unleashed rockets and gunre towards the fortied compound. All ve attackers were killed by Afghan security forces six hours after the attack began and there were

Afghan residents queue to receive their voter cards at a voter registration centre in Kabul. AFP

no other casualties. Our vote is our responsibility, people want change and we will bring that change through voting, said Abdul Waris Sadat, a 21-year-old student waiting with several hundred people for hours outside a voter registration centre in Kabul. The attacks by the Taliban have motivated people to come to this centre, register and vote, he said. This is only answer that they give to the Taliban. Rassoul Khurami, a 60year-old shopkeeper, added:

I know my vote counts, and this time even if I get killed I will go and vote, Im not scared of Taliban threats. According to the latest IEC gures, nearly 3.7 million new voters have registered for Saturdays presidential and provincial council elections. Afghan ofcials, the United Nations and foreign donor nations have struck a deant note ahead of the vote after recent attacks on IEC centres, Kabuls most prestigious hotel and a guesthouse run by a US-based anti-landmine charity.

Thousands of people are queuing every day behind IEC ofces to get voter cards, showing strength and determination that nothing will stop us, said interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi. Former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani and Karzai loyalist Zalmai Rassoul held rallies in the northwestern province of Herat yesterday, while Abdullah Abdullah, who came second in the 2009 vote, campaigned in the southern province of Kandahar. We will be victorious in this election not through fraud, but based on the votes of the people, Abdullah told thousands of ag-waving supporters. These attacks cannot stop the people of Afghanistan, who want to have the election. Rassoul is widely seen as Karzais favoured candidate, and Ghani has drawn big crowds to his rallies, but the two could split the Pashtun ethnic vote while Abdullah retains strong support from non-Pashtun communities. Eight candidates are running in the April 5 presidential election, with a second round run-off between the two leading contenders expected in late May. AFP

Separatists protest in Brussels

EVERAL thousand European separatists, overwhelmingly Flemish but also Catalans, Scots and South Tyroleans, demonstrated in Brussels yesterday for the right to self-determination. Under a forest of yellow flags emblazoned with black lions, Flemish separatists dominated the procession through the EU capital. The crowd, which marched under a banner proclaiming Europe, well vote for selfdetermination, numbered almost 3,000 people, according to a senior police officer. The Catalans chanted in their regional language for independence. Marta Giralt, a 38-yearold translator, came from Barcelona to defend the right of the Catalans to vote in a referendum on independence from Spain. Regional leader Artur Mas has set the vote for November this year but Madrid has declared it illegal. We want to make our voices heard and expand our movement, Girault said. AFP

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Tensions as Myanmar takes census

ENS of thousands of census-takers fanned out across Myanmar yesterday to gather data for a rare snapshot of the former junta-ruled nation that is already stoking sectarian tensions. Groups of schoolteachers and local ofcials began the 12-day population survey the rst since 1983 travelling from house to house in an ambitious drive aimed at counting everyone across the poverty-stricken nation. But the census was called into question even before it started in Rakhine state, the site of deadly religious conict. Myanmar has announced that Muslims will be unable to register their ethnicity as Rohingya in a move aimed at mollifying angry Rakhine Buddhists who fear any ofcial recognition for the stateless minority could herald a move towards political rights. Buddhist nationalists were seen travelling through state capital Sittwe yesterday, proclaiming by loud hailer that their planned boycott of the survey had been called off after they received written assurances that the term Rohingya was illegal. But Mus-

North Korea vows not to rule out a new nuke test

A Muslim man answers questions during a census in the village of Barasa in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine yesterday. AFP

lims in the bleak displacement camps on the outskirts of Sittwe, many made homeless in two waves of bloodshed in 2012, expressed determination to defy the governments edict to register as Bengali a term used by the authorities, who view most Rohingya as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. I was born here and my parents were also born here. I was born a Myanmar national. For me, I will not register as

Bengali, I will register as Rohingya, Hla Myint, 58, said. Foreign aid workers ed Rakhine after Buddhist mobs attacked their ofces as tensions escalated in the run-up to the census. An 11-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet after police red warning shots to disperse angry crowds in Sittwe. Humanitarian workers in the region have come under increasing pressure from Buddhist nationalists who

accuse them of bias in favour of local Muslims. With tensions running high, the British Embassy in Yangon issued a statement registering its concern that the option on the census form for respondents to self-identify . . . may not be met. It is important that the government put in place the conditions to allow everyone to participate in this nationwide census in a fair manner and free from intimidation, the statement added. Backed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the census is aimed at plugging an information decit in the former military dictatorship. Critics, who have called for the exercise to be postponed, accuse the organisers of focusing on the technical aspects of the survey and neglecting political concerns. Myanmar is roughly the size of France with many people living in remote jungles and mountains with barely any infrastructure. Minority groups make up some 30 per cent of the estimated 55 to 60 million population. This plurality has long been a source of conict, with the former junta using

the many civil conicts that sprang up at the end of British colonial rule in 1948 as a pretext for their hardline rule. Several minority groups have expressed misgivings about the use of a controversial list of 135 ofcial ethnicities in the census, fearing it could be used for political purposes. There are doubts whether Kachin rebels ghting the military in the far north will allow enumerators into their territory. Many locals, long subject to repressive policies under authoritarian rule, have also expressed suspicion of the move to collect a wide variety of household information including questions on movement and economic activity. But the survey-taking appeared to get off to a smooth start in some areas on Sunday, with teams of counters in white T-shirts visiting homes in the outskirts of the commercial hub Yangon. They are asking the right questions and I gave them a true answer. Its good because there will be exact information about who is who and where they live, Tin Shwe, 48, said after completing the questionnaire. AFP

NORTH Korea vowed not to rule out a new form of nuclear test yesterday after the UN Security Council condemned its latest ballistic missile launch amid simmering tensions over Seouls joint military drills with Washington. Pyongyang has carried out a series of rocket and short-range missile launches in recent weeks which have prompted stern reactions from South Korea and the US. [We] would not rule out a new form of a nuclear test for bolstering [our] nuclear deterrence, Pyongyangs foreign ministry said. AFP

Philippines presses the UN over China sea row

THE Philippines yesterday filed a formal plea to the UN challenging Beijings claim to most of the South China Sea, defying Chinese warnings, a day after a dramatic maritime stand-off with the Asian giant. A Philippine re-supply ship evaded a Chinese coastguard blockade in the South China Sea on Saturday to reach Filipino soldiers based on a remote reef claimed by both countries, the military said. The dramatic twohour stand-off was the latest in a series of escalations in a dispute between the two countries over their competing claims to waters and islands close to the Philippine landmass. AFP

Taiwan stages a mass China trade pact rally

TENS of thousands of Taiwanese protesters took to the streets in Taipei yesterday in a bid to pressure embattled President Ma Ying-jeou to retract a controversial trade pact with China. The protesters, many of whom wearing black shirts and headbands reading defend democracy, retract service trade pact, crowded the streets leading to the presidential ofce, despite fresh concessions offered by Ma to further scrutinise agreements with China. What President Ma has offered may look like goodwill, but once you have a careful look you nd he has not responded to our key demands, student leader Chen Wei-ting told the crowd, to thundering applause. Were here to show the resolve of the people, he said, as protesters chanted slogans and gave impromptu speeches to keep spirits high. Security was tight as 3,500 police were deployed in the ofcial presidential neighbourhood, which was barricaded by barbed wire. The high security presence comes after violent clashes on March 23, when a group of protesters stormed the top government headquarters. More than 100 people were injured when baton-wielding riot police used water cannon to disperse demonstrators. But 200 protesters remained in the main chamber of parliament, the site of an occupation since March 18. Organisers claimed that they had attracted 350,000 people to yesterdays protest and vowed to hold a peaceful demonstration. The police put the estimated turnout at about 120,000. We will not react to any violent actions from the police or other groups. We will maintain peace . . . any form of violence is totally prohibited in this movement, student leader Lin Fei-fan said. The demonstrators insist that the service trade agreement be retracted by the government from parliament, and a law be introduced to monitor all agreements with China. The people cannot accept the governments reckless decision to sign the service trade pact with China. The government doesnt listen to the people, said protester Ko Hsuan-yu, a 25-year-old graduate student. Ma, who has sought closer ties with China since becoming the islands leader in 2008, said on Saturday he would agree to demands that a law be introduced to monitor all agreements with China. However, he rejected the protesters main demand that the service trade agreement signed with China in June last year be retracted, saying it could cause too much damage to Taiwan. Ma has warned that failure to ratify the pact would be a grave setback to Taiwans efforts to seek more free trade agreements and avoid isolation as regional economic blocs emerge. The demonstrators were also unhappy with what they said was the opaque procedure for negotiating with China, sparking accusations that the islands national interests were to be traded in exchange for marginal economic benets from Beijing. In Hong Kong, hundreds of students and activists staged a rally in a busy shopping district to show support for the student movement in Taiwan. Many of the marchers were dressed in black and carried sunowers, a symbol of the Taiwan movement. The pact is designed to open up further trade in services between China and Taiwan, which split 65 years ago after a civil war. The deal is a follow-up agreement to a sweeping Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement signed in 2010 to reduce trade barriers between China and Taiwan. Ma, whose approval ratings sit at just 10 per cent, has overseen a marked thaw in relations with Beijing since he came to power pledging to strengthen trade and tourism links. He was re-elected in January 2012. But China still considers Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunication by force if necessary. AFP

OPPORTUNITY FOR SHORT TERM CONSULTANT Alternative Dispute Resolution Project Phnom Penh
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. Working with private enterprises in more than 100 countries, we use our capital, expertise, and inuence to help eliminate extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity. In FY13, our investments climbed to an all-time high of nearly $25 billion, leveraging the power of the private sector to create jobs and tackle the worlds most pressing development challenges. For more information, visit www.ifc.org. In the Mekong region, our advisory services are delivered in partnership with Canada, the European Union, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland. To help Cambodia improve its business environment, specically in the area of conict resolution, IFC has been supporting the government and private sectors since 2009 to establish a well-functioning National Commercial Arbitration Center (NCAC formerly known as NAC). Following the recruitment of the rst group of arbitrator candidates in early 2010, IFC has supported the training of NCACs arbitrators. The training program which covers Cambodian Commercial Laws Course Commercial Arbitration Skills was completed in March 2014. The NCAC was ofcially launched on March 4, 2013. Following the launch, IFC signed a Cooperation Agreement with the NCAC to provide direct technical assistance for the period from July 2013 to December 2014. This support includes advisory services on management and operation of the center, continued capacity building for arbitrators and promotion of centers services. As a continuing support, IFC proposes to hire a technical consultant for around 70 working-days to provide technical and operational supports to the Executive Board of the NCAC between May 1, 2014 and December 31, 2014. Working closely with IFC team members, the consultant will carry out the following tasks: Support the NCAC Executive Board in the process of nalizing and adopting of all required internal documents for operations of the NCAC; Support the NCAC Executive Board to organize the General Assembly and other meetings; Support the NCAC Executive Board in the implementation of the activities planned and other policies adopted by the Executive Board; and Support the NCAC Executive Board to secure funding for the rst three years of NCACs operation;

Interested candidates are expected to have the following qualication: At least a Master Degree in Business Administration, Development Studies, or other related elds At least ten years of working experience with at least 5 years in managerial level Sound knowledge of commercial legal framework in Cambodia Sound knowledge of commercial transactions and business communities in Cambodia Good understanding of the political economy of the law enforcement in Cambodia Good relationship management and people skills Fluent in English Applications should be in English and submitted electronically through https://wbgeconsult2.worldbank.org/ wbgec/index.html, selection #1139439 or directly to Ms. Tonie Tan with address: 5th Floor, Phnom Penh Tower, #445, Monivong Blvd, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Tel: 023 863 200 E-mail: ttan1@ifc.org Application should be submitted by April 10, 2014. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted for interview.

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World

Pet adoptions

Berlusconi unveils new strategy

ORMER Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi has unveiled a scheme to boost his flagging popularity: finding homes for hundreds of thousands of stray dogs and cats to win the hearts of animal lovers, media reports said yesterday. We need to find a daddy or mummy for thousands of abandoned dogs and cats, the billionaire reportedly said in a telephone call to one of his fan clubs in Rome, as he scrambles to revive support for his centre-right Forza Italia (Go Italy) party, hit hard by his political downfall last year. An Ixe poll carried out for Rai 3 television on Saturday showed Forza Italia slip into third place behind the centreleft Democratic Party (PD) and the anti-establishment Five Star movement. Mass adoptions orchestrated by Berlusconi would mean over 10 million Italians who have a dog or cat will only be able to look on us with fondness, which will help the moderates become a strong political force, a majority, he said on Saturday. AFP

Lawyer in Chevron case gets death threats

HE Ecuadorian lawyer representing small farmers trying to force Chevron to pay damages for pollution in the Amazon rainforest says he has received death threats. People are constantly following us in Ecuador, said lawyer Juan Pablo Saenz, who said he has received two anonymous death threats by phone. They said to me: Think very carefully about what you are doing, because it would be a shame if something happened to you and your family. He does not know who made the threats. Lawyers working on the Chevron case in Ecuador known as the Amazon Chernobyl now have protection from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. In a historic judgement three years ago, an Ecuadorian court ruled that Chevron should pay $18 billion of damages for pollution in northeastern Ecuador. But earlier this month, a US district judge found that corrupt means had been used to persuade the Ecuadorian court to reach that verdict.

Ecuadorian activist Donald Moncayo shows waste oil at the Aguarico 4 oil well, 45 kilometres south of Lago Agrio on February 20, 2011. AFP

The US judge said the claimants could no longer pursue their claims for damages in US courts, though the campaigners said they will appeal the decision. Saenz said the corruption claim was baseless. He said the key witness in the US trial was a former Ecuadorian judge, Alberto Guerra,

who has received more than $10,000 a month from Chevron. The oil company paid for him and his family to emigrate from Ecuador to the US, court documents show. A spokesman for Chevron said: They like to point to what they claim is a payment to judge Guerra. But the 500page judgement is based on

much more. We had a sevenweek trial, where thousands of pieces of evidence were presented, from emails to movie clips, to diary entries, that all show that the legal team for the claimants were committing fraud against Chevron. The judgement lays out in detail the scheme again Chevron and it goes well beyond judge Guerras testimony. He added: Chevron is not responsible for any pollution in Ecuador. If they had had the scientic evidence on their side, they would not gone to such lengths, committing fraud and corrupting the Ecuadorian judiciary, to bring a false judgement against Chevron. Its easy for people to believe a large oil company went into a Latin American country in the 1960s and committed these things, but when you look at the evidence you see that Texaco did what it was supposed to do and cleaned up the sites for which it was responsible. Texaco, which was later taken over by Chevron, is accused of dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water and spill-

ing 17 million gallons of crude oil in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador between 1964 and 1990. The affected area covers 1,700 square miles. Locals say the soil and rivers have been poisoned and many people have contracted illnesses. Chevron no longer has assets in Ecuador, so the claimants are ghting a legal battle to force the company to pay the damages in the US, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. They are also considering pursuing Chevron in the UK. Chevron portrays itself to its shareholders as a monolithic entity, but when you try to collect damages, suddenly they pull out a map of subsidiaries, says Saenz, who said the case against Chevron feels like ghting an empire. Last year, a Canadian court ruled that the small farmers have the right to seek damages from Chevron in Canada and Saenz thinks the Canadian courts will order the company to pay up within the next two years. We will win this ght, however long it takes. We want to show that if poor communities organise, they can get justice. ThE guaRdian

Netanyahu slams the UNs censure of Israel

ISRaELi Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday slammed a UN rights body for a string of resolutions condemning the Jewish state. At the end of last week, the UN Human Rights Council condemned Israel five times, at a time when the slaughter in Syria is continuing, innocent people are being hung in the Middle East and human rights are being eroded, he told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting. In many countries the free media are closed down and the UN Human Rights Council decided to condemn Israel, he added. Its absurd. According to Human Rights Watch, the 47-member UN body on Friday passed four resolutions critical of Israels conduct towards the Palestinians and one on its occupation of the Golan Heights. AFP

The UFO sect campaigning against FGM

ON A blisteringly hot afternoon this month, an unusual gathering took place in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso in the west African country of Burkina Faso. Shaded by red and green striped canopies, a couple of hundred people stood in reverential silence around a laptop. On screen, a man with a carefully clipped beard, dressed head-totoe in white, addressed them via Skype from Japan. The speaker was a spiritual leader known as Rael, the founder of one of the worlds largest UFO sects, who, as the Posts Daniel Pye reported last month in 7 Days, are waiting for permission from the Council of Ministers to build a $20 million embassy in Cambodia. Rael was online to announce the arrival of the first clitoral repair hospital in Africa. Rael preaches that humans were created by extraterrestrials to enjoy untrammelled sexual pleasure a belief that has led the group to campaign against female genital mutilation (FGM), and to advocate surgery to improve sexual feeling to FGM victims. The idea of the hospital came from Rael, said Nadine Gary, a spokeswoman for Clitoraid, the Raelian-backed NGO behind the clinic. Rael realised a lot of campaigning work is being done to prevent circumcision, but nothing is being done for the women who have already been circumcised. Each year about three million girls mostly in rural Africa and Asia, are forced to have part of their genitalia sliced off. But while clitoral reconstruction surgery is becoming more common in the west, it remains contested. The procedure restores normal appearances to women who have been mutilated which can be an important step in restoring selfimage but some doctors argue it risks causing further damage. Several hundred women have approached Clitoraid to undergo the free surgery in Bobo-Dioulasso. Among the first was Marcelina, 33, who had been mutilated at the age of 13 by a traditional cutter, using a blunt blade and no anaesthetic. Im really happy about this hospital. FGM is just a way to oppress women. We have a right to enjoy full sexual pleasure, she said after the operation. But Clitoraids attempt to launch its clinic in Burkina Faso has had a wary response from local officials, and furious opposition from mainstream religious leaders in the country. Critics warn of a long history of doomed humanitarian interventions in Africa that failed to take account of local culture. So how did an American UFO cult end up spending almost a decade attempting to build a clinic in a landlocked west African nation few outsiders can locate on a map? It is a tale that has seen an unlikely alliance between a Californiabased fringe group and the growing number of African women speaking out against a painful tradition. Rael once known as Claude Vorilhon, a French-born amateur sports racer and journalist changed his name in 1973 after what he says was an encounter with extraterrestrials who declared that he had been chosen as their emissary to deliver a message of joy to humankind. Since then the sect has made an ideology of sexual satisfaction, with annual happiness parties in which members wear wristbands to denote willingness to have sex. The movement made its first step into the medical world with a venture called Clonaid, which gained notoriety in 2002 when its chief executive claimed it had successfully cloned a human baby. At some point in the mid-2000s, Rael set his sights on Africa. The leap from proselytising cult to pioneering anti-FGM organisation took place in Burkina Faso, one of the few countries in Africa where the most extreme form of FGM was traditionally carried out. As well as slicing off the clitoris, the vagina was sewn up, leaving just a small hole to allow urination. The opening was enlarged after marriage. In 1996, the sprawling desert country launched one of Africas most successful campaigns to end the devastating practice. Years of dogged work by teams of community health workers helped change attitudes at ground level, and by 2011 the UN found that fewer than a fifth of under-10s had been cut, compared with 80 per cent of those between 20 and 49. In this environment, Clitoraid began building its hospital in Burkina Fasos second city of Bobo-Dioulasso eight years ago. Abibata Sanon, the groups local coordinator who had reconstructive surgery at a private clinic in Ouagadougou claimed dozens of women approached her about surgery. But it has been a rocky journey. Clitoraid was forced to rename the hospital after local people complained that its original name the House of Pleasure was inappropriate. Dishing out free sex toys in the conservative society backfired, and many bristled at the groups fundraising efforts in the west, from collecting donations at adult entertainment venues, to a short-lived campaign called Adopt a Clitoris. Clitoraids spokeswoman dismisses such criticism. No other religion dares touch the issue of womens sexuality, Gary said. Were not asking these women what their religion is this is a humanitarian mission. All they want is their clitoris back. Yet some doctors say theres no evidence that this is possible. Critics say it is like to trying to build a hand from an amputated wrist and more research needs to be done before the technique becomes widespread. In June 2012, a team led by the French urologist and surgeon Pierre Foldes published an article in the Lancet, in which he described a technique whereby clitoral sensation could be restored in an operation that takes less than an hour. Foldes profiled 866 of the 2,938 patients he had operated on. A year later, 821 reported a decrease in pain and 430 experienced their first orgasms. Many had turned up after seeing the effects on their own family members. While admitting surgery was only the initial step to recovery for mutilated women, Foldes declared his technique a success. But his conclusions are not universally accepted. Some doctors say there is insufficient evidence Foldes results were based on a small sample, tested with a self-devised scale of pleasure and pain. Critics argue that more research needs to be done before the technique becomes widespread. A team of experts from University College hospital in London led by Professor Sarah Creighton published a response in the Lancet. The campaign against FGM could be undermined by a false proposition that the ill effects can be reversed. Formation of a neoglans cannot restore the lost or damaged innervation, the letter said. Were not saying dont think about ways to help women who have already suffered terrible harm, but be honest about what youre doing: [clitoral reconstruction] is cosmetic surgery, said one doctor who admitted the procedure could still help some women by bolstering their self-image. Further wrangling over a licence means the hospital has still not officially opened, but Clitoraid says it has successfully operated on dozens of women in another local clinic. Among those cheering when Rael gave his speech were members of Burkina Fasos small but flourishing Raelian community. Souba, a chatty, unemployed man who had brought his wife with him, said he saw no reason why Raelianism couldnt be accommodated alongside Sufi Islam or Catholicism, the religions that dominate Burkina Faso. Whether its by the grace of God, or the grace of Rael, it doesnt matter. This is a continent that needs as many hospitals as possible, he said. But local officials are concerned that vulnerable women could be pressured into joining the Raelians. The operations they want to perform are a good thing. But it isnt right to use medical issues as a cover to convert vulnerable people, Rene Segbo, the countrys health ministry spokesperson, said. He said the group had failed to complete the appropriate paperwork and that doubts remained over its outpatient care. As far as Im concerned, they shouldnt be operating, he said.
ThE guaRdian

Attempted jail break at Nigeria secret police HQ

Nigerias secret police said yesterday that there had been an escape attempt by detainees at their headquarters, with unconfirmed reports that Boko Haram militants were involved. Department of State Services (DSS) spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar said the incident happened at 7:15am (0615 GMT) when one of its officers went to feed the detainees. One of the suspects attempted to disarm him by hitting him at the back of his head with his handcuff, she said. His attempt to escape drew the attention of other guards who fired some shots to warn and deter others. Ogar did not provide details on the number of inmates involved nor disclose why they were being held but said further details would be released later. AFP

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Crash position
Onlookers surround the wreckage of a C-130J Hercules cargo plane that crashed on the outskirts of Gwalior city in central Madhya Pradesh state on Friday. A new C-130J Hercules cargo plane on a training mission crashed in central India killing all ve crew members, an air force spokesman said, in the latest of a string of recent military accidents. AFP

Taibs rich pension plan: plunder F

Luke Hunt

OR 33 years Taib Mahmud has ruled the East Malaysian state of Sarawak as a personal efdom. He has more years at the helm than perhaps any other Southeast Asian leader, even longer than Hun Sen, who has ruled as prime minister of Cambodia for the most part since 1985. In the process Taib, 77, known as Pak Uban, the white haired uncle and his family have amassed a fortune worth more than $20 billion and established business tentacles through 400 companies into the tiniest reaches of the state and around the world which will ensure his clan continues to thrive long after his retirement in late February. As departing chief minister Taib said he remained optimistic Sarawak would develop further with the potential to become the richest state in Malaysia by 2030 if its people continued to preserve their existing strong unity and spirit of mutual cooperation. Thank you for your support to me for the last 50 years and, especially in the last 30 years that I have been your chief minister, Taib said. With our unity and cooperation, we can even perform beyond our expectations in pushing the state develop-

ment to its highest level. It was a low key statement that played down and predictably ignored allegations of gross human rights and environmental violations. Tom Picken, Forest Campaign Leader at Global Witness, says that after decades of industrial logging and plantation development just ve per cent of Sarawaks forests remain intact. Mahmud has ruled the state for over three decades and controls all land allocation and forestry licensing, Picken said after the Global Witness investigation two years ago. He is widely understood to abuse this power to enrich his family and associates. That investigation into Taib and his familys nancial interests produced an extraordinary video that included senior members of the clan offering detailed advice on costs and how to do business in the Malaysian state. The accusations were far from new and the ndings hardly surprising. Allegations of corruption have blighted Taibs career as Chief Minister of Sarawak for decades. He was named as a key gure in an investigation by Swiss authorities into claims that UBS Bank was involved in laundering $90 million through illegal logging in the neighbouring state of Sabah. A further report by the Bruno

Manser Fund (BMF) has warned of cultural genocide from plans by Taib to dam nearly all the rivers in Sarawaks interior which will result in the destruction of the states remaining rain forests amid infrastructure investments worth $105 billion over the next 16 years. The fund, a conservation group that campaigns out of Switzerland, also says Taib is worth $15 billion with the combined worth of the top 20 members of his family worth a combined $21 billion. That valuation makes the Taibs the worlds fth richest family. Not surprisingly, Taibs preferred mode of transport is Rolls-Royce and private jet. By 2030, the BMF argued the indigenous cultures of the Kaya, Kelabit, Kenyah and Penan would be facing extinction with their lands cleared of forests for timber and dammed. Fifty dams are planned for Sarawak, a state already suffering from an oversupply of hydro-electricity and the chances are good that Taib will still be around to witness the results of his handiwork because he is not expected to fully retire. Despite the objections of civil society groups, Taib is expected to take on the position of state governor, a predominantly ceremonial job but one that will keep him within the halls of power.

He will never willingly give up power as it would be too dangerous for him and threaten the business empire he has built up across Sarawak, said Claire Rewcastle Brown, a long-time critic of Taib and editor of the Sarawak Report Website. She added retirement simply meant that Taib was where he can maintain his inuence over the Christianmajority state within a Muslim-majority Malaysia, a role that has won him numerous fans among ruling politicians in Kuala Lumpur. His politicking ensured the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which has dominated Malaysian politics at the national level since independence, maintained its 57year grip on power. Without Taibs inuence and the 25 seats his party delivered at elections last year Prime Minister Najib Razak would have probably lost his job. But outside his political and family circles Taib remains a divisive and questionable gure. Fifty-ve non-governmental organisations have launched a petition claiming it would be a national disaster if Taib was made governor of Sarawak. He had exploited the natural resources of Sarawak excessively for his personal gain, the NGOs said, adding his mega-dam construction projects were illogical and had impacted

badly on the natural environment in the state. The irony is that Sarawak remains one of the poorest states in Malaysia, despite being rich in various natural resources, the NGOs, which included human rights groups like Suranum and the youth wings of political parties, said in an open letter. They also noted that while Sarawak remained poor Taib had become one of the richest men in Malaysia. Taib is also under investigation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and opposition politicians are calling on the authorities to extend their probe to included members of Taibs family in particular his brother Onn Mahmud who has become embroiled with a kickback scandal in Japan dating back to 2007. Further investigations are pending. Whether Taib can overcome strong objections within his own state and hold onto a political career and keep his familys massive fortune together amid a barrage of legal assaults from home and abroad is a tough ask and the stuff of Hollywood movies. However, his 33-year legacy will forever be as legendary as it was shrouded by dirty deals and missing billions that have made his family among the richest on the planet and ensured the indigenous of Sarawak were consigned to poverty.

Aussie Great Escape survivor still has vivid memories

AustRAliAn Paul Royle, one of only two men alive from World War IIs daring Great Escape, says he still has vivid memories of the audacious prison breakout on its 70th anniversary. Royle, 100, was one of 76 men who tunnelled out of German prison camp Stalag Luft III on a bitterly cold night in March 1944, an event immortalised in the 1960s film The Great Escape starring Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough. They dug three tunnels codenamed Tom, Dick and Harry although only Harry was used. Only three made it to safety from a camp the Nazis said was escape-proof. The rest were captured by the Gestapo and 50 of them executed on Hitlers orders. Perth man Royle was spared and the former RAF Flight Lieutenant told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) he still has vivid memories of emerging from the tunnel to a snowy landscape. It was very pleasant and all we saw was great heaps of snow and pine trees. There was snow everywhere; it was cold, he said, maintaining that he was not scared during the dash to freedom. You had other thoughts in your mind, you see; you wanted to get out, he said. After making it through the tunnel, Royle waited for his companion and the pair walked through the night before finding a place to sleep for the day in the bushes. Their freedom was short lived, with the two men recaptured in a small village nearby and taken to a local jail. Royle was returned to the original camp, ABC said, where he met Australian fighter pilot and writer Paul Brickhill, whose book The Great Escape told the story of the mass breakout. Six hundred people were involved in preparing the tunnels over several months with Royle tasked with disposing of the soil, pouring it into his longjohns, then releasing it in the prison yard when guards were not watching. Youd have to be very careful because the soil from the tunnel was a different colour from the soil on the surface mostly, and you would [need to] get a suitable place to put it where there was similar soil, he said. In the film screenwriters focused on the roles of American POWs, with McQueen making a bid for freedom on a motorbike once through the tunnel, but the real escape was by British and other allied personnel, none of them being American. The movie I disliked intensely because there were no motorbikes . . . and the Americans werent there, Royle said, while playing down the significance of the daring escape. Oh I dont think so, he said when asked if what he did was extraordinary. Most people have extraordinary lives if they think of it. While we all hoped for the future we were lucky to get the future. We eventually defeated the Germans and that was that. Fifty British airmen began a long trek in Poland last Tuesday to the site of Stalag Luft III to mark 70 years since The Great Escape. They were headed to a military cemetery in Poznan, western Poland, where many of the British servicemen who perished in the escape were laid to rest. The only other living survivor is 94-year-old British man Dick Churchill. AFP

18

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Opinion
www.phnompenhpost.com

EDITORIAL PERSONNEL Publisher Chris Dawe Editor-in-Chief Alan Parkhouse Managing Editor Chad Williams Editor-in-Chief Post Khmer Kay Kimsong Managing Editor Post Khmer Sam Rith Chief of Staff Cheang Sokha Deputy Chief of Staff Chhay Channyda National News Editor Shane Worrell Digital Media Director David Boyle Deputy News Editor Vong Sokheng Group Business Editor May Kunmakara Deputy Business Editor Joe Freeman Property Editor Pisei Hin Foreign News Editor Joe Curtin Sports Editor Dan Riley Picture Editor Scott Howes Lifestyle and 7Days Editor Poppy McPherson Deputy Head of Lifestyle Desk Pan Simala Chief Sub-editor Michael Philips Sub-editors Shane Rothery, Daniel de Carteret, Amelia Woodside, Laignee Barron, Kevin Ponniah, Stuart White, Sean Teehan, Bennett Murray, Will Jackson, Daniel Pye Reporters Meas Sokchea, Mom Kunthear, Khouth Sophak Chakrya, May Titthara, Khoun Leakhana, Sen David, Phak Seangly, Buth Reaksmey Kongkea, Chhim Sreyneang, Kim Sarom, Lieng Sarith, Hor Kimsay Photographers Heng Chivoan, Pha Lina, Hong Menea, Sreng Meng Srun, Vireak Mai Web Editor Leang Phannara Webmasters Uong Ratana, Horng Pengly SIEM REAP BUREAU

Future of Crimea is with Russia

Comment
Evgeny Merkulov
N historic event the reunification of the people of Russia and the people of Crimea took place several days ago. All Russians and Crimeans have been waiting for this for many decades. To understand the reason behind such a choice, it is enough to know the history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other. In 1783, this peninsula became a part of Russia. In 1954 Crimea, along with Sevastopol, was transferred by a personal initiative of the leader of the ruling Communist party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. What matters now is that this decision was made in clear violation of the USSR constitutional norms that were in place then. People, of course, wondered why it occurred, but on the whole, this decision was treated as a mere formality, because the territory was transferred within the boundaries of the Soviet Union. Moreover, at that time it was impossible to imagine that Ukraine and Russia may split up and become separate states. However, this happened in 1991, and Crimea became a part of the Republic of Ukraine. For more than 20 years of its membership in Ukraine, the people of Crimea faced some pressure on their rights and freedoms. First of all, it concerns the right of selfdetermination. After an unlawful and violent upheaval in Kiev in February 2014, when the current leaders of Ukraine took power as a result of a coup dtat with the help of political nationalists and extremists, the situation became worse. Some groups controlled by the authorities from Kiev have tried to overthrow the legitimate government of Crimea, organised criminal prosecution of the leaders of this peninsula. In these circumstances, the authorities of Crimea, focusing on the protection of the life and rights of their own citizens, had to make a hard decision to organise a referendum on the most important issue to stay in Ukraine or to secede from it. An overwhelming majority of Crimeans (83 per cent) came to polling stations to raise their voice. More than 96 per cent of them spoke out in favour of reuniting with Russia.

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People y Russian ags as they celebrate the transition to Moscow time near a city clock tower at a railway station in Simferopol, Crimea, yesterday. AFp

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These numbers speak for themselves. We can say that this was a unanimous choice of the people of Crimea. Some Western countries led by the US claim that this referendum is illegal and cannot be recognised by the world community. This can only be regarded as a use of double standards, a thing which is often used by our partners in world politics. In this context it is logical to ask them: What about Kosovo, the Falkland Islands and Mayotte? Everybody who knows these cases will never argue about the legitimacy of the referendum in Crimea. Let me briefly remind you about them. Kosovos separation from Serbia stemmed from NATO military action against Yugoslavia (in 1999) without the approval of the UN Security Council. Nevertheless, the International Court of Justice later ruled positively on the issue of legitimacy of Kosovo secession. Upon a referendum in the Falkland Islands in 2013, the US and EU recognised that these territories belong to the UK, despite strong objections from Buenos Aires, which claims

them to be a part of Argentina. According to the results of a national referendum in 1974, all Comoro islands except Mayotte voted for independence from France. But the will of the people of Mayotte to stay under French rule justified actions from Paris, which led to accession of this island to France. This was also recognised by Western countries, though the UN and African Union refused to do it. In all these cases, the main argument of the US and EU was about the realisation of a right of people for self-determination guaranteed by the UN Charter. If we take this argumentation, then it seems very strange why these countries fiercely oppose the fact that the people of Crimea also have the above-mentioned right. It is also impossible to ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population in Crimea are Russian. Today, the total population of Crimea is 2.2 million people, of which almost 1.5 million are Russians, 350,000 are Ukrainians who predominantly consider Russian their native language and about 300,000 are Crimean Tatars.

The most recent public opinion surveys conducted in Russia show that 92 per cent of Russians support Crimeas reunification with Russia. This is a very high figure, which shows that Crimea is really a sensitive issue for all Russians. And the last point. We regard the fraternal people of Ukraine as our true friends and one of our closest neighbours. We have a common history, culture, religion and language. Many Russians have relatives in Ukraine and vice versa. We have numerous ties in all areas. Almost all people in Russia are deeply concerned about what is happening in Ukraine now. The current political, economic and social turmoil in Ukraine is a tragic event not only for Ukrainians but also for Russians. We believe that some day we will see a strong, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. This fully meets the interests of both Ukraine and Russia.
Evgeny Merkulov is the Press Secretary of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Kingdom of Cambodia.

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THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

19

Lifestyle
Fine art auction raises more than $20,000 for local NGOs
Bennett Murray

In brief

ORE than $20,000 was raised for local arts charities yesterday when Christies auctioneer Lionel Gosset sold works from around the globe at Rafes Hotel Le Royal. Around 100 people turned out for the ReCreation 2014 Christies Charity Auction to bid on 47 paintings, sculptures, garments, pieces of jewellery and other handicrafts. Frenchman Thomas Pierres acrylic painting Galerie des Glaces raised the highest bid at $2,300 while other items that found buyers included a Japanese-style tanto knife from Citadel Knives, a water buffalo sculpture made of hay by artist Nou Sary and a black dress by designer Sok Chandara. All proceeds went to art advocacy NGOs Cambodia 2000 and Amrita Performing Arts. We raised $26,000, said Gosset, who previously conducted ReCreations rst charity auction, which was for Cambodia Living Arts, in 2012. Despite the distance from France, where Gosset has auctioned artwork by masters including Victor Hugo, HenriGeorges Clouzot and Rochas, he said that Cambodias art auctions are much the same as those at home. The event was less successful than the rst charity auction, said Madeleine de Lan-

galerie, founder and CEO of ReCreation. Im a little bit disappointed right now, because I thought it would have been better, De Langalerie said, adding that she suspected yesterdays political rally by the opposition dampened the mood. The rst one two years ago was great fun, because it was the rst time and there was a lot of excitement. This time was much more difcult because I think of the [political] situation here: the trafc outside, demonstrations, people were late. De Langalerie added that the event was complicated further when it was moved from Sotel Phnom Penh Phokeethra despite the fact that Galerie des Arts, a threemonth exhibition being held in conjunction with the auction where the artists may sell their work, is at Sotel. The changes were difcult to explain and a lot of people went to Sotel instead of coming here, she said. However, representatives from both Amrita and Cambodia 2000 said they were grateful for the money raised. In Cambodia, the culture of philanthropy is not very strong like [it is] in the US or Europe, so from this kind of event the money will go to support our projects that were doing, said Rithisal Kang, executive director of Amrita, which promotes contemporary dance and theatre in the Kingdom. Princess Norodom Veasna

Christies auctioneer Lionel Gosset strikes the gavel at Rafes Hotel Le Royal yesterday.

pHa lina

Diva Sirivudh, spokesperson for Cambodia 2000 and sisterin-law of the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk, said that

ciation to be part of the beneciaries, she said. Cambodia 2000, which was founded by the late HRH No-

In Cambodia, the culture of philanthropy is not very strong, like it is in the US or Europe
the auction did more than just raise funds for her NGO. This is a good thing happening for us, and we are very pleased and honoured for Christies to choose our assorodom Vacheahra in 1996, launched two new programs late last year, the rst donating free art supplies to rural schools and the second supporting emerging artists

in search of nancial aid. While most of the art came from Cambodians or expatriates in the Kingdom, some of the work was unrelated to Cambodia. Gwen McKenzie, a tourist from New York whose sculpture sold for $100, said that she decided to donate an art piece after being told about the auction by a friend based in Phnom Penh. I do a lot of pottery, but Im not a full-time potter, so I really dont have time to promote things, so its really nice when someone likes your work and pays for it, particularly for a charity, she said.

NIGELLA Lawson has revealed that her separation from Charles Saatchi and the trial of the couples former personal assistants, who were cleared of fraud charges last year, had left her feeling as if shed had a layer of skin removed. During her first UK television interview since last years events put her private life in the spotlight, Lawson spoke about the strain she had been under: Well, Im alive. You know, Ive had better times. Speaking on BBC1s Michael McIntyre Chat Show, to be screened today, she refused to be drawn on gossip. Saying Im not an innocent, she hinted she could tell stories about her ex-husband, but was not going to: I could say things, and they would be indiscreet, but I dont want to. THe guaRdian

Chef Nigella Lawson: Ive had better times

French minister calls state dinner revolting

West African funk band mounts comeback

Cecile De Cormarmond

THEY were huge in the early 1970s, playing alongside some of the greatest names in African music, then faded into obscurity after a communist revolution destroyed nightlife in their homeland. Many in the tiny West African

country of Benin even thought most of the members had died, but the Orchestre Polyrythmo de Cotonou is enjoying a remarkable comeback. The bands renaissance has been compared to the Buena Vista Social Club, the veteran Cuban musicians rediscovered in the 1990s who were the sub-

Members of the Orchestre Polyrythmo de Cotonou (Cotonous Polyrythmo orchestra) pose in Cotonou. afp

ject of a hit documentary film and successful album. Since their revival helped by a young French journalist the Orchestre Polyrythmo de Cotonou has performed in Barcelona, Paris, New York and at the prestigious Barbican in London. We been all over the world, lead singer Vincent Aehehinnou said. The only place for us to discover is Asia. The orchestra was formed in 1968 and played in clubs across West Africa, lining up alongside the likes of South Africas Myriam Makeba and the legendary father of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti of Nigeria. They also recorded at a frenetic pace, churning out an astonishing 400 albums in 10 years, but political turmoil cut short their success. In 1972, military general Mathieu Kerekou seized power in Benin, one of many coups in West Africa after the dismantling of colonialism in the early

1960s. From 1974, Kerekou rolled out rigid Marxist policies that gradually led to the closure of nightclubs and music halls across the former French colony, which had been famous for its vibrant nightlife. Dictatorships elsewhere in Africa also contributed to the bands demise, notably that of Moammar Gaddafi in Libya. While touring Libya in 1982, the authorities accused band members of possessing narcotics and destroyed their instruments one by one, apparently in a search for drugs. They returned to Cotonou devastated and fell further into obscurity. French journalist Elodie Maillot was preparing for a trip to Benin in 2007 when she came across some old vinyls of the band in the record library at Radio France Internationale in Paris. Once in Cotonou, she began investigating. I made a quick tour of the clubs that remained

... and when I asked questions about Polyrythmo people answered, We havent seen them in years ... They are probably dead, she recalled. Maillot then travelled to the town of Abomey, where various local bands were performing to celebrate the anniversary of Benins independence. Despite the poor sound quality and lack of rehearsal, Polyrythmo still had funk, and the crowd went wild. She interviewed band members and returned to Paris to broadcast a story about them. Before leaving Benin, she promised to try to help them achieve their dream of playing in France. No promoter was prepared to take on the financial risk, so So, Maillot did it all herself, securing a gig at Frances Villette Jazz Festival and returning to Benin to help get the band to France. Arriving in Paris for the first time in 2009 was unbelievable, Aehehinnou said. afp

AN EMBARRASSED French minister has apologised to the head chef at the Elysee Palace after she was caught on camera describing the food at a China-France state dinner as revolting. Trade Minister Nicole Bricq was caught out after saying the meal served to Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the state banquet on Wednesday night was not up to scratch, unaware that microphones were picking up her comments. At the Elysee, it wasnt (up to scratch) at all ... it was revolting. It has to be said, she was heard saying in a video clip posted online by BFMTV. Elysees head chef responded on Facebook: Along with the squad, we will continue to do our job with the same passion and the same devotion. afp

A UNIVERSITY in New York state has announced a course on the sociology of Miley Cyrus. Assistant professor Carolyn Chernoff will use the twerking pop star as a lens into cultural conflict, exploring race, class, gender and the core issues of intersectionality theory. As of yesterday, only three students had registered for The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media at Skidmore College, the Schenectady Daily Gazette said. But Chernoff has high hopes for this summer class, which will consist of three two-and-a-half-hour sessions each week. THe guaRdian

Back to twerk ... Miley Cyrus to be studied

20

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 24, 2014

Travel
INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT SCHEDULE
MH 765 5J 258
Arrival 03:30 09:05 09:05 14:40 16:20 18:40 19:40 21:50 20:50 14:30 20:50 13:45 20:50 13:00 14:30 20:50 16:30 18:45 10:25 16:05 17:00 17:25

3.5.7 2.4.7 1, 6, 7 2.4 5 7 3, 2 5 2.4.5.7

1. 5
Days 1-3-5

14:15 22:30 16:35 10:40 12:25 12:45 18:30 18:35 10:05

20:15
Dep 12:55

17:25 02:11 22:15 15:20 15:40 16:05 21:35 21:55 13:00

21:25
Arrival 13:55

MH 764 5J 257 MI 633 MI 622 MI 616 MI 636 MI 630 MI 618 QV 512

8M 401
Flighs K6 131

3.5.7 2.4.7 1, 6, 7 2.4 7 3, 2 5 5 2.4.5.7

1. 5
Days 1-3-5

12:10 19:45 14:35 08:40 10:40 13:55 07:55 16:35 06:30

17:05
Dep 11:20

13:15 21:30 15:45 09:50 11:50 17:40 11:35 17:45 09:25

19:15
Arrival 12:20

FROM PHNOM PENH

Flighs K6 720 PG 938 PG 932 TG 581 PG 934 FD 3617 PG 936 TG 585 CZ 324 QR 965 QR 967 CZ 324 CZ 6060 VN 840 QR 965 QR 967 VN 841 VN 3856 KA 207 KA 207 KA 209 KA 209 KA 205 KE 690 OZ 740 AK 1473 MH 755 MH 763 AF 273 FM 833 MI 601 MI 622 3K 594 3K 592 3K 598 MI 607 2817 2817 2817 2817 BR 266 VN 840 QV 920
8M 402 8M 401

TO PHNOM PENH
Arrival 01:10 08:15 11:10 11:10 16:40 18:15 20:40 21:45 16:05 22:45
05:20+1

SIEM REAP - MANILA SIEM REAP - SINGAPORE MI 633 MI 622 MI 630 MI 615 MI 636 MI 617 QV 522
8M 402

MANILA - SIEM REAP SINGAPORE - SIEM REAP

Days Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily ..34..7 12...6. Daily 2.4.7 Daily ..34..7 12...6. Daily Daily 1.2.4.7 6 1 3.5.7 2 Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily 2 2.3.4.5.7 1.3.5.6.7 2.4 1.3.5.6 .2.4..7 .2.4..7 Daily 1.3 2.4.5 6 7 Daily Daily Daily 1.3.6 1.3.6

Dep 12:05 06:40 09:55 10:05 15:30 17:05 19:30 20:40 08:00 16:10 22:40 08:00 14:45 17:30 16:10 22:40 14:00 19:20 11:25 11:45 18:30 17:25 19:00 23:40 23:50 08:35 11:10 17:10 20:05 19:50

Flighs K6 721 PG 931 TG 580 PG 933 FD 3616 PG 935 TG 584 PG 937 CZ 323 QR 964 QR 966 CZ 6059 CZ 323 VN 841 QR 604 QR 966 VN 920 VN 3857 KA 208 KA 206 KA 206 KA 206

Days Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily ..34..7 12...6. 2.4.7 Daily Daily ..34..7 12...6. Daily Daily

Dep 02:25 07:55 07:55 13:30 15:15 17:30 18:25 20:15 14:30 01:05 07:25 12:00 19:05 09:40 13:30 19:50 15:50 18:00

PHNOM PENH - BANGKOK

BANGKOK - PHNOM PENH

SIEM REAP - VIENTIANE

SIEM REAP - YANGON
PREAH SIHANOUK - SIEM REAP Flighs K6 130

VIENTIANE - SIEM REAP

YANGON - SIEM REAP
SIEM REAP - PREAH SIHANOUK

PHNOM PENH - BEIJING PHNOM PENH - DOHA ( Via HCMC)

BEIJING - PHNOM PENH DOHA - PHNOM PENH ( Via HCMC)

PHNOM PENH - GUANGZHOU 11:40 18:10 20:35 17:10 23:40 14:45 20:05 15:05 22:25 22:05 21:00 22:35

GUANGZHOU - PHNOM PENH

PHNOM PENH - HANOI PHNOM PENH - HO CHI MINH CITY

HANOI - PHNOM PENH HO CHI MINH CITY - PHNOM PENH

PHNOM PENH - HONG KONG

HONG KONG - PHNOM PENH 1.2.4.6.7 08:50 3.5.7 1 2 14:30 15:25 15:50

AIRLINES CODE
2817 - 16 Tigerairways 5J - CEBU Airways. AK - Air Asia BR - EVA Airways CI - China Airlines CZ - China Southern FD - Thai Air Asia FM - Shanghai Air K6- Cambodia Angkor Air KA - Dragon Air MH - Malaysia Airlines MI - SilkAir OZ - Asiana Airlines PG - Bangkok Airways QR - Qatar Airways QV - Lao Airlines SQ - Singapore Airlines

COLOUR CODE
1 Monday 2 Tuesday 3 Wednesday 4 Thursday 5 Friday 6 Saturday 7 Sunday

Aix-les-Bains, in the foothills of the French Alps.

BLOOMBERG

PHNOM PENH - INCHEON 06:40 06:50 11:20 14:00 20:00 06:05 23:05

INCHEON - PHNOM PENH KE 689 OZ 739 AK 1474 MH 754 MH 762 AF 273 FM 833 MI 602 MI 622 3K 593 3K 591 *3K 597 MI 608 2816 2816 2816 2816 BR 265 VN 841 QV 921 8M 401 Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily 2 18:30 19:10 15:15 09:30 3:20 20:05 22:20 22:50 16:00 10:20 4:10 06:05 22:40 08:40 11:25 14:25 20:20 15:15 17:15 15:50 08:10 14:00 12:30 11:35 13:00 13:15 10:45

PHNOM PENH - KUALA LUMPUR

KUALA LUMPUR - PHNOM PENH

TG - Thai Airways | VN - Vietnam Airlines

This ight schedule information is updated about once a month. Further information, please contact direct to airline or a travel agent for ight schedule information.

PHNOM PENH- PARIS PHNOM PENH - SHANGHAI PHNOM PENH - SINGAPORE 09:30 12:30 12:20 15:10 21:05 16:00 18:10 16:40 09:10 14:50 13:20 12:45 17:30 17:50 13:30 11:45 15:20 18:10 0:05 19:25 21:10 19:40 12:00 17:50 16:10 17:05 18:50 19:10 14:55 12:30

PHNOM PENH - PARIS SHANGHAI - PHNOM PENH 2.3.4.5.7 19:30 1.3.5.6.7 07:40 2.4 1.3.5.6 .2.4..7 .2.4..7 Daily 1.3 2.4.5 6 7 Daily Daily Daily 1.3.6 08:40 13:20 19:15 13:50 16:20 15:00 07:20 13:00 11:30 09:10 11:30 11:45 08:20 SINGAPORE - PHNOM PENH - SIEM REAP *
Air Asia (AK) Room T6, PP International Airport. Tel: 023 6666 555 Fax: 023 890 071 www.airasia.com

AIRLINES
Koreanair (KE) Room.F3-R03, Intelligent Ofce Myanmar Airways International Center, Monivong Blvd,PP Tel: (855) 23 224 047-9 #90+92+94Eo, St. 217, www.koreanair.com Sk. Orussey4, Kh. 7 Makara, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. T:023 881 178 | F:023 886 677 www.maiair.com Cebu Pacic (5J) Phnom Penh: No. 333B Monivong Blvd. Tel: 023 219161 Siem Reap: No. 50,Sivatha Blvd. Tel: 063 965487 E-mail: cebuair@ptm-travel.com www.cebupacicair.com

Musilac: the festival at the waters edge

Helen Massy-Beresford

Cambodia Angkor Air (K6) PP Ofce, #90+92+94Eo, St.217, Sk.Orussey4, Kh. 7Makara, 023 881 178 /77718-333. Fax:+855 23-886-677 www.cambodiaangkorair.com E: mai@royalaviationexpert.com

Dragon Air (KA) #168, Monireth, PP Tel: 023 424 300 Fax: 023 424 304 www.dragonair.com/kh

PHNOM PENH -TAIPEI PHNOM PENH - VIENTIANE

TAIPEI - PHNOM PENH VIENTIANE - PHNOM PENH

Tiger airways G. oor, Regency square, Suare, Suite #68/79, St.205, Sk Chamkarmorn, PP Tel: (855) 95 969 888 (855) 23 5515 888/5525888 E: info@cambodiaairlines.net

PHNOM PENH - YANGON SIEM REAP - PHNOM PENH

YANGON - SIEM REAP

Qatar Airways No. 296 Blvd. Mao Tse Toung (St. 245), Ground oor, Intercontinental Hotel PP Tel: +23 42 40 12/13/14 www.qatarairways.com

SilkAir (MI) Regency C,Unit 2-4,Tumnorb Teuk, Chamkarmorn Phnom Penh Tel:023 988 629 www.silkair.com

REGULAR SHIPPING LINES SCHEDULES CALLING PORT ROTATION

LINE CALLING SCHEDULES 1 Wed, 08:00 - Thu 16:00 RCL (12calls/moth) 2 Thu, 14:00 - Fri 22:00 3 Fri, 20:00 - Sat 23:59 MEARSK (MCC) (4 calls/moth) SITC (BEN LINE (4 calls/onth) ITL (ACL) (4 calls/month) APL (4 calls/month) COTS (2 calls/month) 1 Th, 08:00 - 20:00 2 Fri, 22:00- Sun 00:01 Sun 09:00-23:00 Sat 06:00 - Sun 08:00 Fri, 08:00 - Sun, 06:00 Irregula FREEQUENCY ROTATION PORTS 1 Call/week 1 Call/week 1 Call/week 1 Call/week 1 Call/week 1 Call/week 1 Call/week 1 call/week SIN-SHV-SGZ-SIN HKG-SHV-SGZ-HKG (HPH-TXGKEL) SIN-SHV-SGZ-SIN SGN-SHV-LZP-SGN - HKG-OSA-TYO-KOB - BUS-SGH-YAT-SGN - SIN-SHV-TPP-SIN HCM-SHV-LZP-HCMNBO-SGH-OSA-KOBBUS-SGH-HGK-CHM SGZ-SHV-SIN-SGZ SIN-SHV-SIN

SIEM REAP - BANGKOK Flighs

K6 700

BANGKOK - SIEM REAP Dep

12:50

Days
Daily

Arrival
2:00

Flighs
K6 701

Days
Daily

Dep
02:55

Arrival
04:05

PG 924 PG 906 PG 914 PG 908 PG 910 CZ 3054 CZ 3054

K6 850

Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily 2.4.6 1.3.5.7

Daily

09:45 13:15 15:20 18:50 20:30 11:25 19:25

06:50

11:10 14:40 16:45 20:15 21:55 15:35 23:20

08:30

PG 903 PG 905 PG 913 PG 907 PG 909 CZ 3053 CZ 3053

K6 851

Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily 2.4.6 1.3.5.7

Daily

08:00 11:35 13:35 17:00 18:45 08:45 16:35

19:30

09:00 12:45 14:35 18:10 19:55 10:30 18:30

21:15

SIEM REAP - GUANGZHOU

GUANGZHOU - SIEM REAP

SIEM REAP -HANOI VN 868 VN 842 VN 844 VN 800 VN 3818 VN 826 VN 3820 VN 828 VN 3822 KE 688 OZ 738 AK 281 1.2.3.5.6 Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily 12:40 18:05 19:45 21:00 11:10 13:30 17:45 18:20 21:35 23:15 23:40 08:35 15:35 19:45 21:25 22:40 12:30 14:40 18:45 19:20 22:35 06:10 07:10 11:35

HANOI - SIEM REAP VN 843 VN 845 VN 845 VN 801 VN 3809 VN 827 VN 3821 VN 829 VN 3823 KE 687 OZ 737 AK 280 Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily 15:25 17:05 17:45 18:20 09:15 11:35 15:55 16:20 19:45 18:30 19:20 06:50 17:10 18:50 19:30 20:00 10:35 12:35 16:55 17:40 20:45 22:15 22:40 07:50

2 calls/month BBK-SHV-BKK-(LZP)

34 call/month
SGZ= Songkhla, Thailand SHV= Sihanoukville Port Cambodia SIN= Singapore TPP= TanjungPelapas, Malaysia TYO= Tokyo, Japan TXG= Taichung, Taiwan YAT= Yantian, China YOK= Yokohama, Japan

SIEM REAP - HO CHI MINH CITY

HO CHI MINH CITY - SIEM REAP

BUS= Busan, Korea HKG= HongKong kao=Kaoshiung, Taiwan ROC Kob= Kebe, Japan KUN= Kuantan, Malaysia LZP= Leam Chabang, Thailand NBO= Ningbo, China OSA= Osaka, Japan SGN= Saigon, Vietnam

SIEM REAP - INCHEON

INCHEON - SIEM REAP

FLY DIRECT TO MYANMAR MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY YANGON - PHNOM PENH SIEM REAP - YANGON

PHNOM PENH - YANGON YANGON - SIEM REAP

FLY DIRECT TO SIEM REAP MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY #90+92+94Eo, St. 217, Sk. Orussey4, Kh. 7 Makara, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Tel 023 881 178 | Fax 023 886 677 | www.maiair.com

SIEM REAP - KUALA LUMPUR

KUALA LUMPUR - SIEM REAP

ITTING in a sunny spot, beer in hand, with views of a vast lake and towering mountains, the thudding sounds of a distant band in the background, feels a long way from the mud and wellies of Glastonbury or the vast semi-urban sprawl of Reading. This is the small, increasingly popular Musilac festival, which takes place every summer on the shores of Lac du Bourget, on the edge of Aix-les-Bains in the foothills of the French Alps. It may not be the most famous event on Frances young music festival scene, but its stunning natural setting does give it a certain je ne sais quoi. Most British visitors to this corner of the French Alps, only see it metres-deep in snow, when they ock to the resorts of Courchevel, Meribel and Morzine for skiing and snowboarding though in summer, the craggy landscapes are a paradise for outdoorsy types. Musilac rst arrived in the pretty town of Aix-les-Bains all pastel-coloured villas, Roman ruins and thermal baths in 2002, with a lineup of largely unknown bands and around 15,000 punters. Its eclectic, genre-crossing list of artists made it a draw for music fans all over the area, supporting the local musicians who continue to play every year. But bigger name headliners were soon added: just two years after the inaugural festival, Peter Gabriel, Scissor Sisters, Air and goth-pop veterans the Cure were all on the bill, and visitors from further

aeld began to slot a weekend of music and camping into their stay in the region. Its proximity to Aix-les-Bains makes for a much wider choice of places to stay than is on offer in many European festivals. They include cute B&Bs and luxury hotels, but if you want a party atmosphere the campsites are the places to hit. The swelling numbers up to 75,000 in 2012 must cause a few headaches for the pompiers in charge of safety, particularly given that the site is on the edge of the lake, but the local vibe, enhanced by the festivals manageable dimensions and the agreeable French attitude to drinking, does not seem to have been affected. This years lineup includes the headline-grabbing LA rock band Haim, Tinariwen, Placebo, London Grammar, Vanessa Paradis, Seasick Steve and Bristol-based Franco-British group Franois & the Atlas Mountains. But Musilac also prides itself on giving a platform to artists from the area: new bands especially are featured at the pre-festival gig the night before, on an open-air stage in the centre of Aix-lesBains. But whoever is on the bill, the organisers know that it doesnt really matter. This is one festival where the real draw is the setting, as much as the soundtrack. This years festival runs from July 11 to 13; one-day pass $69, three-day pass $164 or $185 including camping. Fly to Geneva or take the train via Paris to Aix-les-Bains (this domestic leg takes about three hours). More info at (musilac. com). THE GUARDIAN

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Entertainment
NOW SHOWING
LEGEND CINEMA
300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE Greek general Themistokles leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes and Persian navy commander Artemisia. Based on Frank Millers graphic novel. City Mall: 10:05pm Toul Kork: 11:50am, 7:50pm MUPPETS MOST WANTED While on a grand world tour, the Muppets find themselves wrapped into an European jewel-heist caper headed by a Kermit the Frog look-alike and his dastardly sidekick. With a cast of comedians doing the voices. Starring Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell and Tina Fey. City Mall: 12:10pm Toul Kork: 5:40pm MR PEABODY AND SHERMAN The time-travelling adventures of an advanced canine and his adopted son, as they endeavour to fix a time rift they created. Stars Ty Burrell, Max Charles, Stephen Colbert. City Mall: 5pm Toul Kork: 9:20am NEED FOR SPEED Fresh from prison, a street racer who was framed by a wealthy business associate joins a cross country race with revenge in mind. His ex-partner, learning of the plan, places a massive bounty on his head. With Aaron Paul, who is known for his role as one of two meth-producers in the three seasons of HBOs Breaking Bad. City Mall: 12:05pm, 2:25pm, 9:35pm Toul Kork: 9:20am, 4:25pm, 7pm, 9:35pm DIVERGENT In a world divided by factions based on virtues, Tris learns shes Divergent and wont fit in. When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before its too late. Stars: Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Kate Winslet as the lead characters. City Mall: 9:30am, 4:45pm, 9:20pm Toul Kork: 11:30am, 2:10pm, 18:50pm

21

Nerd Night @ Gasolina

Short-re presentations from knowledgeable people in Phnom Penh: each gets 20 seconds per slide. Drink deals start at 7:30pm; speakers start at 8pm. Topics covered include OCD and whales.

La Gasolina, Street 57. 8pm

Franglish @ Plantation
Are you a French or English speaker? Join a speed-talking evening at The Plantation. You will meet other native English and French speakers who will help you develop your language skills.

The Plantation #28 Street 184. 6:30pm

Nerd Night gives the stage to knowledgeable Phnom Penh residents. ANNA SPELMAN

Yoga @ Yoga PP
Get your week o to an invigorating start with Sweat and Samadhi, a vinyasa ow-style yoga class with an experienced teacher, from 8am to 9.30am.

TV PICKS
3:05pm - PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MANS CHEST: Jack Sparrow races to recover the heart of Davy Jones to avoid enslaving his soul to Jones service, as other friends and foes seek the heart for their own agenda as well. FOX MOVIES 5:35pm - LOCKOUT: A man wrongly convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage against the US is offered his freedom if he can rescue the presidents daughter from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates. FOX MOVIES 7:10pm - WALKING DEAD: Rick Grimes leads survivors in a world overrun by zombies. FOX MOVIES 8pm - OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL: A small-time magician is swept away to an enchanted land and is forced into a power struggle. FOX MOVIES

Yoga Phnom Penh, #9 Street 21. 8am

Go club @ Mloup Snai

Go, or Baduk, is a board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago. The game is noted for being rich in strategy despite its simple rules.

Oz the Great and Powerful is on tonight.

BLOOMBERG

Mloup Snai Restaurant, #91, Street 592. 10am

Thinking caps
SOAKED
ACROSS
1 6 11 14 15 16 17 19 20 21 23 26 27 28 30 31 32 35 36 38 39 40 41 42 44 46 48 49 50 52 53 58 59 60 61 62 63 Drink impolitely Dostoyevsky title character AKA, in the business world Persian Gulf visitor Mollusk shell material Scott Joplin creation Bad thing to step in Approximation suffix Exist in large quantities Brown-tinted photo Like the Wild West of yore Geometry focus Youll regret it otherwise! Gauguins island home Nags nosh Far from drunk Cold-day feature A drop in the ocean? This crossword, compared to others New homophone Fashion designers monogram Like Wrigley Fields walls Ugly Duckling, in time Helpers Upward movement Wood-smoothing tool Palatial residences Kind of tea Take the wraps off Anger Old-school Thats totally wrong! Set of parts that need assembling ___ a positive note Reluctant Its an ayeful? Perform, King James-style Nozzle option

DOWN
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 18 22 23 24 25 26 28 29 31 33 34 36 37 41 43 44 45 46 47 48 50 51 54 55 56 57

Strew or sprinkle about More than stretch the truth The best (Abbr.) Consumer safety measures Investigates Small bone of the middle ear Sock-menders oath? Like summer tea Plate crumb Informal wear In desperate need of a towel Count of jazz Turkish generals Standout facial feature Take in sustenance McGraws sidekick, Baba Burnoose wearers Gloomy people ___ Like the Wind (Dirty Dancing song) Shoppers bags Like many sleepers Recipe instruction Silly Some football kicks Type of innocence Word with glades or green Seafood morsel Words from the bride and groom Away from the shore Bathroom units Like Bart Simpsons hair Crag nest Wheel of Fortune category, sometimes Not very nice Winged god of love Yokos surname 1970 Edwin Starr protest song Airport stat. Honor ___ father

Fridays solution

Fridays solution

22

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Lifestyle

Socheata and Sontery Social Life Team

Life insurance partnership between Cambodia Life Insurance and FTB @ Cambodiana Hotel

Vanak Kit, business development manager, Tang Namsrun, managing director from Hang Neak.

Gui Anvanith, CEO & board member of FTB Bank, In Meatra, CEO of Cambodia Life Insurance.

Koem Oeurn, director of CJCC, Lim Lina, HR ofcer at Hagar NGO.

The insurance company Cambodia Life Insurance recently held an ofcial inauguration ceremony at the Cambodiana Hotel to mark their partnership with the Foreign Trade Bank of Cambodia (FTB). In Meatra, director general of Cambodia Life Insurance, gave a rousing speech at the beginning of the event, before the insurance agency licence was delivered from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Guests, which included businessmen and women as well as HR professionals, lecturers and employees of both companies, enjoyed toasting the partnership before networking at a cocktail reception.
Preap Sovath, brand ambassador of Cambodia Life Insurance. Vann Sopheakneat, Vann Sakana, Nov Sovannara, Tong Makara, Ngan Sethivattey. Meng Chansophea, Ney Sakal.

Nhem Monyrath, Bunna Soksokal, marketing support ofcer, Hin Chanlang, policy holder service ofcer from Cambodia Life Insurance.

Sokleap Penn, Che Saory, accountant of Jauk Jey Printing House.

Chan Chakrya, Sok Sambo, deputy head of IT from FTB Bank.

Koeu Nila, HR & nance director of Cambodia Life Insurance, Sovann Sokunthea.

Chea Daline, Chham Vichheka, senior sales representative of FTB Bank.

Chun Noun Nimol, lecturer at the National University of Management, Pen Bopha, director of Hede International.

Chan Sokunthea, director of inter-sectorial division, Phnom Penh Capital Hall, Oul Bopha, branch manager of FTB, Ung Polyna, deputy general manager of FTB. Thavarith Sethika, Ngov Kimnay.

Samsung launch new air-conditioner @Intercontinental

Gwihan Lee, director for Cambodia and Laos of Samsung Electronics.

MC Khieu Sansana.

Samsung Electronics launched a new airconditioner model with a striking triangle design at the InterContinental Phnom Penh Hotel on March 27. The event was attended by various Phnom Penh and provincial Samsung dealers who took in a presentation on the features, installation and day-to-day operation of the new product. Sokun Nisa, the brand ambassador for Samsung, presented the new airconditioning unit. Afterwards, guests and speakers enjoyed taking photos together. Photos by Hong Menea.

Samsung brand ambassador Sokun Nisa.

Samsung employees pose with the brand ambassador.

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Chhim Sreyneang Social Life Manager

Lifestyle

23

Prakong Sudprasert, air attache and deputy defence attache, Anthony Cerullo, major in the United States army and assistant army attache of the US Defense Tea Vinh, Touchayoot Pakdi, Thai Ambassador in Attache Ofce. Cambodia, Naris Pratoomsuwan.

A reception onboard HTMS KRABI @ Sihanoukville Port

Thongrob Weerajit, Chong Chaiya, Ky Yadeth.

Sam Sokha, Craig J Tippins, colonel and army attache at the US embassy.

On Friday, March 21, the crew of the Royal Thai Navy ship HTMS Krabi met with Cambodian ofcials in Sihanoukville for an amiable party to celebrate relations between Thailand and Cambodia. Rear Admiral Naris Pratoomsuwan, deputy commander of the rst naval area of the Royal Thai Navy, and his delegation, including Commodore Ssamsak Intharasema, Captain of the HTMS Krabi, made a courtesy call to Sbong Sarath, governor of Preah Sihanouk province, Vice-Admiral Ouk Seyha, deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian Navy and commander of the Ream Naval Base near Sihanoukville, Lou Kim Chhun, CEO of Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, and Admiral Tea Vinh, commander of the Royal Cambodian Navy. The two navies held a friendly sports competition between their ofcers and the Thai crew donated medicine to the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Hospital. Wine, cocktails and snacks were also enjoyed over a singing performance by some of the members of the Thai navy.

The HTMS KrabI.

Bill Longhurst, British Ambassador in Cambodia, Katie Longhurst, Erin Longhurst, Andrew Erskine.

A performance by the Thai navy.

Poi Jakapat Sankhan, Cpoi Soraya Saosiri, Lt Torpong Fungfuang, Col Yuttachai Paisan.

Tanakrita Sutthikamon, Xay Tippins, Mey Davy. Aphea Pha, Nary Tith. Supawadee Sittinan, Kan Chan Trea.

Sudprasert Kasana, Chaiyakum Tassanee, Sompong Tonanhum.

Mem Brook, Jiranun Wongmongkol, Hoan Aswani, Pummarat Sudprasert, Suthiraporn Sarisiri, Janny Newman. Lcdr Phakorn Yuwanangkoon, Lt Nithi Boonyaratglin.

Seang Leng, Sar Sereyvicheth, deputy chief of immigration police at Phnom Penh International Airport.

Wichian Sarisiri, Suthiraporn Sarisiri.

End of season event @ the new RV Mekong Pandaw

jurry Broekman, general manager at Locl Adventure, Yi Sok Chamroeun, Srey Samphors, inbound supervisor at ExoTissimo Travel, Bunnary Born and Steve Nick Packham, general manager at Easia Travel, and Rob and Sven Zika, sales manager at Pandaw. Lidgey, general manager. Banha Vorn, reservation executive at Easia Travel.

Pandaw River Expeditions celebrated the end of the tourist high season with a cocktail-fuelled cruise on the Mekong. On March 24, the new RV Mekong Pandaw, the newest ship on the river and one of the companys eet of 13 colonial replicas, hosted some 60 travel agents for an hour and half trip on the water. Prizes were awarded to the highest performing agent, while hip hop dancers brought extra energy to the evening. Pandaw operates weekly luxury cruises between Ho Chi Minh and Siem Reap as well as trips in Myanmar.

Sin Koem Srun, Prak Vanthirith, Heng Sreylin, Peng Sokunthea, Hin Sinat and Pour Sokhac.

Y Seng, online sales manager, Siv Fong, sales manager, and Kong Socheata, sales manager, all from Cambodia Service.

Neville Joseph and Alexander Scheible, general manager at Pandaw Cruises.

24

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Sport

Mountain air
Frances Loic Collomb-Patton competes on the Bec de Rosses mountain during the Xtreme Freeride World Tour nal on Saturday above the Swiss Alps resort of Verbier. Collomb-Patton nished third behind stage winner Reine Barkered of Sweden to clinch the overall world champion title. AFP

HE University of Wisconsin defeated the University of Arizona in overtime on Saturday night to reach the Final Four after Florida won 62-52 to eliminate Dayton at college basketballs national mens tournament. Junior forward Frank Kaminsky scored a gamehigh 28 points, including six in overtime, as Wisconsin, the No.2 seed in the West, rallied to beat top seed Arizona 64-63 in Anaheim, California. The Badgers, who are seeking to put an end to their 73-year wait for a second National Collegiate Athletic Association title, advanced to the national seminals for the rst time since 2000. How about these guys, how resilient are they? Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said in a televised interview. Im so proud of them. The result means there will be only one No.1 seed Florida in the Final Four for the third time in four years. Topseeded Wichita St and Virginia lost earlier in the tournament. Arizona led by as many as eight points in the rst half and didnt trail until 15 minutes, 13 seconds left to play in the second half. The teams traded baskets in the nal minutes, with Arizonas Rondae Hollis-Jefferson tying the score at 54-54 with 36 seconds

Wisconsin prevail in OT t

Sixers dodge losing record with big win

THE Philadelphia 76ers avoided a record-setting 27th straight National Basketball Association loss with a dominating 123-98 home victory over the struggling Detroit Pistons on Saturday. Thaddeus Young nished with 21 points, six rebounds and three assists for the 76ers, who came into the contest having lost 18 straight at home and 26 overall, equaling the longest losing streak in league history. I am happy for the players and I am happy for the fans, the Sixers coach, Brett Brown, said. I am real happy for the players. The Cleveland Cavaliers set the NBA record with 26 straight losses in 2010-11. The Sixers 26 losses also matched the record for the longest losing skid of any major North American professional sports team. The NFLs Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost 26 straight contests from September 12, 1976 to December 4, 1977. Just happy to get a win, Young said of Philadelphias rst victory since they beat the Boston Celtics on January 29. I dont think we were thinking about the streak. We just wanted to go out there and win a basketball game. Michael Carter-Williams helped pace the attack in front of the crowd of 17,438 by scoring 21 points for the 76ers, who shot 52 per cent from the eld. Philadelphia also ended their franchiserecord 18-game losing home streak at the Wells Fargo Center arena. Carter-Williams said the key was sharing the ball. We tried to concentrate on every single possession, said Carter-Williams, who also had seven rebounds, four assists and four steals. Play smart and just do the right things and use each other. We came out with re. Henry Sims tallied 16 points with seven rebounds and Hollis Thompson scored 14 points on four-of-four shooting from beyond the arc in the win. The Sixers management has been insisting all along they are in a rebuilding mode. At the trade deadline they dumped players by sending Evan Turner, Spencer Hawes and Lavoy Allen packing. Some Philadelphia fans have accused them of deliberately losing matches this season in order to get a prime pick in the entry draft. We chose a path and some may agree with it and some may not. We are not claiming it to be the correct way to do it. We dont want to blink, Brown said. AFP

Frank Kaminsky of the Wisconsin Badgers celebrates his teams 64-63 overtime win against the Arizona Wildcats by cutting down the net. AFP

left. Wisconsin had the nal possession of the second half and was unable to win the game when Traevon Jacksons jumper hit the rim with two seconds remaining. With the Wildcats trailing by one point with ve seconds remaining in overtime, Arizona guard Nick Johnson was called for an offensive foul that turned the ball over. After Wisconsin gave it back on the ensuing inbounds a turnover that was conrmed after a ve-minute replay review Arizona was unable to get off a shot for the win. We gave it everything we

had, Kaminsky said. Im honored to be a part of this team. Earlier in Memphis, the top-seeded Gators cruised to a 62-52 victory over No.11 seed Dayton. Florida reached the Final Four for a fth time after losing in the round of eight in the previous three NCAA tournaments. Florida guard Scottie Wilbekin scored a game-high 23 points and centre Patric Young added 12 points, six rebounds and four blocks for the Gators in their 30th consecutive win. Daytons Dyshawn Pierre led the Flyers

with 18 points in Memphis. Young gave credit for the win to coach Billy Donovan, who has guided the program to the NCAA seminals for the rst time in seven years. The team won NCAA titles under Donovan in 2006 and 2007. Hes been able to push us every single day from the beginning of the season all the way through, helping us stay in the moment, Young said in a televised interview. In doing that, everything else has come with it, the win streak, the SEC tournament championship and this group of guys. Dayton held its only lead of the game for exactly one minute starting with a Scoochie Smith 3-point shot with 7:01 remaining in the rst half and ending with a Michael Frazier II layup 60 seconds later. The Gators outscored the Flyers 19-3 after Smiths shot gave Dayton a 21-19 lead, and Florida went into the half up 38-24. Florida led by double digits for most of the second half and withheld a late Dayton rally that cut the lead to eight with less than two minutes left on the clock. The national seminals are scheduled for this coming Saturday in Arlington, Texas, with the championship game two days later at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. BLOOMBERG

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Sport

25

Serena roars back to victory T

ennis star Serena Williams snapped out of her early doldrums to roar to a record seventh Miami WTA title on Saturday with a 7-5, 6-1 win over Chinas Li Na. In a battle of the worlds top two players, the US world number one took her tally of WTA titles to 59 including 17 Grand Slam triumphs. She added a second trophy in 2014 to the one she lifted in Brisbane in January and joined Martina Navratilova, Stef Graf and Chris Evert as the only women in the Open era to win the same title seven or more times. I was actually super-excited at the end, said Williams, who already owned the most WTA titles in the combined mens and womens event but had shared the overall record of six trophies with Andre Agassi. Obviously I wanted to have the most titles here, added Williams, who lives in Miami and rst played the tournament as a 16-year-old. I guess that Ive grown up coming to this tournament as a kid, watching so many players, and to be one of those players now is really, really awesome for me, she said. Williams ebullient celebration was a sharp contrast to her somnambulant start, during which Australian Open champion Li powered to a 5-2 lead with Williams surrendering a second service break with a double fault in the seventh game. The seriousness of her situation seemed to wake Williams up. She won the next ve games to take the set, saving a set point in the 10th game and hanging on to break Li in a 12th game that went to deuce six times. I really thought I could do better, Williams said of her thoughts at falling 5-2 down. My serve, percentage was super, super low, and I thought, OK, I can serve a little better, and I know I can return better. Im practic-

Star skater Asada coy on retirement decision

JAPANESE figure skater Mao Asada said yesterday, the day after winning the world title, that she needed more time to decide when to retire from competition. Asada, the runner-up to South Korean star Kim Yu-Na at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, has kept her fans and skating officials in suspense by saying she had a 50-50 chance of continuing to compete after this season. What I feel is that I need some rest now, the 23-year-old told reporters during an exhibition after the season-closing world figure skating championships in Saitama near Tokyo. Meanwhile, compatriot Yuzuru Hanyu added the mens world crown to his Olympic gold medal and Grand Prix Final title a hat-trick of global titles in the same season previously achieved only by Russian Alexei Yagudin in 2001-2002. AFP

Angels celebrate new long-term Trout deal

Serena Williams of the US saw off Chinas Li Na with a straight-sets victory 7-5, 6-1 to win the Sony Open title in Miami for a seventh time.

AFP

ing all these years and I have a good return. I need to start doing it. Although she delivered only three aces in a match that lasted just under two hours, Williams serve did steadily improve as the match wore on, as did the power and precision of her returns. She seized a 5-1 lead in the second set with a erce backhand winner on her fth break point of the game and wrapped up the contest on her rst match point.

Although the match turned so dramatically, with Williams winning 11 of the last 12 games, Li had little to reproach herself for as she continued to battle even as Williams inexorably pulled away. I dont think I was playing bad, Li said. Maybe she just started playing a little bit better after 5-2 down. I think it was a pretty good match. Li, who won her second Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in Janu-

ary, has now lost 10 straight matches against Williams. Her only victory in their 12 meetings was back in 2008, but Williams said that she always feels challenged by Li. We just have this never give up ght, Williams said, adding that she also feels a special connection with Li because they are both still battling on the WTA tour at 32 years of age. It just goes to show that you can still shine at any age, Williams said. AFP

Broad looks for new England era after tough winter

STUART Broad looked forward to a new England era after a miserable winter ended with a World Twenty20 exit in Chittagong on Saturday. England went down by three runs in a pulsating Super-10 stage Group One match against South Africa, going out of the semi-final race after two defeats in three matches. That ended a frustrating winter for England who also lost the coveted Ashes in Australia, a whitewash which turned acrimonious with the axing of key batsman Kevin Pietersen. Its going to be a new era of English cricket, isnt it? It has been a tough winter, Broad admitted. Weve been away a huge amount of time so there is some fantastic opportunities available for players in the summer. Broad said that, despite the exit, there were still some positives for the 2010 World Twenty20 champions. Weve had a lot of positives come out of this World Cup. If we had got out of the group there would have been a lot of surprised people. Were disappointed but weve done some good stuff with the squad available to us, said Broad. England had looked like the side to beat after they upset favourites Sri Lanka on Thursday, successfully chasing a challenging 190-run target. Alex Hales smashed a brilliant 64-ball 116 not out to carry England to their first win but South Africa piled up the tournaments highest total of 196-5 on Saturday which was beyond England who managed to reach 193-7. Broad conceded rival captain AB de Villierss 29-ball 69 not out made the difference. Weve come up three runs short and theres some pretty clear ways we could have stopped those three runs, said the captain. We didnt field well, but that can happen in these conditions. We didnt have the one guy going to get the Hales-like knock like he did the other day or 60 or 70 you realistically need in these sort of chases. But, sometimes a team, you have to hold your hands up and that knock from AB is as good as youll ever see. He hits the ball 360 degrees and targeted the short boundary with fantastic success. We tried to go for yorkers but in these conditions its unrealistic to get your yorkers consistently with a bar of soap. Broad said losing some key players Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Luke Wright ahead of the tournament also took its toll on England. We lost key men through injury. We can hold our heads up high and at the end of the day Twenty20 is an entertainment business and I dont think anybody is going to leave the ground today disappointed with nearly 400 runs scored, with sixes, fours and catches. England play their meaningless last game against the Netherlands today. Brendon McCullum hit a robust half-century to steer New Zealand to a comprehensive six-wicket win over the Netherlands in Chittagong on Saturday. McCullum hit a punishing 45-ball 65 with three sixes and four boundaries to make easy work of a 152-run target which New Zealand chased down in 19 overs. McCullum also became the first man to reach 2,000 runs in Twenty20 cricket when he cleared 21 in his 67th match. The victory gives New Zealand their second win in three games while the Netherlands, the only associate side to qualify for the second round, crashed out of the event with three defeats in as many games. AFP

ThE Los Angeles Angels on Saturday celebrated the six-year contract extension for rising star Mike Trout, worth a reported US$144.5 million. I cant explain the feeling right now. Im just happy to be here for the next seven years, the 22-yearold Trout said during the announcement in Angel Stadium parking lot. Word of the deal had leaked on Friday night, when multiple media outlets reported the 2012 American League Rookie of the Year had agreed terms on the deal that will kick in 2015. The Angels had already signed Trout to a oneyear deal for $1 million, wanting to get that taken care of before the season started as they worked on a long-term pact. This way, the long-term deal wont count toward their salary cap in 2014, helping them avoid a luxury tax payment. AFP

Jackson surprisingly released by Eagles

ThE Philadelphia Eagles have released wide receiver DeSean Jackson. The stunning move is believed to be related to offfield issues with NJ.com reporting: A bad attitude, an inconsistent work ethic, missed meetings and a lack of chemistry with head coach Chip Kelly are the reasons. The receiver had 82 catches for 1,332 yards and nine touchdowns last season and is certain to attract interest from other teams. Its been a busy free-agency period for the Eagles, with Michael Vick going to the New York Jets and Mark Sanchez moving in the opposite direction. THE GUARDIAN

Spurs beat Pelicans to equal club win record

Todays Fixtures
England v Netherlands 4:30pm New Zealand v Sri Lanka 8:30pm

England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler (left) watches as South Africa batsman AB de Villiers plays a shot during the ICC World Twenty20 tournament cricket match on Saturday. AFP

Tim Duncan had 12 points as the San Antonio Spurs beat New Orleans 96-80 for their 17th straight victory to match the longest win streak in franchise history. Marco Belinelli scored 18 points on four-of-five shooting from three-point range for the Spurs, who also have the longest winning run in the NBA this season. Duncan also had eight rebounds. This team has a really high basketball IQ and everyone knows that, said Spurs forward Austin Daye. AFP

26

Football Families seek the truth in new Hillsborough inquests

THE families of 96 Liverpool supporters who died in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster will gather in a purpose-built court today to hear fresh inquests into the deaths in Britains worst sporting disaster. The fans were caught up in a crush on a terrace during an FA Cup seminal against Nottingham Forest at the Hillsborough Stadium in Shefeld, northern England. Some died on the pitch as fellow fans and police ofcers desperately tried to revive them, while other fans made makeshift stretchers out of advertising hoardings. The new hearings into how the supporters died follow a twodecade campaign by their families to overturn what they saw as a concerted cover-up by the police and authorities. In December 2012, the High Court in London quashed the original coroners verdicts of accidental death and called for fresh inquests to be held. That move followed the publication of a damning independent report that concluded that 41 of those who died would have had the potential to survive if they had received medical treatment more quickly. Two new investigations were launched, one by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and one wider criminal inquiry. The IPCC the police watchdog said Thursday it had interviewed 13 retired or serving police ofcers on suspicion of offences including manslaughter and perverting the course of justice. On Friday, police said the two investigations were treating a total of 22 people as suspects not all of them police ofcers giving new hope to the families of the dead. The probe has already unearthed evidence that South Yorkshire Police altered statements submitted by ofcers on the day of the disaster. The inquests begin on Monday in a temporary courtroom complex on the outskirts of Warrington, east of Liverpool. The relatives will not see the justice they crave done in the hearings. Inquests seek to examine the circumstances in which the deceased came by their deaths, but do not apportion blame. But the Liverpool supporters families will hope the process can help them learn more both about how their loved ones died and the chaotic aftermath in the light of a huge amount of new evidence. The inquests are expected to last at least nine months. It was revealed at a pre-inquest hearing on Thursday that an hour of previously unseen television footage from the disaster had been unearthed by the BBC, which could form new evidence. AFP

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

AC Milans Brazilian forward Kaka celebrates with team-mates after scoring during their Italian Serie A match against Chievo.

AFP

Kaka hopeful for World Cup

BRAZiliAn forward Ricardo Kaka said he still believes in his World Cup chances, but refused to rule out leaving AC Milan amid speculation he could opt to play in the United States from next season. Kaka has appeared only sporadically for Brazil in recent years, but was called into Luiz Felipe Scolaris squad for friendlies with Italy and Russia last year. After scoring a brace in a 3-0 win over Chievo on Saturday in his 300th game for the Rossoneri, Kaka said: Theres still time for the World Cup. I just have to keep playing well with Milan. On May 7 the squad will be announced, and I believe Im still in with a chance. Kaka, meanwhile, refused to rule out leaving the club at the end of what has been a torrid campaign for the Serie A giants. The Brazilian, who won the Champions League and the Ballon DOr while playing for Milan from 20032009, returned to Milan at the start of the current season following an unsuccessful spell with Real Madrid. However, recently he has been linked with a move to the Orlando City Soccer club, which is set to debut in the Major Soccer League (MLS). A tweet posted by Orlando founder and president Philip Rawlins on Saturday said: @OrlandoCitySC were ready when you are Ricardo :) Kaka is believed to have a clause in his contract that allows him to quit Milan at the end of this season if they fail to qualify for the Champions League. Milan are now 19 points behind Napoli in the first Champions League qualifying spot and have little chance of qualifying for Europes premier club event. Asked about his intentions at the end of the campaign, Kaka appeared dismissive: Im happy here and I hope to stay. Well see how things are at the end of the season. However, speculation is mounting, and club CEO Adriano Galliani said: Ricky has the clause in his contract [that allows him to leave], but we hope he doesnt exercise it. AFP

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Football

27

Svay Rieng keep up pace

H S Manjunath

Simeone hails one of Atleticos best games

efending champions Svay Rieng made up some ground on the leading pack at the end of seven weeks of action in the Metfone CLeague after a 4-1 victory yesterday over Kirivong Sok Sen Chey, with all the goals coming in the rst-half at the Olympic Stadium. Svay Riengs third win in six outings was built on a brace by hard-working striker Dzarma Bata, who nicely centred the ball for Moung Makara to score the third. Takeo-based Kirivong contributed one more to the kitty through Touch Sokhengs own goal. The only bright spot for Kirivong was a brilliant solo effort by Carlos Alberto Santos de Deus, who managed to level on 12 minutes following Svay Riengs sixth-minute opener from Bata. The portents were ominous for Kirivong within the rst few attacking moves by Svay Rieng, when Bata greeted Nou Rasak Lawals cross with a neat placement to open the account. Even as the South American De Deus gave his team heart to ght with that leveler, the equation rmly worked in favour of Svay Rieng once Kirivong made that horrible slip in their own backyard. Bata and Makara quickly consolidated the lead and Svay Rieng could then afford to slow down the tempo in the second-half. The winless Kirivong are now loitering in the rear with four points from seven games (four draws and three defeats) just ahead of bottom-enders Albirex Niigata. Meanwhile close calls and slender victory margins marked the rest of Saturdays action. Striker Bisan Georges 19th-minute goal turned out to be the match winner for four-time champions Phnom Penh Crown against TriAsia at the Olympic Stadium. In the later xture, Hun Sen Cup runners-up Build Bright United rode home that momentum with a hardfought 1-0 win over Ministry of National Defence. The University-backed side grimly held on to a fourth minute strike by Takno Marin while keeping the Armymen at bay the rest of the way. Crown took several promising swipes at their opponents goal to try

ATLETICO Madrid manager Diego Simeone lauded his sides resolve as they came from a goal down to remain top of La Liga by beating Athletic Bilbao 2-1 at San Mames on Saturday. A 33rd goal of the season from Diego Costa cancelled out Iker Muniains early goal for the hosts before Koke headed home a vital winner 10 minutes into the second-half Victory means Atletico maintain their one point lead over Barcelona who were also narrow victors 1-0 over Espanyol on Saturday with just seven games remaining. AFP

Knee injury set to end Thiagos Bayern season

BaYERN Munichs Spain midfielder Thiago Alcantara is expected to miss the rest of the season after a scan revealed he has partially torn the medial ligament in his right knee. The 22-year-old attacking midfielder must wear a cast for the next 14 days and is expected to miss the next six to eight weeks after limping off in Saturdays 3-3 draw at home to Hoffenheim. He is definitely out of tomorrows Champions League quarterfinal, first leg at Manchester United, as well as the return leg in Munich on April 9 and the semi-finals at the end of April should Bayern progress. AFP

Monaco slip to rare defeat at Evian TG

AEUs Chhin Nisa raises his foot in a challenge on Boeung Kets Mohammed Tijani (front) during their game at Old Stadium.
SRENG MENG SRUN

and beef up their lead without success while TriAsias desperate search for an equaliser proved fruitless. Though the top tier start-ups managed to limit the damage to that one early goal, their own attacking trio of Soung Virak, Kouch Dany and Khara Masakazu couldnt make the most of the chances they were able to create. The victory helped Crown retain their dominance in the league standings, albeit only by goal-difference at 16 points over Naga Corp, who hit back at National Police Commissary 2-1 at the Old Stadium on Saturday to avenge their narrow Cup semi-nal defeat. Sun Sovannrithy stepped in to convert a penalty kick as early

as the eighth minute to give Naga a whirlwind start. Fighting as hard as they always do, the Police found the equaliser through Noun Borey deep into stoppage time in the rst-half after the game had been delayed due to repairs on the goal net. Sun Sovannrithy was back to settle the argument once and for all in the 83rd minute with a perfect header. Amazingly enough, a ercely fought encounter between Boeung Ket Rubber Field and Asia Europe University took several devious turns before Chukwuma Ohuruogus 79th-minute goal ensured a 3-2 win for the 2013 runners-up and 2012 winners.

The teams shared four goals in the rst half an hour of intense action. The AEU joy of watching Ear Phiroth drive the team into the lead in the 17th minute was shortlived as Mohammed Tijani came up with a 20th minute strike for Boeung Ket. The University lads led again when Prak Vanny scored in the 26th minute only to see Chan Vatanaka restore parity two minutes later. At 2-2 each side had as good a shout as the other until Darlington snatched the full set of points for Boeung Ket, who are now third in the table with 15 points. AEU slipped down to ninth having suffered their fourth loss on top of a lone win and two draws.

MONaCO suffered a surprise 1-0 defeat away to Evian on Saturday to leave Paris SaintGermain 13 points clear at the top of the Ligue 1 table with just seven games left. Just three days after trouncing Lens 6-0 in the quarter-finals of the French Cup, the principality club slipped to just their fourth league loss of the campaign as Cedric Mongongus 86thminute penalty made the difference. AFP

SATURDAYs RESULTS
English Premier League
Man United 4 Aston Villa 1 Southampton 4 Newcastle 0 Stoke 1 Hull 0 Swansea 3 Norwich 0 West Brom 3 Cardiff 3 Real Madrid 5 Rayo Vallecano 0 Celta de Vigo 1 Sevilla 0

Mourinho writes off title

JOsE Mourinho has written off Chelseas chances of regaining the Premier League title and publicly questioned his players attitude and mentality after his side slipped to defeat at Crystal Palace. John Terrys own goal proved decisive as Palace beat their opponents for the first time in the league in 24 years, with Chelseas second successive away defeat handing the initiative firmly to Manchester City and Liverpool in the title race. City, however, failed to move to the top of the Premier League after Saturdays 1-1 draw against Arsenal. Mourinho had an altercation with a ball boy, which ended with a hug and handshake, before the end as frustration briefly flared, but made a beeline for the home dressing room post-match to congratulate Tony Pulis and his players on their victory. sible, but one thing is mathematics and another is reality. We are not [contenders]. I dont think it will happen: we depend too much on other results, and the other teams control what they need. I dont think we can win the league now. I know that Mr Foys weekend [when the referee oversaw the loss at Aston Villa earlier this month] was an important weekend in this run, but today we threw away three points, Mourinho continued. We lost against a team who are difficult, but against a team who were better than us in terms of spirit and mentality. Thats the last thing my teams are usually guilty of: normally, they dont lose because the opponents are stronger in terms of spirit. Asked what had cost his side, the Blues manager explained: Mentality, and a little bit of quality. THE GUARDIAN

Five-a-side tournament to heighten World Cup fever

Dan Riley

Spanish La Liga

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho looks on from the touchline during their match against Crystal Palace on Saturday. AFP

I think now we have lost any chance of finishing first, Mourinho said. Now we depend too much on other results. Too much. When you depend a little its possible, but when you depend a lot, I dont think it is. Six matches for us, and others with matches in hand . . . I know mathematically its pos-

FOOTBALL fanatics will have the chance to enhance their 2014 World Cup experience with a specially-created tournament on June 1. The one-day ve-a-side competition, entitled Phnom Penh 5s World Cup and hosted by Excel Events, will see 16 teams play in a World Cup style format on the articial turf of the new 3G Field. Each team will play a minimum of ve games lasting 25 minutes each, three of which will be during a group stage before quarter-nals, seminals and the nal. A maximum of 10 players are allowed to register for each team, and rst aid and physiotherapy will be available for free during games that start from 9am and continue until 3pm.

Its going to be huge, event organiser Jimmy Campbell stated in a press release. Weve booked six pitches four for games, one for warm up and one for a shaded chill out area. Families will also be encouraged to attend with an area for kids to enjoy including a bouncy castle. Included in the US$275 per team entrance fee is trophies, medals, food and beverages. We prefer nationalities to represent their own country but will allow players to join another national team, stated Campbell. In the situation where more than one team wishes to represent the same nation, the earliest registered side will assume the nations name (ie. Cambodia) while subsequent sides will have to add an extra name (ie. Cambodia Blues).

Mainz 3 Augsburg 0 Bayer Leverkusen 1 Eintracht Braunschweig 1 Stuttgart 2 Bor Dortmund 3 Wolfsburg 2 E Frankfurt 1 Freiburg 3 Nurnberg 2 On Friday Schalke 2 Hertha Berlin 0

German Bundesliga

Italian Serie A

Bologna 0 Atalanta 2

Sochaux 1 Marseille 1 Ajaccio 2 Toulouse 2 Montpellier 0 Valenciennes 0 Nantes 0 Bordeaux 0 Reims 1 Lorient 1 On Friday Nice 0 Paris SG 1

French Ligue 1

tONights fiXtures
English Premier League Italian Serie A
Udinese v Catania 12am Livorno v Inter Milan 2am Granada v Levante 1am Real Betis v Malaga 3am Sunderland v West Ham 2am

Spanish La Liga

28

THE PHNOM PENH POST MARCH 31, 2014

Sport
Hamilton storms to Malaysia win B
Talek Harris

RitAins Lewis Hamilton broke an eight-month win drought and roared into the Formula One title race with a commanding victory at the Malaysian Grand Prix yesterday. Hamilton streaked away from pole position and was never pressured as he led a Mercedes one-two with Nico Rosberg which conrmed the German marques dominance in the new Formula One era. Four-time defending world champion Sebastian Vettel was powerless to catch Rosberg in his Red Bull and he nished third, with Ferraris Fernando Alonso fourth and Nico Hulkenberg fth for Force India. The win was sweet for Hamilton, who has not topped the podium since Hungary last July and retired early at the season-opener in Australia, setting back his bid for a second world title. Rain had badly disrupted qualifying but Malaysias notorious downpours were largely absent as Hamilton took the chequered ag 17 seconds ahead of Rosberg. Afterwards, he paid tribute to the victims of the mysterious MH370 plane disappearance, which cast a shadow over the race and was blamed for poor ticket sales with the Sepang circuit only about half-full. Incredible, incredible, Hamilton said of the win. I just feel so grateful particularly after such a tragedy three weeks ago. I would like to dedicate it to those people and their families. After a sombre minutes silence for the MH370 missing, Hamilton

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton (left) waves to the crowd after winning the Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix yesterday.

AFP

got away smoothly from pole as his teammate Rosberg squeezed inside Vettel and into second position on the starting straight. Behind the leaders, McLarens Kevin Magnussen clipped Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonens right rear tyre, leaving him with a at, and

Pastor Maldonado crashed with Jules Bianchi. Hamilton was streaking away in front and he had a 5.2-second lead by lap nine, with Rosberg nearly four seconds ahead of Vettel in third and Daniel Ricciardo fourth in the second Red Bull.

Williams Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, who was warned over the radio to stop attacking his teammate, moved up a place when Magnussen had to come in for a stop-go penalty for his collision with Raikkonen. Hamilton pitted after lap 15 and rejoined behind Force Indias Hulk-

enberg, who had yet to make his rst stop, and he quickly regained the lead with an eight-second advantage over Rosberg. Mercedes relaxed instructions to Hamilton were just keep doing what youre doing as the former world champion extended to a 10-second lead by halfway and with Rosberg comfortably ahead of Vettel. As rain started falling on parts of the track, the two leaders were the last to come in for their second pit stops and Hamilton regained with a healthy 12-second lead. Red Bull reported trouble with Ricciardos fuel sensor but then disaster struck the Australian as after his third pit stop, he drove off with a loose front left wheel and had to go back to the garage. It got worse for Ricciardo, disqualied from second place for a fuel sensor issue in Melbourne, when his front wing came loose and he had to return to the pits again, nally rejoining in 16th. And the ofcials compounded the misery of the troubled Australian when they pulled him in for a 10-second stop-go penalty for the unsafe pit stop release. He retired before the nish. Behind the top ve, Jenson Button was sixth for McLaren and Massa nished seventh, ahead of Bottas despite team instructions ordering him to let his teammate pass. Several drivers wore helmet stickers reading Pray for MH370 and the Malay-language Doa Untuk MH370 after 239 people were presumed killed in the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. AFP

Asia ght back to share EurAsia Cup with Europe

TeAM Asia pulled off a stirring comeback in the final round of the inaugural EurAsia Cup to snatch a share of the trophy by taking six of ten singles matches played on Saturday. The spectacular collapse of Team Europe, who entered the final day singles matches 7-3 up, was totally unexpected, despite Asias marvellous fightback on the second day after a 5-0 thrashing in the four-balls on Thursday. It had echoes of Europes Miracle of Medinah at the last Ryder Cup in 2012 when they fought back from 10-6 down on the final day to beat the Americans 14.5-13.5. The outcome will go some way towards helping raise the profile of a tournament clouded by a war of words between its organisers and those who stage the rival Royal Trophy competition. None epitomised Asias desire more than Thailands Prayad Marksaeng, who fought back from four down after the first nine to halve with world number 28 Jamie Donaldson in the fourth match-up of the day at the Glenmarie Golf and Country Club in Kuala Lumpur. Asian captain Thongchai Jaide attributed the positive attitudes of his players as the reason for the teams improbable comeback. We had a team talk the day before and I told them anything is possible in golf. They also believed in themselves even though we were trailing by four points, the former Thai paratrooper said. With the European players unable to find their range, Asia drew level at 8.5 after winning five of the opening seven ties and halving one. Only European captain Miguel Angel Jimenez held his nerve as he edged Malaysian Nicholas Fung at the last hole when the local youngster could only lip out his final putt after splendidly going toe-totoe with the Spaniard through 17 holes. That miss would eventually prove the difference, but Fungs performance gave his teammates a big boost. Asia got their points when captain Thongchai Jaidee defeated Major winner Graeme McDowell 3 and 2. Reigning Asian number one Kiradech Aphibarnrat then beat Thomas Bjorn 2 and 1. After Marksaeng halved with Donaldson, Asia got more points when Kim Hyung-sung beat Pablo Larrazabal 4 and 2, Anirban Lahiri edging Victor Dubuisson 2 and 1 and Gaganjeet Bhullar thrashing Thorbjorn Olesen 4 and 3. Asia went into the lead for the first time in the contest at 9.5-8.5 when Siddikur Rahman outplayed Stephen Gallacher 4 and 3, only for Joost Luiten to edge Koumei Oda on the final hole. Gonzalo Fe r n a n d e z Castano and Hideto Tanihara were left to battle it out for the trophy and were all square after 14 holes. The pressure nearly took its toll on Fernandez-Castano on the 15th hole when he missed a two-foot putt to hand the advantage to his 35-yearold opponent. He redeemed himself on the next hole with an eagle and the two players failed to get the better of each other in the remaining two holes. I was shaking at the final hole. Its totally different when you are playing for a team, Fernandez-Castano admitted. Everything was down to my game and if I could go back,

Team Europe captain Miguel Angel Jimenez (left) and Team Asia captain Thongchai Jaidee hold the EurAsia Trophy after the teams drew 10-10 in the inaugural competition in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday. AFP

probably to the 15th again, but a half was a fair result. Jimenez doffed his hat at Asias incredible fightback after an amazing day of golf. The Asian team played very well. To win six matches and get seven points from 10 showed

that golf is very competitive and healthy, said Jimenez, who may be Europes Ryder Cup vice-captain in September, if he fails in his bid to make the team as a player. The players and officials held a moment of silence for the

passengers and crew of missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight before Prime Minister Najib Razak presented the prizes. Najib also confirmed Malaysia will host the next two editions of the EurAsia Cup in 2016 and 2018. AFP