27 Jan
The 22nd annual World Report summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide in 2011.
Cambodia from HRW - world report 2012.
It reflects extensive investigative work that Human Rights Watch staff has undertaken during the year, often in close partnership with domestic human rights activists.
Read the part about the Cambodian human rights conditions:
27 Jan
Cebu Pacific Air - It's time everyone flies -
Budget carrier Cebu Pacific will be mounting flights to Siem Reap, Cambodia by April 19. This makes it the first to do so after local airlines were granted rights to shuttle passengers into the Southeast Asian neighbor Cambodia.
27 Jan
Police Blotter - Jan 26, 2012 - Phnom Penh Post, Cambodia.
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26 Jan
Snoul district, Kratie province:
On January 18, 2012, military personnel acting as security guards for TTY Co. Ltd opened fire on a group of villagers who had gathered to prevent clearing of their farmland by company’s excavators.
Four villagers were injured by bullets. None of the authorities present during the shooting proceeded to arrest the perpetrators.
In the mean time, the Kratie provincial court has issued a summons for two rubber plantation security guards accused of opening fire on demonstrating villagers.
The summons requires the two men to appear on Jan. 30 for questioning under the new penal code for the use of illegal weapons, a court official said on condition of anonymity.
26 Jan
Khmer language
Mozilla Firefox, one of the world’s most widely used Internet browsers will officially launch the first-ever Khmer-language browser by mid-march 2012.
The browser is 98 percent complete, with almost all of the 6,066 total strings – or commands such as print, view, download and help – translated into Khmer.
How successful the browser will turn out to be is uncertain due to the very few people in Cambodia hooked up to an Internet connection.
According to 2010 figures from the International Telecommunications Union, Cambodia only has about 70,000 regular Internet users. Still, Cambodia’s web presence is growing fast, with data from Internet World Stats.com showing that Cambodia had 255,660 Facebook usersin March 2011, up from a meager 13,380 users in August 2010.
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25 Jan
Abundant supply of labor coupled with preferential market access to several markets is making the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia one of the preferred alternatives for garment companies wishing to shift their manufacturing base outside China.
Garment industry Cambodia
Higher wages in China.
Wages in China have risen by 18-20 percent annually during the past three years. This increase in the cost of production makes several units less competitive in the international market. This has induced many garment companies to search for alternative bases outside China.
More than 300 licensed garment factories in Cambodia.
On the other hand, Cambodia’s garment industry has grown substantially over the last year. Around 300 licensed garment firms in the Kingdom exported US$ 3.3 billion worth of goods in the initial 10 months of 2011, a jump of 35 percent year-on-year, according to Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC).
25 Jan
In the first scheme of its kind in the provinces, a low-cost transport system will be provided for villagers in Kratie province.
Remorks in Cambodia - Public Transportation in Cambodia.
Partners For Development had begun operations for the Providing Rural Communities Equal Care Through Transport (PROTECT) project.
The project is piloting in Prek Prasap commune and will be extended to three others during February and March.
A similar project for pregnant women and children needing emergency care was being run by USAID-RACHA in five provinces.
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24 Jan
687,000 U.S. High-Tech Jobs Lost in a Decade -
A new study released by the National Science Board (NSB) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) raises concerns about the global leadership of the U.S. in Science and Technology investments. The report also highlights massive job losses in high-tech:
More than a quarter of the nation’s high-tech manufacturing jobs were lost in the past decade.
According to the NSB, the U.S. lost about 687,000 jobs in high-tech since their peak of about 2.5 million in 2000. The organization stated that there have been “permanent” losses in an ongoing trend that affects the areas of aerospace, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications equipment, computer and office equipment as well as scientific instruments.
The NSB carefully criticized the government’s approach of funding science and research by stating that there is still a $7 billion budget for the NSF, but the U.S. is quickly dropping in the global view of investment dollars.
Between 1999 and 2009, the U.S. share dropped from 38 percent to 31 percent, while Asia gained from 24 to 35 percent during the same time. Especially China is growing fast, the NSB said, and is now the largest science and technology investor behind the U.S.
Source:
24 Jan
Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong met with diplomats from 32 countries to lobby for Cambodia’s bid to be a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.
UN Security Council
Cambodia is pushing for a seat on the council for 2013 and 2014; voting will be held later this year.
The Security Council consists of five permanent members—China, France, the UK, the US and Russia—and 10 non-permanent members and decides on international matters ranging from deployment of peacekeeping forces to sanctions against member nations.
Why I am against a non-permanent seat for Cambodia!
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23 Jan
Welcome to the Lunar Chinese New Year and the Year of the Dragon.
lunar calendar 2012
In China, the event is known as the Spring Festival (chunjie). In Southeast Asia where a holiday to mark the start of spring doesn’t make much sense, the two common names for the occasion are “Chinese New Year” and “Lunar New Year”.
But the latter term, it turns out, is neither accurate nor desirable.
“Lunar New Year” not accurate?
Contrary to popular belief, what the Chinese use is not a lunar calendar at all. An explanation of various calendar types will show why.
For thousands of years, human societies have relied on the sun or the moon, or a combination of both, to keep track of days, months and years.
Solar Calendars based on earth’s revolution around the sun.
Solar calendars are based on the revolution of the earth around the sun and totally disregard the moon. A year in such a calendar usually has 365 days, because the earth takes approximately that duration to go around the sun; leap days are added at certain intervals to make the synchronisation more exact. A clear advantage of such a calendar is that, in temperate lands, each of the four seasons generally occurs at the same time every year.
Gregorian calendar best-known solar calendar.
The Gregorian calendar, which is used in civil society, is the best-known solar calendar. Many Hindu calendars are solar too – for example, the recent Tamil harvest festival Pongal is celebrated around Jan 15 every year.
Lunar calendar: Islamic Calendar the only one.
Lunar calendars, on the other hand, ignore the movement of the earth around the sun, and instead use the revolution of the moon around the earth to mark months – the words “moon” and “month” are closely related. The moon takes about 291/2 days to go around the earth, so a month in a lunar calendar comprises 29 or 30 days. Twelve such months – adding up to 354 or 355 days – make up a lunar year, which makes it shorter than a solar year.
The Islamic calendar is the only lunar calendar in common use. Its shorter year explains why the dates of festivals such as Hari Raya Aidilfitri move backwards by 10 or 11 days from one year to the next.
Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar.
Between these two extremes lie lunisolar calendars, which take their cue from both the sun and the moon. The Jewish calendar is of this nature.
Christian liturgical calendar a combination of solar and lunisolar.….
And then there are calendars that combine two cycles, one solar and one lunisolar. The Christian liturgical calendar is one such example. Festivals such as Christmas follow the solar year and always occur on the same dates. But the date of Easter changes from year to year because it is determined by a lunisolar calculation – it falls on the Sunday following the first full moon (this is the lunar aspect) that occurs on or after the March equinox (the solar aspect: on this date, March 21, the day and night are of equal lengths).
…. as well as the Chinese calendar.
In a similar way, the Chinese calendar is a combination of a solar calendar and a lunisolar one, explains Associate Professor Helmer Aslaksen of the National University of Singapore’s Mathematics Department, in his 2010 paper The Mathematics Of The Chinese Calendar.
The solar cycle starts at the winter solstice (dongzhi, around Dec 22) and follows the 24 solar terms (jieqi), which are seasonal markers meant to guide farmers in their work – the moon is of no help to planting and harvesting, and agriculture has to rely on the seasons. Besides the winter solstice, another significant jieqi is Qingming (around April 5), which many Chinese celebrate as Tomb-Sweeping Day.
The lunisolar cycle begins at Chinese New Year. It calculates months according to the phases of the moon (this is its lunar aspect), but a leap month is inserted every two or three years to bring the calendar in sync with the solar year.
Expression “Lunar New Year” is inaccurate.
This insertion of leap months is why, unlike Muslim festivals, the date of Chinese New Year always stays within a certain period – Jan 21 to Feb 21. In fact, the calculation of this date involves both lunar and solar aspects: it must occur on the day of a new moon, of course, but not just any new moon – it is the new moon closest to Feb 4, which is the day of lichun, the solar term that marks the beginning of spring.
This explains why the expression “Lunar New Year” is inaccurate…..
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