DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Air France plane touches down Phnom Penh Airport again” plus 9 more

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA, MARCH 31, 2011-Air France plane on Thursday arrived here at Phnom Penh airport of Cambodia again after leaving this country in 1974 during the civil war.

"Ari France is playing a very important role for boosting commerce and culture ties between France and Cambodia," Dr. Sok An, deputy prime minister and minister in charge of council of minister said in welcoming ceremony at the airport.

"It also will boost the connection between the country and European countries," he stresses. He added for two months for this year, French tourists increased to 24,728 to visit here and totally 125,447 tourists from European countries.  

First air France plane A340 arrived here at 2 PM local loading about 100 tourists and French officials. French officials said in the welcoming ceremony that Air France will change plane A340 to Boeing 777 soon to expand the air transport for the two countries.

Cambodia and France have strengthened bilateral cooperation for mutual benefits, people and people. Three main Airports in Cambodia are under construction and development from French companies, SCA and Vinci.

PHNOM PENH, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia needs one billion U.S. dollars to develop all types of electric powers over twenty-year period to reach its political targets of 70 percent of rural households connecting to electricity by 2030, said a new report released on Wednesday.
The one-year-studied report, titled "Sustainable Rural Electrification Plan in Cambodia", said that the estimated one million U.S. dollars investment will be used to build sub- transmission networks, hydro-mini-grids, biomass mini-grids, new diesel mini-grids, distributions (transformers and meters), solar home systems, Photovoltaic (PV) services for community facilities, solar battery charging stations.
"Currently, only 15 percent of rural households can access to electricity," Sat Samy, secretary of state for the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME), said Wednesday during the receipt of the report from the French Ambassador to Cambodia,  Christian Connan.
"The report will be a roadmap for Cambodia to achieve its political targets of 70 percent of rural households connected to electricity by 2030," he said.
The report had been conducted by a French firm, Innovation Energie Devlopment, upon the request of the MIME with the financial support by the government of France.
Cambodia's strategy is to supply electricity to all villages in Cambodia by 2020, and by 2030, at least 70 percent of the Cambodia 's rural households will be able access to electricity.

PHNOM PENH, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia needs 350 million U.S. dollars to boost rice paddy production and rice exports to hit one million-ton a year from 2015, said a senior finance official on Wednesday.
Of the amount, 200 million U.S. dollars will be used to purchase rice paddy from farmers for processing and 150 million U. S. dollars for building hi-tech post harvest technology, Hang Chuon Naron, secretary of state for the Finance Ministry, told reporters after a seminar on environment, agriculture and development.
"Currently, the country's high-tech rice mills are capable to process only 200,000 tons of rice per year, so to meet the target of exporting 1 million tons a year by 2015, it needs to invest other five times, or around 150 million U.S. dollars, in building sophisticated rice mills," he said.
"So far, we have mobilized about 50 million U.S. dollars from banks and development partners for this task," he said.
The country, in August last year, set up a rice paddy production and rice export policy aiming to increase rice exports in  Cambodia to one million tons a year from 2015.
Hang Chuon Naron said that the target markets that Cambodia focusing on are the Europe and China.
Chan Sarun, minister of agriculture, forests and fisheries, said in the seminar that in order to meet the need in foreign markets,  the ministry has actively advised farmers to grow ten types of rice seeds that are popular among foreign countries.
"Now the issue that we need to give more attention to is sanitary and phyto-sanitary in order to adapt to international  agreements in protecting interests of our trade partner countries," he told the seminar with 150 participants, who are government  officials from the ministries of agriculture, commerce, finance, environment, industry, and rice exporters, millers, bankers as well  as development partners.
Cambodia produced 8.25 million tons of rice paddy in the harvest season 2010-2011. Of this figure, the country has 3.9  million tons of rice paddies, or 2.5 million tons of milled rice left over for exports this year, said Chan Sarun.

PHOM PENH, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has received 127,053 deportees from Thailand and Vietnam in the whole year of 2010, according to a government's statistics.
The statistic seen Wednesday showed that in the whole year of 2010, there were 127,053 deportees, among them 38,572 were women, 76,610 men and 11,871 children who were under 15 years of age.
At two important international border points with Thailand, that is, at Poit Pet in Banteay Meanchey Province and Cham Yeam in Koh Kong Province, there were 126,467, while at two major international border points with Vietnam at Bavet and Bos Morn,  both in Svay Rieng Province, there were 586 deportees.
Human trafficking becomes one of the major issues being discussed worldwide, especially, in Asia.
In the last two decades, many Cambodian people have been migrated into Thailand and Malaysia and as well as Vietnam.
There are many reasons that cause to both legal and illegal migration to those neighboring countries.
Among those reasons were poverty, lack of education, desires to improve family economic condition, lack of domestic markets, lack of understanding about human trafficking and others.
The illegal migrants are normally lured by deceptive brokers, and they are later ended up with facing challenges of violence, exploitation and human rights abuses in the countries where they were taken to.  
According to Cambodia's law, human trafficking is a serious crime which involves in the cheating or deceiving of people into sexual servitude or labor for the purpose of exploitation.

PHNOM PENH, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication earned revenues of 28.5 million U.S. dollars in 2010, up 53 percent from 18.6 million U.S. dollars in a year earlier, said the ministry's report released Thursday during its annual conference.
The revenues came from tariffs from telecommunication companies, internet operators, license fees, postal service and air waves, according to the report.
Currently, the country has two fixed phone operators -- Telecom Cambodia and Camintel Co. and nine mobile phone operators: Cam GSM (Mobitel), Mfone, Hello Axiata Company Limited, Applifone (Star- Cell), CADCOMMS (QB), Metfone (Viettel), GT -Tell (Excell), Sotelco (Beeline), and Smart Mobile.
By the end of 2010, the number of mobile phone and fixed phone users has sharply increased to about 10.9 million or 76.2 percent of the country's 14.3 million people. It was up 69 percent from only 6.44 million users by 2009.
Among the 10.9 million users, 10.54 million have been using mobile phones and 358,750 people using fixed phones.
Vietnam's Metfone has the largest users of 4.52 million, followed by Mobitel of 2.7 million and Mfone of 1.1 million, said the report.
Also, in the kingdom, there have been 20 internet service providers serving 193,858 customers to date.
"We see that telecommunication industry has rapidly developed both scopes and operational infrastructure expansion to rural areas in recent years," Minister of Posts and Telecommunication So Khun said during opening the annual conference. "This  reflects the confidence of foreign investors in Cambodian telecommunication market."
"In the vision of Cambodian government, the development of posts and telecommunication sector is one of the priority sectors for the economic growth and the country will put all its efforts to develop it to be as developed as those in advanced countries," he added.

WARSAW, March 30 (Xinhua) -- UEFA Wednesday voiced concern about Poland's highly aggressive stadium rowdies, calling them "a huge image problem" in connection with Poland's co-organization (with Ukraine) of the 2012 European Football Championship, local media reported.
UEFA especially referred to last Friday's fan riots during a Lithuania-Poland friendly in Kaunas, Lithuania, in wake of which Lithuanian police arrested 60 Polish rowdies.
At a conference, UEFA's Euro 2012 commissioner Martin Kallen mentioned the rowdy problem and pointed out that Polish football rowdies were "active".
"We saw what happened in Kaunas on Friday. This is a huge image problem for Poland," Kallen warned. He added that UEFA was monitoring the situation and praised the Polish government for undertaking steps against stadium rowdyism.
UEFA's Polish Euro 2012 commissioner Michal Listkiewicz has assured that rowdies will not interfere with the tournament.
"We just won't let them onto the stadiums," Listkiewicz said, adding that the events in Kaunas should not be linked with Euro 2012.
The Euro 2012 soccer championship, to be hosted by Poland and Ukraine from June 8 to July 1, 2012, will take place in four Polish cities of Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Poznan as well as four Ukrainian cities of Kiev, Lvov, Donetsk and Kharkov.

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Following are the standings of National Basketball Association after Wednesday's games:
Eastern Conference
NAME                WIN    LOSS      PCT     HOME    ROAD   STRK
c-Chicago            54     20      .730     32-5    22-15   W 1
a-Boston             51     22      .699     29-8    22-14   L 1           x-Miami              52     23      .693     28-10   24-13   W 1
x-Orlando            47     28      .627     26-11   21-17   L 2
x-Atlanta            43     32      .573     23-15   20-17   W 3
Philadelphia         39     36      .520     24-12   15-24   W 2
New York             37     38      .493     21-17   16-21   W 2
Indiana              34     42      .447     21-16   13-26   W 2
Charlotte            32     42      .432     20-17   12-25   W 4
Milwaukee            30     44      .405     19-19   11-25   W 1
Detroit              26     48      .351     19-18    7-30   L 1
o-New Jersey         23     51      .311     18-19    5-32   L 4
o-Toronto            20     54      .270     14-23    6-31   L 5
o-Washington         18     56      .243     16-21    2-35   L 1    
o-Cleveland          15     59      .203     10-28    5-31   L 1

Western Conference
NAME                WIN    LOSS      PCT     HOME    ROAD    STRK
x-San Antonio        57     17      .770     33-4    24-13   L 4
p-L.A. Lakers        53     20      .726     28-8    25-12   W 7
x-Dallas             53     21      .716     26-11   27-10   W 5
x-Oklahoma City      50     24      .676     28-10   22-14   W 5
Denver               45     29      .608     31-7    14-22   W 4
New Orleans          43     32      .573     25-11   18-21   W 1
Portland             43     32      .573     26-10   17-22   L 1
Memphis              42     33      .560     27-10   15-23   W 2
Houston              39     36      .520     22-14   17-22   L 1
Phoenix              36     38      .486     20-18   16-20   L 4
Utah                 36     39      .480     20-18   16-21   L 6
o-Golden State       32     44      .421     23-14    9-30   L 2
o-L.A. Clippers      29     46      .387     21-18    8-28   L 1
o-Sacramento         21     53      .284     10-27   11-26   L 1
o-Minnesota          17     58      .227     12-26    5-32   L 8
Notes: x-clinched playoff berth; a-clinched Atlantic Division; c-clinched Central Division; o-eliminated from playoffs contention; p-clinched Pacific Division.

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Following are the results of 2010-2011 National Basketball Association (NBA) games on Wednesday (home team in CAPS):
ATLANTA HAWKS bt Orlando Magic, 85-82
CHARLOTTE BOBCATS bt Cleveland Cavaliers, 98-97
INDIANA PACERS bt Detroit Pistons, 111-101
PHILADELPHIA 76ERS bt Houston Rockets, 108-97
Milwaukee Bucks bt TORONTO RAPTORS, 104-98
Miami Heat bt WASHINGTON WIZARDS, 123-107
NEW YORK KNICKS bt New Jersey Nets, 120-116
MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES bt Golden State Warriors, 110-91
Chicago Bulls bt MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES, 108-91
NEW ORLEANS HORNETS bt Portland Trail Blazers, 95-91
DENVER NUGGETS bt Sacramento Kings, 104-90
Oklahoma City Thunder bt PHOENIX SUNS, 116-98
Dallas Mavericks bt LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS, 106-100

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Sao Paulo lost 1-0 to Santa Cruz on the road in a Brazilian Cup match on Wednesday.
The visitors had hoped to win by a two-goal margin in order to eliminate the return leg, but ended up with a deficit and a must-win situation in the return leg.
A defensive mistake by Sao Paulo led to the game's only goal. In the 34th minute Santa Cruz's Gilberto centered the ball towards the net. Attempting to clear the ball, Sao Paulo's Rodrigo Souta misjudged the ball and mistakenly placed it into the back of his own goal.
The bitter loss sizzled the euphoria surrounding the club. Team captain and veteran goalie Rogerio Ceni recently celebrated his 100th career goal. Additionally, the team celebrated the return of team idol and fan favorite Luis "Fabulous" Fabiano.
The return leg against Santa Cruz will be at Sao Paulo on April 6. The winners will advance to the round of sixteen and the winners of the Brazilian Cup earn a ticket to play in the 2012 Libertadores Cup.

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Led by an in-form Oscar, Internacional eased to a 3-0 victory at home against Bolivia's Jorge Wilsterman on Wednesday in Group 6 of the Libertadores Cup.
Internacional's first goal came in the 18th minute of play when Oscar's second chance at goal slammed the ball into the Jorge Wilsterman net.
Returning to the second half, the team scored again in the 57th minute when Oscar passed a great ball to a wide-open D'Alessandro who stuffed the ball into the left side of the goal. The third goal was scored by a sliding Ze Roberto, cleaning up a Kleber crossed ball in the 72nd minute.
The result gives Internacional sole leadership of Group 6 with 10 points. A draw against Mexico's Jaguares on the road on April 6 will be enough for the team to qualify into the round of 16 with two games remaining in group action.
In order to achieve an early qualification in the Libertadores Cup, head coach Celso Roth will use a mixed team of starters and reserves on April 2 against Lajeadense in the second half of the Rio Grande do Sul state championship in order to keep his star athletes fresh.