DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Cambodian PM Hun Sen’s Key speeches at Inaugurating New Port Construction of Phnom Penh Autonomous Port” plus 9 more

The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors met on Tuesday to discuss an Inspection Panel investigation of the Cambodia Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) and the proposals of World Bank Management responding to the findings of the Inspection Panel.

The Board considered the Panel report and approved Management's Action Plan for addressing the issues raised by the Panel, according to the WB press release.

The Panel Investigation report notes that the Project "undoubtedly benefited about one million households," and recognizes "this important achievement of LMAP." The project provided 1.24 million predominantly poor Cambodians with land titles and its goal was to provide fair and transparent access to land in a country where property rights were destroyed through decades of conflict. The report agrees with the view that securing land rights is critical to sustained poverty reduction in Cambodia.

The release added the the Panel also found there were problems, many of which Management identified in an earlier report in 2009. Residents in the Boeung Kak Lake area were denied access to due process of adjudication of their property claims and were displaced in violation of the policies the Bank agreed with the Government for handling resettlement. Management did not adequately follow up on strengthening public awareness and community participation, and there were delays in implementing dispute resolution mechanisms and the assistance to improve state land management. The Panel also found management was too slow to respond to the evictions.

"We are deeply troubled and frustrated about the people who are being forced from their homes. We have been working hard to try and help them, with an action plan offering the Government financing and technical advice to find practical solutions. We are open to other ways to help these people. We have repeatedly called on the Government to end the evictions. We are seeking a positive Government response," said World Bank President, Robert Zoellick.

The Panel Investigation was conducted in response to a Request for Inspection submitted on September 4, 2009, by NGOs on behalf of residents in the Boeung Kak Lake area of central Phnom Penh, who have been forcibly resettled by the Phnom Penh Municipality and a private developer to make way for a new development. The Inspection Panel Report focused on whether the Bank has complied with its own policies including Resettlement Policies during the design, implementation and supervision of the LMAP.

The residents of Boeung Kak Lake alleged that evictions were being carried out in violation of the agreed Resettlement Policy Framework established under LMAP, and applicable to the eviction of people from state land in project titling areas.

An IDA credit for LMAP was approved by the Board on February 26, 2002, in an amount equivalent to US $24.3 million. The project was designed to support the first phase of the Government of Cambodia's long-term plan to build a modern land administration system, by improving land tenure security and promoting the development of efficient land markets. Canada, Finland and Germany provided co-financing to the project. Cambodia's land administration system was largely destroyed during the Khmer Rouge era.
The Government canceled financing for the project on September 7, 2009 after the Bank suggested joint suspension of the project pending discussions on the application of its safeguard policies for handling resettlement issues.

"The claims of the Boeung Kak Lake community are serious. The issues raised involve fundamental questions of their land rights and tenure security. In assessing Bank Management compliance, the Panel found that the evictions took place in violation of the Bank policy on Involuntary Resettlement and resulted in grave harm to the affected families and community. The Panel notes the fundamental importance of actions to address the harm suffered by people in project areas and of compliance by Bank Management with Bank policies, including on Involuntary Resettlement," said Roberto Lenton, Inspection Panel Chairperson.
Going forward, the Bank seeks to pursue high-level engagement with the Government of Cambodia and Development Partners to support affected communities in a manner that responds to their development and livelihood needs. Management proposed to report back to the Board on the implementation of the Action Plan within 60 days.

"We call on the Government to stop the evictions and to find a way to help the people. Over the last decade Cambodia has experienced high levels of economic growth, leading to increased pressure on land. The development of a fair and just land administration needs to keep pace with rapid economic development. We will ensure that lessons learned from this project are applied more broadly," said Annette Dixon, Country Director for Cambodia.

PHNOM PENH, March 8  -- South Korea is to help Cambodia in drawing up a master-plan for information technology development, Myung Oh, chairman in both Woongjin Energy & Polysilicon and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), said Tuesday.

During a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Myung Oh said that the KAIST planned to help Cambodia in preparing a master-plan to develop IT system, Eang Sophalleth, the Prime Minister's spokesman, told reporters after the meeting.

Myung Oh, who is also a South Korea's former deputy prime minister, said that IT sector is very vital to boost the development of economic growth and currently South Korea is pioneered in IT sector, earning revenues of about 40 billion U.S dollars a year.

Meanwhile, Hun Sen welcomed the initiative for the master-plan and asked South Korea to help Cambodia in integrating between the state's IT system and the private sector's IT system in order to harness the maximum potential of the sector.

Hun Sen recommended South Korea to cooperate with National Information Communications Technology Development Authority (NiDA) to study the master-plan.(Xinhua/sp)

PHNOM PENH, March 8  -- Indonesia, the rotating ASEAN chair, has proposed meetings of Cambodian-Thai defense ministers and border chiefs on March 24-25 in Bogor, Indonesia, said Koy Kuong, the spokesman for Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, on Tuesday.

Koy Kuong said that Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa on Monday sent a letter to propose the meetings of Cambodia-Thai General Border Committee (GBC) and Joint Border Committee on Demarcation for Land Boundary (JBC) in Bogor.

"This morning, His Excellency Hor Namhong (Cambodian Foreign Minister) has already replied to the meeting proposal, Cambodia agreed with the proposed schedule," he said.

"In the letter to Marty M. Natalegawa, Hor Namhong wrote that the meetings must be with the presence of ASEAN chair or representative -- at least at the opening of the meetings," said Koy Kuong. "And when the meetings are wrapped up, Cambodia and Thailand have to report to ASEAN chair on the results of the meetings."

"Cambodia hopes that Thailand will also agree with the meeting proposal," he added.

The border between Thailand and Cambodia has never been completely demarcated.

Although the International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the Temple of Preah Vihear belonged to Cambodia, the row over the 4.6-square-km territory around the temple has never been resolved.

The conflict has occurred just a week after Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple was enlisted as World Heritage Site on July 7, 2008. Since then both sides have built up military forces along the border, and periodic clashes happened, resulting in the casualties of troops on both sides.

The latest clashes on Feb. 4-7, unleashed a barrage of artillery shells on both sides of the border, have killed and wounded many soldiers and citizens, and caused tens of thousands of the two countries' villagers near the disputed areas to flee.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.(Xinhua/sp)

HAVANA, March 7 -- American Jimmy Connors, the only tennis player who owns over a hundred titles on the ATP professional circuit, visited Cuba and praised the local system in selecting the talents, local media reported Monday.

Connors visited the facilities used in the 1991 Pan American Games, and said he was impressed.

"It's good to know that here the talented children are found from an early age throughout the country and that they are well trained," Connors said.

The former player, winner of eight Grand Slam titles and 106 titles on the professional circuit, arrived here invited by a travel agency and met with Cuban tennis executives, athletes and coaches.

Last week, the 58-year-old Connors appeared as the best player in history, according to a study by U.S. researcher Filippo Radicchi from the Northwestern University.

Radicchi compared all the players who played at least one professional match from 1968 to 2010.(Xinhua/sp)

Port-au-Prince, March 7(Xinhua)  -- With scant progress made in improving the livelihood of Haitian children, most of them still live in miserable conditions and suffer both physical and psychological abuse, a UN expert said on Monday.

"Many Haitian children are exposed to abuse, exploitation and violence, these are part of the complex issues that Haiti deals with," said Virginia Perez, a children protection specialist with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

These children, born in the poorest families, have been handed over to wealthy families who have promised them housing, food and education in exchange for light house work, Perez said.

In most cases, these promises are not kept, forcing the minors reduced to "restavek children", the Haitian Creole language used to refer to children living in slavery conditions.

"The majority of the restavek children, especially the girls, receive no pay and are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse," Perez said, citing a 2009 study by the Pan-American Development Foundation.

For years, impoverished minors have been subjected to slavery conditions, which has become a norm in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

"It's necessary to do an enormous work on the sensibility involved in dealing both with the families that receive these children as well as those that hand the children over," said Perez.

UNICEF statistics showed that since 2002, the number of restavek children had grown by 30,000 alone from 172,000 to more than 200,000.

In a country where children make up almost half of the total population, most youngsters in Haiti are exposed to extreme hardships and the already grim conditions worsened significantly last January when Port-au-Prince was devastated by a huge earthquake that has killed 250,000 people.

Of all the children in Haiti, 1.3 million are under the age of five, among whom between 30,000 to 50,000 currently live in the 1,000 official care centers and some 300,000 live in the 800 camps for victims displaced by the quake.

"The government is trying to do everything possible to guarantee the safety of the children and to provide them with protection," Jeanne Bernard Pierre, director of the social welfare office at Haiti's Ministry of Social Affairs.

"But we are in difficult situation," he told Xinhua, adding that the local authorities are still overwhelmed with disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake, which has left thousands of children orphaned.

Since the earthquake, children kidnapping has turned into large-scale human trafficking both inside Haiti and abroad, but local authorities don't have enough resources to deal with all the cases, Bernard Pierre added.

Perez also added that resources toward aiding the reunification between parents and children separated by the earthquake are extremely limited.

"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," she said.

BARRANQUILLA, Colombia, March 7 -- Hundreds of folklore groups joined a traditional parade on Sunday to celebrate and preserve its cultural legacy.

The parade, the 44th in the country, was part of the Carnival of Barranquilla celebrations. Participants performed traditional dances such as porro, fandango, cumbia and mapale on streets to demonstrate the beauty and grace of Colombian women.

The Carnival of Barranquilla, which has been popular in the country for more than a century, was declared in 2003 by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

"We rehearsed every week throughout the year to give a perfect performance today and we perform with our heart so everyone sees the folklore of our land is full of joy and flavor," dancer Yesenia Diaz told Xinhua.

Dance groups of children and elders from the neighborhoods of Barranquilla in northern Colombia also joined this parade.

During the carnival, the city of Barranguilla is usually bustling with  street dances, musical and masquerade parades.(Xinhua/sp)

WASHINGTON,  March 7  -- During the heat of the world economic crisis, the benefits from cooperation were evident, but the current international coordination are facing more challenges, said Monday Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Kahn said international policy cooperation was fairly easy during the crisis, because countries faced relatively similar situations, and the clear and present danger of the crisis spurred leaders into coordinated action. So in 2009 and the first half of 2010, the will to cooperate was strong.

However, the current phase is much more complex, which has made international coordination more challenging, said the IMF chief.

"Countries are recovering from the crisis at different speeds, so countries are facing different economic situations. Also, leaders naturally want to go back and deal with problems at home, though they forget that in today's globalized world, there can be no domestic solution to global problems," Kahn said.

With respect to this issue, Kahn said it was helpful to focus on three different types of situations, where international coordination might help achieve better global outcomes.

First, there are situations where policy changes in a country would advance the global interest, and also the country's own self-interest.

Second, there are situations where acting unilaterally could make a country better off, but would ultimately make everybody worse off, once other countries react to the policy changes of the first.

The third situation, where policy changes in a particular country would make it worse off, but the global economy better off - is perhaps the most complicated one.(Xinhua/sp)