DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Colombian president's facebook account hacked” plus 6 more

DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Colombian president's facebook account hacked” plus 6 more

Colombian president's facebook account hacked

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 12:58 AM PDT

2011-07-21 14:05:01

BOGOTA, July 20 (Xinhua) -- The Facebook page of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was hacked Wednesday, also the country's Independence Day, the president said via Twitter.

The hackers, who called themselves "Anonymous", linked the president's personal page to a video entitled "False Independence", which argues it's impossible to celebrate independence in a country with persisting issues such as violence and unemployment.

The same group of hackers also hacked the twitter account of Santos' predecessor Alvaro Uribe, who was in office from 2002 to 2010.

"Anonymous" is a worldwide network of unidentified individuals who launch collaborative and international hack attacks. The group rose to infamy in 2010 through cyber attacks to support WikiLeaks, as well as other attacks on Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and security firms.

Thai Election Commission to deliberate endorsement for 11 Red Shirts

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 01:08 AM PDT

BANGKOK, July 21-- The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday plans to deliberate the election results of elected 130 MP candidates, including 11 "Red Shirt" leaders.

The deliberation will focus on the 11 Red Shirt key members who are on party-list of the election-winner Pheu Thai, except for Jatuporn Promphan who is now under remand and has yet to give his statement on legal technicalities related to his qualifications.

Earlier, the commission decided not to verify Red Shirt leaders as MPs since complaints were lodged against their qualifications. Some Red Shirt leaders were detained after dispersal of their prolonged protests last May on terrorism charges. They were then released in February but Jatuporn whose MP immunity ended in May.

Under Article 100 of the Constitution, any person being detained by a warrant of the court or by a lawful order on the election day is disenfranchised. According to the Political Parties Act, Jatuporn has lost his party membership.

The EC has so far endorsed the voting outcome of 370 MPs in two separate batches. However, the number has not yet made the quorum of 475 or 95 percent of the total 500 required for convening the first parliamentary meeting. (Xinhua)

U.S. judge denies BP request for White House e-mails over oil spill

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 01:06 AM PDT

HOUSTON, July 20 -- A U.S. judge Wednesday denied British oil giant British Petroleum (BP)'s request for e-mails to President Barack Obama regarding last year's disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. Magistrate Sally Shushan didn't support BP's request to the Obama administration to turn over e-mails from Carol Browner, Obama's former energy and climate adviser, as she believes that BP "has not made a sufficient demonstration of need for the documents."

BP can renew its bid for the e-mails if future documents demonstrate "a need for the discovery," she said.

BP said in a court filing Wednesday in New Orleans, Louisiana, that the e-mails from Browner were essential, since they can shed light on the U.S. government's estimation of the rate of oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico from the blown-out oil well, an estimation that can affect BP's financial liability, BP said.

BP's Macondo well ruptured after an oil rig exploded and sank on April 20 last year, spewing up to 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months in the world's worst marine oil spill. (Xinhua)

Overwhelming Cambodian youth say country moves on right direction: UNDP study

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 12:19 AM PDT

2011-07-21 14:23:51 Overwhelming Cambodian youth say country moves on right direction: UNDP study

PHNOM PENH, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Ninety-five percent of Cambodian youth is optimistic about the overall direction their country is taking, but face challenges on the way to a meaningful participation in the political and socio-economic life of Cambodia, said a new study released by the United Nations Development Program-Cambodia (UNDP) on Thursday.

A lack of knowledge and understanding of democratic processes and difficulty to express issues of concern are among the obstacles to greater youth participation as citizens.

The study, titled "Youth Civic Participation in Cambodia", involved face to face interviews with 2,000 youth aged 15-24, of them 20 percent are urban dwellers and 80 percent are rural residents.

It showed that respondents' knowledge of democratic institutions and their roles was very limited, particularly of elected bodies such as the parliament and commune councils.

"Ninety-two percent of youth had heard of commune councils; however, nearly a third of those respondents did not know what they do," said the study. "Parliament was the least familiar to youth, with just three quarters having heard of parliament, and two -thirds of these people did not know what parliament does."

Youth are the key to democratic participation in Cambodia with two out of three people in Cambodia being under the age of 25 years old and more than 30 percent of the country's 14.3 million population aged between 10-24 years old.

However, about 95 percent of Cambodian youth said they are proud of being Cambodian and the direction the country is taking by valuing to history, cultural heritage, democracy, and political leadership and feel that all Cambodians are respected equally, stated the study.

On the media consumption side, the study found that about 90 percent of Cambodian youth have consumed to broadcast services such as radios and television.

It added that roughly 93 percent had access to a mobile phone and 42 percent had their owned phone; however, on the internet side, the amount of young internet users is still very limited -- only 6 percent.

Roundup: Indonesian ruling party to hold congress following revelation of corruption among senior officials

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 12:17 AM PDT

2011-07-21 14:33:59  Roundup: Indonesian ruling party to hold congress following revelation of corruption among senior officials by Abu Hanifah

JAKARTA, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian ruling political party, the Democrat Party, is scheduled to hold a two-day national congress Saturday following a high-profile corruption allegation that implicating senior officials at the party as confessed by the party's sacked treasurer to the media recently.

Allegation on the implication of Anas and several senior officials at the party in a high-profile corruption case rife in national media following the confession of former party's treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin about it was televised nationwide recently.

Nazaruddin, who is still at large after being declared a suspect in the corruption case that was said masterminded by Anas, said Anas bought the votes from the party's cadres that made him seized the chairmanship in the party's congress held November last year.

Nazaruddin also said that the money used to buy the votes came from bribes provided by contractors who were just awarded contracts to build national sport facilities in Bogor, West Java and dormitory building projects for the athletes contending in the upcoming regional sport event of SEA Games scheduled in Jakarta and Palembang.

In the testimony aired by local TV station MetroTV in the last two days, Nazaruddin said from his hideout that part of the money provided to buy the votes was retrieved from the state budget funds.

Nazaruddin has been declared a suspect by the country's anti- corruption commission for fixing all the project contracts to those contractors. He was suspected of receiving 13 percent of commission fee from total SEA Games athletes dormitory project that worth 200 billion rupiah (about 23 million U.S. dollars)

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Democrat party's patron figure, has summoned Anas and several party's senior officials regarding Nazaruddin confession on Wednesday.

But none of them was willing to disclose the content of the meeting with the president who secured two maximum presidency periods with landslide votes in 2004 and 2009 elections.

Discourse on possible chairmanship replacement in the upcoming congress rife in national media as an effort to save the party's image before running in 2014 elections.

The party would no longer nominate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as he had his maximum two presidency terms. The party has yet to find the correct figure to be nominated as its presidential candidate in the elections.

The Democrat party was initially established to usher Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired army general, to seize presidency.

The party gained massive votes in the last two elections, dominating the seats in the parliament that assuring adequate backup to the president's policies in running the country.

A political expert, Syamsuddin Haris, said earlier that the current high-profile corruption scandal make the party risk losing significant votes in 2014 election.

He said that the corruption scandal has eroded the public's trust on President Yudhoyono's party that strongly voiced anti- corruption drive during the election campaign.

1st Ld-Writethru: Death toll in vehicle collision rises to nine in east China

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 12:17 AM PDT

2011-07-21 14:56:41 WENZHOU, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The death toll in a vehicle collision accident occurred on a highway section in east China's Zhejiang Province Thursday morning has risen to nine, as police found one more body from the distorted van truck.

The overloaded van bumped into the rear of a heavy haul trailer at around 4:49 a.m. on the highway linking Ningbo and Wenzhou in the province.

All of the casualties occurred on the van. The 3-seat van carried 13 people with five squeezing in the driver's cabin and eight hiding in the carriage compartment.

The accident site remains cordoned off, as police are clearing steel bars dropped from the heavily-loaded trailer.

Cause of the accident is still under investigation.

6.2 magnitude quake hits Central Asia, kills 14

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 12:15 AM PDT

2011-07-21 14:40:19 TASHKENT, July 21 (Xinhua) -- An Uzbek emergency department official said Wednesday that a powerful earthquake hit the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border area at 1935 GMT Tuesday, resulting in 14 deaths.

The 6.2-magnitude quake centered in Kyrgyzstan caused no casualties. However, it jolted the eastern Uzbek city of Ferghana, some 42 km away from the epicenter, killing 13 people, the official said.

In Tajikistan, the third country that shares the Ferghana area, an emergency official confirmed that one man fell to his death due to the earthquake.

The Uzbek emergency agency has provided medical aid to the injured, 86 people in total, and 35 of them have been sent to the nearest hospital.

Both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have sent rescue teams to help the victims.

Quakes are a relatively frequent occurrence in this region. A 6.6-magnitude quake near Kyrgyzstan's borders with Tajikistan and China flattened the remote mountain village of Nura in July 2008, killing at least 74 people.

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