DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Press Release of ICJ” plus 9 more

CAMBODIA, PHNOM PENH,​ JULY​ 18, 2011 - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday ordered Thailand and Cambodia to immediately withdraw their troops from a disputed area around an ancient temple on the border between the two Asian neighbours, according to AFP.

BEIJING, July 18 -- China's People's Daily newspaper said in an opinion piece published in its Monday edition that U.S. President Barack Obama's weekend meeting with the Dalai Lama was an "unscrupulous trick of pragmatism," adding that the move has undermined the U.S.'s status as a major world power.

JAKARTA, July 18 -- Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday urged Indonesians to be active in energy saving movement as quota of subsidized fuel keeps surpassed, the country's largest news website detikcom quoted a senior minister as saying.

"The president said that a presidential decree on energy saving would be issued," said Economic Coordinating Minister Hatta Rajasa after a cabinet meeting chaired by President Yudhoyono.

He said that Indonesia was once successful in encouraging power and fuel saving several years ago when the world faced sharp oil price increase.

According to Rajasa, the movement is especially aimed at government's institutions and departments.

"We have saved power by 7-10 percent in the government's institution. In fact, we saved power by almost 30 percent in the presidential buildings and state secretariat," said Rajasa.

On subsidized fuel saving movement, he said, it needs an active involvement of local government, especially in preventing fuel smuggling and in maintaining quota for the right target. "Minister for Energy and Mineral Resource (Darwin Zahedy Saleh) will formulate how the government saves the energy. If we could do it in the past, we can do it now," said Rajasa. (Xinhua)

SEOUL, July 18 -- South Korea and the United States will begin their annual joint military drill next month, the U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) said Monday.

The war game dubbed Ulchi Freedom Guardian is slated for Aug. 16-26 and aimed at enhancing interoperability and the combat readiness of the allies, according to the CFC.

The exercise is "a defense-oriented, routine exercise designed to improve the alliance's ability to defend" South Korea, the CFC said in a statement, adding the computer-assisted simulation exercise will focus on training service members and exercising senior members' decision-making capabilities.

Some 30,000 U.S. forces and 56,000 South Korean troops are expected to join the exercise, the first one since James Thurman, new commander of the CFC, took office earlier this month. (Xinhua)

KATHMANDU, July 18 -- Nepali government has agreed for a loan of 36 million U.S. dollars from the Climate Investment Funds -- a multi-donor trust, local media reported on Monday.

The meeting held on Sunday between the World Bank officials and a team led by the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Meena Khanal, in Cape Town, decided to go ahead with the Pilot Project Climate Resilience through loan and grant.

According to The Himalayan Times daily, the parliamentarians and civil society have been criticizing the loan stating that climate change is a problem entirely created by the developed countries and the support to fight it should be unconditional.

However, the ministry has defended its move saying that the country needs the money to fight climate change. "We need the money and in our experience, the loan is more effective than grant. So, we need to focus on its effectiveness rather discussing whether it is loan or grant," said Krishna Gyawali, Secretary, Ministry of Environment.

"The fund has been approved to build resilience to climate- related hazards through private sector participation," mentioned the website of CIF, a partnership of the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inter American Development Bank, and the World Bank, where 14 developed countries have pledged to contribute. (Xinhua)

But that policy doesn't extend east to Malaysia, which drew more than 16,000 Cambodian domestic workers – almost all of them female – in 2010.

Many workers come home complaining about pay that is withheld for at least four to seven months; work shifts that are unspecified and long; food shortages; and physical and verbal abuse, according to local human rights and labor rights organizations in Phnom Penh, the country's capital.

Cambodian workers first experience a taste of life in Malaysia in the Phnom Penh pre-departure recruitment training centers, where they wait for an average three months for their visas to clear.

"Once you are inside the center, you cannot leave, even if you are sick," said Moeun Tola, chief of the labor program unit at the Community Legal Education Center, based in Phnom Penh. "If you want to leave, you have to pay the agency a lot of money; $600 to $1,500 to cover costs for your training, food and housing. No one staying there has this kind of money."

Recruited women are often divorced or widowed, placing them in low social and economic standing in their communities that leaves them particularly vulnerable to abuse.

Deaths and Escape Attempts

Two women have died in training centers since 2010, while more than 10 women have escaped. In early 2011, a woman broke both her legs after she jumped from a center's third-story window. These high-profile cases were reported in both national and international media.

Prak Srey Mom, 29, said in an interview with Women's eNews that she escaped from a Top Manpower Co., Ltd, center on May 19, 2011, two weeks before her scheduled departure for Malaysia. She had spent the past two months in one room she shared with 20 other trainees. She was hungry most of the time, she said, but remained lured by the promise of earning up to $250 monthly in Malaysia during the typical two-year work period. Then she spoke with a returned worker who visited the center.

"The girl who came back from Malaysia said that she still had no money, that she was treated badly and I should be careful," said Prak, who goes by her last name followed by her first name like most Cambodians, through a Khmer translator.

Days after the conversation, Prak snuck past the center's guards and climbed down from the building's roof. She successfully fled, but remains concerned for her sister, who was in the same center and was denied permission to go home and care for her sick children.

Representatives for Top Manpower and the Association of Cambodia Recruitment Agency, both based in Phnom Penh, did not respond to requests for comment on their treatment of recruited workers.

The Cambodian Ministry of Labor has closed down a few pre-departure training centers, but not any companies themselves, said Ya Navuth, executive director of Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility, or CARAM, a nongovernmental organization that does outreach work with prospective migrant workers.