DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Cambodia hosts Mekong Region Youth U21 Football Tournament BIDC Cup 2011” plus 9 more

CAMBODIA, PHNOM PENH, Aug 28, 2011-Football Federation of Cambodia has announced that it will host the Mekong Region U21 Football Tournament BICD Cup 2011 to be held on 4-16 October.  It added: "the championship in this challenge would gain $20,000, second place for $15,000 and third place for $10,000."

The group of Mekong U-21 including Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, China, Laos and Cambodia and this group will divide in two poles- Group A-China, Vietnam and Thailand and Group B – Laos and Burma and Cambodia.

"This tournament was initiated by Cambodia and we are in weak performance for football field but we are trying to improve it. So, we set up this competition to develop it," said Gen. Sao Sokha, commander of national military police of Cambodia and he also is president of football federation of Cambodia. Next year, it will host in other countries among our members, he added.

This tournament is supported by Bank for Investment and Development, Cambodia (BIDC) the total expenditure is worth about $45, 000.

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- The first Chinese animal feed mill officially inaugurated here on Sunday, bringing the number of the same kind of factories in the country to five, said Cambodian Minister of Agriculture.

"The factory is a new achievement of good cooperation between the governments and the peoples of Cambodia and China," the minister Chan Sarun said during the inauguration of the Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia), situated in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone, some 18 kilometers west of the central Phnom Penh.

"The mill is very important to boost the development of the country's animal feeding industry," he said.

The minister said that currently the demand of animal feed is about 700,000 tons per year, but the four full-functioning factories can produce only 170,000 tons a year, so the rest is imported.

The Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia) would be capable to produce about 57,000 tons a year, so it would increase the supply of animal food locally and can reduce the reliance on the imports, he added.

Meanwhile, Jin Yuan, Economic and Commercial Counselor of Chinese Embassy to Cambodia, said that the inauguration of the factory reflected closer relation between China and Cambodia on trade and investment.

He added that China is the largest investor in Cambodia with the accumulative investments of more than eight billion U.S. dollars so far.

The Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia) is a joint-venture between China's New Hope Group holding 90 percent stake and Japan' s animal feed Sojitz Corporation owning the remaining stake, Deng Xiaohua, a manager of China's New Hope Group, said at the inauguration ceremony.

China's New Hope Group is one of China's largest animal feed producers.

The construction of the Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia) mill had been started early this year on the land of 33,500 square meters and completed last month, costing six million U.S. dollars.

The factory employs about 100 Cambodian workers.

"The mill has been equipped with sophisticated technologies and is capable to produce a good quality of animal food for pigs and poultry," he said.

JAKARTA, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) - The number of fatality of ferry sinking in Kolaka waters of Southeast Sulawesi earlier Saturday rose to ten and scores of people are missing, rescuer at Southeast Sulawesi Search and Rescue Office told Xinhua by phone.

DAMASCUS, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- About five law-enforcement members were injured in separate attacks conducted by armed groups, as hundreds of people took to the streets for a fresh wave of protests on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the official SANA news agency said.

SANA quoted what is said as a responsible source as saying armed men on motorcycles opened fire at a law-enforcement forces' checkpoint in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, injuring three of its members. The law-enforcement shot back at the attackers, killing two of them, the source added.

In a separate incident, armed men attacked Friday the building of the military security in Damascus' suburb of Douma, injuring two of its security guards, said SANA.

It said limited gatherings of anti-government protesters were seen in some Syrian cities and dispersed within a short time.

The Qatari al-Jazeera TV cited Friday witnesses as saying that at least seven people were killed in clashes with security forces across Syria, as thousands of protesters poured down cities' streets nationwide, calling for the ouster of President Bashar al- Assad on what activists have dubbed "Friday of Patience and Steadfastness."

The report couldn't be independently verified as journalists are banned of heading to restive areas.

The authorities have been accusing al-Jazeera and other media of ignoring the facts on the ground as well as incitement and fabricating events in their coverage of the protests.

About 2,200 people have been killed since protests began in mid- March, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said this week, adding that 350 of them have died since the beginning of Ramadan.

Meanwhile, Syrian police are hunting down the attackers who broke the hands of Ali Ferzat, one of Syria's most famous opposition artists, SANA said Friday, adding that the specialized authorities at the Interior Ministry are hunting down the offenders to bring them to trial.

Cartoonist Ali Ferzat, 60, known for his stinging anti-regime caricatures, was quoted by SANA as saying that four men kidnapped him while he returned home before dawn Thursday, broke two fingers of his left hand and his right arm, and damaged his left eye.

Activists accused the Syrian security forces and pro-regime gunmen known as "Shabiha" of being behind the attack.

The U.S. administration said Thursday that the cartoonist's beating was deplorable. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said "they broke his hands in the most disgusting and deplorable way to send a message."

The five-month-old national upheaval has sparked an ongoing blistering criticism and condemnation over the alleged use of force by Syrian leadership on anti-government protesters.

U.S. President Barak Obama last week made his explicit call for al-Assad to step aside, underscoring the tough talk with new sanctions and lobbying other nations to follow suit.

The recent U.S. sanctions on Syria hit the largest state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria and the SyriaTel cell phone operator as part of pressures on the Syrian government to halt its alleged crackdown on protesters.

Also, the European Union is planning to slap sweeping new economic sanctions against Syria, including an embargo on oil imports.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe said Thursday the situation in Syria is "quite problematic."

"Many world leaders ... have been speaking to President Assad to halt immediately military operations that are killing his own people, and we sincerely hope that he heeds the international community's appeal and call without any further delay," Pascoe added.

The Syrian leadership repeatedly brushed off the international uproar as "flagrant interference in Syria's internal affairs," blaming the national upheaval on armed groups and extremists backed by foreign conspiracy with the aim of unseating al-Assad.

Al-Assad reasserted, during a banquet held in honor of clergymen late Wednesday, that his country is subject to foreign conspiracy, saying that foreign pressures are building up on Syria because it is the "problem" of the West in the region.

International pressures on Syria are mounting "not because the West is keen about the Syrian people or reforms, as they claim, but because Syria is the West's problem in the region and they want Syria to submit concessions," said al-Assad.

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has seen a positive sign towards achieving its self-imposed target of one million-ton- rice exports by 2015 as the sector has been attracting a number of large investments from China.

In last August, the government launched the rice export policy in a bid to boost the exports of one million tons of milled rice by 2015.

"The main challenges to achieve this target are the shortages of sophisticated post-harvest technologies and capital to buy rice paddy from farmers," Kong Putheara, director of the Commerce Ministry's Planning and Statistics Department, told Xinhua in an interview on Friday.

However, the issues have gradually been broken through as a number of large Chinese firms have signed up to build a hi-tech rice processing plant and to purchase Cambodian rice for Chinese market.

Among those firms is the China Grain Reserves Corporation ( Sinograin) Guangzhou Branch.

The firm signed up on Aug. 16 to buy up to 200,000 tons of milled rice per year from Cambodia and has put its initial investment of 20 million U.S. dollars with a local T.T.Y Corporation to buy rice paddy from farmers to process for the exports to China.

And the China's Yunnan Overseas Investment Co., Ltd. signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a local Soma Group of Cambodia to build a high-tech rice processing plant to process rice for China.