KI Media: “Vann Nath is in coma / Vann Nath dans le coma” plus 13 more

Dear Friends,

I would like to share with you these very sad news about Vann Nath. He had a heart attack during Friday night in Phnom Penh. He lost conscience and did not wake up till now. He went into a cerebral coma. He is fighting and his family with him but the doctors have little hope regarding his chance to come to back to us.

I will let you know if anything happens.

Sincerely,

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Chers amis,

Je voudrais partager avec vous une triste nouvelle concernant Vann Nath. Il a fait un arrêt cardiaque dans la nuit de vendredi à Phnom Penh. Il a perdu conscience et depuis ne s¹est pas réveillé. Il est en coma cérébral. Il se bat et sa famille avec lui mais les médecins ont peu d¹espoir quant à ses chances de nous revenir.

Je vous tiendrais informés de l¹évolution de la situation.

Sincèrement,

A debate is stirring in Cambodia about the continued viability of the Khmer language. It started with a commentary that the Khmer language is in crisis and in fact, dying.

Theary Seng, founding president of the Center for Cambodian Civic Education, wrote in the Phnom Penh Post that spoken Khmer is often either crude or highly stylised, while written Khmer has not been updated for modern times.

The comments triggered controversy and heated discussion in the country and in Cambodian communities abroad, including from Professor Supote Prasertsri, formerly with UNICEF (Thailand) and UNESCO (Cambodia) as an education expert and now an advisor to a number of civil societies in Cambodia.

Presenter: Adelaine Ng

Speakers: Theary Seng, founding president of the Center for Cambodian Civic Education; Prof Supote Prasertsri, former education specialist at UNICEF (Thailand) and UNESCO (Cambodia)

Click the control below to listen to the debate:

H&M has said that it has not found any plausible causes for a series of mass faintings that have taken place in a Cambodian factory making its clothes.

The statements follow local press reports that a total 284 workers at an M&V International Manufacturing site fainted on Tuesday and Thursday. According to the reports, workers smelled something bad coming from the shirts.

A spokesperson for the retailer told just-style today (26 August) that it was aware of the incident and that the "government, local authorities and International Labour Organisation have done investigations and have not found any plausible causes so far".

The spokesperson said H&M has also carried out an initial probe, with local staff immediately visiting the affected factories for an inspection and interviews with workers, but said the cause is "difficult to establish".

It said it has partnered with external experts and is in "close contact with the Better Factories Cambodia and the Employer Association GMAC" to figure out the root causes and solutions to these "discomforting incidents".

Inneke Zelderust, co-ordinator of the Clean Clothes campaign, said this is not the first time that there have been mass faintings in a Cambodian garment factory, citing a similar situation at a Puma factory in April.

An investigation following that incident found that overtime, poor chemical storage and heat were the causes for the faintings.

Zelderust described as "nonsense" M&V's excuse in the local press that the faintings were a "psychological phenomenon."

She suggested that high inflation levels are eroding salaries so that workers are not earning a living wage. "Workers are foregoing meals and doing lots of overtime which is leading to low nutrition levels," said Zelderust.

Zelderust called for other brands to be "proactive" in investigating worker health and occupational health and safety in their factories following the incidents, suggesting that it might be difficult to "pinpoint one cause" driving these mass faintings. "Take these as indicators of a broader problem," she emphasised.

According to a report released last week by the ILO's Better Factories Cambodia initiative, while working conditions in Cambodian garment factories are continuing to improve, there are still persisting worries over discrimination, overtime and occupational health, and safety.

A graduation ceremony was held in Phnom Penh on August 26 by the Cambodian National Assembly Secretariat to present certificates in information technology to 120 trainees.

The IT training was part of a project worth 2 million USD funded by the Vietnamese National Assembly to help the Cambodian side improve its IT facilities during the 2011-2012 period.

The trainees will be sent to serve the 32nd General Assembly ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) in September.

The project also aims to build a computer-controlled system, set up databases, increase the speed of Internet transmission and enhance office computer skills, in order to boost the operation of the Cambodian legislative body.

Addressing the ceremony, Secretary General of the Cambodian NA Leng Peng Long highlighted the traditional relations and special solidarity between the two neighbouring countries.

Vietnam assisted Cambodia to overthrow the Pol Pot regime in the past, he said, adding that Vietnam continued its support for his country during the cause of national construction and development.

Cambodia's literacy has improved over the past decade, but key challenges remain for girls, the rural poor and minorities, education experts say.

According to government figures, the literacy rate stands at about 70 percent. But that may only be basic literacy, where another ability, functional literacy, is harder to define.

Still, education experts say that still leaves 30 percent of the population without the ability to read or write, though that percentage could improve as the younger generation goes through school to learn to read and write.

Ministry of Education officials say they count a total enrollment of 3.2 million students, with about 607,000 in urban areas and more than 2.5 million in rural areas.

"This gathering of students at school means it is serving literacy," Ou Eng, director general of the ministry, told VOA Khmer Thursday. "Cambodian students must get an education, and the first education is literacy."

The literacy rate has improved greatly in the last 10 years. Unesco said in 1999 only about 37 percent of the population was "functionally literate," with another 26.6 percent only "semi-literate."

Santosh Khatri, an education specialist at Unesco, said Thursday that no further functional literacy tests have been conducted, so the rate now is unknown.

"Basic literacy is very important to build up on the functional literacy," he said, but functional literacy has many levels and is hard to test.

Literacy is an important factor in quality of life, he said. It can improve one's livelihood, skills and abilities, and help maintain peace.

Key challenges remain for Cambodia, including reducing the disparity of literacy rates among different groups.

Khatri said the adult literacy rate of Cambodia was 77.6 percent, but there was a wide gap between male (85.1 percent) and female (71 percent). The gap is even wider between urban dwellers (90.4 percent) and those in rural areas (74 percent). Minority groups, too, struggle with literacy.

Kan Kal, country director for Room to Read, a literacy NGO, said that urban-rural gap remained "worrisome."

Other experts worry that the progress in literacy has slowed.

"We need to strengthen the process," said Naoko Arakawa, an education specialist at Unesco.

And teachers say they worry as well.

"Among my 24 students in Grade 6, there are six students who cannot read," said Ros Tith Malay, a teacher at Boeung Traboek primary school. Those who cannot read often come from poor homes or live with domestic violence, she said.

Rong Chhun, who is head of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, said Thursday that many girls and boys only attend lower level classes, but they soon fall out of the system. The Cambodian education system does not aim for "quality," he said.

However, Ou Eng of the Ministry of Educaiton said the government is now putting more focus on literacy, especially for children.

"Now we are prepared to publish new books to make it easier than before for children to read and write," he said.

Cambodia's higher education would do well to include more research and critical thinking demands on its professors, a university lecturer said Thursday.

"When [academics] do research, it is like they are exercising and it requires them to think critically, thus boosting the overall quality of their abilities and work," said Peou Chivoin, a lecturer of media theory and research at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. "When people conduct research, they get to know social phenomena and try to determine problems that arise and come up with solutions."

In much of Cambodian academics, the focus is on teaching, but not on research, he said.

Peou Chivoin is a Fulbright scholar and a PhD candidate of sociology at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

"At universities in developed countries like the US, Australia or Singapore, they have already turned primarily to research," he said. "That means professors have their own research projects and try to publish their work, whereas Cambodian professors only teach."

Not only are they not researching, he said, but Cambodian lecturers and professors work more than one job, thanks to pitifully low salaries. That creates a problem, because research would mean less time spent earning money.

Government subsidies could help, but no such support currently exists. A lucky few are able to take on research through the funding of grants or other outside help.

The problem is then passed on to the pupils, he said.

"When most professors do not do research themselves, it's a problem when they lead their students to do research," he said. "So there must be strengthened institutions to ensure more attention is paid to research."

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Brigadier General Richard Simcock, Principal Director for South and Southeast Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, will visit Cambodia on August 29-31 to boost Cambodia-U.S. defense relationship, according to a press release from the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh on Friday.

During the visit, Simcock will have a series of meetings with the Cambodian Ministry of National Defense and representatives of the U.S. Embassy to discuss the growing U.S.-Cambodia bilateral defense relationship, it said.

Discussions will focus on opportunities for future cooperation in the areas of peacekeeping, maritime security, humanitarian assistance, defense reform and counter-terrorism.

During the trip, Simcock will underscore the Department of Defense's continued commitment to working with the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) to develop a professional force that contributes to regional and international peace and stability.

"The U.S. Department of Defense looks forward to assisting in building up the professional capacity of the RCAF while encouraging the RCAF to continue on a path of improved transparency and respect for human rights and the rule of law," stated Simcock in the press release.

He will also participate in a defense ministry's workshop in Sihanoukville to discuss the development of Cambodia's maritime security strategy.

In addition, he will visit sites that have benefitted from U.S.-Cambodian defense cooperation, e.g. the National Counter-Terrorism Special Force, Peacekeeping Training Center, and Maritime Security Operations Center.

PHNOM PENH, 26 August 2011 (PlusNews) - Prach Vothy, a single mother of two living with HIV, is struggling to make ends meet. Food for herself and her family is often little more than a bowl of boiled water lilies – one of the cheapest items in the local market.

"It's very difficult. We barely get by," said the 41-year-old, who was diagnosed with HIV more than 10 years ago.

She earns just US$65 a month as a domestic worker in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, almost half of which goes on rent, with little left for health, education, clothing and other needs.

"My biggest fear is if the children get sick… I simply can't afford it," she said.

According to a 25 August report by the Cambodian National AIDS Authority and the UN, highlighting the economic and social challenges faced by HIV-affected households in Cambodia, her story is not unusual.

"Most of the people living with HIV in Cambodia are poor," Sreyluch Leap, a programme officer for the Cambodian People Living with HIV/AIDS Network (CPN+) told IRIN/PlusNews. "Sadly, such stories are common."

What is new, however, is a much better understanding of the profound impact of HIV/AIDS.

"The study highlights the extreme vulnerability of HIV-affected households to economic shock," UN Resident Coordinator Douglas Broderick said at the launch of the report.

Based on data collected via a national survey of more than 4,000 households (2,623 HIV-affected and 1,549 non-affected), the study examined individual and household-level impacts of HIV, as well as impacts on population and macroeconomic growth.

The report found HIV-affected households experienced lower income, combined with increased medical expenses, which meant they turned to poverty-inducing coping mechanisms, including the depletion of savings and assets and higher levels of debt, with negative impacts on food security and psychosocial wellbeing, as well as on the status of women and education of children.

"Widowed by their husbands who infected them, women face the toughest time in recovering," Tia Phalla, vice-chairman of the National AIDS Authority, said. "And this undermines the whole family structure."

Key findings include the fact that HIV-affected households are twice as likely to be headed by a widow (34 percent versus 17 percent), while more than one-third of HIV-affected households cared for a child orphaned by AIDS, the report said.

In addition, people living with HIV had less income, with 27 percent of respondents reporting having lost their job (or other source of income) since being diagnosed with HIV.

Widowed by their husbands who infected them, women face the toughest time in recovering. And this undermines the whole family structure

For those able to keep their jobs, income levels were 47 percent lower than before diagnosis.

In general, HIV-affected households earned 25 percent per capita less than non-affected households, the report said, while children in HIV-affected households were more likely to work than those in non-affected households.

Moreover, 65 percent of HIV-affected households had at least one loan, compared with 53 percent of non-affected households, with that debt less likely for constructive reasons, such as improving their dwelling or investing in agricultural production, the main source of livelihood for the country's 14 million population.

"Such findings underscore the importance of scaling up HIV-sensitive social protection programmes and ensuring poverty-reduction interventions reach the poorest and most vulnerable members of society," Broderick added.

The report did not just examine the virus's effect on individuals and their families but also on macroeconomic performance.

In addition to fuelling poverty, straining health resources and eroding family and community structures, cutting deep into the labour force, HIV is also taking its toll on GDP, the report noted.

"There is no denying the impact HIV can have on Cambodia's very future and economy," Tia Phalla said. The virus disproportionately strikes young adults and those in their most productive years.

Cambodia's overall GDP is expected to decline by 16.5 percent between 1993 and 2020, the report said.

But the country's antiretroviral (ARV) programme has successfully averted more than 20,000 deaths between 2003 and 2009 and reduced GDP losses by $100 million annually over the same period.

"This proves the cost-effectiveness of universal treatment coverage," Tia Phalla said. Before Cambodia began public ARV provision in 2003, coverage was less than 8 percent, but increased to 92 percent of those eligible for treatment in 2010 and is expected to reach 95 percent coverage by 2015, the report said.

Do You Know…? Series

Plenty of Negative Comments in KI-Media

Because of Ignorance (Avidhya អវិជ្ជា)?

Ten groups have written to William Hague, the foreign secretary, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Australia's foreign minister Kevin Rudd, sounding the alarm on a draft law now before Cambodia's council of ministers.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Global Witness and others say the draft law, if passed in its present form, threatens to severely restrict civil society's right to freedom of association and expression.

"As such, the law will limit the ability of Cambodia's development partners to ensure that programmes reach their intended grass-roots beneficiaries," the letter says.

The letter urges the foreign ministers to make it clear to the Cambodian government that, if the proposed changes are adopted, they will reassess their aid programmes and urge multilateral aid agencies to review their assistance.

The key concern for human rights groups is a provision under the law which states that associations and organisations cannot operate in Cambodia unless complex registration applications have been formally approved by the government.

"The draft law will effectively authorise arbitrary decision-making by officials as it fails to adequately define terms or set clear guidelines, and it creates burdensome and expensive registration and reporting processes that will particularly disadvantage grassroots citizens' associations and groups," the letter says.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of HRW's Asia division, said the Hun Sen government was seeking to stifle the one clear source of opposition to the government, having reduced the opposition to rump status and cowed the international community.

"Hun Sen is growing increasingly sensitive to critical NGO voices which are working with local people facing dispossession of their land for commercial use for cash crops such as sugar cane," said Robertson. "There has been a plague of land seizures and it is an issue that goes to corrupt governance."

An estimated 30,000 people are driven from farmland or urban areas every year to make way for property developments or mining and agricultural projects.

The World Bank earlier this month suspended new lending to Cambodia in a dispute over the eviction of thousands of poor landowners to make way for a property development in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Two thousand people have been evicted already and another 10,000 face eviction to make way for the project in the Boeung Kak lake area. The development is led by China's Inner Mongolia Erdos Hongjun Investment Corp, an unlisted firm that has pledged to spend $3bn in Cambodia on property, metal processing and power generation, and which has close ties to Hun Sen. Robertson said the Cambodian government has since agreed to put back on the table an onsite resettlement plan, which showed that international pressure can work.

"The lesson is when push comes to shove, when development partners threaten to take action, that kind of thing makes the Cambodian government sit up and take notice," he said.

The Cambodian government recently suspended a local NGO, the Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, which has been working with communities affected by major projects in Phnom Penh, including the Asian Development Bank/USAid-funded railway rehabilitation project, and the Boeung Kak lake development.

The suspension, say human rights groups, shows how the Cambodian government may use the draft associations and NGO law if it is passed.

In other recent moves against critics, the government earlier this month closed down two newspapers reproachful of the Cambodian ruling party – the Water & Fire News, and the World News. Their publishing licences were revoked because of "a perceived insult to the ministry of information".

One of Asia's poorest countries, Cambodia receives between $50m and $70m a year from the World Bank. It is looking increasingly to China for aid and development. China is Cambodia's biggest source of foreign direct investment, with stated plans to spend $8bn on 360 different projects during the first seven months of 2011.