DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Commentary: Remaining open and inclusive, ASEAN will make greater progress” plus 5 more

PHNOM PENH, April 23 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) is to launch a vigorous response to the worrying emergence of resistance to the anti-malarial drug artemisinin in the Greater Mekong Subregion of Southeast Asia, said the agency's statement on Tuesday.

The launch will be held in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on Thursday, the World Malaria Day, it said.

Artemisinin is the frontline drug in the fight against malaria. WHO said the emergence of resistance in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam poses a serious global health threat.

"We are taking the situation very seriously," Dr. Shin Young- soo, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, said in the statement. "If resistance to artemisinin emerges elsewhere particularly in Africa, which has the world's greatest number of malaria cases the consequences for global health could be incalculable."

Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are the most effective anti-malarial treatments available today, and they have been central to recent successes in global malaria control, it said, adding that Artemisinin-based combination therapies combine artemisinin a traditional Chinese herbal drug with another anti- malarial drug.

The artemisinin component kills the majority of parasites at the start of the treatment, while the partner drug clears the remaining parasites.

In response to the threat to resistance, WHO will launch its " Emergency Response to Artemisinin Resistance in the Greater Mekong Subregion" (ERAR) a strategic framework of support for the six countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion.

Apart from the four affected countries, the region also includes China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Yunnan province and Laos both of them seen as potentially at risk of resistance to artemisinin in a region that is highly inter- connected, the statement said.

The launch will be accompanied by the setting-up of a WHO regional hub in Phnom Penh to provide coordination and support for the intensified containment efforts set out in the framework.

"The task is to contain resistance and then to eventually eliminate malaria from the region. For all this, we will need adequate financing," said Dr. Shin.

Dr. Char Meng Chuor, director of Cambodia's National Center for Malaria, said Cambodia recorded 69,515 malaria cases in 2012, killing 45 people.

The nation is expected to eradicate the death from malaria by 2015 and completely eliminate all forms of malaria by 2025.

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, April 23 (Xinhua) -- The 22nd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit is due to open here on Wednesday under the theme "Our People, Our Future Together", bringing the bloc one step closer to an ASEAN Community.

The community building process started in 2003 when the heads of ASEAN member states agreed at the 9th ASEAN Summit that an ASEAN Community shall be established.

At the 12th ASEAN Summit held in January 2007 in Cebu of the Philippines, the leaders affirmed their strong commitment to facilitating the establishment of an ASEAN Community by the end of 2015 and signed the Cebu Declaration on the Acceleration of the Establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015.

The ASEAN Community comprises three pillars, namely the ASEAN Political-Security Community, the ASEAN Economic Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. Each pillar has its own blueprint, and, together with the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) Strategic Framework and IAI Work Plan Phase II (2009-2015), they form the Roadmap for an ASEAN Community (2009-2015).

The ASEAN Charter, which entered into force in 2008, serves as a firm foundation and a significant milestone in achieving the ASEAN Community goal by providing legal status and institutional framework for it. It also codifies ASEAN norms, rules and values, sets clear targets for ASEAN, and presents accountability and compliance.

To gear up capacity building, ASEAN has set up the ASEAN Coordinating Council and three ASEAN Community Councils, including the ASEAN Political-Security Community Council, the ASEAN Economic Community Council and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Council.

At the 19th ASEAN Summit held in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2011, the ASEAN leaders adopted the Bali Declaration on ASEAN Community in a Global Community of Nations, or the Bali Concord III, a historic outcome document which is widely expected to increase ASEAN's active role in addressing global issues and to map out the road for ASEAN's interaction with the global community.

ASEAN leaders also affirmed their commitment to adopt a more coordinated, cohesive and coherent ASEAN position on global issues of common concern which would further raise ASEAN's common voice in relevant multilateral fora, and to develop an enhanced ASEAN capacity to contribute and respond to key global issues of common interest which would benefit all ASEAN member states and their peoples.

At the 21st ASEAN Summit held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last year, ASEAN leaders agreed to sign, adopt, and note different documents including the Phnom Penh Statement on the Adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD), the ASEAN Leaders' Statement on the Establishment of an ASEAN Regional Mine Action Center, the Bali Concord III Plan of Action (2013-2017). They also launched the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation while pledging to bring the ASEAN common platform on global issues into reality by 2020.

ASEAN, established in 1967, groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

PHNOM PENH, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and Thailand agreed on Monday to further promote bilateral trade, investment and tourism despite ongoing border dispute, Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said.

"We're trying to increase our bilateral trade and economic ties regardless of border conflict," he told reporters after the 4th meeting of Cambodia-Thailand joint trade committee, which was attended by Thai Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom.

"If there is no tension on the border, we expect bilateral trade between Cambodia and Thailand to increase by 35 percent this year."

Cham Prasidh said the bilateral trade was valued at 3.8 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 40 percent year-on-year thanks to the two governments' better relations and cooperation.

Meanwhile, both sides said that the process of economic integration in ASEAN, in particular tariff and non-tariff liberalization, trade facilitation measures as well as implementation of Cambodia-Thailand trade and investment plan of action 2012-2015 had contributed to the increase in bilateral trade.

The meeting agreed that in order to facilitate tourists to visit the two countries, Cambodia and Thailand will promote public awareness on the implementation of Single Visa for Cambodia and Thailand.

The two neighbors have had sporadic border conflicts over territorial dispute since the UNESCO approved Cambodia's Preah Vihear Temple as a World Heritage Site in 2008.

Deadly clashes between the two countries' troops happened in February and April 2011 over ownership of 4.6 square kilometers near the temple.

However, military tensions have eased since ex-Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party won a general election in August 2011.

Last week, the two countries delivered their oral statements on the dispute to the International Court of Justice in the Hague and the court is expected to issue a verdict later this year.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday that whatever the court's decision would be, Cambodia and Thailand would not become enemies because Cambodia and Thailand were like tongue and teeth.

PHNOM PENH, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Princess Astrid of Belgium, special representative of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM), will visit Cambodia from April 24 to 26 in order to attend the celebration of the World Malaria Day, according to a joint statement from Cambodian Health Ministry and the World Health Organization-Cambodia on Monday.

The forthcoming visit is made at the invitation of Health Minister Mam Bunheng and WHO Cambodia's Representative Dr. Pieter Van Maaren.

The princess will attend the World Malaria Day on Thursday morning in western Kampong Speu province. In the afternoon, she will join the WHO's launching of "Emergency Response to Artemisinin Resistance in the Greater Mekong Subregion" in Phnom Penh. "It is my great honor to be invited by the Health Ministry and the WHO to visit Cambodia for the events,"Princess Astrid said in the statement."The Health Ministry and the WHO are important partners in fighting against malaria and I am pleased to join with Cambodia to fight the disease."

Cambodia has achieved the United Nations Millennium Development Goal in reducing death toll by malaria three years earlier than the schedule, Dr. Char Meng Chuor, director of the National Center for Malaria, said last month.

He said the mortality rate by malaria had declined from 5.29 deaths per 100,000 people in 2000 to 0.32 deaths per 100,000 people in 2012. "In the UN's Millennium Development Goal, Cambodia sets its goal to reduce the malaria death rate to 0.78 deaths per 100,000 people by 2015, but we cut the death rate to 0.32 deaths last year, so it means that we achieved the U.N. goal three years earlier than the schedule," he told the annual malaria conference.

He said malaria killed 45 Cambodian people last year, down 52 percent year-on-year.

In the last five years, in a bid to fight the disease, the center had distributed 6.1 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets to the disease-prone people free of charge, he said.

Dr. Char said that based on the figures, it is believed that the country will be able to eradicate the death from malaria by 2015 and will completely eliminate all forms of malaria by 2025.

The Roll Back malaria Partnership was founded by UNICEF, WHO, UNDP and the World Bank in 1998 as a global framework to coordinate global action against malaria.

Currently, RBM is a global public-private partnership made up of more than 500 organizations across sectors that provides a neutral platform for developing solutions to challenges in the implementation of malaria control interventions and strategies.