DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Cambodian PM inaugurates 90 mln USD water treatment plant in capital” plus 1 more

PHNOM PENH, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday inaugurated a new water treatment plant in eastern part of capital Phnom Penh, saying that the plant would meet the rising demand of clean water in the city.

The 90 million U.S. dollar plant was invested by the listed state-owned Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) with concessional loans of 40 million U.S. dollars from Japan and 20 million U.S. dollars from France, the premier said.

The plant is capable to produce 130,000 cubic meters of clean water a day.

"It will increase the capacity of water supply to Phnom Penh City, which has been rapidly growing in new towns, high-rise buildings, flats and condominiums," he said.

Phnom Penh is home to about 2.2 million people. Hun Sen said that currently, 85 percent of Phnom Penh residents have accessed to clean water.

"The project comes to fruition thanks to the financial aids from Japan and France. Their assistance to Cambodia ahead of July' s general election truly reflects their trust in Cambodia's political stability," he said.

To date, the PPWSA has four water treatment plants, with a total capacity to produce 460,000 cubic meters of potable water a day.

The PPWSA is the only enterprise that listed on Cambodian Securities Exchange. Last year, the firm reported its net income after tax of 8.56 million U.S. dollars, up 39 percent year-on-year.

PHNOM PENH, June 4 (Xinhua) -- About 20,000 survivors of the Democratic Kampuchea, or Khmer Rouge regime during 1975-1979, will gather at Cambodian capital's Freedom Park on Sunday to protest against Kem Sokha, vice president of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), for his alleged Khmer Rouge genocide denial, an organizer said Tuesday.

"We have set a 10-day period for Kem Sokha to come to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to apologize for his insulting remarks, but he has not appeared, so we decided to hold a mass protest against him on June 9," Chhum Mey, president of the Victims Association of Democratic Kampuchea and one of the survivors from the Tuol Sleng prison, said at a press briefing on Tuesday.

He said some 20,000 protestors will meet at the Freedom Park on that day and about 2,000 of them will march from the park to the headquarters of the CNRP.

"Kem Sokha's remarks have insulted people who lost lives at the prison and elsewhere in the country during the Khmer Rouge regime," he said.

The protest plan was made after Kem Sokha allegedly said that the Khmer Rouge regime's notorious Tuol Sleng prison was an artificial place.

"If this place (Tuol Sleng prison) was truly Khmer Rouge, they would have demolished it before they left, not kept it to show everyone," Kem Sokha said in a short audio recording recently circulated by the government.

"If the Khmer Rouge killed a lot of people, they would not be stupid to keep it to show to everyone, they would destroy it to eliminate evidence. I believe that it was just staged," he said at his party's public forum.

Phnom Penh's former Tuol Sleng prison was the main torture center during the regime, and around 14,000 people were killed at the center.

In February last year, the Supreme Court Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) sentenced ex-chief of Tuol Sleng prison Kaing Guek Eav to life in prison for overseeing the deaths.

CNRP's spokesman Yim Sovann said Tuesday that it was their rights to stage a protest, but Kem Sokha would not apologize upon their demand because he had never denied genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime or at Tuol Sleng prison.

"Kem Sokha did not say those words; his remarks were fabricated in order to create turmoil targeting the opposition leader ahead of July's general election," he told Xinhua over telephone.

Kem Sokha's alleged remarks have prompted the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP)'s lawmakers to propose a draft law on punishing Khmer Rouge genocide denial to the National Assembly last week.

CPP's lawmaker Chheang Von, chairman of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Commission at the National Assembly, said that the National Assembly would discuss and pass the draft law on Friday.

"When the law is adopted, someone who says that Khmer Rouge regime had not killed people will be jailed from six months to two years and fined between 250 U.S. dollars and 1,000 U.S. dollars," he told Xinhua over telephone.