The Phnom Penh Post - ENGLISH: “Wear ties” plus 9 more

After liberation, what did we have? Pol Pot took everything and we still survived when it was difficult during the famine. Now we can wear ties.

More than 600 families of ethnic Tumpuon villagers from Taveng district on Monday filed complaints with Ratanakkiri authorities and rights group Adhoc seeking a halt to illegal mining of gold by two companies.

Chhay Thy, Adhoc provincial coordinator, said yesterday that community representative Traing Thaim, 28, submitted a 60-page letter with 719 thumbprints and signatures to his office on Monday morning, asking for intervention to stop Chinese firm Discovery Investment Co Ltd and an unidentified Vietnamese company from pumping gold from Sesan River.

"The companies got licences to operate sand dredgers, but instead they've set up gold mines," Thy said.

According to Thaim, the firms began setting up their operations in August and September last year. They started mining this month and already, he said, the effects have been seen in nine villages.

"It spoils water and we cannot use it, animals cannot drink the water [and] the riverbank is collapsing."

Besides Adhoc, the community also submitted a complaint to authorities, Thaim said.

Muong Pang, Taveng district governor, said he had received the complaint but believed the villagers are misinformed.

"Our villages are worried when the see the ferries and they think it pumps gold, but in fact it pumps sand," he said.

Neither company could be reached for comment.

An unscheduled bathroom break led to the discovery of 27 pieces of unexploded ordnance in Kampong Speu's Samrong Tong district on Monday, military police said yesterday.

Ven Lenghuong, Samrong Tong district military police commander, said that a patrolling military police officer had left his group to urinate when he spotted the tops of four rockets protruding from the ground near Sla village, in Voasar commune.

"They found 27 pieces of unexploded ordnance, of which most of them were [B-40 rockets], and some of them were usable," Lenghuong said.

The area was home to a Lon Nol-era military base, and villagers maintained that the location was the scene of bitter fighting between Lon Nol forces and the Khmer Rouge, he added.

According to Cambodian Mine Action Centre director general Heng Rattana, demining experts and district military police dug out and detonated the war remnants on the spot.

"Of those pieces of ordnance, some of them could have exploded if they were touched, or collided accidentally. Therefore, the experts decided to detonate them there immediately," Rattana said.

An official at the Takeo provincial department of labour was arrested on Friday and charged for allegedly embezzling more than $310,000 from vocational teachers, the ACU and a prosecutor said yesterday.

Sok Ranny, the deputy chief of the vocational training centre at the department, stands accused of skimming the salaries of 18 teachers over the course of seven years, according to a statement released by the ACU yesterday.

"After investigating the irregularities related to the leadership and management of Sok Ranny, the judicial police of ACU have found some 1.3 billion riel ($313,750) was embezzled from 18 technical teachers … as well as funds for the provincial vocational training in the centre from 2006 to 2013," the ACU's release reads.

Takeo provincial court prosecutor Meas Sophak said Ranny was charged with "unlawful exploitation" and was sent to the provincial prison for pre-trial detention on Sunday.

If found guilty, Ranny faces between two and five years in prison and fines of up to 10 million riel ($2,500).

Vietnam Dairy Product Joint-Stock Co, better-known to milk lovers as Vinamilk, was granted a licence on Monday to open a $23 million processing facility in Phnom Penh's Special Economic Zone.

A statement to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange released by the dairy giant on Monday says the Vietnamese Ministry for Planning and Investment issued Vinamilk with a mandatory overseas investment certificate.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung delivered the licence to Vinamilk on Monday amid the 4th Cambodia-Vietnam conference on investment cooperation in Phnom Penh.

The deal has Vinamilk holding a 51 per cent share of the facility, and Cambodia's Angkor Dairy Products Company Limited owning the remaining 49 per cent. The plant will produce 19 million litres of liquid milk, 64 million jars of yogurt and 80 million cans of condensed milk annually, according to the statement.

Manoj Nutchanart, general manager of BPC Trading, the local distributor of Vinamilk, said the license was one of the final details needed before construction on the facility starts.

"We expect the operation to be up and running in early 2015," he said.

Tran Tu, trade attaché at the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh, commended the deal, and said while much of the process is automated, the facility may provide up to 100 jobs.

"I hope in the future there will be more Vietnamese investment in Cambodia because there are many things to do, especially as we get closer to the Asean Economic Community 2015 deadline," he said.

The embassy official also listed Vietnamese investment increases in Metphone, valued at $70 million, a $100 million increase in Cambodia Angkor Air and a $600 million investment increase in Vietnam Rubber Group as other notable additions to the cross-border trade.

Vinamilk's 2013 third-quarter financial statement shows a $238 million after-tax profit, up from $196.8 million during the same period in 2012.

At the same conference where Vinamilk's license was handed over, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Vietnamese investment in Cambodia had risen 250 per cent between 2012 and 2013.

Nguyen The Phuong, deputy minister of Planning and Investment of Vietnam, said at the conference that from 2009 to 2013, the Cambodian government had approved a total of 103 Vietnamese investment projects, for a total value of $2.9 billion.

Major Vietnamese investments are focused in agriculture and forestry (rubber plantations and rice), energy, banking, finance, insurance and telecommunications, according to the Vietnamese deputy prime minister.

Economic freedom in Cambodia worsened over the past year, according to the latest report from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in the US.

Assembled in cooperation with the Wall Street Journal, the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom cites government corruption, a weak judicial system, land grabs, regulatory inefficiencies, a lack of labour freedoms and a government hand in markets as factors contributing to a small backstep.

Cambodia is ranked 108 out of 178 countries surveyed, with an overall score of 57.4, a 1.1-point dip from last year's results. The Kingdom is ranked 23 out of 42 countries in the region, and its overall score falls short of the Asia-Pacific average, the authors of the report said.

The annual index ranks countries based on their regulatory and legal environment, the limit of government intervention in the economy and market openness.

Hong Kong tops the rankings with a score of 90.1, with Singapore not far behind. Myanmar was the most improved, and North Korea bottoms out the list at number 178 with a score of just 1.0.

Calls to the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Press & Quick Reaction Unit at the Council of Ministers were not returned yesterday.

Former diplomat Sichan Siv, the highest-ranking Cambodian-American to serve in the US government, has published an Angkor Wat-inspired book.

The self-published Golden Tower, which features photos from visits to the temples prior to the Khmer Rouge regime, goes on sale today at Monument Books in Phnom Penh.

The 43-page book is the author's third publication, following his self-published poetry collection Golden Words and a memoir, Golden Bones, published by Harper Collins.

The new, picture-heavy publication shows parts of Angkor Wat that no longer exist, said William Bagley, group purchasing manager at Monument.

"There are some interesting photographs of some views you can no longer see because of the changes to Angkor Wat," he said. In an interview about the new release, Siv said he wanted to explore his personal connection to the ancient temple complex, where he shared a picnic with his mother a few years before the Khmer Rouge broke up the family.

"When I was young, in 1969, my mum took me to Angkor Wat for being good," he said.

During the rise of the Khmer Rouge, Sichan Siv was separated from his mother, with her final words to him being "never give up hope". Years later he discovered that none of his family had survived.

After escaping the killing fields and arriving in the US with nothing, he worked his way up to serve as deputy assistant to George W Bush and as a US ambassador to the UN. He now lives in San Antonio, Texas.

At the American University of Phnom Penh yesterday, the former US ambassador to the United Nations spoke about his journey before an audience of students, faculty members, NGO staff and government officials from the Ministry of

Planning. "I don't want to think of Cambodia as the Killing Fields, I want to think of Cambodia as a culture," he said in the speech.

Addressing the younger generations of Cambodia, he said: "the future is in the hands of the young people".

Cambodia's North Korean-born wrestling coach Pak So-nam is set to return home today, with the Cambodian Wresting Federation throwing a farewell party for the 58-year-old on Monday night at Pyongyang restaurant.

The coach, who has spent nearly a decade in the Kingdom instructing wrestling, received a Swatch watch gift from CWF president Chea Bunheng as well as plaudits from attendees such as National Olympic Committee of Cambodia general secretary Vath Chamroeun and federation benefactor Casey Barnett.

Chamroeun told the Post that the CWF would "of course" be appointing a new foreign coach to guide the national team, which grabbed four gold medals at last month's SEA Games in Myanmar, but would wait until the build-up to the next major international competition.

Only one match of the Cellcard Fantasy League's Gameweek 21 featured less than two goals, so scores were expected to be bloated for fantasy managers. However, your wits were still needed to be about you with choice selections not exactly at the tip of the tongue.

Step forward Sunderland winger Adam Johnson, formerly of Man City, who had netted just a single time during the current season. The 26-year-old Englishman bagged a magnificent hat-trick and assist at Fulham to lift his club off the foot of the table, and in doing so earn 22 points in the fantasy league.

A less than small minority of managers managed to include Johnson in their teams, while the league's most popular player Luis Suarez of Liverpool is the pride of more than half of them. The Uruguayan hotshot made a welcome return to the Dream team with a brace in their thrilling tie at Stoke for 13 points.

Three defenders – namely Man City's Aleksander Kolarov, Chelsea's Ashley Cole and Everton's Leighton Baines – notched up 12 points a piece, while Sunderland's Ki Sung-Yueng also danced to a dozen.

Over in the weekly competition, some high tallies fell foul of the rules that prohibit collection of prizes for unregistered members, while others were caught out by excessive transfers. Nith Poch and her side Aston Memot missed out on her own hat-trick of gameweek wins this campaign after her 89-point total was created thanks to seven transfers. Pisei Hin, also on 89, was unable to triumph with his team Giant United as he is a staff member of the Phnom Penh Post.

Thus the Cellcard goodies of a US$20 phone voucher and T-shirt fall to Pheak Moo with his side Tumoo FC on 89 points. Pheak naturally had Suarez as captain for 26 points, while a wise transfer in of Baines (12) and Dream team picks of Southampton defender Jose Fonte (9) and West Ham midfielder Mark Noble (11) took him past the winning post.

Gameweek 22 fills out the long weekend, with the Chelsea v Man United blockbuster slated for Sunday.

Cellcard's Facebook competition was as popular as ever, and the question "Which match will have the highest total score?" was answered correctly by 26 users as Stoke v Liverpool.

However, the tie-break question of the correct scoreline saw three users guess one goal off at 5-2 to Liverpool. Socheat Sous was judged to have won the lucky draw to receive the $10 phone voucher.

More than 100 work-study participants employed by NGO Digital Divide Data (DDD) in the capitol's Chamkarmon district jumped on the strike bandwagon on Monday, demanding the same monthly wage garment workers are calling for, a union representative said yesterday.

Employees are charged with transforming physical documents into searchable archives for a variety of clients.

The work-study participants are disadvantaged youth and range in age from 19 to 26, according to DDD chief development officer Michael Chertok.

"The total value of this program, including salary, incentive, benefits, English training, scholarship and work experience, can be seen in the long-term benefits, where our graduates leverage this experience to earn more than four times the national average income," Chertok said in a written statement yesterday.

But according to their union president, An Sonovin, 38, the monthly wage of $88 simply isn't enough.

"I would like the organisation to think about us and not just offer a small salary for its staff," he said, adding that participants were demanding the director of the NGO's human resources department – whom they claimed was rude – be fired, a monthly wage of $160 and better access to doctors.

A human resources staffer who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity described a far more favourable work environment than the one painted by union reps.

"They only work six hours a day [six days a week] and participants can work overtime if desired and are offered $20 per month as incentive. In sum, they can earn from $130 up to $150 a month," he said.

Cynthia Hauck, chief operations officer, confirmed the 36-hour work week and reiterated the NGO's commitment to its employees.

"We have this program so they can learn and go out and better the world."