The Phnom Penh Post - ENGLISH: “Political deadlock, corruption and investment” plus 9 more

UK Foreign Office Minister of State Hugo Swire on his talks with the Cambodian government and opposition.

I just said that I will order the village security guards to seize documents from them, not arrest them.

Ministry of National Defence put up a stouthearted display to share the spoils with Phnom Penh Crown after a merited 1-1 draw in a Metfone C-League tie at Olympic Stadium yesterday.

The Armymen, beaten fair and square by Naga in the first week, shook off the ill-effects of that loss and got down to play a robust game of containment against a side that decidedly showed greater verve and creativity in attack.

A lion's share of credit for confining Crown to just one goal should go to young Oum Vichet, who had an outstanding day under the MND bar, a splendid recovery from that bad run against Naga.

The MND custodian came in the way of at least two mighty cracks at the goal by Crown striker George Bisan and the duel between the two worked up tremendous excitement throughout.

First, Bisan saw his header from the top of the small box well covered by Vichet early in the second half and then the Crown hitman's fierce shot was spectacularly tipped over.

Both sides promised a goal here and there in the first 45 minutes, however neither could deliver. Then came a thrilling twist.

A minute into added time, Bin Chantha Thierry produced a scorcher from 25 yards out to give Crown a clear advantage.

But it didn't take long after the resumption for the Armymen to strike back. An unsettling moment inside the Crown box presented Oub Kamol a dream opening and his angular shot got a fortunate touch off the goalpost before deflecting in.

The leveller kept MND buoyant and Crown pushing harder than ever before. A couple of set pieces brought no cheer to Crown and MND were more than happy to keep their corner tight.

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TriAsia stun Boeung Ket
Stepping up to the highest class of football this season, TriAsia Phnom Penh fired a warning shot that they could trouble the best in the business by producing a late winner to beat 2012 champions and last year's runners-up Boeung Ket Rubber Field by the odd goal in three at Olympic Stadium on Saturday.

A first half of intense action ended in a flourish when Khut Dhani's 44th minute goal was equalised in added-on time before the break by Dutch striker Elroy van der Hooft.

The 1-1 deadlock continued amid fierce exchanges until Sung Vireak found the mark in the 75th minute in what turned out to be a memorable match winner for TriAsia. Meanwhile, Western University proved to strong and wily for Asia Europe University in their 3-1 victory.

Sizzling show by Svay Rieng
Svay Rieng kicked off their title defence with gusto on Saturday at Old Stadium, giving Cambodia league newboys Albirex Niigata many rays of hope before crushing them with a late goal blitz to end up 6-2 victors.

The champions saw an early effort coming off the post, but it was Albirex's Kazuki Tatsuta who opened the scoring. The Japanese forward chased onto to a ball over the top and struck a sublime lob that had the keeper stunned as it clipped off the post and in.

Svay Rieng were subdued until the break but came out firing in the second half with Nob Tola making the most of poor defending from Albirex off a corner Ly Saroth then produced a deft knock over the keeper's head whilst on the run to put Svay Rieng ahead.

But just three minutes later, Albirex defender Hayato Nokato nodded in from a goalmouth scramble to level the scores once more.

Svay Rieng's Nigerian defender stormed up the pitch to competently head home a cross on 73 minutes to swing things back their way. And it was to stay so.

Albirex keeper was left red-faced as a cross-cum-shot from Ly Saroth was fumbled into the net under no apparent pressure.

An own goal added to Svay Rieng's advantage before Phany I Rotha sealed the rout in the first minute of time added on.

Earlier at Old Stadium, reigning Hun Sen Cup winners Naga Corp were held to a 0-0 draw by Takeo-based club Kirivong Sok Sen Chey.

With shade from bamboo and insulation crafted from coconut fibre, a new sustainable housing design idea tailored to Cambodia could transform low-cost living in the capital, its creators hope.

At the opening night of Our City Festival, Swedish architecture company Tengbom, and local counterpart The Room Design Studio showcased the new housing unit concept using a 3D-printed model.

While the project has yet to secure funding, architects hope to find a local NGO that will support the project.

Nina Appelin, the branch manager for Room Design Studio, said the ready-made 10-by-2-metre units employed a "Lego block" principle, which meant that they were easy for landowners to assemble on vacant blocks of land, and then disassemble and move when the land is being developed or sold.

"Our project tries to deal specifically with creating a way to use some of the many vacant sites where the owners are waiting for prices of land to rise. We hope to provide a system that can be easily adapted to the specific site and be reused in a different context later on."

The design is also intended to accommodate other property-related issues relevant to Phnom Penh, with the inclusion of a shallow water basin and the use of paved grass to ensure drainage during the wet season, as well as the use of solar cells on roofs facing south for affordable electricity.

The materials will all be sourced locally, according to Appelin, who said the architects were investigating other sustainable projects in and around Phnom Penh to determine the most environmentally friendly and cost-effective options available.

"We hope to be able to use a compound of cement and coconut coir for facade cladding, bamboo for shading and a compound of recycled building materials such as bricks and roof tiles with cement for the bases of the buildings," Appelin said.

At the Our City Festival exhibition, a 3D model accompanied drawings and visualisations of the project. Hero Arc, a 3D-printing enterprise, was employed to make the model.

Ki Chong, co-owner of Hero Arc, said: "I was very intrigued when I heard their idea for the units and thought it was great that an innovative idea like Tengbom's compact living and an innovative technology like 3D printing could be brought together and exhibited in Cambodia."

Following the exhibit, Tengbom and The Room Design Studio intend to develop their project through further analysis and social studies, though the timeline and source of funding for the project has yet to be determined.

Howric Ghotbi, chairman of British Khmer Engineering and Construction, said the moveable function of the units could have great potential in the Phnom Penh housing market. "It might work for the owners of the land who want to build something that they can move in the future, somewhere else, but they don't lose the construction cost on these houses."

There is a need for more sustainable and resourceful construction in Phnom Penh, Ghotbi added.

"At the moment they are using old technology in Phnom Penh, actually its too expensive, and it does damage the environment, they use a lot of concrete, steel. It's not cheap."

Japan will introduce direct flights to and from Cambodia this year in an effort to bolster trade, investment and tourism between the two nations, Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Friday. Hun Sen announced the plan at a meeting with a delegation led by Hideo Sawada, the chairman of Japanese-based tourism firm H.I.S. Co Ltd.

"I will be the midwife for this baby," Hun Sen said, according to state news service AKP. He added that the flights could be operational in the next six months.

The proposal comes after an agreement inked in December between Cambodia and Japan that loosened visa requirements for passport holders from both countries.

Cambodia received 184,833 Japanese tourists in the first 11 months of 2013, compared to 159,745 during the same period of 2012, an increase of 15.7 per cent, according to the tourism ministry.

Japanese foreign direct investment in Cambodia reached about $47.5 million in 2013, compared to $328 million in 2012, a $280 million drop, figures provided by the Japanese embassy in Phnom Penh revealed.

An official at Cambodia's State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) said no memorandum of understanding had been signed regarding the flights, which are likely to be aboard Japan's national flag carrier, Japan Airlines.

Experts from both countries, however, had commenced work on a feasibility study, the SSCA official added.

The wife of Kep provincial governor Ken Satha was killed in a car accident as the couple travelled with their daughter from Kampot to Kep on National Road 33 on Thursday night, police said.

"The governor tried to avoid an approaching motorbike, causing the car to somersault," said Ung Samol, chief of police in Kep province. Satha's wife, Song Sorideth, 60, died instantly, while Satha and his daughter escaped with minor injuries.

"If governor Ken Satha had crashed into the motorbike, he and his family would be fine, but he tried to avoid hitting the driver who was transporting his wife and baby," Samol said.

The road was in bad condition due to construction, and the motorbike's headlights were not turned on.

"She [Sorideth] had a good relationship with the population," Samol said.

No complaint has been filed against the motorcycle driver, he added. "But I am not sure if he will do so after his wife's cremation."

Two suspects who allegedly beat a man to death and burned his corpse after a fight over an unpaid debt of about $12.50 were sent to court to be charged yesterday.

Five suspects were held for questioning by police following the incident in Por Sen Chey district's Choam Chao commune on Saturday, but only three were charged with a crime.

Police said yesterday that a fight broke out among the five suspects and the deceased over 50,000 riel two of the men claimed the victim owed.

The two suspects then allegedly beat the victim to death with wooden sticks in a plot of grassland near Veng Sreng Boulevard before burning the body and fleeing the scene.

"They are all vagrants living on the street," Mom Hor, of Choam Chao commune police, said of the suspects.

Three of the five detained were released after questioning and will be called as witnesses in the case, said Khim Saran, a Por Sen Chey district police inspector.

Market vendors hawking pirated government textbooks have a month to get their shops in order if they want to avoid an authority-led crackdown, a statement released on Friday by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport warns.

Selling or buying textbooks labelled "not for sale" or "belongs to the State" is illegal, the statement signed by Minister of Education Hang Chuon Naron says.

"The Ministry of Education [MoEYS] will cooperate with authorities to crack down in every market, bookstore and centre, to confiscate the books," and "suspects will face legal punishment", the announcement reads.

The warning gives vendors a one-month head start, Lim Sotharith, a director at the ministry said yesterday.

"At the same time we're taking action in markets or bookstores, we will take action against schools and their education departments to find out who is selling or distributing the state-owned textbooks to markets," Sotharith said, adding that legal action would then follow, and teachers or education officials found guilty would be punished, suspended or fired.

The education system is designed to provide mandatory textbooks free of charge for an entire academic year, Sotharith explained.

And yet, despite multiple public warnings on copyright infringement, demand for pirated textbooks nationwide indicates that students are still struggling to access the books.

In a statement released two weeks ago, the Khmer Institute for National Development (KIND) and Affiliated Network for Social Accountability-East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA EAP) recommend that the ministry directly oversee and monitor the delivery and distribution of textbooks.

The statement was released on the heels of a report published by KIND and ANS EAP in December, which found that 23 out of 33 schools surveyed had received textbooks from local education authorities, often at a price.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association will arrive in Cambodia on February 5, his office announced on Friday.

While the special rapporteur, Kenyan lawyer and human rights activist Maina Kiai, is only paying a "brief non-official academic visit", his trip comes as the constitutional right to freedom of assembly has been suspended following violent clashes between protesters and authorities last month that left at least four dead.

While the ban on assembly has been sporadically enforced, two peaceful protests have recently been put down by security forces, leaving several injured.

"The post-election protest movement in Cambodia has been remarkable in its size and persistence," Kiai said in a statement. "This is a testament to the importance of the right to peaceful assembly, and I am deeply concerned by the authorities' harsh crackdown over the past month."

During his three-day visit, Kiai will meet with civil society groups, labour activists and "other stakeholders", according to the statement.

Villagers in Ratanakkiri's Lumphat district have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc, claiming their village chief has threatened them with arrest over a petition accusing officials of illegally logging a community forest.

Sven Vev, 40, said he and three other representatives of the ethnic Tumpoun community in Batang commune's Batang village tried collecting 150 thumbprints to file a lawsuit against the alleged loggers.

But village chief Theng Mang – one of the subjects of the complaint, along with a police officer, a security guard chief and a villager – had threatened them, Vev claimed.

"When we were collecting the thumbprints, the village chief, Theng Mang, threatened the villagers that if they thumbprint it, he will order security guards to arrest them," he said.

The villagers filed the petition to the provincial Forestry Administration, which could not be reached for comment.

Mang rejected the claims yesterday, saying he was not responsible for felling a single tree and had not threatened to arrest anyone.

"I just said that I will order the village security guards to seize documents from them, not arrest them," he said.

Areas of the forest, he added, had been cleared by other villagers over the past three years.

"I don't know why they have accused me of this."

The villagers say the four accused were caught clearing the forest in December.

This led to the commune chief convening a meeting with the officials and the community, during which the four promised to cease the logging, the petition alleges.

"But now, the four have resumed the clearing of the land to sell it, so we ask for a solution soon," it reads.