Archive for November 22nd, 2008
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
This is the second attack this week, following an earlier grenade attack on Thursday which killed one and injured between 20 and 29. The earlier attack prompted planning for a rally and march on parli...
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Cambodia News | No Comments »
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
November 22, 2008Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
CambodiaThe global economic turmoil has started taking its toll worldwide and it is the smaller and under developed economies of the world who are the first to face the brunt of the development. Cambodia which has a very small garment sector but on which it is economically dependent has been badly hit by the crisis.
The recessionary trends prevailing mainly in its main markets of the US has brought with it a fear of closures and mass lay offs in the export oriented sector. The garment sector of Cambodia, which is the leading export earner and employment generator for the country, is presently collapsing under the pressure built up by falling US orders.
Slowdown of the US economy has immensely hurt the revenues flowing into Cambodia as well as the profit of the exporters. More so because unlike other competing countries like Thailand, the Cambodian garment manufacturers cum exporters failed to diversify its markets in to Europe, Russia and the thriving Middle East.
About 70 percent of the garment exports of Cambodia are directed to the US while only 24 percent go to the EU. Experts believe that slowdown in US will lead to further drop in the sales of clothing
There is an expectation of nearly 35-40 garment exporting units closing in the next two months as new orders have trickled down or have totally stopped coming in. Already it seems nearly 20,000 employees have been laid off and if these other companies close down it will add nearly 25,000-30,000 to that number.
Most of the other garment export companies are working between 50-70 percent capacities due to lack of orders and according to some exporters they do not expect the situation to improve even in 2009.
But labour unions counter the observations made by these garment companies by saying that those companies which have closed down, have done so due to labour related issues and have shifted their operations elsewhere, but do accept the gravity of the situation created by the crisis.
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Cambodia News, KI Media | No Comments »
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
11/21/2008By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)
LONG BEACH - Soksamnang Vy, an 11-month old boy from an impoverished village in Cambodia who was brought to the United States for life-altering heart surgery, has had a date set for the procedure.
The Children's Heart Center in Las Vegas, which is donating its staff and facilities for the surgery, has scheduled Vy for an appointment on Dec. 1, with surgery on Dec. 4 or 5.
Vy and his mother, Ratha Pang, arrived in Long Beach on Sunday, accompanied by Peter Chhun, the founder of nonprofit Hearts Without Boundaries, which is sponsoring the trip.
The boy suffers from a ventricular septal defect or hole in his heart.
Although the surgery to fix it is relatively routine in the United States, it requires use of a heart-lung machine and expertise not readily available in Cambodia.
"The baby has a congenital heart defect that without surgery will shorten his life," said Dr. Paul Grossfeld of San Diego, a cardiologist familiar with Vy's condition.
Vy is the second child Chhun has brought out of Cambodia for the open-heart procedure. The first, 9-year-old Davik Teng, had surgery at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles in March and has since returned to her village outside of Battambang in northwest Cambodia.
After surgery, Vy will likely remain in the hospital for three or four days to recover and will stay in Las Vegas another week or two for checkups.
If all goes to plan, Chhun says Vy should be well enough to return home by the end of January.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Cambodia News, KI Media | No Comments »
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
Just about four months ago when the average price of gas was around $3.45 per gallon, no one then thought that we would ever see cheaper gas prices again. Back in the mid of July, crude oil prices were around $162 per barrel and a lot of people were speculating that the prices would keep going up even more. Some of us thought that we could see rate as much as $5 to $6 per gallon by the Thanksgiving holiday.
Well, now the crude oil costs less than $60 per barrel and the national average prices of gasoline is now $2 per gallon. I drove by a Shell gas station yesterday and a gallon of "regular" was only $1.93. There is no doubt it's a welcome news to a lot of motorists, especially when we're living under this economic tough time. Some even start speculate again that we might see as much as $1.50 per gallon by this Christmas and New Year holiday.
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Discussion Forum | No Comments »
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
Bangkok, Nov 22 (DPA) Unknown assailants launched a grenade at anti-government protesters Saturday, killing one person and injuring seven people, fanning worries that Thailand was heading for more political street violence this weekend, media reports said.
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Cambodia News | No Comments »
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
Bangkok Hospital has been granted the highest possible honor for a Thai company, recently receiving the Royal Garuda Emblem from the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Cambodia News | No Comments »
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
PM Dung to attend meeting on development triangle in Laos
22/11/2008VNA (Hanoi)Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will attend the 5th Meeting of Prime Ministers of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia on the Development Triangle scheduled for Vientiane, Laos from Nov. 26-27.
The attendance will be made at the invitation of Lao Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh.
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Cambodia News, KI Media | No Comments »
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
21 November 2008 Grain.org (Spain)
Cambodia is a major target of the global landgrabbing surge that began in March this year when the world food crisis was at its peak. High-ranking foreign delegations have regularly been visiting Phnom Penh, looking to strike deals for access to land to produce food for export back to their countries. Overall, as much as $3 billion in agricultural investments are currently being negotiated with the Cambodian government in return for millions of hectares in land concessions. The largest deal so far is a bilateral deal with Kuwait involving a $546 million loan in exchange for a 70-90 year lease covering a "large area" of rice lands, where Kuwait will organise production for export back home. Meanwhile, over 100,000 Cambodian families lack food and many more are directly at risk from the escalating government-backed land evictions happening across the country.
As documented by GRAIN in an October 2008 briefing, Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security, such land grab investments in Cambodia and elsewhere may be negotiated by governments, but it is the private sector that is explicitly expected to step in and deliver-- taking control of the production and distribution. This kind of agricultural investment is really all about agribusiness development-- from the seed to the market, and it is only natural then that the projects involving rice often involve hybrid rice seeds.
As Cambodian rice farmers are dispalced from their lands to make way for export production, so too their traditional rice seeds will be displaced by imported hybrids. This was confirmed this past week when national media in Cambodia reported that a Cambodia-based joint venture hybrid rice company was in negotiations with foreign investors from the Middle East and Singapore to grow its hybrid rice on 50,000 hectares in the central province of Kampong Thom.
The hybrid rice company, Kasekor Khmer Rongroeung Co Ltd, is a partnership between Singapore-based Sunland Agritech, a well-known player on the hybrid rice scene with tie-ups in Malaysia and the Philippines, and Malaynesia Resources, a Singapore-based company providing consultancy services to foreigners investing in Southeast Asia. The company currently only operates a 2-hectare test plot but it plans to increase its seed production area in the province to 200 hectares in the next growing season.
This past season the company distributed seeds and fertiliser to farmers free of charge in return for a share of the crop - a strategy it plans to expand upon. At present, the provincial governor estimates that Kasekor Khmer Rongroeung' s hybrid rice is grown on around 5,000 hectares in the province.
"We are ready for large-scale implementation," said Louis Kek, director of Malaynesia Resources.
Kek told the Cambodia Daily that their hybrid seeds will triple rice yields in the province, from 2.5 tonnes per hectare to 7- 8 tonnes per hectare. But similar promises were also made by this company in Malaysia, where high yields have not materialised. In trials conducted by the Malaysian Agriculture and Research Development Institute (MARDI), the hybrid rice of SunLand's Malaysian joint venture, RB Biotech, was devastated by panicle blast and, even when not exposed to disease, its yield was still considerably below that of the check variety.
The main appeal of hybrid rice for private investors, however, is not its performance but the control it offers over farming. Farmers who plant hybrid rice have to return to the company every year to buy new seed, so it is ideal for locking them into contract production. Hybrid rice is also best suited to the kind of large-scale, high-tech, plantation-style agriculture that the foreign investors moving in on Cambodia's rice lands are likely interested in pursuing. Landgrabbing and hybrid rice are indeed a perfect match.
Source | Comments Off
Posted in Cambodia News, KI Media | Comments Off
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
Bangkok - Nikon Corp's unit in Thailand laid off 1,500 of its subcontracting staff amid signs that Thailand's exports are slowing, media reports said Saturday. The Japanese camera-manufacturing giant ...
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Cambodia News | No Comments »
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
BANGKOK -- Japanese camera-maker Nikon has laid off 1,500 sub-contractors in Thailand, a government official confirmed Saturday, after a fall in demand put down to the global financial crisis. Amporn ...
Source | Discuss this article
Posted in Cambodia News | No Comments »
