Thailand and Cambodia will today begin reducing troop levels along the border near Preah Vihear temple, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said on Friday.
Mr Suthep said this should help ease the tension along the sensitive frontier.
He and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had agreed during talks last weekend that the border dispute should be settled by peaceful means.
The deputy prime minister will tomorrow leave for Phnom Penh for another meeting with Mr Hun Sen.
Mr Suthep refused to comment when asked about senior Democrat MP Suthas Ngernmuen's threat yesterday to quit the party if the Bhumjaithai Party and Newin Chidchob were put in charge of the government's political actvities in the Northeast region.
Source: BKK Post
Thai Public Health Ministry on Thursday confirmed 83 new cases of influenza A(H1N1) Thursday, raising the total number of confirmed cases in Thailand to 1,556 cases, with one patient remaining in critical condition.
Deputy Public Health Minister Manit Nopamornbodhi said that of the number, 1,523 have fully recovered and were discharged, while 28 patients are still being treated in hospitals.
A patient in a Chonburi hospital remains in critical condition.
The deputy minister added that the Ministry of Public Health will adjust the current preventive measures against the H1N1 pandemic.
The H1N1 'Special Track' will open at all hospitals, including private institutions, to rapidly facilitate patients suspected of having contracted the new virus strain.
A man who was a child prisoner at a notorious Khmer Rouge torture center 30 years ago testified today at the trial of the facility’s commander that he hid under a pile of clothes to escape a final purge of inmates before Vietnamese troops ended the regime’s reign of terror.
Norng Chan Phal, now a 39-year-old father of two, was eight when the Vietnamese stormed the capital, Phnom Penh. He was held at the S-21 prison, where some 16,000 men, women and children were brutally tortured before execution.
An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died from forced labor, starvation, medical neglect and executions under the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime.
Norng Chan Phal testified at the trial of prison commander Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch (pronounced DOIK), that his father was first taken away to the prison, and that he was later taken there with his brother and mother, whom he glimpsed behind bars one last time before she disappeared, and presumably was executed.
"I could see her on the second floor, holding her hands on the bars of the window, looking at me, and she did not say even a single word to us," Norng Chan Phal said.
He broke down weeping several times while speaking of his parents, prompting his lawyer to ask for a five- minute recess so he could compose himself. Chief Judge Nil Nonn urged him to be strong and carry on and said his testimony was the best chance for him to share the story of his parents and his suffering.
Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial, and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. He is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes and murder, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison; Cambodia has no death penalty.
Four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders are also in the tribunal’s custody awaiting trial.
The court heard emotional testimony this week from a handful of S-21 survivors, whose skills helped spare their lives.
Two men, now in their 60s, painted portraits of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot and other communist leaders that glorified them as heroes. Another, now nearly 80 years old, endured beatings, electric shocks and had his toenails pulled out. He was spared death because he was able to fix cars, tractors, sewing machines and typewriters.
Norng Chan Phal recalled Thursday his arrival with his brother at S-21 and how he didn’t realize it was a prison. After his mother was put in a cell, the siblings were housed with carpenters in the prison’s back yard, where they survived for a year on meals of porridge, he said.
When soldiers from Vietnam — which had invaded Cambodia after a series of bloody border clashes — were on the verge of capturing Phnom Penh in January 1979, Duch, according to his own earlier testimony, carried out orders to kill all the remaining prisoners. Staff were ordered to evacuate the city.
The former jailer told the court after Norng Chan Phal’s testimony that he could not have been a prisoner there because no children had survived. The extensive files left behind at the prison list Norng Chan Phal’s father as a prisoner, but not him or other family members.
Norng Chan Phal said that he and his brother hid under the pile of clothes among broken furniture in the prison’s backyard as Vietnamese forces approached.
In the hours before the Vietnamese arrived but after the Khmer Rouge left, he said he frantically looked for his mother.
"I climbed to the second floor but I could not see my mother, then I ran to the next building and I saw people lying inside the room. I could seeing them lying with blood and I was scared and I was crying and kept running, searching for my mother," he said.
Both Thailand and Cambodia ordered their soldiers Thursday to be on alert in case fighting erupts at their disputed border, despite conciliatory remarks by the Thai prime minister.
Thailand last week asked the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, to reconsider its decision to formally list a temple on the border as a World Heritage site under Cambodia's domain. That move irritated Cambodia and the two sides have traded angry words ever since, raising concerns tension may escalate.
Old tensions over the issue were reawakened a year ago when UNESCO approved Cambodia's bid to have the centuries-old Preah Vihear temple named a World Heritage Site, more than four decades after the World Court awarded possession of it to Phnom Penh.
Thailand protested the move, claiming that it undermined its claim to a small amount of adjacent land.
Several gunbattles have killed at least seven Thai and Cambodian soldiers since then, and both sides have refused to back away from their positions, each saying it has the rightful claim to the land.
Thailand's commander for the area, Lt. Gen. Viboonsak Neepan, said Thursday that Thai troops are ready "to promptly retaliate" if attacked but said the situation remained stable.
"Apart from the anxiety among troops caused by the talk, rumors and press coverage in the capitals, the situation on the ground has not changed," he said.
On the Cambodian side, Capt. Thim Thuy, who heads the Cambodian army company stationed at the temple, said his troops received orders four days ago to be ready to fight since Thai soldiers reportedly have mobilized troops and heavy weapons to the front line.
"It's very hard to avoid any armed conflict ... if the Thai soldiers keep moving in their forces," he said. "We have received an order to be ready for fighting at any time."
Both sides have claimed the other is massing troops but declined to cite numbers.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has sought to reduce the pressure by emphasizing peaceful solutions, saying that officials on the ground have good mutual understanding despite provocative statements made by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
"Both countries have to come to an understanding that there is no victory for anyone in a war. There will only be losses on both sides," he told reporters, dismissing strong statements by Hun Sen as matters of "domestic politics."
Abhisit acknowledged, however, that both sides were likely to remain cautious as "everyone fears they will be at a disadvantage, militarily."
Cambodia and Thailand share a 800-kilometer (500-mile) land border, part of which has never been clearly demarcated because each country relies on different maps.
Sourse :AP - Friday, July 3
Cambodian government on Wednesday donated 1.2 million U.S. dollars to World Food Program to help reduce the hunger and malnutrition in this country, according to WFP statement. The statement released Wednesday said the donated fund will help provide food assistance to over 800,000 poor rural Cambodian people affected by food insecurity brought on by last year's high food prices and this year's global economic crisis. "WFP is very grateful for this generous contribution," said Jean-Pierre de Margerie, WFP Cambodia's representative. According to the statement, it's the third donation from Cambodian government to WFP since 2007, but did not elaborate the total amount contributed. Yim Chhay Ly, deputy prime minister and chairman of Council for Agriculture and Rural Development said Cambodia remains fully committed to support such objectives. WFP is supporting Cambodia's government in its efforts to improve the food security of Cambodia through all its activities, assists nearly one million of the poorest and most food insecure people in the country. WFP also, in addition to school feeding, implements operations in support of mother and child health, support TB and HIV patients, and project that support the creation of agricultural assets.
Source: Xinhua
The Association of Overseas Vietnamese in Cambodia inaugurated two floating community houses on June 29 as gifts from the Ho Chi Minh City Association in Support of Poor Patients. These houses were built for Vietnamese fisherman families in two communes in Kal Dieng district, Pursat province, to hold meetings, cultural activities, wedding parties or memorial ceremonies. The house for the Vietnamese community in Koh Keo commune is worth 10,000 USD, covering over 60 sq. m. while the other for those in Koh K’Ek commune was built at a cost of 8,000 USD. At the inauguration ceremony for the second house, the President of the donating organisation’s Thu Duc district Cell, Nguyen Thi Nguyet, also delivered a gift of notebooks and textbooks for poor students in the community. She said donors expected that these houses would not only help improve the living conditions of expatriates but also encourage them to maintain their Vietnamese cultural identity in the country of Angkor Watt. This is the second time Kal Dieng district has received floating houses from their homeland. The two previous houses are used as Vietnamese language classrooms, one of which was a gift from the late Prime Minister, Vo Van Kiet. Deputy President of the Kien Giang province Association in Support of Poor Patients, Nguyen Thi Lien, promised to raise more funds back home to help fix up the two old floating houses, which are deteriorating.
