11 parties finally approved to join parliamentary election of Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The National Election Committee (NEC) of Cambodia confirmed that 11 out of the 12 political parties applying to join the general election on July 27 are eligible to vie for seats at the National Assembly, said a press release received Wednesday.

NEC made the ultimate decision, after the Constitutional Council inspected and rejected the application of the Khmer Popular Society Party, said the committee in its release.

Earlier last week, NEC preliminarily denied the party's application and sent its document to the council for further inspection.

The approved participants included the major ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), the co-ruling Funcinpec Party, the royalist Norodom Ranariddh Party, as well as the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and Human Rights Party.

During the previous general election in 2003, 23 political parties vied with each other for the 123 seats in the Cambodian National Assembly. In that year, CPP led by Prime Minister Hun Senwon 73 seats, Funcinpec 26 seats, and SRP 24 seats.

by Editor: An Lu

http://news.xinhuanet.com

Rice falls to daily limit for 2nd time

Rice futures tumbled by their daily limit for the second session as producers eased export bans, alleviating concerns that global supplies will fail to meet demand.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that an export ban has been lifted, Chan Tong Yves, deputy head of the farm ministry, said yesterday by phone from Phnom Penh. Vietnam and India said earlier this month they may ease export curbs.

The staple for half the world, which reached a record $25.07 on the Chicago Board of Trade on April 24, slumped as much 50 cents. The record prices for food, including palm oil and wheat, have stoked concern about shortages and caused riots from Haiti to Egypt.

"The Cambodian news has damped market sentiment," Takaki Shigemoto, an analyst with Tokyo-based commodity broker Okachi & Co, said by phone yesterday. "With major producers in Southeast Asia braced for harvesting bumper crops in the next couple of months, the global market sees more supplies."

Rough rice for July delivery fell as much as 2.5 percent to $19.85 per 100 pounds, and traded at that level at 3:27 pm Singapore time. The price is still 88 percent higher than a year ago. The Chicago market, which fell 50 cents on May 23, was closed on Monday for a public holiday.

Cambodia would produce 6.8 million metric tons of unmilled rice this year after sufficient rains, compared with 6.7 million tons last year, the farm ministry's Chan Tong said.

The country has more than 1 million tons of rice available for sale overseas, the Financial Times said yesterday, citing the Cambodian premier. The ban on exports was put in place in March, the report said.

Global forecast

Global output of milled rice in 2008 will be 445.3 million tons, up 2.3 percent from last year's record 435.2 million tons, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said on May 22. Consumption will rise 2.4 percent, the agency said.

The Philippines, the world's largest rice importer, has failed this year, to fill state tenders for the grain, driving prices higher last month. The country imports about 2 million tons a year to plug a supply deficit.

A Philippine food company was the sole buyer today at a rice tender for private companies in Manila, the National Food Authority said. Uni-Agro Native Products Inc was seeking 500 tons out of the total 141,440 tons of tariff-free imports on offer, Assistant Administrator Conrad Ibanez told reporters.

Source:China Daily/Agencies
http://english.people.com.cn

SMEs need access to world market data

Local small and medium-sized enterprises need better access to information on changes in international trade regulations if they are to prosper, according to local experts.

Nitinant Wisaweisuan, an economist at Thammasat University, said small firms would face increased difficulties coping with changing trade-related standards such as health and environmental regulations in Europe.

Local companies already face many non-tariff trade barriers, such as hygiene requirements for poultry products or rules on chemicals and waste management in industrial products.

''Local electrical appliance producers are faced with tough requirements on chemical and electrical waste management. Furniture producers have been told to switch to 'E zero' glue that must be imported from Germany from the 'E20' currently used,'' Assoc Prof Nitinant said at an economics conference yesterday.

''Such measures will keep evolving as people become more conscious of health and environmental issues.''

Western importers were more likely to switch suppliers to, say, Thailand or the Philippines if shortcomings are found in products produced elsewhere, such as China, she said. ''In such an environment, large firms will be able to adjust, but smaller firms may not.''

She said such regulations would not pose a problem so long as producers had the information available to make adjustments.

Databases are also important for local companies looking to invest abroad, as they need to be prepared to comply with foreign tax, labour and other regulations.Sorachon Boonsong, a partner with the law firm Baker & McKenzie, agreed that local firms lacked access to information on the rules and laws of other countries.

Meanwhile, Thailand's relatively high corporate tax, complicated state licensing requirements and uncertainties regarding the Foreign Business Act were disadvantages for the country in the competition for foreign investment.

''For instance, if a foreign investor wants to open a new hotel, he will have to do a lot of paperwork to secure permission from the government, such as construction permits, liquor sales permits, as well as the need to comply with cultural issues,'' Mr Sorachon said.

He said that Thai antitrust law, enacted seven years ago to prevent small companies from being at a disadvantage to larger companies, was toothless because of the lack of supporting legislation.

''If local firms want to invest abroad, they need to comply with antitrust law in all those countries. Thai law is backward in this sense,'' Mr Sorachon said.

Even access to information for neighbouring countries such as Cambodia and Laos was difficult for many Thai small firms, he said, let alone information about the European market.

by PARISTA YUTHAMANOP

http://www.bangkokpost.com

Plane crashes in southeast Cambodia - official

PHNOM PENH, May 27 (Reuters) - An airplane has crashed in the remote province of Kampot in southeast Cambodia, a local military commander said on Tuesday.

"I can confirm there was a foreign plane that crashed in Cambodia in the province of Kampot this morning. We don't have any details," deputy Kampot military commander Kung Mony told Reuters.

Villagers in one district told Reuters they had heard a loud explosion. Soldiers and police were searching the area.
(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Sanjeev Miglani)

by http://www.reuters.com

UPDATE 1-U.S. corn, wheat futures fall as oil prices retreat

SEOUL, May 28 (Reuters) - U.S. grain futures, led by soybean and wheat, extended overnight losses to fall more than 1 percent in early Asian trading on Wednesday as a retreat in crude oil prices dampened demand for grains used to make biofuels.

A firmer U.S. dollar also weakened sentiment for the commodities, which are used by many large institutional investors to hedge against a weaker U.S. currency and inflation risk.

July corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade dropped 1.3 percent to $5.90 per bushel and July wheat fell 1.05 percent to $7.51 per bushel.

Soybean futures were slightly lower, supported by supply concerns, as farmers in Argentina, one of the world's major soy exporters, announced their third strike in over two months against higher taxes on grain exports.

After the U.S. markets were closed, Argentine farmers said they would halt grains exports until June 2 to protest a sliding-scale export tax. [ID:nN27314388]

July soybean futures dropped 0.09 percent to $13.46-½ per bushel.

U.S. oil prices dropped nearly 3 percent to around $128 a barrel after hitting a record above $135 last week, weakening sentiment for grains such as corn and soybeans, which are used to make ethanol and biodiesel.

CBOT July rice futures tumbled to two-month lows on signs that global rice supplies were likely improve and expectations that Vietnam would lift export curbs from July to follow Cambodia, which decided on Monday to lift a two-month rice export. [ID:nHAN11484]

July rice futures fell 3.8 percent to $18.86 per hundredweight, its lowest since late March.

(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; editing by Ken Wills)

by http://money.ninemsn.com.au

Opinion: A hungry world tests skills of peacemakers

The food price crisis is threatening to plunge millions back into poverty and if not handled properly can blow out of proportion and spark global problems affecting economic growth and political security, writes MICHAEL VATIKIOTIS.

War and hunger are inseparable: long experience has shown the close relationship between economic distress and the outbreak of conflict. But the solutions the international community tends to apply are mostly political and rarely address material needs. Everyday concerns of the population rarely reach the negotiating table, in part because the economic and social problems in conflict-ridden societies are extremely complex, involve many actors and can only be resolved in the long term.

So what happens when people are driven to kill one another for food? It's a critical question to ask as the world faces a sudden and unexpected food price crisis that is threatening to plunge millions back into poverty.

The sharp spike in food prices this year has already generated violence. Food riots in parts of Africa and the Caribbean have created social and political instability. In rice-growing countries like India, Vietnam and Thailand hoarding has begun, with export bans already in place creating inter-state friction. Myanmar's rice-growing capacity has been devastated by cyclone Nargis, which will add to price pressures in the coming months.

This is largely a crisis born of inflation and other market factors, rather than fundamental shortages. Prices for the benchmark Thai variety of rice, a food staple across much of Asia, have increased threefold in a year, reports the Asian Development Bank. Meat prices have risen by 60 per cent in Bangladesh in the year ending in March, and by 45 per cent in Cambodia and 30 per cent in the Philippines. With this sharp increase in the price of basic staples people are already hoarding, stealing and fighting over scarce supplies. The World Food Programme calls it a "Silent Tsunami".
The threat of conflict is real, both within societies where the numbers impoverished by higher grain prices is already high, and also between states as the trend towards commercial liberalisation and conglomeration is suddenly reversed and replaced by subsidies, price-fixing cartels, and export curbs. In Indonesia. a retired general recently warned: "If students demonstrate it's not a worry, but if hungry people take to the streets, now that's dangerous."

Hunger causes conflict when people feel they have nothing to lose and are willing to kill their neighbours over scarce resources. The peasant wars of the late 20th century in Central and South America and the wars that sprung from famine in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Sudan are grim reminders of man's most basic instinct, which is to fight to survive.

The trouble is that in terms of resolving conflict, we have come to rely less on material remedies and more on political artifice. Many of the internal conflicts that have been peacefully resolved in recent years only superficially addressed the material seeds of conflict. Peace agreements have been elite affairs where leaders of armed groups and governments reached an understanding on how to share power within a common state.

This approach is a sensible first step toward conflict resolution: by convincing those inciting violence to lay down their arms, it becomes possible to start designing a wider range of policies addressing socio-economic issues. However, typically, the socio-economic changes and the economic reconstruction and development the public was expecting trickled down slowly, if at all. Aceh remains one of the poorest parts of Indonesia, as does Mindanao in the southern Philippines -- two areas of Southeast Asia where peace has been negotiated.

When hunger drives people into conflict, we might presume that peacemaking will simply be a question of providing food. We would be mistaken. In fact, the experience of humanitarian aid agencies in the 1970s and 80s in Africa was that food aid tends to fuel conflict as the combatants seek to harness the supply of nutrition to the goals of war.

Experts tell us that farmers will eventually adjust the supply of food to cope with higher demand so that prices stabilise. More encouragingly, there are signs that decades of improving co-operation between states is stimulating a collective urge to resolve the crisis. The sharing of technology is key says former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan. He believes that farmers in Africa could double food output in five to 10 years if rich countries partner them in a "Green Revolution" for a long-term solution to the continent's food crisis.

But realistically, trade agreements and technological advances are slow-moving transformations. In the meantime, officials in India warn that the food price crisis could plunge millions of people into poverty in a country that is already battling an internal Marxist insurgency that draws support from impoverished and landless peasants. In Bangladesh, where the soaring cost of staples has forced the marginally poor to give up meat and rice, there is a significantly increased risk of conflict in an already fractured polity.

The immediate challenge, therefore, is to prevent and resolve conflict arising from the food crisis. This places a significant burden on the international community to swiftly respond to outbreaks of violence. But if people driven to war by hunger are less inclined to compromise this makes the task of peacemaking rather more challenging.

For one thing, conflict fuelled by hunger will be more widespread, exerting strain on international agencies involved in peacekeeping and humanitarian work. Food security is already fragile in many African countries and protracted conflict tends to drift across borders, as we have seen in Sudan and Congo.

Peacemakers need to be more aware of the socio-economic roots of conflict. They should incorporate in peace agreements remedies for the population's grievances and to enlist the international community's support behind their implementation. Such remedies should include pledges by leaders to address in a meaningful manner contentious issues such as land distribution, job creation, and racial and ethnic discrimination leading to socioeconomic inequality.

The ethnic and religious wars of the last half of the 20th century have perhaps lulled us into a false sense of security. We have grown accustomed to resolving conflict by forging political accommodation and compromise in situations where protagonists had much to lose materially if they kept on fighting.

But in a world where environmental and market pressures can triple the price of staple commodities in the matter of a few months, it is harder to find the grounds for compromise. This calls for more effective negotiating skills both domestically and internationally, bilaterally as well as multilaterally, to resolve these crises. Markets must be kept open to assist with the flow of goods to crisis situations, and in affected countries solutions must be found that address both elite and popular grievances.

The writer is Asia regional director for the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.

by http://www.nst.com.my

Findings on dragon boat tragedy due Friday, asregional races begin

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EVEN as the inquiry panel’s long-awaited report on last November’s Cambodia dragon boating accident is due out on Friday, many local teams are already steaming ahead with preparations for upcoming regional competitions.

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Some teams began planning more than two months ago. Next month, the Safra Dragons will compete in Nanning, China, while the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) team will compete in Macau. Teams from NUS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National Junior College and other organisations will also take part in the Club Crew World Championships cum ADBF Asian Dragon Boat Championships in Penang from August 1 to 3.

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While some may question the wisdom of committing to overseas competitions before the release of inquiry findings on the accident in Cambodia — which killed five national paddlers :— the schools told Today they would stick to tried-and-trusted safety procedures.

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NUS’ student athletes competing overseas are insured and will be accompanied by their coach and at least one team manager, said a spokesperson. A crisis management plan with “proper response procedures” is also in place, she said.

.

The NTU team decided to race in Penang because of its confidence in the Penang Dragon Boat Association and because it has competed there since 2002, said a spokesperson. But paddlers below the age of 21 will need their parents’ permission.

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Dragon-boaters told Today the tragedy in Cambodia had not dampened their competitive spirit. “Going overseas to train and compete exposes us to a different level of competition,” said NTU student Tan Hanming, 25.

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:Victims of the Cambodia accident were sucked under a pontoon by undercurrents. Still the fact that they were not wearing life jackets came under the spotlight at the time.

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Safety recommendations expected from the inquiry panel’s report include the compulsory donning of life jackets in all competitions. While vests are mandated for meets held here, this is not necessarily the case overseas :— even in some events conducted to the International Dragon Boat Federation’s standards.

.

But the schools are not taking chances. The NUS advises its paddlers to wear life jackets, while the NTU team wears them during all training sessions and competitions.

.

The Singapore Dragon Boat Association said its affiliates should consult the association prior to any overseas races.

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“We will draw their attention to anything that is unusual, for example, fast currents (at the race venue) or unusual equipment required,” said its president Rear-Admiral (Ret) Kwek Siew Jin.

Findings on dragon boat tragedy due Friday, asregional races begin

Neo Chai Chin

chaichin@mediacorp.com.sg

.

EVEN as the inquiry panel’s long-awaited report on last November’s Cambodia dragon boating accident is due out on Friday, many local teams are already steaming ahead with preparations for upcoming regional competitions.

.

Some teams began planning more than two months ago. Next month, the Safra Dragons will compete in Nanning, China, while the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) team will compete in Macau. Teams from NUS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National Junior College and other organisations will also take part in the Club Crew World Championships cum ADBF Asian Dragon Boat Championships in Penang from August 1 to 3.

.

While some may question the wisdom of committing to overseas competitions before the release of inquiry findings on the accident in Cambodia — which killed five national paddlers :— the schools told Today they would stick to tried-and-trusted safety procedures.

.

NUS’ student athletes competing overseas are insured and will be accompanied by their coach and at least one team manager, said a spokesperson. A crisis management plan with “proper response procedures” is also in place, she said.

.

The NTU team decided to race in Penang because of its confidence in the Penang Dragon Boat Association and because it has competed there since 2002, said a spokesperson. But paddlers below the age of 21 will need their parents’ permission.

.

Dragon-boaters told Today the tragedy in Cambodia had not dampened their competitive spirit. “Going overseas to train and compete exposes us to a different level of competition,” said NTU student Tan Hanming, 25.

.

:Victims of the Cambodia accident were sucked under a pontoon by undercurrents. Still the fact that they were not wearing life jackets came under the spotlight at the time.

.

Safety recommendations expected from the inquiry panel’s report include the compulsory donning of life jackets in all competitions. While vests are mandated for meets held here, this is not necessarily the case overseas :— even in some events conducted to the International Dragon Boat Federation’s standards.

.

But the schools are not taking chances. The NUS advises its paddlers to wear life jackets, while the NTU team wears them during all training sessions and competitions.

.

The Singapore Dragon Boat Association said its affiliates should consult the association prior to any overseas races.

.

“We will draw their attention to anything that is unusual, for example, fast currents (at the race venue) or unusual equipment required,” said its president Rear-Admiral (Ret) Kwek Siew Jin.

Findings on dragon boat tragedy due Friday, asregional races begin

Neo Chai Chin

chaichin@mediacorp.com.sg

.

EVEN as the inquiry panel’s long-awaited report on last November’s Cambodia dragon boating accident is due out on Friday, many local teams are already steaming ahead with preparations for upcoming regional competitions.

.

Some teams began planning more than two months ago. Next month, the Safra Dragons will compete in Nanning, China, while the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) team will compete in Macau. Teams from NUS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National Junior College and other organisations will also take part in the Club Crew World Championships cum ADBF Asian Dragon Boat Championships in Penang from August 1 to 3.

.

While some may question the wisdom of committing to overseas competitions before the release of inquiry findings on the accident in Cambodia — which killed five national paddlers :— the schools told Today they would stick to tried-and-trusted safety procedures.

.

NUS’ student athletes competing overseas are insured and will be accompanied by their coach and at least one team manager, said a spokesperson. A crisis management plan with “proper response procedures” is also in place, she said.

.

The NTU team decided to race in Penang because of its confidence in the Penang Dragon Boat Association and because it has competed there since 2002, said a spokesperson. But paddlers below the age of 21 will need their parents’ permission.

.

Dragon-boaters told Today the tragedy in Cambodia had not dampened their competitive spirit. “Going overseas to train and compete exposes us to a different level of competition,” said NTU student Tan Hanming, 25.

.

:Victims of the Cambodia accident

by Neo Chai Chin
http://www.todayonline.com