American Buddhist Net

Nopporn Wong-Anan , Reuters
Published: Tuesday, July 08, 2008

BANGKOK - Thailand's top court questioned on Tuesday the legality of Bangkok's support for a Cambodian bid to list a disputed Hindu temple as a World Heritage site, giving the opposition another weapon to attack the government.

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It'd be worth your while to read the Wikipedia entry on Tuol Sleng, both as a lesson in 20th-century Cambodian history and also in light of the current issue of government-sanctioned torture in American politics. Recall the recent revelation that torture techniques used at Guantanamo (and God knows where else!) are actually based on a 1950's Chinese communist manual for eliciting false confessions from detainees.

I had the good (?) fortune several years ago of visiting Tuol Sleng. The building is stark; it has been left as the Vietnamese found it in 1979. Sans corpses, of course. After just a few minutes of wandering the halls and looking at the pre- and post-execution photographs on the walls, I was crying like a baby outside on the grass. Robyn
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Friday, 04 July 2008
by Lyria Eastley

Veteran Cambodian painter Vann Nath opened his art gallery at the Kith Eng Restaurant in Phnom Penh to the public on July 1, unveiling paintings documenting his time at Tuol Sleng, the notorious Khmer Rouge prison.

...Nath was captured by the Khmer Rouge and taken to Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, in December 1977. He was saved from almost certain execution in February 1978 after being commissioned to paint portraits of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

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By ROBERT TURNBULL
Published: July 6, 2008

SIEM REAP, Cambodia — There is no question that Angkor and its famed temples are among the world’s archaeological treasures, providing a window into the Cambodian dynasty that flourished there from the ninth century to the 15th century. But tourists who flock to the site in northwestern Cambodia say something is missing; few artifacts remain to help them imagine the customs and rituals of the ancient empire.

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Friday, 27 June 2008
Written by Tracey Shelton and Nguon Sovan

Passing motorists who glance at the building beside a quiet stretch of National Road 5 in Kampong Chhnang province are likely to assume it's just another farm house.

But a closer look reveals something eerie about the house, known according to local legend as "the house the ghost bought."

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June 29, 2008

A Thai court has temporarily blocked the government from supporting Cambodia's bid to have an 11th century temple near the Thai border declared a world landmark.

It ordered Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's administration to halt support for Cambodia's application to Unesco for the Preah Vihear temple to be designated a World Heritage Site.

A small amount of territory adjacent to the temple remains in dispute, and critics claim co-operation with Cambodia over the site application would jeopardise Thai claims to it.

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June 24, 2008

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia shut a border gate leading from Thailand to an 11th-century temple claimed by both nations, an official said Tuesday, as Thai protesters gathered outside and opposition politicians in Thailand's Parliament accused the prime minister of yielding sovereignty over the site.

The closure of the border crossing at the Preah Vihear temple was the latest flare-up in a long-standing dispute between Cambodia and Thailand over ownership of the area.

Preah Vihear is located on the top of a cliff in the Dangrek Mountains, about 150 miles (245 kilometers) north of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. However, it is more easily accessible from Thailand than from Cambodia.

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Experts hope male will be 'founder' of a revived population in Cambodia

June. 18, 2008

A hairy-nosed otter — the world's rarest otter species and once thought extinct — has a new home in Cambodia, a Buddhist blessing and caretakers who are looking out for his future. But with a name like that, will he ever get a wife?

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Thursday, 12 June 2008

June 8: The acting head of a Buddhist monastery was bound and killed by a group of robbers who escaped with his money and telephone. The incident occurred in Prek Kraboa pagoda, Prek Kraboa 3 village, Prek Kampeus commune, Khsach Kandal district, Kandal province at around midnight. Police identified the murdered monk as Pin Sim, 83, and said they suspected the killers were young and motivated only money.

June 8: Twenty-eight dogs from one village died the same night after being poisoned by a group of robbers. The incident occurred about 2am in Monorom village, Ang Snuol district, Kandal province. Police officials said that they suspected the thieves were either trying to dope the dogs and steal them – but this had gone wrong – or that they were trying to steal from the villagers and this would be easier if they poisoned the dogs. The village is said to be unnerved by the incident.

June 3: A woman, Sareoun, 20, died after being hit on the head with a garden hoe by Sam Sen, 33, when he was unable to rape her because she struggled too much. The incident occurred at 2:10pm in Sa Em village, Sangker commune, Chhep district, Preah Vihear province. District police chief, Khiev Lum Ang said the rapist was very angry with the victim when his plan to rape her failed so he took the hoe and hit her three times which caused her to die immediately close to her farm hut.

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June 16, 2008

Cambodian sex workers gathered at a Buddhist temple Monday in the latest protest against a police crackdown on prostitution.

Dressed in white, about two dozen sex workers kneeled inside a Phnom Penh pagoda and prayed for the government to halt a crackdown that started in March after a new anti-trafficking law was introduced.

"Please Lord Buddha help make our leaders listen when we say that the new law does not protect us," said Su Sotheavy, 68. "Our families depend on our profession."

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By Buzz Ball
Carthage Press
New! Sun Jun 08, 2008

CARTHAGE, Mo. -

For the first time in more than three years, the Mark Benz family has returned to Carthage from its High Tower Ministries work in Cambodia.

But they have returned with a lot more than what they had when they left in 2004.

• Established is the Cambodian Orphan Aid;

• The Bykota House, a Christian Children’s Home, is in full operation with 16 kids;

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Seth Meixner

The US government has upgraded Cambodia's anti-human trafficking rating for the first time since 2006, saying that the Kingdom has made a significant effort to combat people smuggling.

The country has been placed this year in Tier 2, the middle category in the US State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report, putting it alongside countries like Chile, Angola and El Salvador, which are among the 170 countries assessed.

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Friday, May 16, 2008
By Ker Munthit

When residents of this poor, Cambodian village need something built, they call on the Lightmans.

The Jewish-American family’s latest gift: a mosque.

“We never had such a beautiful mosque in our village,’’ said 81-year-old Leb Sen, a toothless, village elder with a wrinkled face. “The young people said to me that I am very lucky to live long enough to see one now.’’

...The villagers follow Imam-San, a small Islamic sect that incorporates Buddhism, Hinduism and animism. The Imam-San makes up about 3 percent of Cambodia’s 700,000 Muslims, who themselves represent only 5 percent of Cambodia’s 14 million people, according the U.S. State Department annual report on religious freedom.

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Fri, 16 May 2008

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian mother-in-law who forced her son's wife to live with and even give birth while housed in the family's pig pen has avoided prosecution because the victim refused to press charges, police said Friday. Deputy military police chief of north-western Banteay Meanchey province, Born Arun, said police stumbled on the abuse allegedly endured by Ieng Chan Thorn, 23, when they intervened to stop her husband beating her at a local guesthouse after she ran away.

...Thorn believed her marriage was "kampia" - a Cambodian Buddhist term meaning a burden earned through the sins of her previous incarnation which must be suffered in her current life.

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April 22, 2008

CHANTHABURI, (Bernama) -- Thai traders who until recently imported paddy (unmilled) rice from Cambodia are now suffering as the Cambodian government has started controlling rice exports in the face of steadily rising domestic prices, Thailand News Agency (TNA) reported.

...Meanwhile, consumers in Thailand's northeastern province of Ubon Ratchathani bordering Laos have switched to eat low quality rice as the price of 'Kao Hom Mali' fragrant rice has risen to Bt37 from Bt25 a kilogramme and the price of premium grade glutinous (sticky) rice has increased to Bt27 from Bt20 per kg.

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Monday, 14 April 2008

People in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Burma are celebrating the Buddhist New Year, by taking part in massive outdoor water fights, said to wash away the sins of the previous year.

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04/06/2008
By Kelly Puente

LONG BEACH - Long Beach resident Phan Phin hasn't been back to Cambodia since his entire family was wiped out by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.

For Phin, 62, the Cambodian New Year Parade is a small taste of home.

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March 30, 2008

Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday, his former colleague said.

Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago.

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Remote towns swap identity for cafés, shops

March 30, 2008
By Denis D. Gray

...Many of the old families have departed, selling or leasing their homes to rich outsiders who have turned them into a guesthouses, Internet cafés and pizza parlors. There are fewer monks because the newcomers no longer support the monasteries. And the influx of tourists skyrockets, the fragile town of 25,000 now taking in some 300,000 of them a year. Throughout Laos, tourism was up an astounding 36.5 percent in 2007, compared with 2006, with more than 1.3 million visitors in the first 10 months of the year, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association.

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By Erika Kinetz
Published: March 28, 2008

...In Cambodia, mythical serpents, or naga, are guardian spirits associated with prosperity. They adorn the lintels of the ancient temples of Angkor, and their long bodies flank bridges and banisters old and new. Fearsome five-headed serpents, hooded like cobras, hold up the fountains in the park by my house, which is not far from the Naga Casino. There is even a myth about the snake princess who gave rise to the Cambodian people.

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Mar 28, 2008
By GILLIAN FLACCUS

As a child in Cambodia, Sara Pol-Lim lost her father, three brothers and a cousin to the Khmer Rouge and spent four years in a youth concentration camp.

Pol-Lim was finally able to deal with her past when her mother wrote a book, but the community organizer works daily with refugees who repress their own horrific memories.

Now, those exiles will have a chance to reveal those tales _ and participate, in their own small way, in an international quest for justice.

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March 25, 2008

PHNOM PENH (Cambodia) - THE brides-to-be are brought down from poor Cambodian villages and herded into city hotels, where they are lined up and put on display for prospective grooms flown in from South Korea.

Over the past four years, some 2,500 women have wedded South Korean men, passing through an underground matchmaking business that few in Cambodia knew existed until recently.

...The grooms, mostly factory workers and farmers, have trouble finding wives in South Korea because they are low-income earners, IOM says.

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By Barbara Crossette
Published: March 20, 2008

When the U.S. State Department's voluminous global human rights report appears each year, as it did last week, the temptation is to dive into the sections on hot-topic nations such as China, Iraq or, lately, Pakistan. Not a lot of readers would turn first to Cambodia. Yet this poor and psychologically wounded country is a prime object lesson in the perilous, unending business of nation-building. With a national election coming in July, Cambodia needs some attention well in advance.

...the country is among the world's most badly governed and politically corrupt. The State Department's report summarized it concisely: "Corruption was considered endemic and extended throughout all segments of society, including the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government." It is made all the worse, the report added, by a "culture of impunity."

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Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to lay aside a century-long dispute over a temple complex on their border.

Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Frances Harrison

Both countries want to push for United Nations World Heritage status for the site.

The Preah Vihear Hindu temple was built in the 11th and 12th centuries on the top of mountains that form the Thai-Cambodian border.

But the exact position of the border has been disputed, and the complex has one entrance in each country.

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Thursday, March 6, 2008

PHNOM PENH — The decision by a Cambodian general to have two pythons that live under his villa "joined in marriage" has surprised Cambodians, a local newspaper reported Wednesday.

Rasmei Kampuchea said Gen Neang Phat held a wedding ceremony — replete with Buddhist monks, traditional music and a reception for as many as 100 celebrants — for the pair on Tuesday at his new villa about 25 kilometers east of Phnom Penh. He decided to give them a proper wedding ceremony after he dreamed of powerful spirits telling him to take good care of the pythons as they would help guard his family and the whole village.

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2 Mar 2008, 0113 hrs IST,Vinay Sitapati

Angkor Wat is celebrated, the world over, as a temple of steroid-induced proportions, buried for centuries in the forests of northern Cambodia before being rediscovered by modernity. Visitors such as I, expect to ‘stumble upon’ a giant temple rising about 700 feet in the air amidst the isolation of an intrusive forest.

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