Relocation may be offered to victims of Tuol Kork fire

A victim of Monday night’s blaze in Tuol Kork district that destroyed hundreds of dwellings stakes out the plot where his home once stood, as residents of the Boeung Kak 2 commune neighbourhood devastated by the fire began trying to put their lives back together on Tuesday.

By: Phnom Penh Post

FAMILIES were assessing the damage on Tuesday after a fire ripped through Tuol Kork district’s Boeung Kak 2 commune on Monday evening, as local officials offered to relocate the displaced to plots of land in Kandal province.

Nuov Pheak, a commune official in Boeung Kak 2, said the blaze had left hundreds homeless, including 257 families, 181 students and 90 monks, with 178 homes and 31 dormitory rooms destroyed.

Local authorities are still unsure of how the fire started, he added.

“Currently, we are distributing food, tents and other materials to them for temporary living around the pagoda and the surrounding area,” Nuov Pheak said.

Gnith Khim, abbot of the commune’s Neak Von pagoda, said Tuesday that flames had spread from an area near the edge of the community into the dormitory rooms near the pagoda. He called for donations from the government and the private sector to support the dozens of residents who were gathering at his pagoda in the aftermath of the fire.

Photo by: Nick Sells (www.nicksellsphotography.com)

A man on Tuesday surveys the damage wrought by a fire that officials said left hundreds homeless in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kork district.

Speaking at the pagoda, Tuol Kork district Governor Seng Ratanak said he had been distributing food, water and tents to local residents. He said he was preparing for a meeting with community representatives in the near future in the hope of convincing them to move to Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district – an offer that has sparked questions about future development at the site.

“Phnom Penh authorities plan to provide 6-metre-by-12-metre plots of land ... for residents who volunteer to move there,” Seng Ratanak said.

Kong Keang, 48, who lost his home in the fire, said he had heard of plans to develop the area, but that he did not believe residents were being offered sufficient compensation.

“The authorities want us to volunteer to receive more than US$8,000 per family or agree to receive a 6-metre-by-12-metre plot of land in Kandal province,” he said. “Now, we are very concerned because the authorities can use [the fire] as an excuse to evict us to another place.”

Despite their reluctance to leave their homes, some residents may have few options.

Sen Sareth, 31, said she had operated a store in the community, but that it had been destroyed along with her home in the blaze on Monday night.

“The fire destroyed all of my property and my house,” she said tearfully, with her 7-year-old son at her side. “Now I need food and some money to reopen my business and support my family.”

Dentist charged in ‘acid’ case

phnompenhpost   FRIDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2010 15:04 TEP NIMOL

Photo by: Uy Nousereimony

Empty acid bottles placed next to car batteries at a car supplies store on Monivong Boulevard last week.

APHNOM Penh dentist who stands accused of a disputed acid attack has been charged with assault.

Lim Soma, 41, was charged Tuesday, said Ek Chheng Huot, deputy prosecutor at Phnom Penh Municipal Court.

Under the UNTAC criminal code, the charge is considered a misdemeanor. A conviction carries a sentence ranging from two months to five years in prison, depending on the severity of the injury.

But neither the assailant nor her target is happy with the charge.

Reached by telephone on Thursday, Lim Soma referred questions to a man she identified as her husband.

“It is unjust to me because the charge on my wife is too serious,” said the man, who declined to give his name.

“My wife did not attack with acid, just tooth-whitening liquid, and the victim did not have any injuries.”

Kea Sokheang, the employer of the victim, Hor Tin, who has spoken on his behalf since the January 4 incident, said he was pleased the court had finally charged Lim Soma after originally asking for the case to be settled out of court, but added that he had been seeking a more serious charge.

“The charge is too light,” Kea Sokheang said.

The two sides have presented vastly diiffering accounts of the incident. Kea Sokheang framed it as the result of a dispute between Lim Soma’s family and his own, with his employee an innocent victim of what he insisted was an acid attack.

Lim Soma, however, said she poured tooth-whitening liquid on Hor Tin to break up a dispute over a parking sign.

New attack reported
In a separate case, officials in Kampong Cham province are reporting a new acid attack – at least the seventh reported this year nationwide.

A rights advocate and a police official said that a man doused his wife with acid after a dispute on Tuesday.

“The victim was seriously attacked and sent to a hospital in Phnom Penh after a provincial hospital could not help her,” said Sam Sarin, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, who identified the victim as 25-year-old Phally Nay.

Keo Samneang, deputy police chief of Memot district, where the attack allegedly took place, said it was the first case of an acid attack in his district. He said police are looking for the accused man.

The most recent attack comes as government officials prepare to meet today as part of a newly formed committee examining acid attacks.

The committee’s head, Teng Savong, secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior, said the group will discuss ways to regulate the sale of acid.

“What is important to us is to control acid [sales] and to put punishments on officials who cannot control the use of acid,” Teng Savong said.

Bird’s-eye view of 9/11 tragedy

phnomPenhpost FRIDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2010 15:04 COURTESY OF ABC NEWS / NYPD / DETECTIVE GREG SEMENDINGER VIA AFP

Photo by: COURTESY OF ABC NEWS / NYPD / DETECTIVE GREG SEMENDINGER VIA AFP

This newly released aerial photograph taken on September 11, 2001, by the New York City Police Department and provided on Thursday by ABC News shows the collapsing World Trade Center in New York following attacks by terrorists. This and other aerial photos from the 9/11 attacks were obtained by ABC News, which in 2009 filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

                

Bicyclist’s freewheeling feast

phnompenhpost, TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2009 15:00 ARIELLE BERNEY

Photo by: Arielle Berney

Author of gourmand cycling book The Hungry Cyclist, Tom Kevill-Davies is in Cambodia seeking suggestions on where to find the perfect meal as he pedals his way north to Tibet.

Food always tastes better when you’re hungry, says Tom Kevill-Davies, who is sampling hot pots, herbs and fish on his two-wheeled trek up the Mekong.

Deep in the Ecuadorian jungle, a scruffy Londoner manages to procure passage for a nine-day journey that will carry him and his bicycle down the Amazon River.

But his delight begins to dissipate when he sees his travelling companions: buffalos, pigs, chickens, ducks and other animals. The livestock is crammed below deck, next to the kitchen, while the cyclist joins the humans above.

When the rains come, the water floods the lower deck, causing the animal droppings to rise to the surface and ooze up through the floor planks of the rickety structure.

Atop the boat, people stand in pools of dung as the standard meal is dealt out: a bowl of soup made from riverwater and whichever hapless animal lay within reach of the cook.

“After two bites, my body rebelled,” the cyclist recalls.

Tom Kevill-Davies, 31, ranks this Amazonian culinary experience among his worst ever – and he has plenty to choose from. Disenchanted with his life at a London advertising firm, he hopped on his bike six years ago and sped off in pursuit of the most delicious meal he could find.

After spending two and half years biking from New York to California and on to Brazil, Kevill-Davies put his adventures to paper in The Hungry Cyclist, combining the excitement of biking with the thrill of discovering tasty food inunexpected locales.

This marriage of cycling and eating takes its strength not only from a love of food and biking, but also from the simple tenet that food will taste better to a ravenous cyclist.

Six weeks into a six-month journey around the Mekong region, Kevill-Davies is cycling and eating his way through Southeast Asia, recording recipes where he can, and relying on online translations to assist him.

“I’m interested in the context of food: why people are eating what they’re eating, the herbs, the hot pots, the use of fish in the area around the Mekong,” he said.

Before pushing off to explore Kampot and Kep, the hungry cyclist made the most of Phnom Penh’s delights throughout the Water Festival.

Kevill-Davies raved about the street food – the coconut soups, the “crunchy and chewy” tarantulas and snakes – and about the ambience of the festival, which he rated as one of the best experiences of his life.

Life on the road
But cycling around Southeast Asia is not without its obstacles. Throughout southern Vietnam he had to contend with police and government officials forbidding him to hang his hammock in some areas. With rural families torn between offering him hospitality and breaking the law, he would often be given a meal and sent on his way.

Heat, dehydration, sunburn, vicious dogs, eye infections from dusty roads and culinary disasters are daily hazards.

“I’m not making this sound good at all, am I?” he joked.

Then there is the loneliness. Up at 6am for a solo cycle until noon, a rest and a meal during the midday heat, and then back on the saddle until nightfall, when he sets up camp or finds a guesthouse.

Sometimes he will go weeks without conversation beyond the excited yelps of “Hello! Hello!” from village children.

“But,” he warned, “if you think cycling is lonely, writing a book is really lonely.”

Kevill-Davies described his 10-month writing odyssey as “mentally exhausting”, with days spent at a local London library among secondary school students cramming for exams and chomping on crisps. His sleep was destroyed by middle-of-the-night urges to scribble ideas down.

For now at least, Kevill-Davies is free of the stresses of book writing and is chronicling his journey – complete with photos, videos and recipes – on his blog: thehungrycyclist.com.

He welcomes suggestions of places to eat and visit as he attempts to make his way up the Mekong from Vietnam through Cambodia, Laos and China to the river’s source in Tibet.

And will this latest adventure ever be available in paperback?

“We’ll see,” he said. “First I’ve got to find out how it ends.”

In Brief: Cambodia nets bronzes in Asian Indoor Games

phnompenhpost , TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2009 15:00 UNG CHAMROEUN

Cambodian athletes took home an additional three bronze medals from the third Asian Indoor Games, which wrapped up Sunday in Vietnam. Sok Chanmean and Ok Chimi won third place in the men’s petanque doubles, while Ke Leng and Ouk Srey Mom won third-place honours in the women’s petanque doubles competition. San Sophorn and Chea Srey Meas also took the bronze in the women’s shuttlecock. Earlier, Cambodia won one gold, four silvers and four bronzes in the martial art vovinam.

Fixing Ears in Cambodia

Source: www.allearscambodia.org

During my recent travels in SE Asia, I was fortunate to spend an evening with Director Glyn Vaughan of All Ears Cambodia in Phnom Penh. What an amazing place and individual - both left a lasting impact on me and I continue to dwell over the experience.

Cambodia is an extremely poor country still recovering from years of war and strife from the Khmer Rouge regime. It does not allocate any government resources to its disabled people. As a result, thousands of hearing impaired children and adults are left without the education, hearing aids, or services they need to thrive and many end up destitute and/or reliant their entire lives on family for support.

An All Ears marketing piece indicates that "an estimated 2 million Cambodians suffer from disabling deafness...and over half of these cases could have been prevented." In fact, chronic ear infections are so common that, in many villages, it is considered normal. And, of the ones in need of hearing aids, less than 1% have them.

Dr. Vaughan, a British audiologist, has made it his life's mission to reverse some of these trends. He left his UK practice to move to Phomh Penh in 2003 to establish and run All Ears Cambodia full-time. He is the only degreed audiologist in the entire country, and his clinic is the only one of its kind in Cambodia. He self-trained two women and an assistant on the practice of audiology and now the four of them work relentlessly to provide support treatment, hearing aids, and rehabilitation to those in need in Phnom Penh and in many rural villages stretching across four provinces. The clinic also partners with 30 other NGOs that work with AIDS and landmine victims (hearing loss is a common side effect of AIDS). The organization supports the sole government audiology clinic at the state hospital through contributons of personel and through traning programs. They do a lot of education and awareness around hearing loss - how to protect your ears, what to do when you have an ear infection (don't pour kerosene in your ear, for starters…). Glyn and his team also wrote the country's first audiology manual in the Khmer language. The amount of work and the tremendous impact that this small group of committed people is making is incredible to comprehend.

Dr. Vaughan's passion is inspiring and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing him share his experiences. If you are looking for a worthy cause to support, this would be a great one. For more information, please visit; www.allearscambodia.org

Posted by Paige Stringer at November 1, 2009 8:31 a.m.