Cheating Continues on Exam Week
As high school exams entered their second day Tuesday, students and controllers both say cheating, corruption and other irregularities plague the process.
Students pass money to teacher administrators, called controllers, to allow for cheating, copying and having answers checked by other students. Some students take tests for others. In some cases, students know the answers to the test ahead of time.
“I hope that I will pass, because I could copy from my friends,” a student named Vecheka, 19, said following her exams at Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh. “The teachers were not really strict after we collected money for them.”
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UN Reviewing Reports of Tribunal Corruption
A UN oversight committee is reviewing allegations of corruption from Cambodian staff at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, a UN spokesman said Tuesday.
The review comes following allegations brought forward in June.
“They came forward themselves, and we applaud them for their bravery and for their willingness,” the spokesman, Peter Foster, said. “It is not only important for the United Nations, it’s important for the government of Cambodia and for the entire court. At UNDP and the donors, all of them have said that corruption and irregularities will not be tolerated.”
The tribunal monitoring group Open Society Justice Initiative in 2007 raised allegations of kickbacks, claiming some Cambodian officials allegedly paid money to join the hybrid tribunal.
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Thais Withdraw From One Temple: Military
Thai troops have withdrawn from one temple in the Ta Moan temple complex in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia’s defense minister said late Tuesday.
The Thai soldiers had occupied Ta Moan Thom temple, situated on the border of Oddar Meanchey province, west of Preah Vihear temple, where a military standoff continued.
The soldiers had pulled back to their “original place” near Ta Moan Thom, which is one of three temples in a complex that is disputed by both sides, Defense Minister Gen. Tea Bahn said.
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2nd batch of Cambodian Olympic delegation departs to Beijing
PHNOM PENH, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) — The second batch of Cambodia’s Olympic delegation left here on Thursday for Beijing to attend the Olympic Games, which is scheduled to open on Friday.
The batch of delegation has five members, including Tourism Minister and National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC) president Thong Khon, NOCC secretary general Mea Sarun, another swimmer and two youths attending the Olympic Summer Camp.
“I am very glad to go to Beijing for the Olympics,” Thong Khon told Xinhua at the Phnom Penh International Airport.
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Cambodia’s Forgotten Temples Fall Prey to Looters
The three freshly dug holes under the two arching palm trees measured a metre by about half a meter, and about half a meter deep. A few fragments of what appeared to be centuries-old clay pots were scattered around the excavation site, seemingly discarded as worthless in the hunt for more valuable treasure.
“We find new holes every week,” said Ndson Hun, a farmer living in the nearby village of Phoum Snay. “The demand [for artefacts] is as great as ever, so people keep digging.”
No one knows the extent of the riches at Phoum Snay, an unremarkable Cambodian village about 40 miles north-west of Angkor Wat, the complex of 100 9th to 15th-century Buddhist temples seen as among the world’s architectural wonders. But, unlike at Angkor Wat, there are no heritage police here, no Unesco staff, and no local authorities to guard the site.
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Cambodian genocide tribunal faces allegations
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia’s genocide tribunal has been hit by new corruption allegations, compelling foreign donors to withhold more than $300,000 from the proceedings pending a review of the claims, officials said Wednesday.
The new scandal came as the U.N.-assisted tribunal prepared for its first trial, next month, for atrocities allegedly committed during the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, who are blamed for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
Cambodian and U.N.-appointed staff jointly run the tribunal with two separate budget lines supported by contributions from international donors.
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Thai and Cambodian foreign ministers to meet over border row
Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong will meet his Thai counterpart, Taj Bunnag, on August 18 in an effort to settle a potentially explosive border dispute between the two countries, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday.
In a speech broadcast on state radio, Hun Sen said talks between Hor Namhong and Bunnag would be held in Hua Hin, where His Majesty the King of Thailand has a sea-side palace.
“Hor Namhong will meet his Thai counterpart … on August 18. Hor Namhong will then pay a courtesy visit to the Thai king,” Hun Sen said at a rice farming ceremony in the south-western province of Kampong Speu, 40 kilometres west of the capital.
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Cambodia stresses peaceful solution with Thailand
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia’s prime minister reiterated his call for a peaceful solution to a border dispute with Thailand, warning Wednesday that both countries’s economies would suffer if the conflict erupts into a full-scale war.
In his first public speech since winning national elections last month, Prime Minister Hun Sen said both countries must “narrow the conflict and expand friendship and cooperation.”
Thai and Cambodian troops have been facing off along their shared border for three weeks over disputed territory — first near Preah Vihear temple and then at Ta Moan Thom temple.
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‘China Inside Out’: A Global Panorama On a Rising Nation
One of the unexpected things about “China Inside Out,” the ABC News documentary airing tonight, is how little it shows of China. That turns out not to matter, or to limit the excellence of the report’s look at how and why all the predictions about this being “the Chinese century” are coming true. And whether we ought to be encouraged or frightened by that.
Correspondent Bob Woodruff speaks Mandarin Chinese, not a common skill among TV reporters, but he gets little chance to show off in the course of the program — an illuminating hour that takes viewers to Angola, Brazil, Cambodia, the United States and, yes, China.
Network documentaries about global economics are about as common as existential seminars on “The View.” But Woodruff, executive producer Tom Yellin and others involved in “China Inside Out” make sure that viewers will be involved, too; the report is a model of clarity and insight, a compelling primer on how changes in China are reverberating throughout the rest of the world, and why this industrious revolution must not be underestimated.
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1st group of Cambodian delegation leaves for Beijing
PHNOM PENH, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) – The first group of Cambodia’s Olympic delegation left here on Wednesday for Beijing to attend the Olympic Games, which is scheduled to open on Friday.
The group of delegation has eight members, including a marathon runner, a sprinter and their coach, one swimmer and the coach, one team leader, an official and one doctor.
Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Zhang Jinfeng, who went to the Phnom Penh International Airport to see the delegation off, praised their morale and wished them success.
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