1) CAMBODIA : Less than a year after a $30 million Chinese loan and the launch of a $70 million Chinese-funded highway upgrade, Cambodia is once again turning to Beijing. The country’s co-Minister of Defense, Tea Banh, has told the Agence France-Presse that his government is “planning to buy more ships from the Chinese” as part of military efforts to “crackdown on pirates and smugglers.” Cambodia’s limited navy has engaged in occasional confrontations with Vietnam and Thailand over disputed coastal waters, but piracy and drug smuggling are emerging as cardinal concerns for the Southeast Asian state.

         2) MALAYSIA : Amid mounting tensions with Malaysia, the Financial Times reports that Indonesian officials are redoubling efforts to expand and modernize their country’s military. Ties between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have been strained in recent weeks, following Malaysia’s decision to award concessions in an oil-rich patch of sea off the northeastern coast of Borneo to the Royal Dutch Shell corporation – a move that prompted the Indonesian government to send warships into the disputed waters and incite a wave of anti-Malaysian protests.

         3) INDONESIA : But Indonesia, which has been under a U.S. arms embargo for 13 years, is dissatisfied with the current state of its military muscle, and officials in Jakarta are stepping up efforts to bolster their country’s armed forces. As part of this push, Indonesia’s Defense Minister, Juwono Sudarsono, is bound for Washington to lobby American officials for a restoration of full military ties. The visit comes just a month after the Bush administration reinstated a controversial program allowing Indonesian officers to train in the U.S., and relaxed restrictions on the sale of aircraft parts to Jakarta.

         4) KOREAS : North Korea has warned the United States and South Korea that bilateral military exercises planned by the two countries could lead to “an actual war” on the Korean Peninsula. According to the Minju Joson, the North Korean cabinet’s official newspaper, “[t]he US and the South Korean authorities should immediately cancel their plan for the provocative joint military exercise against [North Korea].” “There is no guarantee that the large-scale joint military exercises will not go over to an actual war,” the Agence France-Presse reports the North Korean newspaper as warning. Officials in Seoul and Washington, meanwhile, maintain that the week-long military exercises – which are slated to begin on March 19th – are “purely defensive” and a routine element of the U.S.-South Korean military alliance.

         5) PHILIPPINES : China, the Philippines, and Vietnam have come together in what Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G. Romulo is calling a “watershed for regional diplomacy.” According to Asia Pulse, the three nations have signed a tripartite agreement on the joint exploration of agreed areas in the South China Sea. Romulo believes that the joint activity between the Philippine National Oil Corporation, the China National Offshore Oil Company, and the Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation “indicates the growing level of trust and confidence among claimants and their commitment to pursue peaceful options on the [South China Sea] issue.”

PÉTROLE contre PLUIE (2005-Mar-16)
1) Cambodia & Norway Meet to Discuss Disputed Oilfields
         Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) : Cambodia and the Norwegian government agency Norad began a three-day seminar in Phnom Penh Tuesday to discuss cooperation between the two nations in developing Cambodia's rich but disputed oil field potential. Cambodia has long been known to have huge potential offshore oil and gas reserves worth as much as 500 million dollars a year, but the country's war-torn infrastructure combined with disputes over ownership with neighbouring Thailand have stymied moves to access them. The seminar, which will explore ways for Cambodia to deal with legal challenges, contracts, bilateral agreements and resource management, among other challenges, is a positive step in utilizing a natural resource that could be the saviour of the impoverished nation, according to a senior Cambodian petroleum expert.
        "Norway has played an important role for Timor and Australia regarding oil exploration. We hope Norwegian expertise can play this role again to help us in our overlap area issue between Thailand and Cambodia," Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA) secretary-general Te Doung Dara told the gathering. Recovering from a 30-year civil war and currently forced to import every drop of fossil fuel the country uses, the Cambodian government has long seen the development of the fields in the Gulf of Thailand as its chance to replace foreign aid with oil money to fuel its future development and balance its import-export ratio. But until now it has lacked international support and, above all, investment, Te Doung Dara said. "We need to find someone who can invest and show us the way to develop our oil and gas fields. We want, instead of spending money to buy, to earn money for our future," Te Doung Dara said. "We are crippled by our past tragedy with a shortage of experts and human resources and there is still a great deal to be done. However energy is fundamental for all sections of development," he said.
         Norad official Permille Hoteldahl said Norway had "gained important experience relevant to other countries" in dealing with the types of problems Cambodia currently faces and as such it was very interested in helping Cambodia develop and overcome current obstacles to harvesting its oil and gas potential.

2) Des bois précieux du Cambodge continuent de se vendre en Thaïlande

           N. P. : Te Duong Dara should say Cambodia is crippled by large scale corruption since 1993. For instance 75% of Cambodia's forests have disappeared to the advantage of its neighbouring countries. Mais "le Ciel a des yeux" comme disent les Cambodgiens. Toute l'Asie du Sud-Est est en train de subir une grave sécheresse (somme toute explicable scientifiquement). Comme par ailleurs des déserts de sable sont bourrés de pétrole, le Ciel semble avoir laissé le choix aux humains : Vous pouvez avoir ou la pluie ou le pétrole, mais pas tous les deux. Moralité : Partageons équitablement nos ressources naturelles !

Gouv. d'Hydraulique vs Gouv. de Toilettes (2005-Mar-14)
         Norodom Sihanouk, au temps du Sangkum, aimait surnommer ses gouvernements successifs : gouvernement de Sauvetage national, gouvernement de Dernière chance, etc. L'ambitieux et meurtrier Hun Sèn vient de suivre le pas : un gouvernement d'Hydraulique va succéder à celui de Ponts et routes (1998-2003) et à celui d'Écoles et pagodes (1993-1998). Constatant qu'aucun musée cambodgien, aucun temple angkorien, aucun site historique, aucun lieu de villégiature au Cambodge n'a d'installation sanitaire pour les visiteurs et touristes, un citoyen, "Nokoreach", dans une lettre ouverte en khmer à Hun Sèn, lui suggère de résoudre ce problème et de surnommer plutôt son équipe le Gouvernement de Toilettes Publiques !

No more flower for Hun Sen (2005-Mar-12)

GOD vs BUDDHA

camboDIATRIBE

COURRI@L 2005 ( PREVIOUS )

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MEET WITH GOD

PEN Nearovi, Montréal, Québec, Canada
(nearovi@sympatico.ca)