0		Cambodia, Google

Cambodia's border dispute with Thailand in recent years now involves American corporation Google. Reuters reported early today on allegations by the Cambodian government that the California-based search engine Google has "radically misleading map of the disputed Thai-Cambodia border".

Update: February 8, 2010

A blogger at Details are Sketchy lately pointed out to Ogle Earth, a blog that documents how Google Earth and other neogeographical tools are affecting geopolitics. Stefan Geens wrote: "There are border disputes aplenty, but when Reuters reported on Feb 5 that the government of Cambodia had sent a letter of complaint to Google about how the Thai-Cambodian border is displayed in Google Earth and Maps in the vicinity of Preah Vihear Temple, I was intrigued."

Southeastern Globe Magazine, in December 2008 (with more updates a year later), run a news story on giant Google as an empire. It fantasies the ambition of the world's biggest search engine in a decade ahead of time: "Google has even integrated its Thoughts program with other software, which means every thought is mapped on Google Earth, reactions to books are noted in Google Books and even sarcastic remarks about poorly written e-mails go down as drafts in Gmail accounts."

Here's a screenshot of Cambodia, taken from Google Earth (based on this version from this server): Google Earth 5.1.3533.1731; Build Date: Nov 12, 2009; Build Time: 11:59:29 am; Server: kh.google.com.

According to this desktop software, the map produced above refers to firms and agencies as follow:

• Europa Technologies Ltd

	1	2	Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, BarCamp, Tech

From Cambodia to Vietnam to Burma, BarCamp is known as a user-generated conference on technologies, usually run and contributed by local and international people.

In 2008 the first BarCamp took place in Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh, where Internet penetration and tech users' base is high. A couple of hundred people showed up at one of the best well-equipped halls at Royal University of Phnom Penh's Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Center (CJCC).

Last year, BarCamp Phnom Penh '09 at Pannasastra University of Cambodia was even grander, with more participants from the region, and the number participants reached almost one thousand, including some fellows from Burma.

In Cambodia, the user-contributed conference offers something unique in the spirit of sharing and learning in an open environment. The new generation of Cambodians are not shy away from talking in the shared community. A journalist at a fine print newspaper wrote in 2008, a day after the first BarCamp, that: "The event was certainly informal. The mostly youthful crowd wandered in and out of the convention hall, dipping into discussion groups in the garden about the best programming language or crowding excitedly around some fine new piece of technology. Debates raged freely but didn’t degenerate into arguments, and English was the preferred tongue. Participants included bloggers – or “cloggers”, as the many Khmer web scribes refer to themselves."

Where geeks gather in the Cambodian capital. Taken by Tharum Bun

Just several months after Phnom Penh's first BarCamp, the tech conference was held in Vietnam's capital city, Saigon (Hồ Chí Minh City). While it's just another one in Southeast Asia, it helps bridge people from the neighboring countries to come over as if only geeks can find an undeclared unity. In late 2009, the Saigon tech enthusiasts run it again, which has become an annual geek gathering for people from Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.

BarCamp made its way to Saigon. Taken by Tharum Bun

Last week, BarCamp arrived in Burma's former capital city, Yangon. Strikingly, almost 3000 attendees crowded the venue, which was held for two days. Global Voices Online author 'tan' has the report: "It has been said that this is the largest amount of attendees among barcamps convening around the world. One of the attendee commented that even though this was the first barcamp to be held in Myanmar, many professionals and enthusiasts has attended, making it a very successful event."

BarCamp in Thailand is more mature. In 2009, the third conference was organized. Take a look at this.

	4		Cambodia, government, online, internet, technology, e-government, e-vsia

Early this year the Cambodian government started to invest more in communication technologies for its day-to-day operation, and Prime Minister Hun Sen believes it will reduce the national expenditure while improve efficiency.

Since 1993, when the government first took its office, at least 350 officials from across the country held their weekly cabinet meeting with the PM in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's largest capital city. The introduction of the technology will transform the way the government communicate, interact, and to provide services to the public in a more transparent way.

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An informed, in a December 2009 letter, all governors that the regular cabinet meeting will take place over the Internet, using video conference (also known as video teleconference).

E-government

“We are moving towards e-government, and we will continue to install video-conferencing systems at all regional military headquarters for commanding soldiers,” said PM Hun Sen. Cited time and budget as the main reason, the government goes further to "to establish video-conferencing links with Asean members and other world leaders."

Madhav Ragam, Director of Healthcare & Lifesciences IBM Asia Pacific told FutureGov that: "there is an opportunity for Cambodia to ‘leapfrog’ other developing countries and avoid past mistakes."

In terms of e-government, Cambodia is ranked as one of the lowest in Southeast Asia. However, the country will spend at least US$35 million to invest in the e-government project, getting all its municipal and provincial offices to conduct business and administrative works online.

The IBM expert, however, noted in September last year, that there are three keys areas that the Cambodian government have to focus on:

• improve network connectivity, both in terms of bandwidth and access points.
• key internal government systems need to be established.
• to establish a presence for government online.

E-visa

The second point raised by Madhav Ragam is very essential. Quite a good example is this successful e-visa service: http://www.cambodiaevisa.com/. The Internet site, began in 2006, is being hosted not in Cambodia, but Malaysia; and it was until June last year that it was reportedly hacked for financial reasons. And it turns out that a new site, http://www.cambodiaonarrival.com/, has been introduced to after the hack. Although it bears Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on the site header, there is doubt that there is any credibility and affiliation with the government. However, this official site on the Mininstry of Foreign Affairs should be seen as more vaild: http://evisa.mfaic.gov.kh/e-visa/vindex.aspx. Traveler Preetam Rai, who regularly uses the e-visa to travel to the Kingdom and praises it for its convenience, mentions about the online servce here.

Net neutrality

On Friday, just one day after opposition party leader Sam Rainsy was found guilty and sentenced in absentia to two years prison for uprooting border markers on the frontier with Vietnam by Svay Rieng provincial court, the party president, now in France, began providing more evidence via video teleconference technology in hope to defend himself.

Associated Press has the detailed report: Sam Rainsy led a group of villagers in pulling out the markers as a way to dramatize his claim that Vietnam is encroaching on Cambodian territory, an issue he often raises to garner political support. The incident occurred in October of last year. Cambodia's Parliament stripped him of his immunity from prosecution in November.

	0		Cambodia, ECCC, Enemies of the People, Thet Sambath, Rob Lemkin

As the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is preparing to give a verdict of its first trial of former head of S-21 prison Duch (also known as Kaing Geuk Eav), and to proceed with its Case 002 that includes four senior Khmer Rouge leaders, a new film hopes to shed light on one of the highest level leaders, Nuon Chea, generally known as "Brother Number Two".

With co-producer Rob Lemkin, Cambodian investigative journalist Thet Sambath took more than a decade making documentary film "Enemies of the People". Armed with a tape recorder and later a video camcorder, the journalist's persistence makes a close relationship with the former Khmer Rouge chief ideologist after years of visits.

The most interesting part about the film is Sambath's years of hard work; talking to Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter, Sambath recalled his friendly talk with 86-year-old Nuon Chea: "At the beginning he told me that he wouldn't tell anything about the Khmer Rouges. He had not said anything, even to his children or his wife. But after I met him for many years, talking friendly, he finally talked to me."

“Some may say no good can come from talking to killers and dwelling on past horror, but I say these people have sacrificed a lot to tell the truth. In daring to confess they have done good, perhaps the only good thing left. They and all the killers like them must be part of the process of reconciliation if my country is to move forward,” said Thet Sambath, a senior reporter with The Phnom Penh Post, Cambodia's oldest English-language newspaper.

Also, in another interview with Deseret News's Aaron Falk at the Cambodian Christian Reform Church in Salt Lake City last week, Sambath said "before I make the documentary, I don't know much. Now I know the reason. It's good that we have this information."

	0		Cambodia, Human Rights Watch, World Report, Reporters Sans Frontières

Human Rights Watch published its World Report 2010 last week to give a glimpse into human rights violations around the world. The annual report is critical of Cambodia while UN Special Reporter for Human Rights, Surya Subedi, is on his second visit to the country, meeting with high profile government officials, opposition party members, and local rights defenders.

In the 612-page report, Freedom of Expression is one of the major issues that was discussed by the New York-based rights organisation, although Press Freedom was better ranked by international press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontières.

On page 279, the report says: "Controversial publications are frequently banned or confiscated. Reporters covering sensitive issues risk dismissal, imprisonment, physical attack, or even death. Politically motivated murders of opposition journalists, such as Khim Sambo, who was killed in July 2008, and many others in the past 15 years remain unresolved".

Among other critical issues, the international human rights watchdog yesterday released a press statement with a full report on Cambodia's first national drug rehabilitation center. “Skin on the Cable” looks into the lives of detained drug users. The 93-page report says "detainees being beaten, raped, forced to donate blood, and subjected to painful physical punishments such as "rolling like a barrel" and being chained while standing in the sun". On Human Rights Brief Blog (HRB Blog), writer Aileen Thomson also talked about violence and forced labour endured by detainees in rehab centres.

BBC's Guy DeLauney in Phnom Penh reported yesterday on the "sadistic violence" by ending the news article that:
"A government spokesman said Human Rights Watch reports were always critical, while one police official said the allegations were not true".

	0		Internet, Freedom, Vietnam, Facebook, Zing Me, Giang Nguyen, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huy Zing

Vietnam's Information and Communication Minister Lê Doãn Hợp said, in a speech early this month, that the country will establish its own locally-built social networking sites, an attempt to reduce the dominance of foreign-owned Google and Yahoo!.

In September 2009, local social networking site Zing Me surpassed Facebook by users; since then reports of Facebook being blocked by the Vietnamese government were confirmed by local and expatriate users, while technology experts started to introduce several methods to get around major Internet Service Providers' Domain Name System-based Blacklist.

This excellent news article, by CNN's Giang Nguyen, discusses the Facebook blocking issue. In my previous blog-post, I also linked to American-Vietnamese blogger Huy Zing's technical analysis. By making a long story short, Huy made the most interesting point here: "a partial block is all that's needed to kill off the widespread use of Facebook" [in Vietnam, where 22 million people have access to the Internet].

Internet Freedom
According the the same article, "U.S. State Department views censorship of Facebook in Vietnam as a threat to Internet freedom." On Thursday last week, U.S. of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a speech on Internet Freedom at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. While the speech was mainly more about China and U.S.'s giant Google, the top US diplomat also reminded of the threat of access to information in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. "In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared".

Probably one of the best of the Vietnamese government's excuses is: Vietnam needs its own home-grown Facebook.