Category Archives: Technology

Singapore’s decades-long effort to reclaim land from the ocean has expanded the nation’s coastline and fueled its building boom. But it has also depleted its supply of sand.  In recent years, the massive sand shortage has been worsened by export bans by neighboring countries, driving up the price and encouraging the smuggling of useable land-fill.  It used to be that sand dredgers had only to travel to nearby Indonesia to get sand for use in Singapore construction projects.  But the Indonesian government banned exports after activists and locals complained about disappearing islands and ruined riverbeds. Vietnam and Malaysia have enacted similar curbs on the practice. Continue reading →

If more Cambodians do not start pitching in and volunteering, the country risks missing key development goals in coming years, a youth advocate said Monday. Cambodia is trying to meet a series of UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015, but it is lagging behind in key sectors. And while there are a number of foreign volunteers working in the country, there is not enough local help, Diep Sovannaroth, a program assistant for UN Volunteers, told “Hello VOA.” “Only when we Cambodians ourselves contribute to the solutions to existing challenges or problems will the country develop,” she said. Continue reading →

The dual visits this week of Thailand’s new prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, and her brother, Thaksin, who was ousted from that position in 2006, could create an amicable environment for talks on a range of issues, analysts said Tuesday. Yingluck, who was elected in July, is scheduled to arrive on Thursday, with Thaksin preparing for a weeklong trip starting Friday. Between the two, talks over an ongoing military border stand-off, on maritime petroleum resources and on the release of two jailed Thai activists could all take place, analysts said Continue reading →

The Voice of America said Thursday it was concerned that contempt of court proceedings against its Khmer-language service by the Khmer Rouge tribunal would create a “chilling effect” on local journalists trying to cover the UN-backed court. The tribunal’s investigating judges said Wednesday they had begun proceedings against the service for interference with the administration of justice, after VOA Khmer broadcast and published a series of interviews with three suspects in two controversial cases at the court, directly quoting confidential documents submitted by the prosecution in November 2008. Continue reading →

Court sources and observers in Cambodia say the genocide trial of four surviving Khmer Rouge is now likely to be delayed, yet again. Continue reading →

Representatives of residents at the contentious Boeung Kak lake development site say the World Bank’s announcement it was freezing funding to Cambodia marks a major push for a resolution to the impasse. The World Bank has said it will not release any more funding to Cambodia until government authorities find a way to reconcile a dispute between thousands of families and a development company headed by a ruling-party senator Continue reading →