‘Miracle baby’ born on cruise ship: What pregnant passengers need to know

The story began when Emily Morgan, along with her husband Chase, and their 3-year-old daughter Chloe, were on the second day of their seven-day cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas. Emily, who was in her 23rd week of pregnancy and due in December, had been given the okay by her doctor to go on the trip, but she starting experiencing labor pains after she had turned in for bed.

"I started having contractions late at night and I had a terrible pain in my stomach,'" Morgan told FoxNews.com. "Around one o'clock in the morning, we called the medical team because I knew the baby was coming." 

Just 30 minutes later the baby boy, Haiden, was born. But doctors initially refused to let Emily hold him. Due to the amount of blood she had lost and the newborn's size, she says the doctors told her she had miscarried.

"I saw the doctor holding him but I didn't hear him crying. My motherly instincts kicked in and I

Read more »

General gets life for murder of mistress, daughter

Kim Marintha sits handcuffed as authorities check his personal possessions near Poipet Town in Banteay 

Meanchey following his September arrest. PHOTO SUPPLIED

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea, The Phnom Penh Post

A FORMER two-star general was sentenced to life in prison this morning for murdering his mistress and their young daughter, while his son and son-in-law were handed lesser terms for helping to hide the bodies.

Kim Marintha, a business owner and former adviser to Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan, was tried along with his son-in-law Chea Soksamnang, 36, and 37-year-old son Kim Senrith, still at large, over the February 2014 slaying of Va Davy and her six-year-old daughter Kim Thavchida.

“Based on the hearing and Kim Marintha’s confession, the court has found him guilty,” Phnom Penh Municipal Court presiding judge Heng Kesaror said, reading the verdict.

“The court has sentenced him to a life sentence under the allegation of intentional murder with
Read more »

Inequality a Defining Challenge for the World, and for Cambodia

Some 41 percent of the population in Cambodia are left behind and still live on less than $2 per day.

A young Cambodian woman rides near slum homes on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, file photo.

VOA Khmer

Leading economists have warned that income inequality is the defining global challenge of the 21st century. In Cambodia, a country where many live in poverty while ever-increasing numbers of luxury cars ply the streets, that challenge is particularly acute.

The nongovernmental organization Oxfam America recently called for action across the world to address inequality, arguing in report “The gap between the rich and poor is spiraling out of control.”

“Just 80 individuals have the same wealth as half the people on our planet,” Oxfam said. “Such extreme economic inequality is standing in the way of ending global poverty, and

Read more »

Garment Workers Demand Cambodian Government Resolve Employment Issue

More than 500 striking garment workers from a factory in central Cambodia petitioned the parliament and Labor Ministry on Monday, demanding that government officials intervene in stopping their company from firing workers without cause.

The workers from the Hong Kong-owned Bloomsfield (Cambodia) Knitters Ltd. factory in Kampong Tralach district, Kampong Chhnang province, accuse managers of firing 25 workers as revenge for striking in August.

During the strike last month, workers demanded that the factory stop firing colleagues and issue long-term employment contracts.

Neal Sarath, a worker at the factory, said the company has terminated workers without cause or advanced notice.

“The factory must respect labor law,” he said, adding that the workers would continue to strike if there is no solution.

Read more »

Cambodia Limits Broadcasts of Foreign Films to Promote National Culture

The Cambodian government moved on Friday to sharply restrict the airing of foreign movies on television, calling the move a necessary step to encourage the work of local filmmakers and promote national culture.

The Ministry of Information order, which will take effect on Nov. 1, bans the broadcast of any foreign-made film between the hours of 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. and is intended “to restore Cambodian culture and Khmer movies,” a government statement said.

During that two-hour period, all television stations must instead broadcast Cambodian movies, traditional music, and
Read more »

Cambodia to bar foreign films from Cambodian TV channels in prime time

Xinhua

Friday, 25 September 2015

PHNOM PENH, (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has decided to ban television stations from broadcasting foreign movies during the prime time slot, beginning Nov. 1 this year, Information Minister Khieu Kanharith announced on Friday.

"From Nov. 1, all television channels will be barred from broadcasting foreign films during the prime time from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.," he said at a press conference.

The decision is aimed to promote locally-made movies and to enhance local works and national pride, he explained.

He said if any television stations failed to comply with the decision, their broadcast would be suspended or their television licenses would be revoked.

The minister called on all television program sponsors to support local film makers in order to produce quality movies for the local market.

 Currently, there are 17 television stations operating in the Southeast Asian nation.

The upcoming prohibition came after the public, particularly local artists and film producers, expressed concerns over the survival of the local film industry when most of the television channels had screened only foreign movies.

Cambodia and the banality of evil

A one-time member of the Khmer Rouge, known only as KR07. Daniel Welschenbach

An upcoming photo exhibition focusing on perpetrators of the Khmer Rouge regime ventures beyond their assumed evil. Creators Timothy Williams and Daniel Welschenbach submit to us the tough question: If put in their positions, might we have acted likewise?

What motivates people to commit terrible acts, and how do we know we wouldn’t do the same? These are among the questions confronted by researcher Timothy Williams and photographer Daniel Welschenbach in new photographic exhibition Entering the Tiger Zone.

The exhibition begins on Monday, and there will be a panel discussion at The 1961 Coworking & Art Space as part of the opening event.

With support from German NGO Heinrich Böll Stiftung Cambodia, the exhibition features images of

Read more »

China's race for hydroelectric power

Beijing's enthusiasm for dam building spills over into southeast Asia, displacing thousands of people in Cambodia.

Stung Treng province, northern Cambodia - China’s race for hydroelectric power has been going on for over 20 years leading to development plans and to the construction of a 28 dam cascade in the Lancang river.

However, in recent years, its enthusiasm for dam building has spilled over into southeast Asia.

Hydrolancang, a Chinese state-owned enterprise responsible for no less than seven dams in the upper Mekong, began in 2013 the construction of its very first overseas hydropower project, the Lower Sesan II dam in northern Cambodia.

The $800m and 400MW project, located less than 100km south from the Don Sahong dam in Laos, have been among the most controversial and destructive ones to be developed in recent years.

Once completed, it will block the Sesan and Srepok rivers - two of the main tributaries of the Mekong - creating a 36.000 hectares reservoir, flooding several villages and displacing thousands of people who have been living along the river banks for generations, relying on it for survival.

The potential impacts, both good and bad, are enormous.

Cambodia, with its 60 precent of people under the age of 30, is growing fast and some estimates suggest that the dam could potentially generate a fifth of the power the country is likely to need by 2018; yet its physical impacts could threaten the food security of tens of thousands of people.

Sole food: artist Svay Sareth eats rubber sandals, on film

Svay Sareth eats rubber sandals. Or rather, he chews them apart and spits them out onto a plate for nine consecutive minutes in a film that will be looped as part of the artist’s new exhibition at SaSa Bassac.

The film shows Sareth sat at a desk. Behind him, villagers wander between huts and traffic rumbles past. In front of him on the table are two rubber sandals and a pot of tea.

Sareth observes the sandals. Then he picks one up, and pulls the straps off with his teeth. He proceeds to chew the tough rubber until the strap is broken into several pieces.

As the process is repeated, the frame gradually shrinks to magnify his face. The ripping of the sandals becomes uncomfortably visceral: Sareth salivates, and his teeth grind together noisily.

At the end of the film, he repeats his mantra – also the name of his new exhibition: “I, Svay Sareth, eat rubber sandals.”

Read more »