Cambodia reports H5N1 death, WHO confirms Vietnam cases

Lisa Schnirring Staff Writer

Apr 21, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – Cambodia's health ministry today announced that a 27-year-old man died of H5N1 avian influenza, while the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed two previously reported cases in Vietnam and ruled out human-to-human transmission.

The Cambodian man, whose case is the country's first of the year, lived in the eastern part of the country in Prey Veng province, the Associated Press (AP) reported today. Few other details were available about the case, and the health ministry said it is investigating the man's illness and death. He will be listed as Cambodia's 10th H5N1 case and its 8th death from the disease.

Meanwhile, the WHO today confirmed the H5N1 infections of two Vietnamese patients who are part of a suspected case cluster. The patients, a 22-year-old man and a 2-year-old girl are both from Bac Kan province in the northern part of the country. Their illnesses raise the number of H5N1 cases in Vietnam to 119, of which 59 have been fatal.

Previous news reports said the area where the two live had mass poultry deaths and that at least four other people with flulike symptoms were isolated and treated with antiviral medication. Reports of suspected and confirmed H5N1 infection clusters raise fears that the virus is becoming more transmissible among humans and could become a pandemic flu strain. However, the WHO said an epidemiologic investigation has found no link between the two patients that would suggest human-to-human transmission.

A WHO statement suggests both had similar exposure to the virus. It said an initial investigation revealed sick and dead poultry around both patients' homes and in surrounding areas. It said the girl's family had recently slaughtered sick poultry to eat.

The man is listed in critical condition at National Hospital of Tropical Diseases, and the girl is in stable condition at Cho Moi District Hospital.

The newly confirmed Vietnamese H5N1 cases raise the global H5N1 total to 495 cases, which includes 292 deaths.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Tea Money

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Cambodian toddler recovering after surgery in Dominican Republic

Millikan High senior Lauren Briand, left, and Socheat Nha in her Briand's Long Beach home in February. Behind her is Nha's father, Phin Ken, and her cousin, Kenha Heang, right. (Jeff Gritchen/Press-Telegram)

04/21/2010
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

A Cambodian girl taken from her homeland to receive life extending surgery was resting comfortably after a four-hour surgery performed in the Dominican Republic.

Socheat Nha, who turned 3 years old Wednesday, survived a tricky operation to repair a large hole in her heart and also had work done on the pulmonary artery that connects the heart ventricle to the lungs.

Although Dr. Rodrigo Soto, who performed the procedure, said the next 48 hours remain critical, he did say Socheat left the operating room in good condition and that in some ways her condition was not as bad as initially feared.

Soto, a surgeon from Chile working for the International Children's Heart Foundation, said he closed the hole, called a ventricular septal defect. Socheat, however, might need more work done in 6 to 10 years on her pulmonary artery, he said.

If she gets through the recovery period without incident, "she should be able to grow, put on weight and live a normal life."

Socheat overcame a big hurdle by making it through the operation without issue, but there are myriad other complications that can arise in the two days of recovery, according to doctors.

Peter Chhun, the head of Hearts Without Boundaries, which brought Socheat from Cambodia for the procedure, was cautiously optimistic.

"We all jumped up and down with joy that she survived the surgery," he said, "but I told her father we will celebrate when we all walk out of here together."

Socheat has gone through a circuitous and fretful route to get this far.

When she was first accepted by Hearts Without Boundaries to receive the surgery, it was planned that she would have an operation done in Las Vegas. However, doctors canceled her surgery because of complications and fear she would not survive.

With the help of a cardiologist in San Diego, Chhun was able to connect with International Children's Heart Foundation, which specializes in treating children from Third World countries.

That organization offered to perform the procedure in Santiago, Dominican Republic.

Chhun had to raise funds to cover travel expenses and to pay for the hospital, although the surgeon donated his services.

Despite his immediate relief, Chhun sound exhausted when reached by phone in the Dominican Republic.

He said the celebration will come when Socheat walks out of the hospital doors.

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291

China's new dam seen as a water hog

Still under construction, the 66-story-high Xiaowan dam is scheduled to be completed this year. Other countries accuse China of stealing water.

By Calum MacLeod
USA TODAY

XIAOWAN, China — Wearing cloaks of tree bark strands, villagers from the Yi ethnic minority tend wheat terraces that cascade downhill toward the riverbank.

It is a scene unchanged for centuries, and it takes place in the shadow of a modern wall of concrete as high as a 66-story skyscraper that fills a gorge of the Lancang River in remote southwestern China.

The Xiaowan dam in the hills of Yunnan province is one of eight hydroelectric projects that will bring China?s industrial revolution to the impoverished region. It is by far the biggest of the four dams built so far that when done this year will be the biggest arch dam in the world.

But not all of the water is China's. The downstream half of the 2,700-mile-long river winds through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, where it is known as the Mekong.

In those countries, 60 million people rely on the Mekong not for electricity but for food, water and transport. They say the Chinese dams have reduced the river to its lowest levels in 50 years, and environmental groups accuse China of reducing the river flow downstream.

"Many local people and groups that monitor the dams in China point the finger at the dams as one of the main causes of the drying up of the river," says Srisuwan Kuankachorn, co-director of Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance, a Thailand-based environmental group.

Srisuwan says the countries are in a drought caused by China that has killed fisheries, withered croplands and dried up waterway transportation routes.

And the problems are likely to get worse with the completion of the Xiaowan dam. A United Nations report issued in May 2009 warned that China's eight planned dams, of which Xiaowan is the fourth, "may pose the single greatest threat to the river."

"The capability of the new dam is much bigger than the other three combined," Srisuwan says.

Little leverage for compliance

At the plush local offices of dam builders Huaneng Hydrolancang, senior engineer Zhao Meng is unruffled by the dire allegations. Zhao, 58, bears a scientist's conviction that the doubters are wrong.

"However much water arrives, the same amount will leave," Zhao says. "We have no plan to keep the water or use it elsewhere. We will store water for a while as we fill the reservoir (currently 30% full), but this dam will not affect the water flow downstream."

Some regional experts agree that the hydroelectric projects are unrelated to the drought.

"China's dams have not caused this problem," says Jeremy Bird, CEO of the Mekong River Commission, an organization that helps manage the river's resources for Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

But China's refusal to provide data to the commission on the dams already is raising suspicions among analysts. This month, a Chinese delegation to the commission promised deeper cooperation but stopped short of adding to a promise to provide hydrological data for two smaller Yunnan dams.

"The Chinese must come clean on how much water they are diverting at Xiaowan and, in the future, at Nuozhadu," another dam that will boast an even bigger reservoir, says Alan Potkin, a development specialist at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University.

Xiaowan is "an enormously large dam, bigger than anything in North America," says Potkin, who worries that in two years' time both Xiaowan and Nuozhadu could be filling reservoirs simultaneously. Potkin is urging the commission to ask China for the most critical data. But he knows the board can do little if China refuses. "It has very little leverage at all," he says.

Journalists have been kept at bay at Xiaowan. A USA TODAY reporter was detained by police for three hours while trying to get to the site and then refused entry.

Local residents dispute that the drought stems from natural causes.

Here in Yunnan province, White Fish Pond hasn't seen fish for years, says Bi Xiuxian, who heads a small hydropower station on the Weishan River. For the past half-year, the river has hardly seen any water, either. So the privately owned power plant in the village of Lishimo is idle.

"Poor management of water facilities is definitely a major reason for this drought," complains Bi, an ethnic Yi. "We need new wells, better management of old wells, and more maintenance of water canals."

Elders pray for rain

China's thirst for energy will likely keep the projects moving forward without much look back, say activists.

"We need time to see the real results," says Wang Yongchen, founder of Green Earth Volunteers, an environmental group, who has monitored China's dam-building for several years. "China is developing so quickly and needs a lot of energy, but nature is not just for humans."

In Shuanghe village, Nanjian County, Yunnan province, farmer Xu Piqing stands on a bridge above the now-dry water canal that usually rushes into the Weishan River.

"We should be busy now, harvesting corn and beans, but instead we have nothing to do," says Xu, 43.

Some villagers are taking action, though.

This month, more than 100 elders will gather to pray for rain on the hilltop, lighting incense and kowtowing to the earth. It's an annual ritual, but "this year will be the biggest ever," Xu says.

BHP declines comment on 'tea money'

22 Apr 2010
AAP

BHP Billiton Ltd is refusing to confirm corruption claims relating the company are connected to so-called "tea money" paid to officials in Cambodia.

Non-government group Global Witness last year highlighted allegations originally aired in a local Cambodian newspaper in 2007 that the company had paid the "tea money" a customary term for unofficial payments.

A BHP Billiton spokeswoman on Thursday said she was unable to add to comments already made by the company.

In its quarterly production report on Wednesday, BHP Billiton revealed it had uncovered potential corruption in company dealings with government officials.

The company did not disclose which country or countries the allegations related to, or whether any workers had been stood down or sacked in relation to the claims.

But Global Witness has said: "According to an article published in The Cambodia Daily on 24 May 2007, Cambodia's Minister for Water Resources, Lim Kean Hor, told the National Assembly that BHP Billiton had paid $US2.5 million to the government to secure a bauxite mining concession.

"In the same article, Lim Kean Hor is reported to have described this payment as tea money, a customary term for an unofficial payment in Cambodia," Global Witness said in its Country for Sale report.

The report went on to say that in accordance with the terms of a minerals exploration agreement BHP Billiton paid $US1 million to the Cambodian government in September 2006.

It said the money did not appear to be accounted for in government financial documents, raising questions about where the $US1 million had gone.

Global Witness wrote to BHP Billiton in 2008 about the allegations and the miner replied that it had paid $US2.5 million for a social development fund in Cambodia.

"We reject any assertion that the payment under the minerals exploration agreement is, or the amounts contributed to the social development projects fund are, tea money," the miner told Global Witness.

BHP Billiton on Wednesday said it was cooperating with relevant authorities and had disclosed evidence it uncovered regarding "possible violations of applicable anti-corruption laws".

The corruption investigation comes at a crucial time for BHP Billiton, as it is trying to convince regulators in Australia, Europe and Asia to sign-off on a controversial joint venture with Rio Tinto.

While refusing to name which country the corruption allegations relate to, BHP Billiton has volunteered that it does not relate to China.

Four Rio Tinto workers based in Shanghai were recently convicted of receiving bribes and jailed in China.

BHP shares were 1.47 per cent weaker at $42.10 at 1242 AEST, against a 1.17 per cent slide in the benchmark index.

Doing business in Cambodia, BHP-style

22 April 2010
By former Phnom Penh Post journalist Georgia Wilkins
crikey.com.au

Today’s broadsheets reported that mining giant BHP Billiton could be guilty of paying $US2.5 million in bribes to the Cambodian government to secure a bauxite mining concession in the country’s north-west.

Further investigations have revealed that BHP discretely shelved its mining plans at the same time as a probe into the deal by the US Securities and Exchange Commission began. It seems Japan’s Mitsubishi were also part of the deal.

Is this a repeat of the Rio Tinto saga, or are we seeing a pattern emerge?

It seems that even the world’s largest mining company and one of the world’s largest diversified trading and investment companies believe that they can get away with corrupt behaviour; at least in vulnerable corners of the world in which few in London or New York pay attention too.

The Sydney Morning Herald claims that the latest graft scandal to hit a mining company has been under investigation by SEC since August. This coincides exactly with the company’s sudden pull-out from the bauxite mine in Mondulkiri province, Cambodia.

BHP at the time attributed the pull-out to their failure to find bauxite in sufficient quantities, with a spokesman for BHP in Australia quoted in the Phnom Penh Post as saying: “We completed our exploration field work in the Mondulkiri province and are in the process of sharing our evaluation with the Royal Government of Cambodia. As such, we have reduced our presence in Phnom Penh.”

The spokesman, who was not named, refused to give further details, saying that “…we do not comment publicly about the results of our exploration activities”.

Another source confirmed this alibi, telling the Post a feasibility study, which reportedly cost $US10 million and covered 400 hectares of the company’s 996-hectare concession, failed to find bauxite in sufficient quantities to make extraction profitable and justify the construction of the aluminium refinery.

But it seems that the news of poor profits was so devastating to BHP that it not only exited the deal, but exited the country, quickly vacating their large French-colonial building on the city’s main boulevard and no longer returning the Post’s calls.

The question needs to be asked: Why is this coming to light now?

The Global Witness report has been on the record for over a year, claiming BHP is involved with gross wrongdoing. But only now is it reaching papers in the developed world — surely in part because of the blow-up of the Stern Hu case.

Tireless watchdogs like Global Witness have long been a thorn in the side of Cambodia’s political and military elite. But officials know that without a large international audience, the group’s naming and blaming usually falls on deaf ears. It is this isolation from the world community that, as Global Witness itself points out, makes Cambodia such a natural fit with extreme corruption and kleptocracy.

So why were these commercial titans with huge reputations on the line dipping into the forbidden fruit on offer in small, backwater countries?

Global Witness says the fact that Cambodia has been resting on the cusp of a “petroleum and minerals windfall” is at least partly to blame.

“High demand worldwide for these commodities has, until recently, led to high prices. As a result companies are beginning to search for economically viable reserves in previously untapped countries once thought to be too politically unstable to operate in,” it says in its report, Country for Sale.

So, was it only a matter of time?

Cambodia and Vietnam, with fractured economies and greedy politicians, both have a reputation in south-east Asia for being the lowest hanging fruit on the dirty-money tree. Cambodia also has the seductive advantage of a huge bureaucracy in which standard accounting practices can disappear without a trace; not to mention a system of bullying predicated on fear which guards corrupt deals against squealers.

Indeed, the Cambodian government has been labeled the biggest in size in the world per capita; and they may likely be the richest. A nomenklatura of inter-wed and blood-related elites manage the country’s wealth through a sophisticated pyramid-shaped network of handshaking and intimidation. It is almost impossible to defy this natural hierarchy of power and its coercive logic of bribery: Global Witness claim every mine they investigated for their report was indeed run by a member of the government or military, or their relative.

So protected is the government from opposition that it can be genuinely humoured by attempts to threaten its power – especially when they come from outside the country. Following the release of Global Witness’s report, the Cambodian ambassador to the UK and son of the Minister for Commerce, Hor Nambora, responded by whipping up his own “report” with a poorly drawn image of the initial report going into a waste-paper basket.

But as the government squanders so much of the country’s wealth on big cars and expensive watches, teachers and low-level government workers are starved and forced to perpetuate the cycle of bribery.

‘Tea money’ may sound like a sinister misnomer, but to most Cambodians, a kickback is simply the cost of an every-day service. A legitimate monetary system can be easily reversed once one person’s salary is not paid. Because teachers receive barely any income, children learn from an early age that if they want to pass subjects, they must take a few hundred riel along with their lunches to school every day.

With this culture in place, it is difficult to believe that any company, large or small, international or local, can avoid paying this ‘tea’ tax on top of bloated concession fees. With SEC’s investigation underway, we are no doubt likely to see that the Stern Hu case is the rule, rather than the exception, when it comes to second and third-world business deals.

"Kung Th'Ngai Na Muoy..." a Poem in Khmer by Hin Sithan