Photojournalist Go Takayama, 28, a visual journalist from Japan who is a graduate of Ohio University's School of Visual Communication and who has interned at several American newspapers, has been jailed in Cambodia after taking pictures for a story he was working while participating in the Angkor Photo Workshops.
The Mirror, Vol. 14, No. 693
The deaths of many people as a result of a stampede – as it happened on 22.11.2010 in Phnom Penh – is not an unique tragedy. Some other examples, which also resulted in the loss of many human lives, are the following – all these relate to religious pilgrimages.
The Mirror, Vol. 14, No. 689
During the week, The Mirror had carried two reports entitled Garbage and Gender Makes a Difference. Both referred to positive suggestions and regulations. But one of our readers commented:
It is not clear from the article [about garbage regulations] what happens to the sorted waste from the markets? In any case, increased focus on waste management is important. However, with no publicized master plan and lacking composting facilities public participation in waste separation efforts may be moderate at best.
May I suggest that the requirements of the Phnom Penh Municipality and the actions taken by the market chiefs, is followed up on by journalists in Cambodia.
AN Australian organisation comprising ex-police and special forces soldiers has rescued four child sex workers from an illegal brothel near the Thailand-Cambodia border.
The team of volunteer operatives from The Grey Man, a Brisbane-based charity, staged the successful operation at a brothel in the Thailand town of Aranyaprathet, 1km from the Cambodian border, on Saturday.
Organisation president John Curtis said the brothel trafficked girls from Vietnam and Cambodia to Thailand where they were being offered to customers for sex.
So you find out that you have a rich uncle, who has sadly passed away, and has left you a large tract of land, in Cambodia. Given the recent real estate boom in the Kingdom, this would surely be welcome news (minus the news of your uncle).
Or is it?
As you begin researching Cambodian law governing testamentary gifts (wills), succession, and land, you soon realize that, as a foreigner, you are not permitted to own land in Cambodia.
UPDATE: We got an audio interview with several of the main players, along with some pretty disturbing descriptions of police misconduct, coercion of testimony, and even alleged lying to the Canadian embassy when asked if media were present — the officer communicating said they weren’t, although the picture taken by one of the suspects shows a different story.
The Mirror, Vol. 15, No. 703
Continuing recent reports and reflections in The Mirror about freedom of expression, the following is picked up from the present international flood of concerns in the media about this basic fundamental right.
A family says bad cops and shakedowns kept them from recovering the body of a deceased loved-one for five days.
Relatives of a deceased Vietnamese-Canadian have accused a policeman and several others of attempting to extort money from them as they struggled to recover his body.
For refusing to pay kickbacks, the family said they endured a five-day nightmare before picking up the body at a hospital in District 7. The saga concluded with them discovering that the body had been autopsied without their consent.
The Mirror, Vol. 14, No. 681
The Manager of Training and Communications at the Arbitration Council Foundation sent me the following request.
My apologies for my misleading interpretation of the information I had collected is combined with my thanks for pointing out this mistake. Whenever it should be necessary to correct something, I am happy to do so.
The Mirror, Vol. 14, No. 680
Some readers of The Mirror said that there was too much published related to the state of law. True, matters relating to the role of the law in Cambodia have received quite some attention. And this did not only happen when dealing directly with legislation and legal reforms, which are on the agenda of the government. Also related to such complex and difficult problems like the Temple of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site, and at a place in a region where both Cambodia and Thailand have taken different positions. Not emotions, but referring to what has been written – even when it is interpreted differently – will be crucial reference on the way to solutions.