A bit of a storm

So there was a bit of a storm in the Philippines on the weekend and its moved on to SE Asia:
Typhoon Ketsana has left a trail of destruction across Southeast Asia on Wednesday, killing at least 49 people in Vietnam and Cambodia and churning towards Laos, officials say.

Tens of thousands of people had fled their homes to escape flooding caused by Ketsana, which had already killed 246 when it struck the Philippines over the weekend as a weaker tropical storm. (click on quote to see full article)

I got a weather warning email from the Oz embassy with these two links if I wanted to know more:
Humanitarian Early Warning Service
Mekong River Commission

No cases yet but three Cambodians were exposed to H1N1.

Latest from Preah Vihear border tenison

Villagers tell of loss.

border tension again on Friday

On Friday there was another border clash and some people died, but it seems to be calm now. At the time we heard a few different versions of the story, but whatever happened its seems ok now.

the red khmer trials

Rachael went to visit the other day, and here is what she said about it.

What is this?

It looks a bit like one of those doll's houses that open up, or a cross section picture of a house in a text book. But it is actually someone's house. They needed to widen the road so they had to cut the front off some people's houses.

Prep begins for April border meetings
Cambodian and Thai hold talks

More border dispute updates

Preah Vihear park reopened
One Thai soldier arrested for illegally entering Khmer land

Border updates

Here, "Phnom Penh wants to end the border row", and here, "Border tension eases".

On the border dispute

Recently on the border.....
Thais to apologize for rockets fired

An Aussie girl went to have a look and this is what she saw The battle for prasat Preahvihear

Thais lay barbed wire

The latest on the border dispute is here.

Homeless

I feel like I'm always seeing pictures of Cambodians carrying all their belongings down the road. The other night on the news we saw some footage from a fire in Phnom Penh. At least 25 houses burnt down a few days ago so we saw many people carrying big bags and some furniture. Don't know where they were going? Then the weekend before the Dey Grahom slum was evicted forcefully (more over here). A few months ago we saw photos of people who live near the border in Preah Vihear  all loaded up and leaving their homes. The latest on the border dispute is that there have been some more talks, you can read about it here. (For more on this dispute see Khmer/Thai relations on our main blog.)

How do you say “obstetrician” in Khmer?

An expat women we know has had trouble explaining what her father’s job is. When Khmer friends ask her she explains he is a doctor who helps deliver babies, but not a midwife.

She ask Soeun what the word for “obstetrician” in Khmer is. He said as far as he knows the midwife does it all. Our friend asked “But what happens if it’s a complicated birth?" 

I think she wanted to know who they would call if it got too much for the mid wife to handle.

Kimsoeun’s face was still blank, I don’t think he had heard of such a doctor.

When his mum gave birth to his younger siblings it was just him and an old lady from the neighbourhood help at the birth. There are people who train as midwives at nursing schools, but Soeun said they probably didn’t want to go to remote villages after they study, so often an old lady will do the job as a mid wife.

 Now days there are some better hospitals in Phnom Penh where people who can afford that sort of health care go, and perhaps they do have obstetricians there? We ‘re not sure, but it’s seems like something the average Cambodian hasn’t heard about.

 So it’s no wonder that “437 mothers per 100,000 live births (died) in 2005 “ . (Phnom Penh Post jan 2009)

Click on the quote below to see the full article. 

"Maternal mortality will continue to be a problem so long as the majority of mothers are using traditional midwives [non-schooled family or community members] to give birth, especially rural people," she said.

Chinese New Year traffic accidents

Traffic accidents always happened but there were more over the new year as you can read here.

Flood and border dispute update

A photo of the partially filled in lake that is said to have caused our flooding is in the Phnom Penh Post this week : BK Beach.

John Vink has some photos of the troops at the border near the UNESCO World Heritage temple: Border Dispute

Cold weather part 3

It's still cold....I'm not the only one writing about it, in the Phnom penh post there is an article about the soldiers on the border (yes, still there) who are cold- Not equipped for cold.

Also on KI media Unusual cold season

Review 2008, Cambodian news

Where Elephants weep is a new (maybe the first) Cambodian American Rock Opera that has been showing here.

Today's border news

Thai claims of land mine use on border ignored: Cambodia
Thai political turmoil seen as stalling border row talks

A recent thing about the border issue can be found here.

PRIME Minister Hun Sen announced Thursday that Cambodia will not wage war with neighbouring Thailand over its ongoing border dispute, but said the country will be ready to defend itself if necessary.

Also this is interesting. The other week a "top cop" died in a crash and now expats can't renew their visas.

Foreigners fear overstay fines as visa renewals put on hold
Written by Brendan brady and Sam Rith
Monday, 24 November 2008
Hok Lundy's death creates logistical nightmare for visitors, expatriates who relied on his signature from passport office