Lawrence teen, 17, shot in Lowell, dies

Tavaryna Choeun, 17 - Paul Bilodeau / Courtesy photo

May 14, 2009
By Bill Kirk
bkirk@eagletribune.com
The Eagle Tribune (North Andover, Massachusetts, USA)

LOWELL — A Lawrence teen who was shot and pushed out of a car on a street in Lowell Tuesday night died early this morning, her family told The Eagle-Tribune today.
Tavaryna Choeun, 17, who lived with her family at 184 Abbott St. before moving out of the house several months ago, was shot in the back of the head by unknown assailants, her body dropped on the side of Suffolk Street where she was found by Lowell police at 10:16 p.m. Tuesday.

She was taken to Lahey Clinic in Burlington and was on life support before succumbing to her injuries at 2 a.m. this morning, said her mother, Sophal Choeun, 45.

"I pray to God they find who did this to my daughter," said Choeun, a Cambodian immigrant who lives with her family, including three other children and her mother on the second floor of an Abbott Street multi-family house.

"I'll go see her in Boston today at 1 p.m.," she said quietly, her children and mother sitting by her side.

Choeun said her daughter had never been in trouble, and Lawrence Police Chief John Romero confirmed yesterday that she had never been arrested in Lawrence.

However, she said her oldest daughter was in the custody of the Department of Social Services because she kept dropping out of school.

"I didn't want her to drop out," she said.

The victim's sister, Maryanne Choeun, 18, said Tavaryna had dropped out of Lawrence High School in her freshman year and was a chronic runaway. She had run away from her foster home and was most recently living with her boyfriend in Lowell, a 20-year-old man, she said.

Tavaryna's father lives in California and is traveling in Cambodia, Maryanne Choeun said.

Aside from her mother and sister Maryanne, Tavaryna has a younger sister, Susan, 16, and brother, Peter, 7, and grandmother, Chy.

Maryanne Choeun told the Lowell Sun she hadn't talked to her sister in several months, but that she is a shy and quiet girl, who had no enemies and no problems with her boyfriend.

"We just want to know who did it," Maryanne Choeun said. "I can't believe they did this kind of stuff to my sister."

Lowell Police Capt. James McPadden said the investigation is ongoing and is being handled by District Attorney Gerard Leone's office.

A spokesman for Leone, Corey Welford, could not be reached for comment this morning.

Anyone with information is asked to call Lowell police at (978) 937-3200 or Crimestoppers at (978) 459-TIPS (8477). Callers may remain anonymous, but can receive up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest.

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Khmer overseas ask the American president to investigate Khmer Krom's issues

Source: Radio Free Asia
Reported by Khmerization

Overseas Khmers are gathering signatures in order to send a petition to U.S President Barack Obama (pictured) to ask him to order an investigation into the abuses and persecutions of Khmer Krom by the Vietnamese authority, reports Radio Free Asia.

Dr. Tith Naranhkiri, a professor from the John Hopkins University and a former
senior official of the IMF, told RFA that his group wants Vietnam to respect the human rights of the Khmer Krom people. He said: "We want President Obama to investigate that issue. If the President wants the respect of human rights and if he wants justice, it must not for our country (America) only, but it must be for the whole world. This is what we want. We want the President to examine the human right abuses in Cambodia and of the Khmer Krom (in Vietnam). The President has defended the victims of Darfur. Why can't he defend the victims of Cambodia and the Khmer Krom people? This is what we want. We are not asking them (American leaders) to do what is impossible. We only ask what they have promised to do for us. And if we don't remind them, who will remind them?"

Dr. Tith Naranhkiri said that he is really worried about the situations in Cambodia and in Kampuchea Krom. He said: "First, what can we do about the Vietnamese persecutions of the Khmer Krom people? Secondly, what can we do about the illegal Vietnamese immigrants who had come to settled in Cambodia since 1979 under the Khmer-Vietnamese Friendship Treaty. Now, our country has no indepedence. If the Vietnamese tell Hun Sen to turn right, he will turn right. If the Vietnamese tell him to turn left, he will turn left. The illegal Vietnamese settlers poured into Cambodia everyday without any attempt to stop them. This is because our Khmer leaders are corrupt, so the Vietnamese they use money to bribe them. Also Hun Sen is very scared of Vietnam because he was propped up by Vietnam. This is why I do not talk about the two issues separately because now the Vietnamese abused and persecuted the Khmer Krom and also they send their settlers to live in Cambodia. So, at this present time, they have achieved both of their aims. That's why I am really worried that if the Vietnamese invade Cambodia again, we have nowhere to escape."

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Tribunal Rejects Bail for Former Rebel

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
11 May 2009

Khmer Rouge tribunal judges on Monday rejected an appeal from former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith that she be released on bail as she awaits an atrocity crimes trial.
None of the five jailed leaders of the regime has been allowed out of detention since their arrests. Echoing similar findings with other defendants, judges said Monday Ieng Thirith would not be released to ensure she did not tamper with evidence or seek to intimidate witnesses against her.

“The request of the release on bail is inadmissible,” said Judge Prak Kim Sam, head of the Pre-Trial Chamber of the tribunal.

Ieng Thirith, 77, was arrested in November 2007 and is facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. She was not present at her hearing Monday. Lawyers said she “could not get out of bed” and had a headache.

Defense attorney Phat Pouv Seang told reporters at the tribunal the team was not satisfied with the decision, but would raise the issue again as trial approached.

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Chinese firm inks railroad contract

Monday, 11 May 2009
Written by Chun Sophal
The Phnom Penh Post

$2.3 million agreement will see China Railway Group conduct feasibility study on track extending to Vietnam.

A CHINESE company has been awarded a contract to study Cambodia's rail network to Vietnam as part of the Singapore-Kunming railway project, government officials said Thursday.
The project would see China Railway Group study construction of a 255-kilometre stretch of track from Bat Doeng in Kampong Speu to Snuol district in Kratie province at the Vietnamese border. In a separate arrangement, Australia's Toll Holdings is set to renovate and operate the lines from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, and Phnom Penh to the Thai border.

Sokhom Pheakvanmony, director general of Royal Railways of Cambodia, told the Post on Sunday that the Ministry of Public Affairs signed the agreement worth US$2.5 million for carrying out a feasibility study. Experts say the railway could cost more than $700 million to build, with China expected to foot the bill.

We hope that china railway group will start studying the project soon.

"We hope that China Railway Group will start studying the project soon this year," said Sokhom Pheakvanmony.

He added that a detailed study of the project would be finished in between 18 months and two years, after which time they would start building the railway link.

"ASEAN has already linked its entire railway network except for Cambodia, which is the last country to build its portion," said Sokhom Pheakvanmony.

On Thursday, Hu Gian-Wen, a member of China's Foreign Relationship Association, told Prime Minister Hun Sen that China would donate $2.5 million to the project, which would link Cambodia with Loch Minh, Vietnam.

Cambodia has two railroads, one of which links Phnom Penh with the Thai border in Banteay Meanchey province and is 348km in length.

The other line, which links Phnom Penh with Preah Sihanouk province, is 264km long.

Both were built under French rule and are in poor condition.

The 10 member states of Asean, together with China, Japan and Korea, signed an agreement to build the new railroad in 2000.

In total, the railroad would run 5,513km and enable overland travel from Singapore through to Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and China.

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Structural cracks

Trouble ahead for global house prices

AFP

OUR round-up of house-price indicators (see table) suggests that any crash is far from universal. Only five countries have suffered annual house-price falls in the latest data and two of those—Japan and Germany—have been in the doldrums for a decade.

This relatively rosy picture may reflect the use of annual, rather than monthly, figures. In particular, the impact of the credit crunch, by restricting the availability of mortgage finance, is having a negative effect on demand. It is a fairly safe bet that the data will look less reassuring in six months’ time.

Some markets have been doing extremely well, even if more uncertainty has crept in lately. Singapore and Hong Kong have benefited from the booming Asian economy. DTZ Debenham Tie Leung, an estate agency, found that the number of homes bought by foreigners in Singapore jumped by 71% last year. Both Singapore and Hong Kong manage their exchange rates against the American dollar. Hence they import American monetary policy, which may be too loose for their domestic conditions. The cheaper real cost of finance encourages more property buying.

Similarly, Spanish and Irish housing probably boomed earlier this decade because of their economies’ fringe status in the euro zone. As a result of the “one-size-fits-all” monetary policy, interest rates in both countries were set too low.

Whereas Irish house prices have been falling, the Spanish numbers still show a small annual increase. But Julian Callow of Barclays Capital reckons that may reflect the way the numbers are calculated: by valuers, who may be cautious about cutting their estimates. Even our figure of 3.8% represents a fall in real terms, since the inflation rate is 4.2%.

Spain and Ireland stand out as economies dominated by housing. According to Goldman Sachs, construction and housing-related employment in both countries made up 13% of all private-sector jobs at the end of last year, against 9% in America and 5% in Germany. Nominal residential investment was 11% of GDP in Ireland and 9% in Spain, against 6% in America.

That has caused a glut. More than 4m Spanish dwellings have been built over the past decade, according to Britain’s Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Its survey of European property suggests that far more Spanish houses were being built last year than are likely to be needed.

Spanish banks are tightening conditions on mortgages as the number of non-performing loans rises, pricing out potential buyers. As a result, house sales are plunging. The number of completed sales in February was 24.4% below the same month last year, according to the National Institute of Statistics.

Both Spain and Ireland have parallels with the American housing market, where the inventory of unsold homes has hit a 20-year high, according to Capital Economics. There the pace of price decline, as measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller indices, has been accelerating.

Britain is something of an exception. Whereas housebuilding grew by 187% in Spain and 177% in Ireland between 1996 and 2006, the British increase was just 12%. Planning restrictions meant fewer homes were built, which may also explain why house prices in the country have almost doubled, in real terms, since 1999.

Some may take this to mean that British house prices are less likely to fall. But potential homebuyers will undoubtedly be hit by the change in lenders’ attitudes; a sizeable deposit is now normally required. Ed Stansfield of Capital Economics reckons prices may fall by at least 20%.

Two other markets at risk are Australia and New Zealand. Since 1997 house prices have risen faster in Australia than New Zealand, but Goldman reckons that the latter is more vulnerable. Real house prices are 82% higher than they were in the last quarter of 1999, and have risen by 70% relative to household income, the biggest increase in all the countries Goldman has surveyed.

If house-price weakness does spread more widely, there may be important economic consequences. There is plenty of debate about the size of the “wealth effect” of higher property prices on consumer demand. But it will hardly help that fuel and food prices are soaring at the very moment when the value of bricks and mortar looks about to sag

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Asia- more economic troubles ahead

Sunday May 10, 2009
RANDOM THOUGHTS By Neville de Silva
The Sunday Times (Sri Langka)

Asia which overcame the financial crisis of 1997/98 which started here in Thailand, felt it was better equipped to deal with the current global turmoil that has caused havoc in western economies.

Better supervision and regulatory measures over financial institutions, some believed, would cushion this part of the world from the worst features of the meltdown in banking and financial circles in the West where it all started. That, it now seems, was wishful thinking. It does not appear to have taken account of the fact that the financial crisis which began last year came on top of other economic problems which compounded the situation. What it means is that Asia is not out of the woods, not by a long shot and more difficulties lie ahead before it gets better, if it does.


That is the impression gathered, listening to a stimulating discussion I sat through the other day at the 65th Session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP), a regional body of the United Nations based in Bangkok. It was a discussion on the financial crisis by a high-level panel that brought together several eminent persons from different disciplines and so provided the breadth of knowledge that an issue of this nature really needs, impinging as it does on every aspect of society and cutting across socio-economic lines. One of the critical factors that do not appear to have been seriously regarded by those who thought that Asia had somehow managed to escape the worst ravages of an economic crisis that has yet to run its course, is the trade relationship between Asia and the western world.

Asia’s trade integration with the economies of the west is relatively high- about 50% of the GDP of this region. Then consider this continent’s financial integration with western economies, particularly so with the US, which amounts to 40% of the region’s GDP. Earnings from tourism, remittances by expatriate workers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Philippines and others and Official Development Aid also make up a substantial part of the GDP of several of Asia’s less developed countries.

As was pointed out in the course of the discussion, a one percentage point drop in growth in the United States would constitute a 0.6 percentage point decline in Asia’s GDP. As was stated last week the present crisis is different from any that has gone before. It is really a global crisis as it has a much greater impact economically and socially throughout the world than anything previously. It was also stated that this present crisis is likely to be deeper and of a long duration than any in the past. Moreover recovery would be much slower. One reason for this is that the crisis was born at the centre of the system and not on the sidelines and so it is going to be much harder to contain.

As I have already said this crisis was preceded by a food and fuel crisis when food prices skyrocketed and fuel prices reached unprecedented levels. Sri Lankan consumers are well aware of the difficulties that faced them during those hard times. True, food and fuel crisis now seems gone and prices have stabilized at lower levels. But who is to say that it may not happen again. It might be recalled that Asian countries came out of the financial turmoil of a decade or more ago by stimulating their export sector. It was an export-led strategy that helped Asia come out of that particular situation. But obviously that strategy cannot save them this time round for the credit crunch in the west and the significant drop in consumer spending especially on imported goods and what might be considered luxuries or non-essentials would not allow Asian countries to depend once more on increased export earnings for economic recovery.

The World Trade Organisation predicts that the volume of global trade which rose by 6% in 2007 and 2% last year will fall sharply by 9% this year. If so it would be the biggest drop in 40 years. It is said that in recent months exports declined in many Asian countries as import demand contracted in the industrialized economies. So labour-intensive export industries such as garments and textiles, footwear, toys, gems and jewellery were seriously affected.

That drop in exports would affect countries such as Sri Lanka which rely quite heavily on the garment industry for export earnings. If the withdrawal of the GPS Plus trade concession comes on top of this, the country’s import earnings could suffer badly. Sri Lanka is not the only Asian country with labour-intensive industries that face this situation. Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam are some of the others. That is not all. Growth in Asia is also expected to slowdown perceptibly. Growth which recorded 9% in 2007 will drop to 4-5% this year. The prospects for the coming year are uncertain so that a question mark hangs precariously over 2010 as we move inexorably towards the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The current prediction is that if one excludes China and India the rest of Asia will show no growth this year. Now here is the crunch. The jobless in Asia rose from 79 million in 2007 to 84 million in 2008. If that increase of 5 million in one year is considered unacceptable, then worse is to follow this year.

Asia’s unemployment this year is estimated at 94 million a jump of 10 million in one year. If that is bad news, worse is to come. Due to the current crisis labour in the informal sector such as tourism, construction industry, textiles and garments, small and medium enterprises, trade and retail are not only likely to lose their jobs but their wages are also expected to decline substantially. For those who still fantasize about achieving most of the Millennium Development Goals in the next five or more years, especially with regard to poverty, here is something to ponder.

A 100 million people will be pushed into poverty. That is in a region that still has 900 million people living under conditions of extreme poverty. There is more bad news. But I think this is sufficient for one morning.

The writer is a serving Sri Lankan diplomat.

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Asean Summit: Fears of 'Scary Army Presence'

Too scary for tourists? Phuket police in riot practice today (Photo by phuketwan.com)

Saturday, May 9, 2009
By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison
Phuket Wan (Thailand)

CONCERNS are being expressed that a large-scale military presence during the Asean Plus Six summit in June could damage Phuket's image as a popular, peaceful tourist destination.
Members of Thailand's Internal Security Operations Command and top generals met with local officials on Phuket today and decided that there will be stringent checks around the summit centre in the western beach resort of Karon.

Tourists and residents will face checks at a five-kilometre cordon, and again at a three kilometre cordon, Phuketwan has learned.

More than one resort owner fears that television footage of soldiers and police on virtually every street corner will alarm travellers as much as the red shirt protest invasion of the Pattaya summit resort did in April.

Phuket's police were showing off their new skills with riot sticks and shields on a parade ground today, and they will be reinforced by thousands more men in uniform for the summit replay.

While Phuket authorities at all levels have guaranteed the behavior of local people and are clearly committed to prevent disturbances, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is talking of imposing the Internal Security Act.

This could make many normal gatherings on the island, possibly including weddings and parties, especially those close to the centre of the summit, illegal.

Is this an over reaction?

Local businessman Adisak Auksintawakul believes that sensitive Chinese and Japanese tourists will be turned off Phuket if a large-scale demonstration of military presence is on display.

In any case, he believes it is unnecessary to put Phuket's reputation as a peaceful tourist destination at risk.

''This year Phuket has hosted the Asean Plus Three Finance Ministers' meeting and an Asean Education Ministers' Meeting,'' he told Phuketwan.

''These were peaceful gatherings. There is no cause for alarm about any summit on Phuket.

''To impose the Security Act is not far short of declaring a State of Emergency.

''Instead of encouraging tourists to visit, having too much unnecessary protection could discourage tourists, which is just what the island does not need.

''It is a two-edged sword.''

Phuket is normally thinly policed with just 1100 officers to protect up to one million residents and visitors in high season months.

Local island police will be reinforced by 2850 more, just for the weekend summit on June 13-14.

But these officers will all be on the perimeter, with an unknown number of military personnel guarding a five-kilometre ''cordon sanitaire'' around the summit central meeting point, the Hilton Arcadia Phuket Resort and Spa in Karon.

What this will mean for people going about their normal business within the five-kilometre zone, and for tourists, has yet to be made plain by local and national authorities.

The island's best known holiday town, Patong, all of Karon itself and Kata, all fall within five kilometres of the summit.

Maitree Narukatpichai, owner of the Hilton Arcadia Phuket and Villa Zolitude and a past President of the Phuket Tourist Association, has previously urged an increase in local police numbers to guard the safety tourists.

He is pleased the summit is being held on Phuket and not worried about security being overplayed.

''The Government needs to ensure that leaders are safe,'' he told Phuketwan. ''We don't want a repeat of Pattaya.''

Local Tourism Association of Thailand director Setthapan Putthani is delighted that the Asean summit is coming to Phuket and not concerned about the security, which he says is well short of a declaration of a state of emergency.

Phuket is a Democrat yellow shirt stronghold, and any invading protesters would have to get past a checkpoint near the bridge that connects the only road from the island to the mainland.

In any event, a repetition of the Pattaya invasion seems unlikely for one simple reason: it did the red shirts' cause great harm.

On Phuket, preparations for the Asean summit have begun in earnest, with median strip garden beds on the road from the airport freshly planted and unsightly tree stumps being removed.

The Asean Plus Six Summit has a troubled history. First scheduled for Bangkok, it was postponed because of the invasion of the capital's airports by yellow shirt protesters in November.

Then it was to be Phuket's turn, but sufficient accommodation could not be found during the Songkran-Easter break, so it went to Pattaya.

Poor security led to red shirt protesters invading the resort on the day the summit was to begin, triggering an emergency airlift to safety for some national leaders.

The 10-member Asean grouping of Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos and the Philippines is to be bolstered by China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.

In the context of the global downturn, this makes Asean Plus Six the most important conference in the Asia-Pacific for many years.

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