BATTAMBANG RICE MILL DESTROYED BY FIRE

A commune chief and business owner in Battambang province’s Mong Russey district is on the brink of bankruptcy after his rice mill was destroyed in a fire yesterday morning.

District police chief Kith Heang said the rice mill, owned by Puy Savorn, caught fire about 3am and after investigation it was determined that the blaze began when a spark from an engine ignited a pile of rice husk.

“There was a fire on Wednesday night, but the owner thought he had extinguished it. In the early morning [on Thursday] the fire started again and could not be controlled,” the police chief said.

He confirmed that the mill, which was 16 by 20 metres, was the only building damaged.

Puy Savorn, Russey Kraing commune chief and owner of the mill, said he lost about 50 tonnes of rice, five tonnes of milled rice and six tonnes of rice husks to the fire.

“In total, I lost about US$100,000 and owe villagers about $17,500 because I bought the rice in a joint purchase with them and stored it at the warehouse, but it was burned,” said the mill owner, who has owned the mill since 1984.

“I am facing bankruptcy. I could borrow money from the bank to run the business again, but it is unlikely. I have nothing left but ash and dust,” he said.


SOURCE Phnom Penh Post

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BATTAMBANG WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS

Against all the odds, Ms Leng Chantol’s vineyard and winery produced its first bottle of Shiraz in 2004. Cambodia's first vineyard and winery is a rare example of a business woman who is succeeding in the Country’s male dominated free enterprise market.

Ms Leng Chanthol’s Prasat Banon Winery produces a range of alcoholic and non alcoholic wines as well as brandies and has become a major tourist attraction in North West Cambodia.

She will tell her story at the launch of a new and unique partnership between the University of Battambang (UBB)  and Australia’s oldest university, the University of Sydney (UofS); with support for Aus AID.

Known as Female Entrepreneurship Program at University of Battambang, it will provide thirty-five scholarships for women each year to undertake a certificate program.

HE Dr Touch Visalsok PhD, President of UBB said:

This pioneering course will improve impart practical entrepreneurial and business management skills to women who wish to own or manage small to medium size businesses in Cambodia

The launch will take place at a seminar entitled The Current Status of Entrepreneurship in Cambodia, which will take place at the University of Battambang on Thursday 24^th November 2011 starting at 0800.

  University of Battambang

BATTAMBANG MOVIE THIS THURSDAY

Thurs 24th 8pm -    Bamboo Train Restaurant

8pm - Heng Leng your host

Thurs 24 Nov

The Ghost Writer

Summary: Roman Polanski's latest movie happens to be about a public figure, once hugely admired, now disgraced, fearing extradition and prosecution and confined to virtual house arrest in a vacation spot for rich people. More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/feb/12/roman-polanski-ghost-writer

·  Production year: 2010 ·  Countries: France, Germany, Rest of the world, UK ·  Cert (UK): 15 ·  Runtime: 128 mins ·  Directors: Roman Polanski ·  Cast: Ewan McGregor, James Belushi, Jon Bernthal, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Pierce Brosnan

Dinner and drinks available from 6.30pm.  Reservations to Heng Leng 012517125

FAQ-THE BUDDHIST FLAG

Frequently asked questions (FAQ).

What is the Buddhist Flag and what does it mean?

The flag was originally designed in 1885 by the Colombo Committee, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The committee consisted of Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera (chairman), Ven. Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera, Don Carolis Hewavitharana (father of Anagarika Dharmapala), Andiris Perera Dharmagunawardhana (maternal grandfather of Anagarika Dharmapala), William de Abrew, Charles A. de Silva, Peter de Abrew, H. William Fernando, N. S. Fernando and Carolis Pujitha Gunawardena (secretary).

 
This flag was published in the Sarasavi Sandaresa newspaper of 17 April 1885 and was first hoisted in public on Vesak day, 28 May 1885 at the Dipaduttamarama, Kotahena, by Ven. Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera. This was the first Vesak public holiday under British rule.

Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, an American journalist, founder and first president of the Theosophical Society, felt that its long streaming shape made it inconvenient for general use. He therefore suggested modifying it so that it was the size and shape of national flags. Modifications were made accordingly, which were adopted. The modified flag was published in the Sarasavi Sandaresa of 8 April 1886 and first hoisted on Vesak day 1886.

In 1889 the modified flag was introduced to Japan by Anagarika Dharmapala and Olcott - who presented it to the Emperor - and subsequently to Burma.

At the inaugural conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists on 25 May 1950, its founder President Professor G P Malasekera proposed that this flag be adopted as the flag of Buddhists throughout the world; this motion was unanimously passed.

Colours
The five colours of the flag represent the six colours of the aura that emanated from the body of the Buddha when he attained Enlightenment:

Blue (Nila): Loving kindness, peace and universal compassion
Yellow (Pita): The Middle Path - avoiding extremes, emptiness
Red (Lohita): The blessings of practice - achievement, wisdom, virtue, fortune and dignity
White (Odata): The purity of Dharma - leading to liberation, outside of time or space
Orange (Manjesta): The Buddha's teachings - wisdom

The sixth vertical band, on the fly, is made up of a combination of rectangular bands of the five other colours, and represents a compound of the other five colours in the aura's spectrum. This compound colour is referred to as Pabbhassara ('essence of light').

In Tibet, the colours of the stripes represent the different colours of Buddhist robes united in one banner. Tibetan monastic robes are maroon, so the orange stripes in the original design are often replaced with maroon.

BATTAMBANG SEES CHOLERA OUTBREAK AMONGST CHILDREN AFFECTED BY FLOODS

The following story was recently published in the Phnom Penh Post. It was wriiten by John Macgregor. Jonh is communications director for the Cambodian War Amputees Rehabilitation Society, which co-ordinates with three NGOs in Battambang and Banteay Meanchey – Puthi Kumar Organisation, Disadvantaged Cambodia  Organisation and Ockenden – in the relief effort. They are planning a post-flood ‘livelihoods rehabilitation’ project for the two provinces.

At the end of the story you will find details of how you can help.

About 1,000 families were stranded atop a dam in Battambang Province’s Sangke dstrict, some for more than two months, before aid finally reached them late last month.

People with firsthand experience of an unfolding media story often undergo a strange disconnect: what they see in the media can seem very much at odds with what they are experiencing.

As an aid worker in Cambodia’s present flood disaster, I know this feeling acutely.

During the day, my Khmer co-workers and I travel across a vast inland sea in Battambang’s Sangke and Moung Russei districts. It takes an hour by powerboat to get from one tiny piece of land to another, each crowded with thousands of refugees. We take food and water to those with malnutrition, and doctors and medicines to the sick.

In the evenings, I log into international (and even local) media websites . . . and read endless stories about the flooding of Bangkok (which hasn’t happened yet). Once in a while, a paragraph mentioning Cambodia is tacked on the end.

William Shawcross’s famous book on Cambodia’s place in the Indo-china War was called Sideshow.

A book on Cambodia’s place in the present Indo-china flood disaster might be titled Afterthought.

The international head of Save the Children visited Indochina recently to survey the floods, and placed Cambodia number one among  Indo-chinese nations in terms of ‘‘need’’. The latest data tells us that perhaps 500,000 Cambodians have been displaced.

“Displaced” is such an unemotive word. As we have seen in Battambang this month, what it actually means is to be flooded out of your home, and to move – along with your children, cows, pigs, chickens, dogs and cats – to a small island, typically a raised dirt road.

There, one sits out the flood, for  weeks, on pieces of rush matting atop the mud, under plastic sheeting.

It would be hard to design a more perfect incubator for epidemics than these places. They are hot, wet, crowded, and awash with dung.

A boy carries his brother across the sandbag trail connecting two sections of the makeshift camp atop the dam where a doctor with CWARS said four children were diagnosed with cholera last week. Hundreds more have diarrhoea,  pneumonia, skin diseases and fever. 

The majority of children in them now have diarrhoea. Pneumonia, dengue fever, parasites, fevers and skin rashes are ubiquitous. Our two doctors have treated 1,700 people in a week.

The “disconnect” extends to the government and civil society.  The WHO announced there had been “no outbreaks”; the National Dis-aster Committee states that most displaced villagers outside Kampong Chhnang and Kampong Cham have returned to their homes.

That would be news to the many thousands encamped in the mud of Battambang’s Sangke and Moung Russei districts, and to our first cholera cases – four children – diagnosed at the Ta Phon commune on Friday.

We have reached a few such places, and could reach many more if international donors loosened the purse strings a little: many comm-unes have, to date, had no aid or medicine at all.

A few days ago, we discovered an encampment with 252 families that no one had hitherto known about. These are the ethnic Lao people of Poi Tasek village, in Boueng Preng commune, on the border of Battambang and Banteay Meanchey.

They’d been sitting alone in the mud for weeks, and every one of their children is sick.

A small crack in the wall appeared last week, when a “Cambodia flood” story ran in The Guardian.

But overall, the media vacuum surrounding such a large disaster is astonishing – although it probably has a simple explanation: most regional journalists live in Bangkok, and what few Cambodian journalists there are seldom venture outside Phnom Penh.

The result? Even Cambodian newspapers have often run more stories on the Thai floods than the ones affecting Cambodia; and local journalists are being alerted to the disaster in their own country by reading The Guardian.

Perhaps Cambodia can’t cease to be an afterthought to the world until it ceases to be an afterthought to those who live here.

WANT TO HELP?

Buddhism for Development are conducting an appeal to raise money to help the flood victims.


You can read about what BFD is doing by going to the post on this Blog dated November 7 2011 or click on LINKS TO THIS PAGE below

TO DONATE or for more information, email bfdfloodfund@bfdkhmer.org