By Ros Sothea, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
12 August 2009
A Malaysian seaweed company in Kampot province has begun selling public shares to local citizens as a way to raise investment capital, a move the government claims is illegal.
Since early 2009, FMC Services, Bhd., has invested nearly $3 million in growing seaweed on the coast, which sells as foodstuff in Japan, China, Korea, the US and Europe and can be used in cosmetics.
The company had been using about 60 hectares of sea area, but plans to increase that to 10,000 hectares, offering in September unlimited shares at $300 per share, said Mei Ratha, FMC’s Cambodia representative.
Shares could yield an increase in value of 30 percent the first year, 50 percent the second and 75 percent the third, with value doubling in the fourth year, he said, adding that around 400 people are waiting to buy in.
“Don’t wait and see,” Mei Ratha said. “Time is limited. Come and buy shares. It is beneficial. More beneficial than keeping your money with other people.”
However, on learning of the scheme, Minh Ban Kosal, director-general of the Securities Commission of Cambodia, said the public offering was not yet legal in Cambodia.
“If my company wants to sell shares, I can sell them to people I know, but not publicly announce it and ask the public to buy them,” he said.
Cambodia plans to establish a stock exchange at the end of the year, listing between four and 10 companies, but FMC is not among them, he said, adding the commission would immediately look into the offering.
Mei Ratha said he had not asked for permission to sell the shares, denying the company had done anything wrong in seeking to raise capital. The company was not only selling shares in Cambodia, but other countries as well.
Risk of bankruptcy will be insured for shareholders, he said.
Sam Ganty, a stocks expert who sits on the Securities Commission, said the shares were illegal and risky.
“If we buy shares when we know nothing about the company, and the company doesn’t have permission to sell such kind of shares, I think the shares are very risky,” he said.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Intermediate Khmer and Advanced Filipino Language Courses Coming to UCLA This Fall
The Southeast Asian language courses will be teleconferenced to UCLA from U.C. Berkeley as part of a foreign language initiative and distance-learning partnership.
8/12/2009
By Seth Villanueva for the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies
UCLA International Institute (Los Angeles, California, USA)
SEEKING TO expand UCLA’s diverse language offerings as well as enable current language learners to progress in their proficiency, the Centers for Southeast Asian Studies at UC Berkeley and UCLA have arranged for two Southeast Asian languages, Khmer and Filipino, to be studied at the intermediate and advanced levels, respectively, via simultaneous teleconferencing technology. Both classes will begin on Thursday, September 24, and will run from M-Th at 3-4 pm for Filipino and 4-5:30 pm for Khmer. They will meet on a compressed schedule only when both UCLA and UCB are in session.
Both languages will be taught live at UC Berkeley and teleconferenced to UCLA, thus making new material available. Khmer (the language of Cambodia) has never been taught before at UCLA, and Advanced Filipino, while taught in the past, is not otherwise available as a regular course in 2009-10. This is not the first time that SEA language courses have been successfully teleconferenced between UC campuses. Introductory Filipino language courses have previously been teleconferenced very successfully from UCLA to UC Irvine. In 2009-10, several other languages are also included in the Distance Learning program including several African, Slavic, and Scandinavian languages.
We asked UC Berkeley instructors Frank Smith (Khmer) and Joi Barrios (Filipino) to provide more information about their classes:
CSEAS: Who are the classes designed for? Who are the ideal students?
FS: The Khmer class is intended for students who, either through classroom study or family/home experience, have attained a "survival level" of spoken Khmer (able to talk about family, exchange pleasantries, name basic rooms and objects in the home, discuss names of basic food items and Khmer dishes, bargain in a Khmer market, give/receive directions and discuss transportation, talk about work and accomplishing basic tasks, describe various basic emotions/states of health and illness). No previous knowledge of the Khmer writing system is assumed or required.
JB: The Filipino class is designed for students who have taken Intermediate Filipino, or those at the intermediate level. Ideal students are those who would like to study Philippine language and culture and either write a research paper in Filipino or work on a creative writing project.
CSEAS: How does a student enroll/register?
FS: The course number is Khmer 100A. UCLA students should contact Barbara Gaerlan bgaerlan@international.ucla.edu for UCLA registration details, and also indicate their interest to me via e-mail at fjsmith@berkeley.edu. General registration information for all Distance Learning language courses is available online at http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/soc/intercampus.htm.
JB: The official course title for Advanced Filipino is South and Southeast Asian Studies 149 (Studies in South and Southeast Asian Languages). Interested students should also contact Dr. Gaerlan.
The curricula for both courses is as follows:
Intermediate Khmer
In this class students will learn how to read and write Khmer and how to discuss various areas of knowledge common to all adult native speakers in Cambodia: religion, traditional culture, the rice farming cycle, and the language of news/advertising. In the second (spring) semester, they will learn about life as a modern Cambodian in Phnom Penh, the basics of discussing history and politics in Khmer, and acquire a basic understanding and appreciation of several traditional Khmer poetic meters. Throughout the two semesters, students will learn the basics of the Khmer writing system, and gain experience reading folk tales, news stories, articles on Khmer religion and history, and read (in the second semester) a Khmer novel in its entirety. Students will also learn the necessary vocabulary (spoken and written) to expand their command of Khmer from the survival/home realm into areas of common adult discourse in Cambodia today. All this will be done via a combination of written texts, videos recorded in Cambodia, and task-based classroom activities in which spoken and written Khmer will be used to design and carry out various projects, including student-designed "TV commercials," stories about everyday life, and original poetry.
Advanced Filipino
Using literary texts (short stories, poems, and creative non-fiction) and critical essays on Philippine culture and society, students learn advanced vocabulary and more complex grammatical structures. The students shall then choose from either a creative track or a research track. For the former, the student should be able to write either a short story, five poems, or a creative non-fiction work. For the latter, the student should submit a critical essay in Filipino based on the texts and their own research. These works shall be discussed using a workshop format, enabling the students to revise the work until it can be deemed ready for publication.
Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Japan's population is shrinking faster
Posted by: Ian Rowley on August 11
Japan’s Internal Affairs Ministry published the latest numbers on the country’s declining population on Aug. 11. The data doesn’t make for pleasant reading. In the year through the end of March 2009, the number of births in Japan fell for the first time since 2006 to 1.08 million, while there were 1.13 million deaths. Put together, that adds up to a record decline in the population of 45,914. That bests (if that’s the right word) the previous biggest decline of 29,119 in 2007. Just as worrying, the he number of Japanese 65 or older was now record 28.21 million out of total population of 127 million. Meanwhile, the current recession—Japan’s GDP may shrink 6% this year—will likely make things worse as couples decide to delay or have fewer children.
Still, as grim as all that is, the plunge could add further impetus to the Democratic Party of Japan’s election campaign. The DPJ, which is set to oust the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in an Aug. 30 election, has included some fairly radical measures to help boost Japan’s birthrate. Among them: giving parents $270 a month per child and making state high school tuition free. The DPJ is also considering expanding medical insurance to cover certain kinds of fertility treatment and will up the one-off payment parents receive on the birth of each child.
Strong measures are needed given only Hong Kong has a lower birthrate than Japan. Critics, though, say a stronger economy and a more forgiving corporate culture which encourages people to spend more time with friends and family would have a bigger impact. There are also questions as to how the DPJ plans to pay for these and other expensive pledges given Japan’s already gigantic gross national debt, which was already 170% of GDP before the current economic crisis triggered huge stimulus spending. They are all fair points. Yet, with the rate of population decline worsening and years of inaction by the LDP one reason for the slump, the DPJ’s plans to stimulate the birthrate look like vote winners.
Japan’s Internal Affairs Ministry published the latest numbers on the country’s declining population on Aug. 11. The data doesn’t make for pleasant reading. In the year through the end of March 2009, the number of births in Japan fell for the first time since 2006 to 1.08 million, while there were 1.13 million deaths. Put together, that adds up to a record decline in the population of 45,914. That bests (if that’s the right word) the previous biggest decline of 29,119 in 2007. Just as worrying, the he number of Japanese 65 or older was now record 28.21 million out of total population of 127 million. Meanwhile, the current recession—Japan’s GDP may shrink 6% this year—will likely make things worse as couples decide to delay or have fewer children.
Still, as grim as all that is, the plunge could add further impetus to the Democratic Party of Japan’s election campaign. The DPJ, which is set to oust the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in an Aug. 30 election, has included some fairly radical measures to help boost Japan’s birthrate. Among them: giving parents $270 a month per child and making state high school tuition free. The DPJ is also considering expanding medical insurance to cover certain kinds of fertility treatment and will up the one-off payment parents receive on the birth of each child.
Strong measures are needed given only Hong Kong has a lower birthrate than Japan. Critics, though, say a stronger economy and a more forgiving corporate culture which encourages people to spend more time with friends and family would have a bigger impact. There are also questions as to how the DPJ plans to pay for these and other expensive pledges given Japan’s already gigantic gross national debt, which was already 170% of GDP before the current economic crisis triggered huge stimulus spending. They are all fair points. Yet, with the rate of population decline worsening and years of inaction by the LDP one reason for the slump, the DPJ’s plans to stimulate the birthrate look like vote winners.
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