Win with Women: A struggle for change

July 15, 2009
Source: SRP

Win with Women: A struggle for change

Poverty in Cambodia is caused by the failure of the government to combat corruption. The national budget allocated for the social sector – including health, education and rural development – is lost every year, thus putting human lives at great risk of neglect, deprivation and exposure to violence. Among the victims of neglect, deprivation and violence are women, female youths and children because of gender inequalities, discrimination and extreme forms of abuse such as sexual abuse, rape and trafficking. Victims of violence are usually deprived of justice as the process of legal action against their perpetrators is long, complicated, intimidating, and usually obstructed by a corrupt judiciary system. Impunity rate and court misconduct persist and victims receive little protection.

The Sam Rainsy Party, as the lead opposition in Cambodia , has lent a voice to the democratic movement that no longer can wait for promises made by the government. From farmers defending their land, to ethnic minorities marching to the provincial towns to demand cancellation of illegal concessions of community forests, to workers demanding fair wages, the opportunity for change from the bottom up is a phenomenon that is not possible to ignore. The opposition has made its presence felt.

Founded in February 1998, the Sam Rainsy Party Women’s Wing has helped increase the number of women SRP party members who have been elected to Parliament from only 1 woman MP in 1998, to 3MPs in 2003 and to 6 MPs in 2008. In 2006, the party elected Ms. Mu Sochua as Secretary General, the highest party position ever held by a woman in Cambodia in a political party. The current SG is a prominent woman MP from Siem Reap, a province with many challenges. In 2002, SRP Women’s Wing made gains at the local level with 46 of their members elected and in 2007, the number jumped to 269. In 2009, 42 women gained seats at the sub-national election.

The Women’s Wing will work to continue to encourage women’s leadership, empower women, and foster a paradigm shift towards gender responsive, transformative leadership, politics and good governance in preparation for the upcoming 2012 and 2013 election.

Cambodian FDI down 73 Pct in First Half of 2009 [-Dont worry, Hun Sen said that Cambodia is not affected by the world economic crisis -sic!-]

2009-07-15
Xinhua
The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) has approved 53 investment projects in the first half of 2009, worth a total of 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, local media reported on Wednesday.

The figures represent a sharp drop from the first half of 2008, when the CDC approved 4.43 billion in investments, including a 3.8 billion U.S. dollars tourist development in Koh Kong by Chinese Union Development Group.

A CDC official, who declined to be named, was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying that investment had taken a hit from the global financial downturn, but that in relative terms the Kingdom remained an attractive destination to investors.

"Today's economic crisis has caused direct influxes of capital around the world to decline by 50 percent in the first half of 2009, and cross-border investment to decrease 77 percent," the official said.

Of the investments approved, 354 million U.S. dollars went to the tourism sector, 323 million U.S. dollars to agriculture, 303 million U.S. dollars to industry and 241 million U.S. dollars to the private-sector developments.

The CDC official added that Cambodia's pre-existing investment projects had boosted the current economic activity in the country and would continue to propel private-sector development.

According to the CDC, ASEAN countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia, were the leading sources of investment in the first half, with 389 million U.S. dollars in investments. Second to ASEAN were other Asian investors - including from China, South Korea, China's Taiwan, Japan and China 's Hong Kong, which have invested a total of 367 million U.S. dollars.

what are we needing today

i am a khmer boy, i love my country, i like to tell everyone " i need a new chance for Cambodia, i want to see khmer people have a better live", this is economic news, we try to get a better live!

Obama Seeks Reforms in Financial Supervision
The Federal Reserve would get new powers to identify companies considered too big to fail. A proposed new agency to protect financial consumers faces industry opposition. Transcript of radio broadcast: 18 June 2009

This is the VOA Economics Report.

On Wednesday, President Obama proposed major changes to rebuild government supervision of the financial industry.

President Obama announces his plan at the White House

BARACK OBAMA: "So today, my administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the financial regulatory system, a transformation on a scale not seen since the reforms that followed the Great Depression."

The current economic downturn grew out of a culture of irresponsible lending and borrowing and "a failure of the entire system," he said. He says a new system is needed to meet the speed and complexity of a twenty-first century global economy.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the financial crisis developed in part because the existing system let some companies "shop for the weakest regulator." He discussed the plan before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.

One goal is to increase supervision of big companies whose failure could threaten the financial system. The Federal Reserve would gain new powers. The central bank would work with a proposed Financial Services Oversight Council to decide which companies are too big to fail.

The idea is to identify troubled companies early. But the Fed would now have to seek permission from the Treasury to carry out emergency lending.

The administration also proposes a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It would be responsible for protecting people from unfair and abusive practices with borrowing and investing.

The administration also supports another proposal. Lenders would have to keep five percent of the home loans they would normally group together to sell as securities. The idea is that lenders will be more responsible in making loans if they might not be able to pass off risky mortgages to investors.

Democratic leaders in Congress say they hope to pass a bill for the president to sign by the end of the year.

Some groups were dissatisfied with the proposals. Insurance companies hoping for simplified rules will continue to deal with different supervisors in every state. And there is almost no effort to combine the numerous federal regulatory agencies into a single financial regulator.

An industry group, the Financial Services Roundtable, says it supports many of the administration's proposals -- but not for a consumer protection agency. It opposes separating the regulation of a company from its products, saying each regulator will only have half the information. The industry "does not necessarily need more regulation," it says," but rather more effective regulation."