American Buddhist Net

As the daily onslaught of traffic piled by on Street 178, I sat chatting with Professor Chan Sim about the mystery of chovea. This is the Khmer name for those familiar curving pointed forms seen on the roofs of traditional Khmer buildings. Also found in Thailand and Laos, in Thai the name is chofah, which roughly translates to “sky tassel”.

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Authorities in Kampot province have arrested a 17-year-old dressed as a monk after he was accused of stealing cash and a mobile phone from an older monk Thursday. Police said the theft happened after a Buddhist ceremony. The 68-year-old victim said he lost his phone and more than US$100. The accused man allegedly confessed to the theft, telling investigators that he shared his loot with other monks. However, district police said they did not find an ID card on the accused man, leading them to conclude that he was in fact a “fake monk”.

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About 100 people — mostly local drug addicts — gathered at a pagoda in Phnom Penh in mid-February. A few drug users had brought their families for support, and they sat together on woven mats before a Buddhist shrine. The crowd put their hands together, bowed their heads and prayed. In a country where many drug addicts report being beaten, electrocuted and forced into military-style camps, the group prayer was organized to raise public awareness of their plight. In one prayer, Cambodia's drug users and monks chanted together, "We pray for drug users to have access to proper, community-based, voluntary drug treatment."

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NEANG Kavich says that when he was a child, he and his friends were scared every time they heard smot, a type of traditional Khmer chanting performed at funerals and characterised by eerily drawn-out syllables.

However, when he later found out that the chants are used not only at funerals but also on other occasions – including on the King’s and Queen’s birthdays and during other religious ceremonies – he began to hear the beauty of the music.

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Cambodians' public discussions of Cambodia's past, present and future churn through cyberspace. A discussion that targets domestic political developments, particularly the perennial tensions between those who advocate civil rights and freedoms and those who support stability and economic development, foments passionate debate.

When the debate turns to Cambodia's external problems with her neighbors to the east and west -- Vietnam and Thailand, both viewed historically as "swallowers of Khmer land" -- the conversation has fallen to the depths of racial slurs and intensified hatred.

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With an Australian inquest set to revisit the killing of three Western tourists by Khmer Rouge in 1994, former cadres in Kampot reflect on the events that led to the men’s capture and killing.

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AUTHORITIES examining how to draft a new law that counters acid attacks are debating instituting a minimum age for people to buy the corrosive liquid, officials said Wednesday at a meeting with local vendors.

A Ministry of Interior committee met Wednesday with nine acid sellers in Phnom Penh, part of a series of meetings aimed at examining how to combat a recent spike in reported acid attacks.

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PHNOM PENH Feb 16 (Reuters) - A Cambodian tycoon will launch a $100 million casino near the country's border with Vietnam this month to attract foreign tourists and develop the country's fast-growing entertainment industry.

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As a child soldier in Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge army Aki Ra laid many landmines. He now clears these deadly bombs with a stick and a pocketknife, more than 10,000 to date. It is very dangerous. No one pays him to do it. Aki is the real deal.

AUTHORITIES in Kampong Thom’s Santuk district have demolished a pagoda on an eviction site in Kraya commune, former residents say, though the district governor contends that the structure was not a pagoda but rather a “small cottage”.

Pan Par, a former soldier whose family was among the hundreds evicted from Kraya commune in December, said that authorities had begun bringing Buddhist statues removed from the pagoda to a relocation site 7 kilometres away.

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A TEAM of Cambodian and Japanese archaeologists says it has uncovered an ancient man-made drainage system at the site of the Bayon temple at Angkor Thom.

The temple, built in the late 12th and early 13th centuries during the reign of King Jayavarman VII, has been the subject of three digs since 1999, but this is the first time such a drainage system has been discovered, according to the archaeologists.

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PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA plans to draft a new law in a bid to stop the growing number of attacks in which jealous wives, vengeful businessmen and others have hurled acid at their rivals, a government official said on Thursday.

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Thai border rangers have clashed with Cambodian troops near the Preah Vihear national park in Si Sa Ket's Kantharalak district.

Twelve rangers attached to the 23rd Ranger Forces Regiment were on patrol near Huay Khanun dam, east of the national park, when they were ambushed about 9.25am yesterday by Cambodian troops, a military source said.

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A benevolent Buddha beams down at the visitors to the quiet temple in Kampong Chhnang province.

The mural artist painting new icons onto a blank wall of the temple pauses occasionally to choose a fresh palette from several bottles of brightly coloured paint standing on a bench.

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Phnom Penh - A fortune-teller who turned gold jewellery into tin foil to dupe villagers has been warned by police not to repeat the scam, national media reported on Tuesday.

Bun Srey Neang was arrested after persuading villagers in Kandal province near the capital that they should leave their jewellery in a jar with her for 15 days. She said all of their wishes would come true when they came back and opened the container.

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THE Ministry of Information has issued a letter to Cambodian broadcasters warning them against making statements that could be seen as disparaging to any religion, a move prompted by a comment aired last week that, according to the letter, insulted Buddhism by stating that Christians were more giving when it came to disaster relief.

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Scroll down the page--there are many censorship articles today, and I am not going out of my way to look for them. This is the territory hate speech laws will take us into. This is also the territory that Cass Sunstein wants to go into--censorship and government control of information. Are people such a bunch of babies that they can't hear criticism once in a while? Or someone's wrong views? Or views that are simply different from their own? Americans should be aware that as of today we are the last country on earth with decent freedom of speech and freedom of religion rights, exactly the protections Sunstein and his weird supporters want to take away. We have seen the dismal failure of the war on drugs and the endless hyping of the war on terror. Please be aware that there are some powerful Americans who are trying to do the same thing with freedom of speech--they want to escalate the hype on "hate speech" or "dangerous conspiracy theories" and then use the storm of public confusion that results as a cover to enact censorship laws. ABN

The horrors of the Khmer Rouge's rule may be in the past, but the question of whether its crimes amounted to genocide lingers on.

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Cambodian authorities used a bulldozer to crush 400,000 CDs and DVDs in a crackdown on piracy, national media reported Wednesday.

Police drove the machine over the pile of counterfeit discs that were stacked on the road outside Wat Phnom, the capital's landmark Buddhist temple.

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Two photographers will go toe to toe this Saturday, January 2, as 4Faces gallery unveils its newest photography exhibition Sacred…And the Nun’s Life: Janos Kis vs Geoff Croll at 7pm. The show will feature photos of the sacred tattoos of Khmer monks, by Kis, juxtaposed with Croll’s photos of the daily lives of Burmese nuns.

Pictures will be displayed in the 4Faces style of a storyboard strip with a beginning, middle and end. The unifying theme will be Buddhism and spirituality – and it’s not really a competition.

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Authorities in Poipet have arrested and defrocked a man alleged to be a “fake monk” after a woman complained the monk constantly cheated local citizens. Provincial monk officials say the 30-year-old man persuaded other monks at a local pagoda to trust him – a trust that would end in deceit. The suspect told police that he cheated monks and citizens alike because he said he hoped to build a Buddhist temple in his native Prey Veng province.

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SENATE President Chea Sim has called on Cambodia’s supreme patriarchs to reel in wayward monks following a spate of violent incidents this year involving religious figures.

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IN the wet season, the roads through the northwestern region of Cambodia turn into an undulating sea of muck, with potholes the size of cars and ruts as deep as truck axles. To figure out which routes were least likely to leave me wet, muddy and stranded, I buttonholed a dozen long-distance taxi drivers before settling on the toll road from Dam Dek, which had the added attraction of passing by two out-of-the-way Angkorian temples, Beng Mealea and Koh Ker.

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BANGKOK - THAI deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban on Friday rejected Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's accusation that Thailand was hatching a plot to stage a coup in the neighbouring nation.

The Cambodian premier made the allegation on Thursday as diplomatic relations between the governments sunk to a new low.

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PHNOM PENH - Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court Friday charged Khmer Rouge former head of state Khieu Samphan with genocide over the regime's slaughter of Vietnamese people and ethnic Cham Muslims.

The 78-year-old has already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the hardline communist regime that murdered up to two million Cambodians during its nearly four-year rule.

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Buddhism is the dominant religion in the Kingdom of Cambodia and , as elsewhere, it is practiced in some very unique ways that reflect the local culture and traditions.

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The Chinese government denied Tuesday that $1.2 billion in aid it gave Cambodia was linked to the Southeast Asian nation's deportation of 20 Uighur Muslims who had sought asylum after fleeing ethnic violence, keeping mum over their fate.

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the aid package to Cambodia has "no strings attached."

Chinese official declined to say where the Uighurs were or whether they had been charged with any crime upon their return to China.

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POLICE have charged a woman with attempted murder in connection with an acid attack on four karaoke women in Takeo province – the third such assault in Cambodia in eight days.

The victims were sitting in front of the Srey Mach Karaoke house Thursday evening waiting for customers when two assailants on a motorcycle drove up to the house and doused them with a litre of acid, district police said Sunday.

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Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court has charged the Khmer Rouge former social affairs minister with genocide over the regime's slaughter of Vietnamese people and ethnic Cham Muslims.

Ieng Thirith - widely regarded as the most powerful woman in the brutal regime that murdered up to two million Cambodians in the late 1970s - has already been charged with crimes against humanity.

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Map, News) - Cambodia deported a group of 20 Muslim asylum-seekers back to China on Saturday, despite the protests from the U.S. and the U.N., which rushed people to the airport in an attempt to physically prevent their expulsion.

As the Uighurs were put in a compound under constant guard in recent days, exile and rights groups grew increasingly nervous that Cambodia would give in to considerable pressure from Beijing, the Southeast Asian nation's largest foreign investor. The decision to expel them finally was announced on the eve of a visit from Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping.

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Three people were questioned at Daun Penh district police station on Wednesday in connection with the acid attack on 16-year-old talent show winner Hang Srey Leak, who won TV9’s weekly High Star talent show in November 2008. The victim was at a hairdresser’s salon in Daun Penh district on Tuesday when two men poured half a litre of acid over her, burning her face, back and a leg. “Our police have detained two men and one woman for questioning. They are relatives of the victim,” said Pol Pithey, Phnom Penh Municipal Police deputy chief.

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Cambodia: Teen starlet victim of acid attack in capital