Individual Family Community Nation World បចេ្ចកបុគ្គល គ្រួសារ សហគមន៍ ជាតិ ពិភពលោក
Mind is the Leader, Mind is the Source of Good and Evil "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become" - Lord Buddha
Leadership is about Empowering Children Just little thing, all Cambodians should consider to practice, please teach your kids or others the best things as you are the actors of role model.
The Conflict of Generations of Cambodia Leadership In Cambodia, those post-baby boomers are known for their conceptualization on the Politics of the United Nations, Human Rights, Democracy, Free and Fair Election, and Freedom. They have lived through time of political reconciliation, non-violence, culture of dialogue, democratic elections, economic liberalization, social injustice, social gap, minimum wage and jobs seeking, and contesting leadership of two party state of Cambodia. They were not divided by monarchy and anti-monarchy, political violence of systematic atrocity and revenge, but experienced the Vietnamese military presence in Cambodia. They are not xenophobic, paranoiac, or irrational in general. They are more into conflict resolution than conflict revolution.
Leadership skills that fit your traits There are many leadership skills and competencies that, when combined and applied, go toward making you an effective leader. You have the ability to develop each of these skills within yourself. Read on for specific ideas on how you can improve your leadership skills!
Change Yourself - Good Luck LEADERSHIP is for everyone. Leadership is not solely accountable for King, President, Prime Minister, CEO or school superintendent etc. Individual requires effective leadership to handle with all his or her daily activities. Buddha said “no one save us, but ourselves; we are our own savior” is the indicator of important leadership starting from ourselves. As a member of family, one needs to manage their family’s well-being effectively. As a member of neighborhood and community, one must nurture their network and relationship effectively. As a member of a nation, one must stand up to safeguard the collective interest of the nation with courageous, striving and perpetual commitment. Nation means ourselves! As a member of the globe, one must step beyond their frontier to challenge with the world changes. Most mornings we turn a door-handle and walk out into a larger world. We move across our world, at least across a tiny section of it. This is the society of which we are part.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower Steve Jobs advised that potential leadership stems from potential innovation. If one has no innovation, he or she would be a follower, not a leader. For Ralph Nader, he repeated that “I start with the promise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers”. David Gergen deepened into a tangible theme that “What they must have are: inner mastery; a central, compelling purpose rooted in moral values; a capacity to persuade; skills in working within the system; a fast start; a strong, effective team; and a passion that inspires others to keep the flame alive.”
Leadership in Education Citizenship in learning: Exercises democratic rights and responsibilities within the learning community, -Demonstrates respect and appreciation for diversity, -Works and communicates effectively with others. Personal Development through learning: Sets and works towards learning goals, -Demonstrates confidence and autonomy in learning. Character in learning: Engages in learning with initiative, persistence and integrity, -Treats others with respect and compassion, - Makes responsible decisions.
Working as team to solve conflicts in working places I am more inclining to task-focused than people-oriented. I believe in tidiness, compliant, well organized, set-policy and punctual. But I might miss parts of sense of humor, people sensitivity and social outgoing etc. To handle both conflicts, I was ready on positive emotion, integrity, understanding the internal regulations as well as code of conduct, pre-destining the consequences and laying down appropriate assertiveness. It is essential to comprehend on good paper theory and actual onsite operation; they are two contradictorily items in which require wisdom, experiences and flexibility to attain it. Conflicts are happening every moment of livelihood. Workplace is one of the frequent sites to be bombarded by differences and conflicts.
Modern definition of the state and failed state in political leadership Those scholars argue that if a state failed to implement good governance, effective bureaucracy, judicial independence, social justice, people’s freedom, social equity and the enforcement of the rule of laws, the outcome of political leadership of those states shall prevail in the manner of “failed state” or “predatory state”. It means the powerful or the top leader has gained nothing beneficial under their “leadership” to build the nation of the future. He/she has gained only for personal interest and family clan. Buddha said that such leader has been deceived by greed លោភះ and ignorance អវិជ្ជា.
Theories of Political Leadership Oksenburg, who was specialist in China and former president of East West Center, laid out some idealistic formulations on leaders and leadership that include: A lot of lust for power Absolute ruthlessness Vision Many followers
Self-Cultivation to be an Effective Leader Self and relationship with nature according well-known scholars Both Mechanical Universe of Isaac Newton and Quantum Mechanics of Albert Einstein have clarified that self or individual is very essential to respond to the whole society, world and universe under a certain natural law which called original interdependent or inner relativism. Buddha is the first researcher who found this theory and taught everybody about this inner relation and pointed out the way of middle path, self-savior and enlightenment.
Critical Thinking is an Essential Source of Leadership An effective critical thinker: consider all relevant evidence develops criteria for making reasoned judgments make judgments on the basis of these criteria works on developing the character traits, or habits of mind that promote effective decision making You make choices every day — at school, at home, with friends, and at work. You may, for example, need to decide wheter to join an after-school activity, whether to support a friend in school elections, or how to plan your courses for the year. Using criteria to guide your decisions will help you succeed in school. But the benefits of using criteria to guide your decisions go wel beyond the social studies classroom. Developing effective criteria will ensure that you make the most effective choices when faced with challenges in all aspects of your life.
This analysis, Mr. Sophan emphasized on drifting authoritarian of staunch puppet to both China and Vietnam of Prime Minister Hun Sen in which has possessed deadly side-effect like what was happening during the leadership of Pol Pot (1975-1979). Watching the full analysis in youtube.
====
Nobody’s Puppet
Prime Minister Hun Sen told an American filmmaker he is a patriot who resists any foreign influences, despite allegations to the contrary from Cambodia’s opposition and analysts.
The entrance to Kratie University flanked with Chinese and Cambodian flags in a photo posted on Facebook last week.
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen addresses the politically divisive issue of his historic links with the Communist Party of Vietnam by saying he has never been a “puppet” of Hanoi but is a patriot who always resisted foreign influence on Cambodia.
“A number of people claim I am a person who was installed by Vietnam; they also said I am a puppet of Vietnam,” Hun Sen said in unreleased video footage of an interview with American filmmaker Robert Lieberman for his documentary “Angkor Awakens.”
This is the first of a multi-part series, based on a rare video interview with Hun Sen by American filmmaker Robert Lieberman for his 2016 documentary “Angkor Awakens.”
“The reality is that Hun Sen belongs to Cambodia [and] Cambodia needs independence,” the prime minister said. “I also hate those who want to have political influence on Cambodia – we don’t accept it.”
Lieberman conducted the September 24, 2015 interview in a New York hotel. VOA recently obtained the interview from the filmmaker.
For decades, the opposition – the once-formidable royalist party FUNCINPEC, former opposition leader Sam Rainsy, and the now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) – have clung to this and other claims in order to undermine Hun Sen’s image and to tap into lingering anti-Vietnamese nationalism in Cambodia.
Many older opposition members come from an alliance of political groups led by then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk that was based on the Thai-Cambodian border. The alliance battled Vietnam during its occupation of Cambodia from 1978, the final days of the Khmer Rougeregime, to 1989.
Campaigning for Cambodia’s July 29 elections started July 7, but with the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) government’s decision to ban its only challenger, the CNRP, last year, the role of anti-Vietnamese politics has become somewhat of a moot point.
Hun Sen has mostly ignored the opposition’s accusations that he is a stooge of Hanoi while never hiding his good relations with Vietnam. These go back to 1977 when he and other Khmer Rouge defectors crossed into Vietnam. They were welcomed and trained to form a new Cambodian government that was installed by Vietnam after it ousted the Khmer Rouge regime in January 1979.
Hun Sen became foreign minister and then prime minister in 1985. He has held onto power since with political maneuvering that has won him democratic elections and by crushing opponents with brazen armed force.
FILE – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, center right, and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc, review an honor guard in Hanoi, on Dec. 20, 2016. (Tran Van Minh | AP)
Vietnam backs, not controls, Hun Sen rule
According to a recent publication by Stephen Heder, a respected Cambodia scholar, Hun Sen’s CPP and the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) have long had a “comprehensive relationship” in which they strongly support each other and defend their respective roles from any political challenges.
Hun Sen’s recent banning of the opposition and ongoing crackdown on independent media and civil society would thus have Hanoi’s support, he argues, though that doesn’t mean that Vietnam dominates in Cambodia.
“[K]eeping the CNRP out of power, if necessary by eliminating it from the contest for power, is a strongly shared CPP-CPV common interest that lies at the core of their comprehensive relationship and is most concretely manifest in the relationship between their security forces,” wrote Heder, a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “However, this and other CPP-CPV common interests do not add up to Vietnamese domination of Cambodia, as is shown, inter alia, by Cambodia’s refusal to toe Vietnam’s line on the South China Sea,” according to Heder.
In recent years, Hun Sen’s ever tightening embrace with China has been a point of growing media and diplomatic attention. Beijing has provided support and massive loans for his government as it abandoned Western-backed multiparty democracy, while Hun Sen in turn gives diplomatic support for China’s quest for dominance in the South China Sea region.
Demonstrators set fire to a monument marking Cambodian-Vietnamese friendship in Phnom Penh August 30, 1998. (Reuters)
Cambodia’s relations with Western countries have suffered since 2017, with cuts in donor support and the U.S. recently slapping sanctions on some Cambodian officials. In 2017 alone, China accounted for 30 percent of all investment in China, according to The Asean Post.
Ear Sophal, an associate professor at Los Angeles’ Occidental College who has researched Cambodia’s aid dependency and China’s global resource demand, said Hun Sen’s claim of resisting foreign influence was dispelled by the fact that Vietnam and, more recently, China gained control of large swathes of Cambodia’s natural resources, infrastructure and economy at the expense of ordinary Cambodians.
“Cambodia is now seen as having been for rent for a long time,” he said. “The renter is currently China. Perhaps we can say Vietnam owns Cambodia, while China rents Cambodia from Vietnam.”
Sophal added, “But [Hun Sen] does need more friends than only Vietnam and China – he needs to have Western friends too.”
Hanoi (VNA) – Over the past five-tear term of the National Assembly, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has done a lot for the Cambodian people, helping raise public confidence in the upcoming general election.
The maintenance of peace, political stability and security has created favourable conditions for Cambodia to continue recording new and greater achievements in socio-economic development and in the improvement of the people’s living standards.
Cambodia has emerged from a low-income country into a low-middle income nation, and is on the path towards the high-middle income status by 2030.
The popular social commentator was on July 10, 2016, shot in the temple and beneath his arm from point-blank range moments after sitting down for a gas-station coffee in a Caltex in central Phnom Penh — a twice-daily ritual.
Crushingly for Saing Koma and Inn, Rachana has sided with the CNRP.
Two days after the GDP selected Saing Koma as it candidate for prime minister in the July 29 election, Rachana took to Facebook to post a selfie showing a raised forefinger — symbolically unblemished by the ink used to stain fingers to prevent people voting twice — to declare her stance.
The image of the raised finger, which has become an increasingly popular gesture for pro-boycott voices in the face of government threats (named the “Clean Finger” campaign), was widely shared by Cambodians.
Bou Rachana poses with her “clean finger” in front of an image of her late husband Kem Ley. (Facebook)
“I will absolutely not participate in this mess of an election and what’s more, if my husband still had his life, he too would not be satisfied and he too would not go and join in the election,” Rachana said, calling the ballot a meaningless exercise.
“We are citizens, we have Cambodian blood, and we are the masters of our nation and owners of our ballots,” she said in the interview. “We have the right to decide [who to vote for] according to the desire of our hearts,” she said.
It was a victory for the CNRP, not least because Rachana and her sons attracted intense pity from Cambodians across the political aisle. But it was also a symbolic victory because Kem Ley’s shadow still looms over Cambodia as a memory of a time when things finally seemed to be improving.
For a while, the plain-speaking analyst, who spoke in allegories and rose to prominence in frequent Radio Free Asia interviews after the disputed July 2013 election and amid the months of protests afterwards, had appeared to be deftly carrying out a political balancing act long thought impossible by many.
Unusually for a Cambodian in the political spotlight, he had strived to keep up an reputation of independence between the government and opposition, believing that Cambodia would forever be kept under the thumb of foreign powers if no one stood up to unite its leaders in common cause.
For many who had tired of watching Hun Sen and Sam Rainsy bickering for the past two decades, he was a breath of fresh air. Only a lowly adviser in the Health Ministry shortly before the 2013 election, he quickly built a large following with his readiness to criticize the CPP and CNRP in equal measure.
Kem Ley delivers a lecture to monks and students in Battambang province in 2014. (Alex Willemyns)
Differences in the CPP
Kem Ley’s message had seemed to be seeping through to both parties.
Perhaps most importantly for the CNRP’s current standoff with Hun Sen, some prominent government leaders who have long lived in the prime minister’s shadow appeared to be listening to Kem Ley’s message too.
Among the slew of reported “moderates” in the CPP, Interior Minister Sar Kheng has most often been pointed to as proof that there remains hopes of change within the ruling party. Notably, it has also often been these officials who the CPP has deployed in its negotiations with the CNRP.
The interior minister has long been Hun Sen’s main rival for power in the CPP, after inheriting a vast patronage network centered on his ministry and in Battambang province in the west from his brother-in-law — the CPP’s late founding president Chea Sim, who died in 2015.
Most recently, after Kem Sokha escaped Hun Sen’s initial attempts to arrest him in March 2016, a spokesman for Kheng’s ministry even surprised multiple news outlets over a two-day blitz by announcing that police might refuse to carry out any further arrest warrants issued for the opposition leader.
His arrest would cause chaos, he said, and police must prevent chaos. It appeared to be a major opening in the spirit of promoting reconciliation between the parties promoted by Kem Ley, but the reprieve was short lived.
Two months later, with Kem Sokha having still not left his sanctuary in the CNRP building and Hun Sen’s arrest threats ramping up, the premier’s top military ally Kun Kim told the media he could have soldiers make the arrest.
The next day, the Air Force’s Chinese-built helicopters and Navy speedboats circled the CNRP’s riverside headquarters, where the opposition leader had been in hiding from Hun Sen’s threats for months. In front of the building, balaclava-clad soldiers from Hun Sen’s elite personal bodyguard unit clasping AK-47s repeatedly drove past to hammer home the message.
Cambodia ranks as one of the world’s most corrupt countries – but after an extensive forensic investigation, Al Jazeera found that corruption stretches far beyond the country’s borders, all the way to Australia.
In 2016, the anti-corruption NGO, Global Witness, released a ground-breaking report exposing the widespread business interests of long-standing Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, his family and their cronies.
Hun Sen’s family was shown to have links to more than 100 companies across all sectors of the economy including tourism, agriculture, mining, electricity and the media as well as affiliations with top international brands.
The family’s combined wealth is estimated to be anywhere from $500m to $1bn.
Kem Ley, a popular Cambodian social commentator and fearless critic of the Hun Sen government’s corruption and nepotism, went on radio calling for a full investigation into the family’s business interests.
Two days later, he was shot in broad daylight in a Phnom Penh cafe.
Human beings are like animal, without law and moral, are worse than animals – Thomas Hobbs
Vibol Kong, Cambodia’s director general of taxation [Al Jazeera]
Thank you very much for sharing this very impressive documentary by Al Jazeera.
Like I have previously emphasized, the code of ethic and professionalism for those high ranking officers are zero. Mr. Kong has come out with his genuine behaviour of flip flop tactic illustrating at the same level of many other high ranking officers including the PM who has been so outstanding in such political behaviour.
He should know that in democratic countries such as Australia, Canada, USA, France, England etc. all corporate registrations and court verdicts are available for public to review or to research in complying with their law of “transparency” to the public, in which in Cambodia, the liars have become the big brothers and enjoy lucrative wealth while the honest have become desperate and the underprivileged. Those activities have been condoned and impunitive because the court is used as tool for the powerful, not for the honest or the underprivileged.
Right now, Cambodian youths have not been easily bought out in term of peace and security or Cambodia is a post-conflict war which need another 10 years to develop at all because how those youths are expecting when those liars are remained in power and they can be passing such lying tactics to their young breeds to grip future power irresponsibly for decades to come?
– First of all, very risky but invaluable work by Mary Ann Jolley. This is her masterpiece that her love for justice is omnipotent and omnipresent regardless of Cambodians or non-Cambodians.
– Mr. Vibol Kong and many others are good in tricking Cambodians and they have assumed that all other countries are also siding with them in dirty business and lying or what they have employed in their power-business that “money can buy everything”. In Cambodia, they can lie thousand times to extract wealth and power at the expenses of innocent Cambodian people. But in developed countries, the justice system will never condone any wrong-doers. Now, their dirty business and money laundry and other illicit activities will be disclosed, sanctioned, and frozen etc. not caused by anything else but by their thirst for illegitimate power.
Database of all court convictions and procedures are live online for Australia, or Canada as well as other democratic countries. All corporate registrations are free access for the public to review and study those entities.
– Congratulation to Mrs. Kalyan Ky for her strength to stand up and talk to the public on issues that are illicit activities of those immoral elites of Cambodia. Her mission is not done just that, the Australia government must follow suit the laws it must abide by from this public complaint.
– The lady again, Ms. Sin Pov Rozeth, for her bravery to stand up against injustice and showing her genuine patriotism.
– Ann did mention the Paris Peace Agreement at the end, which this accord has enabled Cambodia to this stage while the free riders of this imminent PPA have twisted it to boast their own merits and turn down this very viable backbone for future of Cambodia.
Freedom and the challenges of teen pregnancy in Canada
Email from Canada,
Sophoan Seng | Publication date 27 July 2011 | 08:00 ICT
FREEDOM is the lifeblood of human enterprise. Free-market countries have higher standards of living, social development and productivity levels. Some, though, contend that freedom is a double-edged sword.
Greater independence from parents and guardians can lead to the creation of a more open, more progressive society in which young people are free to engage their talents and amass practical knowledge.
But some say too much freedom can lead to undisciplined and incompetent adolescents.
In Canada, adolescents enjoy a wide array of freedoms, sexual, romantic and otherwise. But high teen pregnancy and divorce rates have some policymakers worried.
Still, statistics show that national teen pregnancy rates have been declining. A study from 1996 to 2006 showed a drop of 37 per cent, compared with a 25 per cent decline in the neighbouring US.
This doesn’t necessarily mean teenagers are less sexually active. In fact, a study found about 50 per cent of teens aged 16 and 17 engage in sexual activity.
These findings confirm what has become only too visible in daily life: teens holding hands, hugging, kissing and generally revelling in young love, all in public.
The teen-pregnancy study includes statistics on births, abortions and miscarriages. The Canadian government views all three outcomes as having a negative impact on society.
If newborns survive the delivery process, teens are often unprepared to act as parents. And miscarriages and abortions can result in various diseases and complications that can stall the mother’s education and development.
Teen pregnancy affects individuals, families and entire communities, placing a social and economic burden on the whole of society.
According to the study, the welcome decline in teen pregnancy can be attributed to an increase in awareness about sexual health and protection among teenage girls, as well as increasingly easy access to clinics and family planning counsellors. Young women are using their freedom to make safer decis-ions, entering the adult world of sex and romance armed with more information and more confidence.
The story may be different in Cambodia. Canada is fairly open to adolescent sexual activity and independent decision-making, but the issue is rarely talked about in Cambodia, where cultural conservatism and embedded tradition keep teenage sexuality under wraps.
For this reason, teen pregnancy rates are higher and show little sign of declining. Until the Kingdom begins some sort of dialogue on teenage sexuality, young women in Cambodia will continue to have their education interrupted and their freedom curtailed.
About Sophoan Seng
I am the single son of a farming family from Siem Reap. I spent more than 10 years as a Buddhist monk. I graduated with a master’s degree in political science from the University of Hawaii and am a PhD candidate at the same university.
My interests are social-capital research, the empowerment of young people for social change, and grassroots participation to developing democracy. I am a freelance and president of the Khmer Youth Association of Alberta. I can be reached at sophan@hawaii.edu
******
Rich Oil-Sands of Alberta, Canada
Emails from Canada: Sophoan Seng
Sophoan Seng | Publication date 30 March 2011 | 08:00 ICT
Alberta is well known as a leading exporter of natural resources like timber and oil in Canada. Large foreign companies from the US have invested billions of dollars extracting oil and gas in this territory to make up for the shortage of oil for energy in their country. Oil deposits which are called “oil sands” are very distinctive from what is found in those oil rich countries such as Iran or Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, and the monitoring and regulations of this lucrative industry has never been neglected.
The official website of the Alberta government describes Alberta’s oil sands as the backbone of the Canadian and the global economy, adding it is a great buried energy treasure which has continuously supplied stable and reliable energy to the world. Oil sands are a naturally composed mixture of sand, clay or other minerals, including water and bitumen, which is a heavy and extremely thick, sticky oil that must be treated before it can be processed by refineries to produce usable fuels such as regular gasoline and diesel. Oil sands can be found in many locations around the globe, but the Athabasca deposit in Alberta is the largest and most developed and it has utilised the most advanced technology to produce oil.
Canada’s Facts and Statistics Department has ranked Alberta’s oil sands second after Saudi Arabia in terms of proven global crude oil reserves. In 2009, the total proven oil reserves were 171.3 billion barrels, or about 13 percent of the total global oil reserves, which is about 1,354 billion barrels. The net income in the fiscal year of 2009 for the Alberta government was more than US$3 billion in royalties from oil sands projects, which was lower than 2008 at $20.7 billion. But they project it to skyrocket and revenue to hit $15 billion in the next few years. Ultimately, about 99 percent of Alberta’s oil comes from oil sands.
Responsible corporations and the government’s clear goal and commitment have transformed Alberta oil sands into a blessing, not a curse. All approvals, licences, dispositions, permits and registrations relating to oil sands are required by Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), Alberta Environment and Alberta Sustainable Resource Development bodies. This enables the comprehensive task of handling oil sands investments.
However, in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, University of Alberta scientist David Schindler told the public that the high levels of toxic pollutants in the Athabasca River were caused by oil sand mining. Schindler and his team of researchers found that oil sands development projects were contaminating the Athabasca River watershed area. The scientists found that seven “significant pollutants” were at levels that exceeded government guidelines for the protection of aquatic life. This new finding contradicted the government’s previous argument, which had always claimed that the naturally occurring bitumen had low levels of pollution.
After publishing in 2009 the first peer-reviewed paper from Schindler and his team, an ongoing political debate started, the story grabbed the public’s attention and a group of experts was given the job of finding the best solution for this rich oil sands industry. From public and private debates to ones in parliament and political institutions, a solution must be found to ensure the sustainable development of this non-renewable natural resource.
*******
Jobs and Employment in Canada
Letters from abroad
Sophan Seng | Publication date 21 April 2010 | 08:00 ICT
There is a popular saying that “to live is to work”, and while life is not all about work, the saying seems to hold true in Canada, Cambodia and around the world. Most people cannot live without a job, but the approach from the governments in various countries to the problem of unemployment differs greatly. It might be interesting for you to hear about the ways in which Canada’s government and private sector have intervened in order to help more citizens get jobs and keep the ones they have.
First, there is a growing number of job search agencies who help both new and experienced workers find jobs suitable to their educational background and experiences. Enrolled students learn about networking strategies, curriculum vitae, cover letters and interviewing skills. These agencies also partner with private groups and the government to launch job fairs, which exist in Cambodia on a smaller scale, in order to bring together employers and employees. In fact, I was employed as a result of my participation in a job fair.
Second, the government helps unemployed citizens by providing them with short-term support through both skills training and living expenses. Many unemployed workers are directly subsidized to allow them to maintain a level of strength and professionalism while they search for a new job. The money that funds this program, called the Employment Insurance (EI) program, was deducted from workers’ salary if they worked before.
![Vibol Kong, Cambodia's director general of taxation [Al Jazeera]](http://www.sophanseng.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Vibol-Kong.jpg)
