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TOPIC: cambodia

Geopolitics

Henry Kissinger: The World's Love-And-Hate Adieu To The Machiavelli Of Washington

China shares praise, Cambodia throws shade, Germans show pride … and from Moscow?

PARIS — The death of Henry Kissinger at the age of 100 marks not only the end of a U.S. foreign policy legend, but the end of an era in geopolitical history. The controversial German-born architect of late 20th-century American power influenced statecraft around the world before, during and well after his years as U.S. secretary of state and national security advisor under two presidents.

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Whether considered the consummate “Machiavellian” operator, bloodstained Cold War puppet master or the embodiment of the American Dream, the entire world is marking the passing of this highly divisive and influential diplomat and power broker:

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Russia-Ukraine Drone Tit-For-Tat, BRICS 2.0, Game Over For Mario’s Voice

👋 Sveiki!*

Welcome to Tuesday, where BRICS leaders meet in South Africa aiming to expand the alliance, former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is arrested upon returning to Bangkok after 15 years in exile, and everybody’s favorite Italian plumber gives his voice a rest. Meanwhile, for Spanish online media Ethic, David Lorenzo Cardiel says the word on the street is literally worth preserving.

[*Latvian]

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Mediterranean Fires Kill 40, Cambodia PM Steps Down, One Year Until Paris Olympics

👋 Héébee!*

Welcome to Wednesday, where over 40 people have died and thousands have been forced to evacuate as wildfires rage across the Mediterranean, Cambodia’s prime minister steps down after 38 years in power and the Olympics countdown starts for Paris. Meanwhile, Alexis Gaçon, for business daily Les Echos, tours North America’s largest graphite mine project, amid growing global demand for battery materials.

[*Arapaho, Wyoming, U.S.]

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Why The U.S. Delivery Of Cluster Bombs Weakens Ukraine's Cause

Though the U.S. and Ukraine haven't signed onto the arms convention banning the dangerous weapon, many of their closest allies have. Thus both Washington and Kyiv are coming under fire for the announcement of new U.S. supplies of cluster bombs.

-Analysis-

PARIS — There's nobody who has spoken more pointedly about cluster bombs than Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. He took to Twitter on Sunday to recount how his country has been targeted with thousands of tons of the weapons, dropped by U.S. fighter jets during the Indochina wars of the last century.

It was not only a "painful experience" of the past, but a lasting danger to civilians long after the conflict had ended.

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And yet the decision last week by U.S. President Joe Biden to supply cluster bombs to Ukraine was driven by a military imperative: the weakness of Western munitions production, unable to keep up with Ukrainian army's demand in the war against Russia.

But the use of cluster bombs raises a political, even moral issue: these bombs, which scatter other bombs randomly before hitting the ground, are banned by an international arms control convention.

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Economy
Shaun Lavelle, Riley Sparks, Ginevra Falciani

Why More Countries Are Banning Foreigners From Buying Real Estate

Canada has become the most recent country to impose restrictions on non-residents buying real estate, arguing that wealthy investors from other countries are pricing out would-be local homeowners. But is singling out foreigners the best way to face a troubled housing market?

PARIS — It’s easy to forget that soon after the outbreak of COVID-19, many real estate experts were forecasting that housing prices could face a once-in-generation drop. The logic was that a shrinking pandemic economy would combine with people moving out of cities to push costs down in a lasting way.

Ultimately, in most places, the opposite has happened. Home prices in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, Australia and New Zealand rose between 25% and 50% since the outbreak of COVID-19.

This explosion was driven by a number of factors, including low interest rates, supply chain issues in construction and shortages in available properties caused in part by investors buying up large swathes of housing stock.

Yet some see another culprit deserving of particular attention: foreign buyers.

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Japan
Yann Rousseau

Regional Immunity? Why Asia Has Avoided The Worst Of COVID-19

East Asia is home to 30% of the world's population but has recorded only 2.4% of the COVID-19 global death toll. Scientists are looking at possible immunity from past epidemics or even genetics.

TOKYO — This is one of the great mysteries of the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries in East Asia were affected by the spread of the virus several weeks before Europe and the United States and yet they were notably able to get through the health crisis and to disclose, despite several waves of infection, much lower death tolls than those in the West.

Cumulatively, the ten members of ASEAN (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia) and the developed countries of North-East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) have recorded only 44,000 deaths linked to COVID-19 since January 2020, i.e. barely ... 2.4% of the 1.8 million fatalities worldwide. This is fewer than the 65,000 deaths recorded in France. To put this in perspective, with 2.3 billion inhabitants, East Asia is home to 30% of the entire world population.

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Geopolitics
Marissa Carruthers

For Cambodia Anemia Crisis, The Limits Of A 'Lucky Iron Fish'

They're cute, affordable and simple to use. But upon further review, Lucky Iron Fish aren't, perhaps, a legitimate cure to the widespread health problem of anemia.

PHNOM PENHLucky Iron Fish were once a common sight in many Cambodian cooking pots. Villagers threw the fish-shaped, cast-iron ingots into their food as a way to treat anemia, a condition — characterized by a lack of enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to the body's tissues — that is frequently caused by iron deficiency.

With rates at 56% among children aged 6–59 months and 45% among women 15–49 years old, according to the 2014 Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey, Cambodia's anemia problem is significant. And this seemingly simple solution (a Lucky Iron Fish can slowly release about 7 mg of iron into whatever is being cooked) was heralded as a way to dramatically reduce incidence of the condition.

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Geopolitics
Hanno Charisius

Sick Children, Why The Cambodian Genocide Toll Is Still Rising

Decades after the Khmer Rouge, the legacy of their brutal regime claims a new generation of victims.

SIEM REAP Ros Mom wears socks even on hot days. No one is supposed to see her feet while she is sitting on the bed in her Quonset hut in a small village near Siem Reap, in northwestern Cambodia. Ros Mom lives not far from the ruins of Angkor Wat. But the money brought by 2 million tourists every year has little impact on the economy in the surrounding jungle. The streets around the temple are paved. But the path leading up to Ros Mom's hut is just dirt and sand.

A couple of months ago the mother of four developed an open sore on her left foot because she didn't have enough money to buy insulin to treat her Type-2 diabetes. The monthly prescription of the vital drug costs $25, Ros Mom explains as a squeaky old ventilator churns up the hot air under the corrugated iron of her hut. Only when the ulcer developed did she return to the clinic of the Cambodian Diabetes Society (CDA) to visit her doctor, Lim Keuky.

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Sources
Kannikar Petchkaew

How A Thai Orphan Went From Child Soldier To Humanitarian Leader

Orphaned and forced to live on the streets at just 5, Amporn Wathanavong had a miserable childhood, and was lured to fight in the jungles along the Cambodian border. But he ultimately got an education and founded an organization to help poor orphans.

BANGKOK — Across the world tens of thousands of child soldiers are forced to join armies and rebel militias every year. Vulnerable and exposed to atrocity, the experience is deeply scarring and traumatic. Amporn Wathanavong, a former child soldier from Thailand, knows this first-hand from his time in the jungles along the Cambodian border in the early 1950s.

His mother died when he was just 5 years old. At the time, he didn't even know what death was. What he remembers most about her is that she always smelled of jasmine and that she sang him a familiar lullaby.

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