Communist Tax Lawyer

Rubber replaces rice as crop of choice in remote Laotian village, not everyone is happy about it.

Laos’ Communist regime touts rubber as a miracle crop that will help lift the country from the ranks of the world’s poorest nations. China is expected to consume a third of the world’s rubber by 2020, become its largest car market and put 200 million vehicles on the road.

But some Laotian farmers are losing their ancestral lands or being forced to become wage workers on what were once their fields. Chinese companies are accused of getting rubber concessions from officials and not compensating farmers. They also are accused of violating laws, human rights and the environment, under conditions described by experts as “anarchic.”

As China continues to assert its presence in the world, its actions will continue to be judged by both those who perscribe to the idea of a hamonious rise, and those who see something else, like the rioters in Zambia who forced President Hu Jintao to cancel an official visit to a Chinese-owned copper mine last year.

Like millions of immigrants before them, the Cham of Southern California are trying to hold onto their identity in a strange land. The Cham, descendants from the Ancient Kingdom of Champa located on the coastline of present-day Vietnam, have spent generations looking for a place to call home.

For centuries, they have been chased from place to place — from the highlands of Vietnam to the rivers of Cambodia and, in the bloody aftermath of genocide, to the United States, where thousands have settled.

Chinese companies are set to build four hydro-electric dams in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province worth more than US$1 billion. The Cambodia Daily quoted Ith Praing, secretary of state at the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, saying,”We will have enough electricity to use in the whole country by2014. All kinds of people, businessmen and investors, will be at ease after we have sufficient electricity.”

The much-beloved BeerLao will now be more expensive as the government imposes a 10 percent VAT rate on basic local and imported products.

International Banking Association says in a report:

Cambodian government and banks are not acting fast enough to stop money laundering and terrorism funding.Under pressure from the United States the government introduced legislation last May to track terrorism funding and other suspicious activity in the banking sector.

China topped the list of foreign investing countries in Cambodia in the past 14 years, with total amount reaching US$5.707 billion. South Korea came after with US$2.749 billion followed by Malaysia with US$2.199 billion, reported Xinhua.

According to the Phnom Penh Post, the Cambodian government over the weekend called on villagers in Kandal Province to take precautions following a new outbreak of bird flu that infected a 19-year-old man in Cheung Koeub commune last week.

As winter sets in throughout Asia, expect to see more cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease crop up.

Southeast Asian foreign ministers met Monday to implement a charter setting up a bloc of half a billion people, but hopes of building a European Union-style community may be blown off course by the global economic crisis.

Cambodian real estate sales are down, signaling an end to the roaring housing market in the Southeast Asia Kingdom.

The end of Cambodia’s property boom is increasingly being being felt across the economy as a downturn in land sales means fewer newly-rich Cambodians hit the capital with money to spend.

reports Xinhua:

Foreign ministers of 10 ASEAN nations will meet in Jakarta next week to formalize the ratification of the ASEAN charter, ASEAN Secretariat said here Tuesday.

The group planned to formalize the charter when Thailand holds the 14th ASEAN summit meeting on Dec. 15-18 in Chiang Mai, but the political unrest in the country led to the postponement of the schedule.

“The entry into force of the Charter is a historic milestone for the organization, repositioning ASEAN to better meet the challenges of the 21st century,” Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said in the statement.