Quickly on the way back from Kep: rainy season has started. The first rice seedlings are already big enough to be transplanted. It is the hardest part of rice growing: ripping off the rice seedlings from the drenched soil, bundling the stems, tying them together to bring them to a bigger irrigated plot. The bent back is broken, the stems cut the fingers, the muscles ache from pulling incessantly…
They are hitting the roads today. The Pedal Executioners, the Big Thighs, the Feather on a Mountain, the Lone Breakaway, the Compact Pack, the Streamlined Time Rider, the Sprint Puller, the Kamikaze of the Alps, the Faithfull Water Carrier… They will all be there for the 100th Tour de France starting today.
I was privileged enough to follow the 1985 edition (Bernard Hinault’s last). You can see more photographs here on my website. And you can find a tribute to the bicycle here.
After two weeks of mud-throwing, threatening predictions and salacious revelations, the 2013 Cambodian Legislative Election campaign has officially started with both main parties, the ruling CPP and the opposition CNRP, staging massive parades in the city of Phnom Penh.
My very public exhibition on the (outside) walls of the French Embassy on Monivong Boulevard (Phnom Penh) is up for a few more days. The walls will return to white after June 30th.
Part of the work was commissioned by the Agence Française de Développement which partly finances the ‘Better Factories Cambodia’ program implemented by the I.L.O.
Drive by (carefully) and enjoy…
The whole story can be seen here on my website and soon you will be able to download the eBook ‘A Fine Thread’.
The casino business is thriving in Cambodia. The border gates are packed with them, catering Thai and Vietnamese and many more. Naga World Casino in Phnom Penh was probably the first one, initially located on a boat at the confluence of the Bassac and the Tonle Sap. Business must have been good. They built a huge complex next to the Hun Sen Gardens, and construction on the Naga World 2 has recently begun on another prime location nearby.
Workers from the casino demanding a wage increase staged an (authorised) strike on June 13th and 400 of them were fired 10 days later. This morning the striking workers forced through barricades set up by black-clad security guards from the casino to resume their protest in front of the building.
It could happen to you too… A country slips into violence, or a natural disaster strikes, and you might have to leave everything behind you. This is World Refugee Day. There are 7.6 million people who became a refugee or were displaced in 2012, one every 4.1 seconds… Total is 45,2 million…
Between 1986 and 1994, and later in 1999 and 2000 I spent quite some time photographing refugees or IDP’s (Internally Displaced). The 22 photographs below are a small sample of the 15 different situations I covered. There is more at this link.
I honestly can’t remember how many times the Boeung Kak Lake community walked over to the Phnom Penh Municipality building over the last 4 years to hold a protest… This time it was about a follow-up on the land titles for 48 families who are to be included in the 12,44 Ha granted to the community by Prime Minister Hun Sen several years ago.
There was also a group of former Boeung Kak Lake residents who whad some grievances about the living conditions at the place they were sent to after having been evicted.
You can find more information about this land issue (and many others) in the application for the iPad available on iTunes at this link.
The Boeung Kak Lake community staged a demonstration to request the release of Yorm Bopha, land rights activist jailed to 2 years imprisonment for allegedly having beaten up two moto taxi drivers and Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience, in front of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) on the occasion of the Queen Mother’s birthday. Riot police pushed back the demonstrators after a stand off of more than two hours.
You can find more information about this land issue (and many others) in the application for the iPad available on iTunes at this link.
