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Phnom
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- DR.
BEAT STORY Beat
and the Passive Genocide of Children
ON TV & DVD
James Loving - National Radio Text Service
This week there has been a television special on Dr Beat and his hospital work to save the lives of children being televised on the Australia Network. The one hour special aired Tuesday night July 1 at 10 PM Cambodia time and Wednesday at noon Cambodia time. IT IS A MUST WATCH - CAMBODIAN TV BBC Custer Battle - NR TOP SECTIONS AND STORIES - NATIONAL RADIO PUBLISHED IN 5 LANGUAGES - NR TOP FIVE STORIES PLUS
Friday July 4, 2008 DR BEAT (Richner) STORY ON THE AUSTRALIA NETWORK "It's all bullshit man," said the boss of an NGO that is supposed to fight human trafficking. "Some taxpayer in the United States from Arkansas is paying for all of this," he added as he surveyed his equipment and employees spread around a field including several SUV's. That set the tempo of my viewpoint on the attitude of NGO's in Cambodia. It was all about putting on a good show, writing copious notes and reports, make themselves a good salary, drink a lot of beer and wine and dine at the best restaurants while very little gets done with the millions of US taxpayer and donor dollars that these NGO's take in every year and waste. Fortunately I had previously met Dr. Beat Richner who founded the Kantha Bopha hospitals in Cambodia and had written a story about his providing free medical care for the children of Cambodia. At the time of the prearranged interview August 19, 2002 at 8 AM it got off to a rough start as I entered the grounds of Kantha Bopha 1 in Phnom Penh. "Where are you going," a man angrily shouted out as he was racing towards me. It was Dr. Beat as he jumped up from a meeting with two men to confront me. "I have a scheduled appointment with you," I replied. The meeting was reinforced with a 6 AM call to him to confirm. "Well you should use the front entrance," he snapped. "What front entrance," I responded. At that time I didn't know where the hospital was and did my best to find the location in an area I had previously never been. Though the start was rough the confrontation and my ignorance was well worth it since what followed was an intense insight and interview with a man who really does help people and uses the money he raises to put into his cause. After his meeting with the two men he walked me to the front entrance of the building which was on a small street that one would have to know their way around to find. I wasn't qualified. I was shocked to see the area crowded with people carrying babies and with children waiting patiently to receive treatment. The visual was amazing but I didn't have my camera at the time but the memory I will never forget. Richner then started walking at a brisk pace throughout the hospital talking to doctors and patients along the way. The hospital was so overcrowded that cots were in the hallways with children lying on them. This man seemed possessed and his mind was going a million miles per second but he was lucid in his thinking and speech. His story has been one of the highest rated and most read stories in National Radio's 11 year history on the Internet and fortunately the Beat goes on. This week there has been a television special on Dr Beat and his hospital work to save the lives of children being televised on the Australia Network titled Beat and the Passive Genocide of Children. The one hour special aired Tuesday night July 1 at 10 PM Cambodia time and Wednesday at noon Cambodia time. IT IS A MUST WATCH. Some of the highlights of the program noted Beat as saying, "I'm a prisoner by my conscious to take care of the hospital and these people." At the time of our interview six years ago the hospitals budget was US $12 million a year. It is now up to US$20 million. One of the major differences is due to Kantha Bopha 1 being overcrowded another hospital has been built Kantha Bopha IV which is situated next to Kantha Bopha 1 in Phnom Penh. The funding came from his native land Switzerland where each Swiss person donated 20 francs towards the US $15 million construction of the facility. A 5th hospital is currently being constructed also in Phnom Penh. On the TV program Beat points out that Kantha Bopha IV is a model project for any third world country. "It's a pilot project for the future," he said. On the program Beat said that his three hospitals including the splendid facility in Siem Reap Jayvarman VII treat 80% of Cambodian children. "Without funding 60 thousand Cambodian children will die each year," he noted. Providing free health care for the needy has its critics. Princess Ann who is involved with the Save The Children Foundation said the modern Kantha Bopha facilities are too expensive for Cambodians. Beat pointed out that UNICEF and the WHO (World Health Organization) spend 85% of their funding on their salaries. He also noted that critiques of his hospitals will come to Siem Reap and stay next door at the Sofitel Hotel and spend $340 a night for a room and complain about Richner treating ill Cambodia children at a cost of $170 per child. The film shows a young child who was misdiagnosed and the father paid $400 for medicine for the wrong reasons and the child continued to be ill. After the boy was taken to Kantha Bopha the he was found to have TB the major killer in Cambodia. The child was treated for free and will live. Richner mentioned that the disease in general came from Westerners during wars. Kantha Bopha gives the patients free drugs and pays for their traveling expenses to and from the hospital. Doling out money is not scrutinized carefully as Richner said the WHO gave the Cambodian government US $ 1 million to fight dengue fever while adding that the water needs to be cleaned up. He said nothing was done about it and the money just DISAPPEARED. The film shows celebrities supporting WHO including rock star Bono, Microsoft's Bill Gates and former England Prime Minister Tony Blair. Kantha Bopha spends on 5% for administrative costs and 30% for salaries. Though not noted in the film when he opened the hospital he could find only two qualified doctors and has trained the rest. Noted in the film is that he pays them a good salary by Cambodian standards to avoid corruption which he claims that Kantha Bopha continues to be corruption free. Richner has been libeled by the two largest English language newspapers in Cambodia by making charges without questioning him directly regarding their issues. In spite of it all Beat continues to fight the good fight for the sake of saving children's lives. "He gave his life for this," said a tourist from Chicago, Illinois USA at a Beat cello concert in Siem Reap. The concert is designed for Beat to tell his message about the medical plight of Cambodian children and to raise money. During his performance he talks about the health crisis in Cambodia. He also asks the young tourists for blood, the older tourists for money, and the those in between for both. The Kantha Bopha hospitals treat 1 million children a year free of charge. Approximately 100,000 seriously ill children are admitted. Japanese encephalitis, malaria, dengue fever and typhoid are common, often exacerbated by the presence of TB the number one killer. Mortality rate is an astonishingly low 1%. Kantha Bopha has 1900 staff of which only Richner and the head pathologist Dr Denis Laurent are foreigners. Hundreds of medical students have graduated from the Jayavarman VII in Siem Reap. Richner claims that over 80% of all pediatric health care in Cambodia is provided by his hospitals. The hospitals are primarily funded by donations from individuals in Switzerland, where Richner is somewhat of an icon. Operational expense in 2006 was in the order of $17 million USD. The medical field wasn't on Beats mind when he was young. He studied to be a musician and played with symphonies. He later came to Cambodia and started Kantha Bopha in 1994-95 and remained until the Khmer Rouge took over. King Sihanouk asked him to return in 1991 and the Beat goes on in saving children's lives. The next scheduled airing of the Dr. Beat story on the Australia Network is Saturday night July 5. Check their website for the date and time in your area. THE PROGRAM Beat and the Passive Genocide of Children IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON DVD. The Passive Genocide of Children" took three years to make according to the films field consultant Geraldine Cox who assisted Australian film maker Janine Hosking. A trailer of the film is viewable at http://www.drbeat.com.au. http://www.beat-richner.ch -- Dr Beat's Official website ELECTRICAL BLACKOUTS With the rapid growth and development of Cambodia come electrical problems resulting in not enough power to supply the demand. It is reminiscent of the same problems in the Philippines whereupon my visit in the mid 90's experienced daily brownouts that from what we're told continue till this day. Given the ongoing new construction and the increasing price of oil you would think that the powers that be and the business avail themselves and plan ahead in using the solar power technology currently available. The sun is in abundant supply in the region and provides the source of energy required to function. But it's like that sign that reads PLAN AHEAD with the AHEAD falling off a cliff. Think about it. CAMBODIAN TV The BBC is currently airing an investigative report program about the corruption involving the contracts valued at BILLIONS OF DOLLARS issued to contractors in the war in Iraq BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. The point made is there is corruption and the war is about oil. The US taxpayer is being ripped off of those billions dollars dolled out to companies such as Custer Battle for security who are suspected of padding their bills, Halliburton has come under intense international scrutiny for receiving no-bid contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq. Current US Vice President Dick Cheney was its CEO prior to becomming The US Vice President. KBR once a Halliburton company that provides catering, Parsons for building medical facilities. Halliburton has made billions of dollars from the wars in Vietnam, Bosnia and Iraq and Bechtel regarding the manner in which it received Iraqi rebuilding contracts after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Politicians in the United States and in Europe have made accusations of cronyism between the George W. Bush administration and Bechtel. The investigative report includes politician Henry Waxman a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 30th district and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the principal investigative committee of the House.. On March 16, 2004, at Waxman's request, the Committee on Government Reform Minority Office published "Iraq on the Record, the Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq" a detailed and searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements made by Bush Administration officials about the threat posed by Iraq. It contains statements that were misleading based on what was known to the Administration at the time the statements were made. It does not include statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. If a statement was an accurate reflection of U.S. intelligence at the time it was made, it was excluded even if it now appears erroneous. On January 4, Waxman changed the committee's name to the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, or the Oversight Committee for short. Critics in both the United States and allies like Britain have questioned the process by which the U.S. awarded Iraq contracts to American companies. The profiteering from the destruction caused by the shock and awe at the beginning of the war has caused Bechtel to be accused of disaster capitalism. The program includes Bunnatine Greenhouse, a civil servant with 20 years of contracting experience, who had complained to Army officials on numerous occasions that Halliburton had been unlawfully receiving special treatment for work in Iraq, Kuwait and the Balkans. Investigations were opened by the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Pentagon's inspector general to open criminal investigations that continue today. In one of the many examples of abuse, Greenhouse said that military auditors caught Halliburton overcharging the Pentagon for fuel deliveries into Iraq. She also complained that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office took control of every aspect of Halliburton's $7 billion no-bid Iraqi oil/infrastructure contract. The program notes that there are more contracted employees in Iraq than soldiers as well as pointing out that the Halliburton stock was selling for $10 before the Iraq war and as of 2008 selling for $48 a share. With the questionable use of donor and US taxpayer money by some NGO's in Cambodia this is a must watch. For more information about the program contact: www.bbcworld.com/contactus NR TOP SECTIONS AND STORIES Surprisingly Cambodia Sports took over the number one spot on the National Radio sections most visited. There is no reason why since we abandoned our coverage on Cambodian sports almost two years ago. Our archival coverage could be the only interest since to our knowledge we were the first outside of Cambodia to report on Cambodian sports. Upon from return from the Pre Sea Games football competition in Bangkok in 2005 we met a foreign journalist from America who we though had a lot of talent. Having been covering the Cambodian football team since the 2000 tiger Cup we asked who he was. He gave his name and said he was the only one who covered Cambodian football in Cambodia. "Really" was our reply. He asked our name and when told he admitted that he read our stories. He also acknowledged that he had been living in Cambodia for only a year while residing in the USA prior to his arrival. In investigative journalism school we were taught to recognize that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and sounds like a duck IT'S DUCK. With his story we knew we were listening to a giant BABY HUEY SIZED DUCK. It was hard to believe that someone had written on the subject before us since there was nothing on the Internet not even from FIFA when we did our research prior to the 2000 Tiger Cup Press conference in Bangkok where we met Cambodian Football President Ravy Khek and Tola May. The former Cambodia manager Joachim Fickert had to scrape through what was available for information to help with our stories since the Khmer Rouge destroyed all previous records. Khek, May and former Cambodian star Hok Sochetra also contributed. When I think about this individual who lacks integrity, I think about people who really are somebody and know what dignity, class, integrity and respect are all about. I'm talking about a real journalist who earned his reputation as being one of the best journalists of all time. I'm talking about Pulitzer Award winning journalist Jim Murray. I've yet to meet anyone in Cambodia or Thailand who have Murray's qualities. Integrity is supposed to be an integral part of journalism yet this person misrepresented himself and worked for the two top English language newspapers in Cambodia. He has since left the country. Unfortunately this is the type of individual Cambodia largely attracts. In the remaining slots for sections most visited soccer/International Football dropped to the second position followed by our Phnom Penh column that retained the third spot. The NFL (National Football League) remained in the fourth position with FIFA News taking the fifth spot from the Los Angeles Lakers. Since they lost the NBA title race to the Boston Celtics the Lakers fell off the charts like a ton of bricks. As the saying goes nobody like a loser. NR TOP 5 The Top 5 most visited sections are: 1 . Cambodian Sports 2. SOCCER - International Football 3. Phnom Penh 4. NFL (National Football League) 5. FIFA NEWS Previous Top 5 most visited sections are: 1 . SOCCER - International Football 3. Phnom Penh 4. NFL (National Football League) NATIONAL RADIO PUBLISHED IN 5 LANGUAGES We are published in five languages, English, Thai, French, Russian and Khmer (Cambodian language). Any of our foreign language material and our Roman Wanderaugh columns are legally available ONLY on our National Radio site.
NR TOP FIVE STORIES PLUS Old columns top the list of the top five most read Phnom Penh stories. On our overall list we focused on columns published from January 1 2007 to June 23, 2008. Through this period there are over 500 stories to select from. In addition it is a more accurate barometer of most recent read material since much of the older articles are accessed direct from fan sites and special sites with special interests. Since Phnom Penh is a monthly column there are only twelve stories a year to evaluate. With that being the case we take an overall view on this column data analysis. Our number one story this month is from our July 2006 edition which focuses on the government turning down the Miss Cambodia contest to go on. It also features Vann Molyvann the designer of Olympic Stadium and the Cambodian Premiere Football League being postponed AGAIN. Number two went to the company GOLD QUEST which was believed to be a pyramid scheme from out April 2005 edition. A surprise entry was a Phnom Penh related story stating STACIE ORRICO WOWS CAPACITY CROWD IN PHNOM PENH from out Video Beat column of March, 2008. We also noted in that column that MORE MYSTERY LOOMS OVER FRESHIE. The list below goes on with direct links to the story. Read on….
INTERNET THEFT? In researching the findings we have found that search engines Yahoo, Google and MSN are all guilty of misleading the public. They have linked our story information to other sites without our permission. Those sites include Thai Visa, Washington University in the USA and UNESCO. We have tried to contact Yahoo regarding this matter but there was no response. For our story on Digital Divide Data titled Bridging The Digital Gap Yahoo linked our information to UNESCO and Washington University web sites as noted below. Cambodia (PDF) 13 James Loving, "DDD - Bridging the Digital Gap of Have and Have. Notes," (by James Loving, National Radio Text Service, 8 April 8, ... www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ict/Metasurvey/CAMBODIA.PDF - 117k - View as html The questions are: 1. Why would a company that is valued at billions of dollars employ dishonest practices? 2. Who is responsible for manipulating information that is misleading to the public? 3. Who is responsible at UNESCO in permitting the practice? Yahoo used the same story to mislead the public to the Washington University (USA) web site as noted below: Cambodia (PDF) 13 James Loving, "DDD - Bridging the Digital Gap of Have and Have. Notes," (by James Loving, National Radio Text Service, 8 April 8, ... www.com.washington.edu/ict4d/upload/2004052712430458_03760155.pdf - 117k - View as html WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Our Roman Wanderaugh columns have been linked to other web sites by all three search engines without our permission. The most flagrant violator is Thai Visa. We have contacted them in the past but they have ignored our request to take our stories off their site. All three of the mentioned search engines have used our story information and linked it to Thai Visa without our permission. Thai Visa actually stole our story and posted it on their site. In the past they not only stole our Cambodia By Land & Sea story but also used our photo. Since that time the photo is not on our story on their site. Google provides advertising for the site. The question is why would a company that is worth billions of dollars resort to supporting a web site that steals? The information of our information page on the Google site also had the following endorsing going to the Thai Visa site. ©2007 Google - Google Home - Advertising Programs - Business Solutions - About Google FRONT PAGE WITH THAI VISA MSN did the same. They listed incorrect information and linked our work to Thai Visa as noted below: Thaivisa.com The latest updated Thai visa immigration news; work permit and residence permit in ... Friday, 15 December 2006 Cambodia visa trip "TRAVELING AROUND" by Roman Wanderaugh o www.thaivisa.com/344.0.html o ˇ¤ 7/14/2007 o ˇ¤ Cached page Cambodia visa trip "TRAVELING AROUND" by Roman Wanderaugh "AN INEXPENSIVE TRIP from BANGKOK to CAMBODIA by LAND & SEA" If you're an adventurous traveler the trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia from ... o www.thaivisa.com/border-run/page_2.html o ˇ¤ Cached page o +Show more results from www.thaivisa.com MSN also listed the headline TRAVELING AROUND on the Cambodia Land & Sea story. It raises the question why was it necessary to make two listings on the same story to link to the Thai Visa site? Roman Wanderaugh and any other National Radio columns are only legally available on the Internet on National Radio. We DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION for any other web site to use our material including soliciting our photos to the public. We negotiate directly with interested parties for use. We are published in print in five languages. We do not approve of Thai Visa using our material and all of the search engines misleading the public to other web sites using National Radio information. Isn't a search engines job to lead the public to the information they seek? It is clearly stated on our National Radio web site: © Copyright: National Radio. Any use of these materials, whole or in part, is prohibited unless authorized in writing by National Radio. Contact: nationalradio@yahoo.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
© Copyright: National Radio. Any use of these materials, whole or in part, is prohibited unless authorized in writing by National Radio. Contact: nationalradio@yahoo.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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