New $6m terminal opens in Poipet in bid to boost tourism

Phnom Penh Post 08/01/2010

POIPET’S new US$6.5 million International Passenger Terminal opened for business this week and could bolster the Kingdom’s tourist industry, its director told the Post Thursday.

The 3,000-square-metre building – containing five restaurants, a money exchange and an office and built beside National Road 5, about 8 kilometres from the Poipet border checkpoint with Thailand in Banteay Meanchey province, was officially opened on Monday.

Travellers will be charged $1 to enter the terminal, from where they can arrange visas and catch taxis and buses.

It has been built with government approval to relieve pressure from the bustling nearby checkpoint, which sees around 5,000 people cross per day.

Va Chhouda, managing director of Sou Ching Investment Co Ltd, the company that built the centre, said Thursday it was necessary to build an international-standard terminal near the border.

“Tourists get stuck at the noisy border every day. But we want to attract tourists to come to stay in Cambodia for a long time.

“This is why we have created a place where we can provide good services to them,” he said.

Travellers can be picked up by bus from the checkpoint to visit the terminal, which has its own parking and space for 1,000 customers.

Jetstar executives questioned in Vietnam over $34 million

News Com Au 08/01/2010

TWO senior Jetstar Pacific executives are reportedly being questioned in Vietnam and are not allowed to leave the country.

The chief operating officer, Daniela Marsilli, and the chief financial officer, Tristan Freeman, are being questioned over the loss of almost $34 million linked to petrol reserves costs, the ABC reports.

Jetstar Pacific's former chief executive, Luong Hoia Nam, was arrested yesterday.

A spokeswoman for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said authorities had prevented two Australian employees of the company from leaving Vietnam.

Robert Paul McJannett among first to face Bali's new drug laws

News Com Au 08/01/2010

AN Australian union official will be among the first to test new drug laws now in place in Bali which are even harsher than those that put Schapelle Corby behind bars for 20 years.

Robert Paul McJannett, arrested last week in Bali and accused of trying to bring 1.7g of marijuana to the holiday island, will be one of the first people to be dealt with under the new regime, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph.

The new narcotics law, enacted late last year, stipulates minimum sentences for drug possession and import and export and makes it harder for people to claim they are addicts in order to be dealt with leniently and receive just a few months in jail.

In addition to the new laws is a Supreme Court practice note, which regulates the amount of drug which can be deemed to be for a user.

For marijuana the limit for a user is a maximum of one cigarette or 0.05g.

Anything over that and it is less likely the accused would be dealt with under legislation for users and addicts which carries a much more lenient jail term and offers the possibility of being sent to drug rehabilitation rather than jail.

The new laws are not good news for 48-year-old, who is now in Kerobokan Jail awaiting trial.

Police say that because Mr McJannett was allegedly caught with 1.7g they will not charge him with personal use because it is well over the 0.05g limit as required under the legislation.

In the past, Australians caught with small amounts of drugs in Bali have been convicted under laws for drug addicts and sentenced to just a few months in jail after providing doctor’s reports attesting to their addiction.

We are all responsible for the urban environment

The Nation 08/01/2010

Lack of civic awareness explains why Bangkok remains a dirty, polluted city

Bangkok may not be the dirtiest capital city in Asia but if you are happy about its overall hygienic condition, then your expectations are remarkably low. Pick a public spot and the evidence is always there. Litter, be it cigarette butts, used bottles, plastic bags, dog and cat faeces, and more, are still common sights. This is not to mention the dust and airborne construction debris.

This isn't to say that street sweepers and cleaners working for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) aren't working hard. For what they earn, and the level of pollution and trash they face, they deserve a great deal of credit, although some may argue that we need more of them and need them to work harder.

One area not pursued at this point is raising of awareness about the city's cleanliness and citizens' duties in contributing to such a cause. Not since Chamlong Srimuang was Bangkok governor two decades ago was any serious cleanup campaign mounted, and today, Greater Bangkok remains a dirty place. An ongoing campaign to educate Bangkokians about the virtue of not littering is needed urgently. And now is the time that action has to be taken.

'Health Tourism' Increasingly Popular in Asia

VOA News 22 / 12 / 2009

Medical tourism brought in $1 billion in 2007 and that is expected to triple by 2012, when the Health Ministry expects more than two million medical tourists

Asia is being seen as a growth center in the globalization of health services thanks to rising demand from developed countries as well as the region's expanding middle class. But there are concerns that so-called medical tourism will shift resources away from public to private health care systems.

Over much of the past 10 years Thailand has led the growing medical tourism market, as foreigners sought lower cost health services and ready access to treatment.

The services available range from complicated cardiac surgery, to cosmetic surgery to dentistry and even alternative care, such as Chinese medicine, yoga and traditional Ayurvedic treatments.

Rising international travel and the availability of information on the Internet have boosted the number of travelers seeking treatment.

In Thailand, as many as 1.4 million visitors arrived seeking medical care in 2007, the most recent year numbers are available - up from half a million in 2001. Medical tourism brought in $1 billion in 2007 and that is expected to triple by 2012, when the Health Ministry expects more than two million medical tourists.

Asia - Medical tourism are booming

Phnom Penh Post Healthcare industry fuels surge in demand for nursing colleges

The healthcare industry is booming across Southeast Asia. Private hospitals in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and even Ho Chi Minh City are flooded with patients from around the region and increasingly from the Middle East, Europe and North America.

They come for annual checkups, heart bypasses, hip replacements, kidney transplants, laser eye surgery and every other kind of medical treatment conceivable, including sex change operations.

And they do it because the quality of treatment is as good, if not better, than they can get in their own countries, and because it costs much less than at home.

The thriving ‘medical tourism’ industry is expected to continue to boom for the foreseeable future because of a heightened awareness of the benefits of quality healthcare and because the world’s ageing populations will require more frequent medical checkups and treatments.

Ten years ago, consumer expenditure on healthcare services and goods by Asians stood at US$90 billion. Today, it is estimated that it will more than double to $188 billion by 2013.

Malaysia, which has focused on markets in the Middle East and China, expects medical tourism to generate revenues of $650 million next year.

Thailand, another thriving healthcare centre, already treats more than 1 million foreign patients every year – and even tiny Singapore hopes to hit that target by 2012 and generate $3 billion in revenue in the process.

Most nursing graduates choose to work in private hospitals because of better pay and work conditions.

But there is one potential hiccup to this wonderfully rosy picture: Where will all the trained nurses and ancillary staff to look after this massive influx of patients come from?

Step forward Malaysia’s Masterskill University College of Health Sciences.

This organisation, which has several nursing college campuses, astutely spotted the boom in medical tourism and robustly stepped forward to provide training courses for medical staff and thus fill a seemingly ever expanding and lucrative market.