Cambodia saving no means to prepare for ASEAN summit
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E-mail Xinhua, March 30, 2012
Cambodia, the current chair of the 20th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit is actively preparing for the two-day summit starting on April 3, in terms of security and reception.
This is the second time for the country to host the ASEAN Summit, and the preparatory meetings opened in the capital city Phnom Penh on March 30 as scheduled.
Phnom Penh police chief Touch Narath told Xinhua in a recent telephone interview that the city will deploy over 5,000 police forces from the airport to the meeting venues and around Phnom Penh to safeguard the summit.
Policemen are set patrolling less than every 100 meters on the main roads near the meeting places.
The 20th ASEAN Summit is located at the Peace Palace, one of the biggest office buildings for government meetings in Cambodia. The deputy general manager of the media center Phos Sovann told Xinhua that the organizer started the preparation five months ago, and received many subsidies from the Cambodian government.
However, due to limited manpower and recourses, as well as much higher-than-expected media registration, there still remains much work for preparation, Phos said.
Over 800 journalists from 696 media organizations home and abroad have registered for the summit coverage so far, according to the organizer. Phos said they could hardly manage to make the badge in time.
Besides, there are only 32 computers provided in the media center, making the facilities far from enough compared to the number of registered reporters.
"We didn't expect so many journalists, but we've been trying our best for the preparation."
Phos said about 30 Cambodian university students will offer help as volunteers, mainly in charge of photo taking and translation.
Some 3,000 Cambodia university students took part in a national seminar on ASEAN awareness March 15. The seminar provided 3,500 ASEAN T-shirts, hand-flags and publications to all participants to boost up spirit, and sets of books on the ASEAN were offered to university libraries in the country.
Founded in 1967, the ASEAN groups Cambodia, Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The ASEAN summit is held twice a year, with the 10 members taking turns to chair the meeting.
Under the theme "ASEAN: One Community, One Destiny", the 20th ASEAN summit will mainly discuss the acceleration of ASEAN's integration, the implementation of ASEAN Charter, the ASEAN connectivity, the establishment of ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, and a drug-free ASEAN in 2015, among others.
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