Mr Eitan said he was speaking in a personal capacity

An Israeli cabinet minister has suggested Israel could kidnap Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over threats he has made against the state.

Ex-secret agent Rafi Eitan was involved in the abduction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960.

He told German magazine Der Spiegel that such operations were not completely a thing of the past.

The Iranian leader has made a number of threats against Israel - he recently predicted that it would soon disappear.

Mr Ahmadinejad has also quoted the view of the late Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomenei, that Israel was a tumour that needed to be erased from history.

‘All options open’

Mr Eitan, a member of Israel’s inner cabinet of ministers with security responsibilities, said he was expressing his personal opinion in raising the abduction option.

The former Mossad agent said the Iranian leader had threatened genocide and should therefore be brought for trial to The Hague, seat of the international war crimes tribunal.

"And all options are open in terms of how he should be brought," he was quoted as saying on Tuesday by the Associated Press news agency.

Asked if kidnapping was acceptable, Mr Eitan replied: "Yes. Any way to bring him for trial in The Hague is a possibility."

Mr Eitan helped kidnap Eichmann from Argentina and brought him to Israel, where he was tried and executed for his part in Adolf Hitler’s plan to wipe out European Jewry.

Jack Highwood loves elephants. The 26-year-old Englishman is no softy around people, but put him next to one of his beloved elephants and Jack will go all misty-eyed, clucking and cooing like a proud grandmother.

Getting your photo taken on top of an elephant in Cambodia is a piece of cake. Just go to Wat Phnom in Phnom Penh or catch a ride on one of the elephants that carries tourists around the temples of Angkor.

But if you really want to commune with the beasts, you need to brave the 10-hour bus-ride to Mondulkiri–and you need to get in touch with Jack Highwood.

East to Mondulkiri:
Mondulkiri is one of Cambodia’s frontier provinces, a vast area of upland forest on the border with Vietnam. Getting to Mondulkiri from Phnom Penh isn’t easy, but the first half of the trip is on good pavement, and the jungle scenery on the second half almost makes up for the brutal potholes.

The capital of Mondulkiri is a dusty town called Sen Monorom, where you’ll find a smattering of decent guesthouses and exactly one bar. The bar is called The Middle of Somewhere and was started by none other than Jack Highwood, who realized soon after moving to Mondulkiri that if he wanted a gin and tonic, he’d have to make it himself.

These days Mondulkiri is seeing something of an economic boom. Gold mining has always been a cottage industry in the hills, but now multinational mining companies are drooling over the prospects of untapped veins, and the Cambodian government is bulldozing new roads through the once-virgin forest.

Hill Tribes and Elephants:
Mondulkiri is home to many of Cambodia’s ethnic minorities, semi-nomadic peoples who traditionally scratched a living from the hills by farming and logging. The hill tribesmen domesticated elephants to serve as beasts of burden, but now modern machinery has made the elephants obsolete. Many of the animals are now out of a job, and their owners don’t have the incentive or the resources to properly care for them.

So if the domesticated elephants of Mondulkiri are going to survive, they need to pay for their own keep. Tourism is one solution; for a few years now locals have organized elephant treks for travelers passing through.

The tours are a good way to get income to the hill-tribe communities, but not all elephants are able to haul tourists around, and there isn’t enough money to go around.

Enter the Elephant Sanctuary:
Jack Highwood’s mission is to create a sanctuary for retired elephants where they can live out their days in dignity and peace. The sanctuary will be coupled with an eco-tourism project, providing travelers with the unique opportunity to stay alongside elephants.

Elephants are already moving into the sanctuary, and Jack hopes to welcome the first guests to the eco-lodge in November 2008. Visit his website for details, and tell him Tim sent you.

27-year-old San Su Pung (pictured above) began working in the garment industry four years ago. She is married and has one child. Her first job was in a sweatshop. "I was forced to work overtime, up to 9 p.m. every day. The premises were dirty too. I only earned 50 dollars a month. I decided to leave the company after a year because I didn’t earn enough to feed my family and I couldn’t even pay for transport." "I had never heard about New Island Clothing. All I knew was that it was a foreign factory. So I decided to apply and I passed the test." "I plan to stay here as long as I live. I’m earning more than my husband because he’s a farmer, and that makes me quite proud."

Poor conditions
Initially, says Ros Harvey, the Better Factories’ chief technical advisor, the conditions were quite poor. "But over the past five years," she says: 

"We’ve seen a significant improvement. For example, wages are now regularly paid, as is overtime, and women get maternity leave. However there are still problems. It’s not a perfect world in Cambodia, but we are engaged in a process of improvement that is delivering real benefits to working people." The Better Factories programme doesn’t only monitor the garment industry. It also helps factories improve working conditions. Over half of the Better Factories’ budget is spent in training and education.

"I think that this creates a degree of optimism that there are companies that care about this. It shows that a developing country can capture the benefits of globalisation for its workers by insisting that the labour laws are respected."

Adrian Ross of New Island Clothing

Success story
One of the success stories in the Better Factories programme is New Island Clothing (Cambodia) Limited, which was set up five years ago by a British group on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. It employs nearly 600 people and manufactures clothes for companies around the world.

The company has committed itself to exceeding government and international employment and labour standards. General manager Adrian Ross (photo) says: "Our intention was to bring to Cambodia a factory that would be considered to be of a world-class standard and to create a good environment for our potential Cambodian employees. We believe that a good factory is well-organised, creating the products and environment for good quality work. When customers come along and see that the place is properly structured and looks right and feels right, they’re confident to put their product in with us."

NIC - New Island Clothing Workers at NIC receive a starting monthly salary of 45 US dollars, as well as a five-dollar a month attendance bonus. After a year, they are entitled to a two-dollar a month seniority bonus. According to general manager Adrian Ross, "We still have a very large proportion of our workforce who’ve been with us from the start, five years ago. The average wage in the factory is about 98 dollars a month, a fairly decent salary by Cambodian standards. The workforce appreciate that we look after them. We see ourselves not as a big factory but as a working family." In February 2005, NIC received a corporate citizenship award from the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank, and the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility. Four awards were given, and NIC won in the category of employment and labour practices.

Corporate social responsibility
Cambodia is the only country in the world where the ILO publishes the names of factories and their progress in making improvements. Ros Harvey: "This is very unique, particularly in the context of corporate social responsibility or CSR. It means that international companies that are sourcing in a developing country should try to ensure that working conditions in their supply chain comply with the law. In Cambodia, we’re actually monitoring that and also providing information in a transparent manner. This ensures that CSR is not just window-dressing."

Ros Harvey of the ILO

Unexpected results
Most of the workers in the garment sector, which represents 80 percent of Cambodia’s export earnings, are women. On average, they earn 60 dollars, compared to the average monthly salary of 20 dollars. It may not seem like much, but it can make a huge difference in the lives of these women and their families. Many of the employees send up to half the wages to their families in the countryside.

The Better Factories programme is having unexpected results, says Ros Harvey. "The status of women has improved significantly in their families, where they are the principle breadwinner. In Cambodia, that is a very important thing. Women have very low status compared to men. There are very worrying trends in terms of domestic violence and the attitude of men to women. If this sector of the economy and these opportunities can correct some of that and create a better status for women, I think that is a really positive impact as well." Child labour
The Better Factories programme is also helping eliminate one of the major problems in Southeast Asia: child labour. Most of the women working in factories today are over 18. According to Ros Harvey,