The five-week excavation within the Phnom Kulen National Park focused on a specific building within a 400metreby600metre site believed to be the palace compound of Jayavarman II.

It was first identified in 2009, said Jean-Baptiste Chevance, the program director of the NGO Archaeology and Development Foundation, which works closely with the Apsara Authority and trains student archaeologists.

“The first investigation was precisely on that building in 2009 and the second was the Lidar survey in 2012, which confirmed that the site in itself was [likely] the royal palace,” he said, referring to a remote sensing method that can reveal ground features otherwise hidden by vegetation. “We are interested in the way it was constructed and the way it was used.”

To answer those questions they returned this year, with a team of 60 local and international archaeologists and workers and the support of the Environment Ministry and the Apsara Authority.

“It’s obviously one of the most important buildings because of the quality of the construction,” Chevance said.

Ngin Sarun, an archaeologist with the Apsara Authority, said questions to be addressed are whether the structure was the palace or the residence of the ninthcentury king.

“We have not concluded 100 percent that it is a palace,” he said, noting the team had dug about 1.5 metres down and collected ceramics and pottery. According to Chevance, these, as well as soil and other collected samples, will reveal details about the building’s use and construction.

The square building is surrounded by a series of concentric walls and pavements with an eastern facing entrance.

“We wanted to know more about the specific building because it’s the most important in the royal palace . . . It’s apparently the only one made of such an amount of brick and such good quality,” he said.

Radiocarbon dating from previous digs, he continued, show that the building was abandoned at the end of the ninth century, corresponding with accounts from stone inscriptions that Jayavarman II built his capital atop Kulen Mountain at the end of the eighth and start of the ninth century after unifying fractured Cambodian kingdoms into one empire and establishing his rule by divine right.

“This settlement [and] this huge enclosure [the royal palace compound] is very organised and was occupied for a short time during the ninth century,” he said, noting that the reasons for residents abandoning the capital is a larger research focus of the project.

The compound’s “massive” size, its shape and its positioning within the larger urban grid discovered by LIDAR surveys suggest to Chevance that it was indeed the royal palace, though no inscriptions at the site as of yet provide any clues.

“[From] some of the artefacts, such as the ceramics that we unearthed, we can see the fact that it’s one of the most important buildings, but we still don’t have a full understanding of its function,” he said.

Environment Ministry officials declined to comment on Sunday but in a post on the ministry’s Facebook page on Saturday they wrote that one goal of such archaeological activities is to have Phnom Kulen inscribed as a Unesco World Heritage Site. It is currently on the body’s “tentative list”.

    Laurel Hubbard, 40, looked in distress when her left elbow gave way attempting to snatch a Games-record 132kg, when she was already leading the women’s +90kg competition with a lift of 120kg.

Gold medal favourite Hubbard, the first transgender athlete to compete at the Games, said she thought she may have ruptured a ligament in her elbow.

“I have no regrets about the attempts that I made because I believe that to be true to sport, you really have to try to be the best that you can. I’m happy with the decisions that were made,” she said.

“It wouldn’t be true if I said I wasn’t unhappy at the moment but the nature of sport means that things don’t always go your way and it is what it is,” added Hubbard.

Hubbard’s presence had been criticised by some officials from rival countries but she received a huge roar of support from the crowd when the athletes were introduced.

“I think you have to be true to yourself and I hope in this case that’s what I’ve done,” said the New Zealander.

Born Gavin Hubbard, she represented New Zealand in male weightlifting events before transitioning to female in her 30s.

At last year’s world championships she won two silvers in the women’s +90kg category, becoming New Zealand’s first medallist in the competition.

“The crowd was absolutely magnificent. I felt (it was) just like a big embrace and I wanted to give them something that reflected the best I could do, and my only real regret today was that I was unable to show them,” Hubbard said.

– Saving grace –

Samoa’s Feagaiga Stowers, second behind Hubbard before the Kiwi’s injury, took gold with a total lift of 253kg.

According to reports, Samoan coach Jerry Wallwork earlier took issue with Hubbard, saying she had an unfair advantage and adding: “A man is a man and a woman is a woman.”

It follows similar criticism from Australian weightlifting chief Mike Keelan.

Asked whether she had been anxious about getting a rough reception at the Games in Gold Coast, Hubbard said: “It would be untrue to say that the thought never crossed my mind.

“But there’s no indication at all today that they were anything other than absolutely fantastic, a real credit to the Australian people and also the broader sporting community.”

She added: “The one saving grace in all of this is that I’m not in any great pain at the moment. I’m sure that will come with time.”

Hubbard became eligible to compete as a woman after showing testosterone levels below the threshold required by the International Olympic Committee.

“It’s very, very clear that Laurel is eligible to compete as a woman in accordance with the existing rules and we respect that right for her to compete,” Games chief executive David Grevemberg said earlier.//AFP

Sta. Romana also said the two leaders could sign an agreement to further deepen and broaden economic relations, the final loan agreement for the Chico Dam project, and an agreement to open the Chinese market to Filipinos.

According to Sta. Romana, China is now more interested in hiring so-called “non-native” English speakers, or those from colonized countries compared to before.

The growing friendship between the Philippines and China helped, he noted.

Mr. Duterte and Xi will hold a bilateral meeting on Tuesday to discuss pressing issues and common threats.

Mr. Duterte is set to arrive in Hainan on Monday afternoon to attend the Boao Forum for Asia.

The CEO-turned-president who served from 2008 to 2013 has been charged with bribery, power abuse, embezzlement, and tax evasion, state prosecutors said in a statement.

It comes just days after Lee’s successor as president, Park Geun-hye, was jailed for 24 years for corruption.

“We will thoroughly retrieve the criminal proceeds that were accumulated by Lee through illegal means,” prosecutor Han Dong-hoon told reporters.

Lee was detained late last month but has since refused to be interrogated by prosecutors.

He has denied any wrongdoing and has denounced the investigation as a “political revenge”.

If convicted of all the allegations, the septuagenarian Lee could be jailed for life, Yonhap news agency reported.

His trial is expected to begin next month, according to Yonhap.

South Korean presidents have a tendency to end up in prison after their time in power — usually once their political rivals have moved into the presidential Blue House.

All four former South Korean presidents who are still alive have now been charged or convicted for criminal offences.

Conservative Lee’s successor Park was sentenced to 24 years in prison and fined millions of dollars last week for bribery and abuse of power.

She was ousted last year over a nationwide corruption scandal that prompted massive street protests.

Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, former army generals who served as president through the 1980s to early 1990s, served jail terms for corruption and treason after leaving office.

Both Chun and Roh received presidential pardons after serving about two years.

Another former leader, Roh Moo-hyun, committed suicide after becoming embroiled in a corruption probe.

Lee has been accused of accepting a total 11 billion won ($10.2 million) in bribes between late 2007 when he was elected president and 2012, according to prosecutors’ documents.

These allegations include claims that the Samsung Group bought a presidential pardon in 2009 for its chairman Lee Kun-hee, who had been convicted of tax evasion.

Both Samsung and Lee have denied the allegations as groundless.

The 11 billion won in bribes also include 1.7 billion won of secret funds from the country’s spy agency Lee allegedly pocketed, and 3.5 billion won Lee reportedly accepted from five different people, including a Buddhist monk, in return for policy favours.

Separately, prosecutors claim Lee embezzled 35 billion won over 12 years between 1994 and 2006.

Lee has dismissed what prosecutors say are “incriminating” documents and testimony from his relatives and aides as “fabrications”.

The five-week excavation within the Phnom Kulen National Park focused on a specific building within a 400-metre-by-600-metre site believed to be the palace compound of Jayavarman II. It was first identified in 2009, said Jean-Baptiste Chevance, the program director of the NGO Archaeology and Development Foundation, which works closely with the Apsara Authority and trains student archaeologists.

“The first investigation was precisely on that building in 2009 and the second was the Lidar survey in 2012, which confirmed that the site in itself was [likely] the royal palace,” he said, referring to a remote sensing method that can reveal ground features otherwise hidden by vegetation. “We are interested in the way it was constructed and the way it was used.”

To answer those questions they returned this year, with a team of 60 local and international archaeologists and workers and the support of the Environment Ministry and the Apsara Authority.

“It’s obviously one of the most important buildings because of the quality of the construction,” Chevance said.

Ngin Sarun, an archaeologist with the Apsara Authority, said questions to be addressed are whether the structure was the palace or the residence of the ninth-century king.

“We have not concluded 100 percent that it is a palace,” he said, noting the team had dug about 1.5 metres down and collected ceramics and pottery. According to Chevance, these, as well as soil and other collected samples, will reveal details about the building’s use and construction.

The square building is surrounded by a series of concentric walls and pavements with an eastern facing entrance.

“We wanted to know more about the specific building because it’s the most important in the royal palace . . . It’s apparently the only one made of such an amount of brick and such good quality,” he said.

Radio-carbon dating from previous digs, he continued, show that the building was abandoned at the end of the ninth century, corresponding with accounts from stone inscriptions that Jayavarman II built his capital atop Kulen Mountain at the end of the eighth and start of the ninth century after unifying fractured Cambodian kingdoms into one empire and establishing his rule by divine right.

“This settlement [and] this huge enclosure [the royal palace compound] is very organised and was occupied for a short time during the ninth century,” he said, noting that the reasons for residents abandoning the capital is a larger research focus of the project.

The compound’s “massive” size, its shape and its positioning within the larger urban grid discovered by LIDAR surveys suggest to Chevance that it was indeed the royal palace, though no inscriptions at the site as of yet provide any clues.

“[From] some of the artefacts, such as the ceramics that we unearthed, we can see the fact that it’s one of the most important buildings, but we still don’t have a full understanding of its function,” he said.

Environment Ministry officials declined to comment on Sunday but in a post on the ministry’s Facebook page on Saturday they wrote that one goal of such archaeological activities is to have Phnom Kulen inscribed as a Unesco World Heritage Site. It is currently on the body’s “tentative list”.

It is the first time the offer was made directly to Washington, after it was previously conveyed through South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong.

“The US has confirmed that Kim Jong Un is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a Trump administration official told The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post on Sunday.

Washington stunned observers when it announced last month it had agreed to a historic first meeting between Trump and Kim to be held by the end of May.

But Pyongyang has not followed up with Washington since, which the Journal suggested had made US officials nervous that Seoul overstated the North’s willingness to negotiate over its own nuclear arsenal.

No specifics have yet emerged concerning the date or venue of the proposed summit.

US gambit

Trump’s decision to accept an invitation to talks dumbfounded foreign policy experts and caught his own staff off guard.

But many are remain skeptical about whether they can succeed.

Washington will accept nothing less than Pyongyang verifiably giving up its nuclear arsenal, fuel enrichment and ballistic missile program.

But Kim is likely to insist “denuclearization” includes withdrawing the promise of a US “nuclear umbrella” to deter attacks on its treaty ally South Korea.

And he will repeat his demand that US forces leave the peninsula, an extraordinary concession that it is hard to imagine any previous US president acceding to.

Diplomatic flurry

The development comes days after the two Koreas held a working-level meeting was aimed at ironing out the protocols, security measures and media coverage of the summit between Kim and the South’s president Moon Jae-in on April 27.

An ongoing rapprochement was triggered by the South’s Winter Olympics, to which the North sent athletes, cheerleaders and Kim’s sister as an envoy.

Kim has since embarked on a diplomatic overture that has seen him pencil in summit meetings with the South and the US and make his international debut with a visit to Beijing — his first overseas trip since taking power in 2011.

The rapid diplomatic thaw on the peninsula has even seen Kim and his wife attend a concert put on by South Korean pop stars in the North’s capital.

A different group of officials from the two sides will meet Saturday for another round of working-level talks to discuss setting up a hotline between the leaders of North and South Korea.