https://www.scmp.com/rss/15417/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The former head of a high-profile Cambodian orphanage, founded by the heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, has been accused of molesting children in his care and stealing at least US$1.4 million. In an August 8 media statement, the Sovann Komar home said its year-long inquiry had uncovered “widespread evidence of horrific child abuse and financial fraud” committed by Sothea Arun, its former executive director. The inquiry, conducted by a legal team with power of attorney, was launched after... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3096800/former-head-cambodian-orphanage-accused-child-abuse-stealing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3096800/former-head-cambodian-orphanage-accused-child-abuse-stealing?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Aug 2020 13:44:51 +0000 Throughout his 15-month incarceration and three-week espionage trial, Australian filmmaker James Ricketson has lived under appalling conditions, locked up in Cambodia’s notorious Prey Sar prison. That stay was extended when after a bench of three judges found him guilty of spying for “foreign states” and sentenced him to six years behind bars. It was the latest saga in an extraordinary era in Cambodian politics that culminated in Hun Sen winning all 125 seats in the National Assembly at July... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/2162206/james-ricketson-spy-who-loved-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/2162206/james-ricketson-spy-who-loved-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 31 Aug 2018 07:00:30 +0000 Ever since Prime Minister Hun Sen was stung by a voter backlash four years ago, the region’s longest-serving leader has warned Cambodia would fall back into civil war if his government lost power to the opposition at the ballot box. Those threats have been made with routine abandon and are often met with scepticism by a public used to tough-talking politicians, but they will be tested today when Cambodians vote in commune elections, a key barometer of national polls due next year. Amid waning... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2096345/cambodian-leaders-civil-war-threat-put-test-vote?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2096345/cambodian-leaders-civil-war-threat-put-test-vote?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Jun 2017 05:01:40 +0000 Claims that two women accused of assassinating the North Korean leader’s half-brother in Kuala Lumpur rehearsed the hit in Phnom Penh have added another unwanted twist to Cambodia’s long history as a playground for the world’s less savoury characters. The Cambodia Daily stunned the government when it reported recently that Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, 29, and Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, had met and practised the February 13 assassination of Kim Jong-nam about a dozen times in the Cambodian... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2082805/why-does-sunny-cambodia-attract-such-shady-characters?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2082805/why-does-sunny-cambodia-attract-such-shady-characters?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Apr 2017 06:33:30 +0000 Cambodia’s colourful opposition leader Sam Rainsy, in exile in France since 2015, stunned his loyal supporters by resigning this week amid a sharp deterioration in the country’s political climate with less than four months before all-important commune elections that will act as a bellwether for next year’s national polls. The resignation was widely viewed as an attempt to outmanoeuvre legal efforts by Prime Minister Hun Sen to ban politicians with convictions from standing for public office –... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2071043/could-sam-rainsys-resignation-help-end-hun-sens-reign-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2071043/could-sam-rainsys-resignation-help-end-hun-sens-reign-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Feb 2017 04:31:38 +0000 A controversial law on religion passed in Vietnam has triggered renewed fears of state repression in the name of national unity. Vietnam ignored the wishes of the international community in ratifying the Law on Belief and Religion, which many fear will be used by police and authorities to persecute people of faith. The National Assembly passed it late last month with 85 per cent of the vote, despite unprecedented objections, including some from within the country’s ruling Communist Party. Pope... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2051224/vietnams-new-religion-law-smokescreen-political-repression?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2051224/vietnams-new-religion-law-smokescreen-political-repression?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Dec 2016 10:20:08 +0000 Donald Trump’s astonishing victory in the United States election will cause a massive rethink among foreign relations strategists in Hanoi, where a win by Hillary Clinton would have guaranteed a continuation of Vietnamese-friendly policies. Vietnamese have followed these elections closely, underpinned by Washington’s rebalance to the region and acting as a counterweight to China and its regional expansionist policies, which are viewed as a strategic threat by the communists in Hanoi. “Besides... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2044420/will-trump-leave-us-chinas-mercy-frets-vietnam?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2044420/will-trump-leave-us-chinas-mercy-frets-vietnam?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 09 Nov 2016 08:28:53 +0000 Along the outskirts of Phnom Penh rice farmers have it tough. Prices have dropped by a third since August with targets of a million tons in exports failing to materialise, hurting producers like Path Chanthorn. “Life is difficult. I borrowed from the bank to buy soil, seed and fertiliser,” the 47-year-old father of three said. “Then we lost all the rice and the family has no income.” His plight has not been helped by late rains which have flooded his fields and upset planting for this country’s... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2027397/why-cambodia-pinning-its-hopes-chinese-presidents-visit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2027397/why-cambodia-pinning-its-hopes-chinese-presidents-visit?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Oct 2016 07:30:45 +0000 Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is battening down the hatches amid strident criticism of his government at home and abroad as his country takes flak for putting its financially rewarding alliance with China above the wishes of the Asean states, and the rising political violence in the run-up to the elections stokes popular protest and spooks foreign investors. Read more from This Week in Asia His support for Beijing’s maritime claims at a recent Association of South East Asian Nations meeting... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/1999692/will-chinese-money-be-enough-ward-dissent-against-cambodian?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/1999692/will-chinese-money-be-enough-ward-dissent-against-cambodian?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Aug 2016 04:00:30 +0000 For almost 11/2 years, Kang Khek Iev, better known as Duch, has stood nearly motionless in the dock. His eyes, wide and vacant, betrayed little of the man on trial for the torture and deaths of thousands. Throughout Case 001 of Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court, Duch has apologised routinely for the horrors inflicted at the notorious S21 prison that he ran for the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. These included disembowelment, operations being performed without anaesthetic, and blood being... https://www.scmp.com/article/720528/khmer-rouge-jailer-awaits-judgment-day?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/720528/khmer-rouge-jailer-awaits-judgment-day?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:00:00 +0000 It has been feted as The Lost World, a tropical utopia completely severed from human encroachment that has grown undisturbed for millions of years. Yet environmentalists have long feared for Malaysia's isolated Maliau Basin, as companies eyed the rich coal deposits and the timber of the rainforests. Now authorities have taken a big step in securing the remote location's long-term future by nominating the area as a World Heritage Site. The decision last week was hailed by scientists and... https://www.scmp.com/article/711785/greens-hail-deal-protect-borneos-pristine-lost-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/711785/greens-hail-deal-protect-borneos-pristine-lost-world?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:00:00 +0000 The diplomatic crisis between Thailand and Cambodia is threatening completion of a key link in the US$15 billion Trans-Asian railway running from Kunming in southern China to Singapore. At risk is a six kilometre track needed to connect Sisophon in Cambodia to Aranyaprathet in Thailand. A source close to the Cambodian leadership told the South China Morning Post: 'I understand that Thailand does not want to make the rail connection while the hostilities are ongoing.' The link is for... https://www.scmp.com/article/699403/trans-asian-railway-threatened-strained-thai-cambodian-relations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/699403/trans-asian-railway-threatened-strained-thai-cambodian-relations?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Construction of the Trans-Asia Railway, envisaged as one of the world's great infrastructure projects, has been hit by a series of cost hurdles in Cambodia, and the project will require additional funding, a confidential feasibility study has suggested. A single unfinished, unfunded stretch of 255 kilometres, from Phnom Penh to the Vietnamese border, stands in the way of the dream of an integrated rail network stretching 14,000 kilometres from Singapore to Istanbul - and then beyond, all the way... https://www.scmp.com/article/691102/cambodian-leg-bridge-too-far-trans-asia-railway?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/691102/cambodian-leg-bridge-too-far-trans-asia-railway?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Thousands of angry villagers just outside Phnom Penh are delaying the completion of the final 13km stretch of tarmac on the long-awaited Trans-Asia Highway linking Singapore and Hong Kong. The villagers are demanding vastly improved compensation packages and are refusing to budge from their modest homes that line a potholed strip of bitumen that leads to the capital along Route 1 from Bavet on the eastern Vietnamese border to the Cambodian capital. The highway stretches 142km westwards to... https://www.scmp.com/article/678988/trans-asia-highway-faces-last-stand?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/678988/trans-asia-highway-faces-last-stand?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 May 2009 16:00:00 +0000 At first glance, Koke Lor's art is erotic. But his female depictions are inspired by apsaras that have danced across the stone walls of Angkor Wat and hundreds of other Cambodian temples for centuries. 'I put colour on stone,' says the Khmer-American artist. So the women in his portraits are painted in vibrant colours that are never seen on the ancient carvings. To his supporters, Koke Lor has breathed fresh air into an art scene ground down by tradition and stoical efforts to rebuild an... https://www.scmp.com/article/673336/nymph-glands?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/673336/nymph-glands?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:00:00 +0000 A severe funding shortfall has left the historic Khmer Rouge tribunal unable to make this month's payroll, just as senior leaders of the former Cambodian regime are being called to account for alleged crimes against humanity committed more than 30 years ago. 'It's extremely serious,' tribunal spokeswoman Helen Jarvis said. 'The Cambodian staff, including myself, have just received our last pay cheque. The February payroll has been paid but we don't have enough for March, so it's certainly a... https://www.scmp.com/article/671797/historic-khmer-rouge-tribunal-threatened-lack-money?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/671797/historic-khmer-rouge-tribunal-threatened-lack-money?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Vietnam hands over film it took of notorious prison S-21 in early 1979 Rare footage of atrocities allegedly committed by the Khmer Rouge in the final days of its rule has been handed over by the Vietnamese government to prosecutors at an international tribunal in Phnom Penh. The short films were shot by Vietnamese troops who ousted Pol Pot from power 30 years ago, prosecutors said, and scenes included decapitated bodies still chained to their beds at Security Prison 21 in Phnom Penh. The... https://www.scmp.com/article/668598/khmer-rouge-tribunal-view-atrocity-footage?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/668598/khmer-rouge-tribunal-view-atrocity-footage?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:00:00 +0000 As Thailand lurches from one political crisis to the next, the separatist rebellion in the country's south has largely escaped international attention despite assassinations, bombings and the occasional pitched battle that have changed the lives of millions of people. However, with Thailand yesterday marking the fifth anniversary of the conflict, the bloodshed has prompted a major rethink among authorities who previously dismissed the attacks as random acts of violence carried out by bandits or... https://www.scmp.com/article/665831/bloodshed-thailands-far-south-prompts-rethink?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/665831/bloodshed-thailands-far-south-prompts-rethink?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:00:00 +0000 A guide book targeting English-speaking tourists in Malaysia has outraged locals by ridiculing Africans, Chinese and Indians while praising Malays for their superior sense of community spirit. Dos and Don'ts in Malaysia, written and published in Thailand, is an attempt at irreverent humour poked at the social mores of Malaysia - a country often beset by racial differences - while politely pointing tourists down the road of least offence. It was written by Thirunavukkarasu Jr Karasu and... https://www.scmp.com/article/662922/lost-translation-humour-racial-slurs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/662922/lost-translation-humour-racial-slurs?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Dec 2008 16:00:00 +0000 A crackdown on illegal immigrants in Malaysia has stranded thousands of refugees between miserable shanty towns on isolated islands and their war-torn homelands in the southern Philippines, where an escalation of violence by Muslim rebels is feared once Ramadan concludes. If the Malaysian government has its way, up to 150,000 people could be forcibly repatriated off the coast of north Borneo by the end of the year despite a surge in violence following an end to 10 years of talks between... https://www.scmp.com/article/652869/crackdown-iis-leaves-filipinos-high-and-dry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/652869/crackdown-iis-leaves-filipinos-high-and-dry?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000 After years of peace, the resurgent and ambitious nation is gradually emerging as a regional business destination for foreign investors Cambodia, after a decade of peace and rebuilding, is following the fiscal lead set by neighbouring Vietnam and is shaping-up for its turn as a destination for high-risk venture capital. Its ambitious plans are backed by a booming banking sector, and include a stock market which officials insist will open within 18 months, and construction projects that are... https://www.scmp.com/article/652852/waiting-wings?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/652852/waiting-wings?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000 For ordinary Malaysians, Raja Petra Kamaruddin is something of a rock star. As publisher and editor of website Malaysia Today, the self-confessed hippie has delighted fans by turning up the heat on the nation's troubled politicians who rebuke him or feign indifference whenever his name is mentioned. 'They call me a cyber-terrorist,' he said with a smile. Politicians also try to dismiss him as a blogger, a term in Malaysia that has its own nuances as leaders attempt to relegate critics... https://www.scmp.com/article/652424/rock-star-blogger-thorn-malaysias-rulers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/652424/rock-star-blogger-thorn-malaysias-rulers?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000 When Hun Sen swept into his old neighbourhood to vote, it was with none of the trappings befitting the legendary one-eyed strongman of Southeast Asian politics. His bodyguards bore no weapons and were polite - unusually so. The idyllic setting of an old school courtyard in the town of Ta Khmau by the Bassac River seemed more suitable for a countryside picnic. But Hun Sen, who rose to power with a mix of cunning and ruthlessness to become the world's youngest prime minister in 1985 at the age... https://www.scmp.com/article/646835/casual-and-confident-strongman-sports-winning-smile?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/646835/casual-and-confident-strongman-sports-winning-smile?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000 The Cambodian royalist party's faithful followers can be forgiven for not relishing the idea of tomorrow's national election, with analysts predicting the party, Funcinpec, will be lucky to win more than 5 per cent of the vote. Rubbing salt into their political wounds is Lon Rith, whose father, General Lon Nol, is a historic figure in Cambodia's tragic past. In March 1970, the general ousted prince Norodom Sihanouk in a US-backed palace coup. Almost three decades of civil war followed,... https://www.scmp.com/article/646644/people-support-us-open-arms-says-coup-generals-son-poll-bid?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/646644/people-support-us-open-arms-says-coup-generals-son-poll-bid?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000 His country ranks among the region's poorest and has never enjoyed the diplomatic clout of its neighbours, but with Cambodian elections looming, Prime Minister Hun Sen will be looking to cement his status as an elder statesman of regional politics. And in Asia - where longevity is considered a hallmark of success - Hun Sen's desire to remain in power for another 35 years is winning him friendly comparisons with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. Critics prefer to liken him to Zimbabwe's Robert... https://www.scmp.com/article/646643/beyond-absolute-power?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/646643/beyond-absolute-power?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Dogged by allegations of corruption, sex scandals and a leadership vacuum, Cambodian royalists have spent an empty five years in the political wilderness. But many also fear that worse is still to come and this poll could spell an end for Funcinpec, the only party ever to seriously challenge Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party (CPP). 'They will get no more than 5 per cent of the vote,' former Funcinpec minister Mu Sochua said. 'That will indicate they are finished.' The... https://www.scmp.com/article/646537/poll-may-be-death-knell-royalist-cambodian-party?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/646537/poll-may-be-death-knell-royalist-cambodian-party?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Hopes that Cambodia can deliver a peaceful election campaign have been dashed with the weekend killing of a prominent opposition journalist and an acid attack on a ruling party official, prompting concern among human rights groups yesterday. Ngor Srun, a secretary of state with the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), was doused with acid on Sunday morning and later rushed to Thailand, officials said, as preparations were being made in Phnom Penh for the cremation of journalist Khim Sambo and... https://www.scmp.com/article/645251/killing-acid-attack-dash-hopes-peaceful-election-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/645251/killing-acid-attack-dash-hopes-peaceful-election-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000