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/ 15 April 2008

Cambodia quietly marks Pol Pot’s death

Cambodia on Tuesday quietly marked the 10-year anniversary of Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot’s death, amid fears that time is running out to try ageing regime leaders before a genocide tribunal. Pol Pot, the tyrant who turned Cambodia into killing fields in the late 1970s, died on April 15 1998, reportedly from a heart attack.

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/ 4 January 2008

Cambodia: 407 died from dengue fever in 2007

Cambodia suffered its worst-ever outbreak of dengue fever last year and it killed 407 people, most of them children, the highest toll in nearly a decade. Dengue, which causes fever had infected nearly 40 000 people since the first outbreaks last May, Ngan Chantha, director of the Health Ministry’s anti-dengue programme, said on Friday.

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/ 19 November 2007

Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan charged

Former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan was formally detained and charged on Monday with war crimes and crimes against humanity by Cambodia’s United Nations-backed genocide tribunal, a court spokesperson said. "The co-investigating judges have detained him for a period of one year," tribunal spokesperson Reach Sambath said.

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/ 19 September 2007

Khmer Rouge ‘Brother Number Two’ faces court

Khmer Rouge ”Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s top surviving henchman, was arrested on Wednesday at his house on the Thai border and taken to Phnom Penh to face the United Nations ”Killing Fields” tribunal. Nuon Chea was arrested by a squad of Cambodian special forces soldiers, police and Western security guards.

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/ 25 June 2007

More than 20 feared dead in Cambodia plane crash

A charter plane carrying 22 people between two popular Cambodian tourist destinations crashed on Monday in a mountainous region in the south of the country, aviation officials said. The Russian-made AN-24 left the Angkor temple town of Siem Reap at about 10am local time and vanished off radar screens 37 minutes later.

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/ 5 March 2007

Khmer Rouge genocide trial under threat

With sad eyes, Om Som sits in her shack in the Cambodian countryside waiting for answers. The shoeless 70- year-old has clung on for half a lifetime hoping to find out what happened to her beloved husband, and why. She also prays for some scant justice for the man she never saw again after he was led away by three young Khmer Rouge cadres, falsely accused of stealing a chicken.

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/ 21 July 2006

Khmer Rouge ‘Butcher’ Ta Mok dies

Former Khmer Rouge military chief Ta Mok, one of Pol Pot’s most ruthless henchmen and a key defendant in upcoming ”Killing Fields” trials, died on Friday in an army hospital in the Cambodian capital. The one-legged 82-year-old, dubbed ”The Butcher” for overseeing mass purges during the ultra-Maoist regime’s four years in power, had been in hospital with breathing problems since last month.

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/ 10 May 2006

Mummified Cambodian baby ‘not illegal’

A Cambodian couple who mummified their deceased premature baby to keep at home as a lucky charm had broken no laws and were merely adhering to ancient superstitions, police said on Wednesday. Cambodians believe that the mummified bodies of children and some primates born prematurely have powerful magical powers.

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/ 13 January 2006

Ever been to Cambodia?

Tourist arrivals in Cambodia jumped by 35% in 2005, a senior official said on Thursday as the country seeks nearly to triple the number of foreign visitors in the next five years. ore than 1,4-million arrivals were recorded last year, up from just more than a million in 2004.

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/ 28 April 2005

Monk arrested over ‘magic’ turtle fraud

A fight between an elderly woman and a Cambodian Buddhist monk over an allegedly magic turtle required the reptile to be rescued and landed the monk in court on charges of impersonating a god, police said on Thursday. The trouble began when monk Khong Chantha (26) sold a turtle with Buddhist inscriptions carved into its shell to an elderly local woman for ,25.

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/ 13 April 2005

Police crack down on roaming buffaloes

Cambodian police have been ordered to capture dozens of buffaloes and cows roaming in the Angkor Wat heritage zone because of the dung they are leaving among the ruins, an officer said on Wednesday. Half a dozen police officers had spent about six hours on Wednesday trying to catch buffaloes bathing.

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/ 18 January 2005

‘After they kill the mice, why not eat them?’

Cambodian authorities said on Tuesday that they have acted to combat a growing mouse plague by offering a government bounty of about two cents for every mouse tail farmers can muster. The offer of a bounty on only the severed tails of the mice is meant to encourage people not to waste the rest of the mouse after they receive their reward.

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/ 10 January 2005

Cambodian authorities see red over brothels

Cambodian authorities have taken a strong step towards making the red-light district of the northern tourist town of Siem Reap more anonymous — by literally banning red lights, a police official said on Monday. The action was taken a few days ago as part of a concerted crackdown on thriving prostitution in the town.

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/ 20 December 2004

Gruesome surprise for ex-wife

Enraged at his ex-wife’s remarriage, a Cambodian man dug up her daughter’s decomposing body and placed the exhumed corpse on his former wife’s doorstep, police said on Monday. The daughter, who was 25 when she died, had been buried for about six months, Pursat district police chief Pen Tung said.