Phnom Penh Municipality officials claim rice prices in the city have fallen 22 percent due to the government's Mar 26 decision to release hundreds of tons of surplus rice onto the market. However, local rice traders say that, while prices have stabilized, they are yet to fall.
Numbers swelled at the latest British Business Association of Cambodia's monthly meeting, 18th March 2008, as members and media representatives gathered to hear guest speaker Michel Dauguet talk of his visions for the evolving Phnom Penh Post. Titled 'A Murder in the Newsroom', the new Chief Executive Officer delivered a humorous synopsis of the changes of global media and its readers in recent years and the consequences of these transformation for the Post.
Around 30 taxi drivers who ply their trade at Phnom Penh International Airport yesterday asked Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema to reject the proposal that will be made by Lours Seiha, director of the Moto-Taxi Drivers' Association, to create a tuk-tuk association this Wednesday.
The smiles on the young Khmer faces were as wide and arching as Phnom Penh's Japanese Bridge. Although initially surprised by the arrival of a busload of Americans, the Cambodian students were now well and truly in their element. They graciously accepted gifts, posed for photographs and played games with their newfound friends.
Interpol has launched an unprecedented global public appeal to help identify a man shown sexually abusing children in photographs posted on the internet.
The man appears in about 200 images depicting the abuse of 12 boys, which police said were taken in Vietnam and Cambodia, possibly in 2002 and 2003.
The pictures had been digitally altered but police computer specialists have produced identifiable images.
Interpol says the man is a danger to children while he remains at large.
Orange-robed monks are a dime-a-dozen on Phnom Penh's streets. According to Jordyan Edmiston and local monk Nhean Pov, they are always up for a good chat.
Take a stroll around Phnom Penh on any given Sunday, and you are bound to encounter a pack of teenaged monks,hanging in the afternoon sun or cruising the museum scene. More likely than not, they will smile at you, ask you where you are from, and inquire if you like Cambodia. Embrace them in conversation and you'll come to learn that Khmers choose the cloth over the conventional for different reasons than young men and women in the west.
Foreigners crowding into I.C. Chaney's Beautiful Shoes shop on Street 143 revel in the prices of his handmade shoes - who could believe a custom-made leather sandal could cost just $15?
But Chaney's story of survival since he took over the family business in 1981 is even more remarkable
"My family has had a shoe business here for many years - through the Lon Nol period, and Sangkum Reastre Niyum. We had many famous customers like Kong Sam Oeun," Chaney says, referring to the great Khmer actor and male heart throb of the 1960's and 70's.
On the streets of Phnom Penh, John Weeks - 012 425 706 encounters some surreal traffic situations. Simply navigating around makes one yearn for a GPS tracking unit. Street names and numbers may be unlabelled; house numbers obey no rhyme or reason...
With rising food prices weighing heavily on the wallets of Cambodia's human population, decades of war and human encroachment have also left the revered Asian Elephant hungry for survival, and the two groups are struggling to find a balance. Charlotte Lancaster talks about human-elephant conflict in Cambodia.
At the Angkor Thom temple in Siem Reap, the magnificent 11th century stone Elephant Terrace pays homage to Cambodia's long history of honoured reverence for this mighty mammal.
Matthew Spriggs grabs a mate, a drink and a tube in Laos.
Vang Vieng is a world away from work. Midway along the Vientiane to Luang Prabang road, Vang Vieng is a backpacker's paradise like few others in the region - a place devoted to hedonism where very little gets done and the atmosphere is pure holiday.
With the serene Nam Song river winding around it and towering limestone karsts on either side, Vang Vieng has become world famous amongst backpackers for its "slow river cruise" - an often drunken drift by inner tube down the picturesque waterway.