News stories by Irwin Loy, page 3

Eighteen-year-old Phongsavath Manithong rubbed his eyes with the back of his arms as he described how his life changed forever.

The monsoon rains soaked the ground beneath Mon Hol’s home until it turned to ankle-deep mud. The aged thatched-leaf roof of his hut, badly in need of replacement, provided little protection.

Ngoun Thy shuffled through the darkened room. To the right, mortar shells, lined up in a row. To the left, a spool of aged wiring and a pile of metal.

Questions hover over the future of Cambodia’s political opposition, as well as room for dissent, in the wake of the conviction and sentencing of the exiled leader of the country’s largest opposition party to 10 years in prison.

A war crimes tribunal in Cambodia may have reached a major milestone this week by indicting four former leaders of the genocidal Khmer Rouge. But much more needs to be done to ensure that the long-awaited trial is meaningful to the regime’s victims, analysts say.

Twenty-nine-year-old Ramy shuddered as he described the years he has spent addicted to heroin. Lying to his family, stealing from friends to scrape together the money to feed his addiction — until a few months ago, that was the life he led.

For anti-smoking advocate Mom Kong, the ubiquitous flashy cigarette advertisements he sees throughout Cambodia’s capital city are a major barrier to reducing smoking.

Cambodian authorities must take sweeping measures to boost the number of women who sit in parliament if the country is to meet a key part of its global commitment to gender equality, advocates say.

On the first day of May, a deadly reminder from the turbulent past exploded in one of Cambodia’s provinces.

On a muggy evening, a handful of men in suits were quickly getting drunk in a beer garden here in the Cambodian capital. One man rested his hand on the thigh of a slender woman sitting uncomfortably in a short skirt.