News stories by Robert Carmichael*

Mey Chamnan has learned the hard way about the global economic crisis. Both she and her husband were fired from their 50 U.S.-dollar a month jobs in a local garment factory after declining overseas orders caused huge job losses across Cambodia’s garment industry.

Tan Pho Yi, 65, has lived with his family in their corrugated iron home here in the Cambodian capital since 1992. Those 17 years came to an end in just 20 minutes when his family were evicted and their home torn down by City Hall’s workers on Jul. 17.