Cambodia

Cambodia’s PM Hun Manet announced that the decision would take effect from midnight on Sunday.

Cambodia has announced it will stop all fuel imports from its neighbour Thailand as relations have plunged to their lowest ebb in more than a decade after a Cambodian soldier was killed last month in a disputed area of the border.

Prime Minister Hun Manet announced the decision on Sunday, posting on social media that it would take effect from midnight.

Manet said energy companies would be able to “import sufficiently from other sources to meet domestic fuel and gas demands” in the country.

Separately, on Sunday, Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry urged its citizens not to travel to Thailand unnecessarily. Concurrently, Thailand’s consular affairs department warned Thais in Cambodia to avoid “protest areas”.

The ongoing escalation between the two countries began last month after a brief exchange of gunfire in the disputed border area killed a Cambodian soldier.

For more than a century, Cambodia and Thailand have contested sovereignty at various un-demarcated points along their 817km (508-mile) land border, which was first mapped by France when it colonised Cambodia in 1907.

But following the soldier’s death, the two countries have taken several measures to secure their borders, with both announcing closures of border checkpoints and crossings.

Leaked phone call

The border dispute created wider political turmoil after a leaked phone call on Wednesday between Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and the former Cambodian leader, Hun Sen, who remains a powerful influence in his nation.

During the call, the Thai premier told Hun Sen that she was under domestic pressure and urged him not to listen to “the opposite side”, including a prominent Thai military commander at the border.

Soon after the leak, a major coalition partner, the Bhumjaithai Party, quit the ruling alliance, overshadowing Paetongtarn’s premiership.

But on Sunday, the Thai leader said all coalition partners have pledged support for her government, which she said would seek to maintain political stability to address threats to national security.

Following a meeting with her coalition partners, she said, “The country must move forward. Thailand must unite and push policies to solve problems for the people.”

A rally has, nevertheless, been called for June 28 to demand that Paetongtarn, the daughter of influential former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, resign.

Thai PM refuses to be ‘bullied’ as tension flares in a long-running dispute that turned deadly last month.

Cambodia has threatened to halt imports of fruit and vegetables from Thailand unless its neighbour lifts border restrictions as tempers flare during a long-running dispute that turned deadly last month.

The ban will take effect if Thailand doesn’t lift all border crossing restrictions within 24 hours, Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen said in a televised speech on Monday. The announcement followed weekend talks that had aimed to defuse the tensions.

“If the Thai side does not open border crossings to normalcy today, tomorrow, we will implement throughout the border a ban on the imports of fruit and vegetables to Cambodia,” said Hun Sen, a former prime minister and father of the current premier.

Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra retorted that her country would not be bullied or threatened and warned that “unofficial” communication would harm diplomatic efforts.

“Messages via unofficial channels do not bring good results for both countries,” she said after meeting Thai military commanders and officials from the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs.

The rhetoric and diplomatic efforts come after decades of arguments over border territories have flared up.

On May 28, soldiers exchanged fire in a disputed area known as the Emerald Triangle, where the borders of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos meet. A Cambodian soldier was killed during the skirmish.

The Thai and Cambodian armies both said they acted in self-defence but agreed to reposition their soldiers in a bid to avoid future confrontations. However, heightened tensions remain.

Bangkok has tightened border controls since the clash and threatened to close the border and cut off electricity supplies to Cambodia.

Phnom Penh ordered troops on Friday to stay on “full alert” and announced it would cease buying Thai electric power, internet bandwidth and produce while also ordering local television stations not to screen Thai films.

Little progress

Amid the rise in diplomatic temperature, officials from the two countries met over the weekend in Phnom Penh to discuss their conflicting territorial claims.

While both sides said the meeting was held in a good atmosphere, it appears little progress was made.

The dispute dates back to the drawing of their 820km (510-mile) frontier, largely done during French colonial rule of Indochina from 1887 to 1954.

Parts of the land border are undemarcated and include ancient temples that both sides have contested for decades. The region has seen sporadic violence since 2008, resulting in at least 28 deaths.

Cambodia on Sunday formally asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to help resolve the dispute in four areas, including the site of last month’s clash and three others where ancient temples are located.

Cambodia has repeatedly asked Thailand to join the case, but Bangkok insists on a bilateral solution. It rejected a 2013 ICJ ruling that a disputed area next to the Preah Vihear temple belongs to Cambodia.

Both countries have agreed to participate in another round of meetings on border issues in Thailand in September.

The talks come after troops from the two countries exchanged fire last month, killing one Cambodian soldier.

Thailand says talks with neighbouring Cambodia had “made progress” in resolving a long-running border dispute that last month devolved into clashes, leading both countries to mobilise troops on the border.

A Thai delegation led by foreign ministry adviser Prasas Prasasvinitchai and a Cambodian contingent headed by Lam Chea, minister of state in charge of the Secretariat of Border Affairs, met on Saturday in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh to try to resolve the spat.

The meeting came after troops from the two countries exchanged fire last month in an area known as the Emerald Triangle, where the borders of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos meet, with one Cambodian soldier killed.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said the Joint Boundary Commission meeting had “made progress in building mutual understanding” between the two countries.

Ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura said in a news conference that “diplomatic dialogue remains the most effective way forward”, adding that talks would go into Sunday.

A resolution is not expected this weekend and it was unclear when the outcome would be announced.

The Thai and Cambodian armies both said they had acted in self-defence during the exchange of fire on May 28, but agreed to reposition their soldiers to avoid future confrontations.

In recent days, Thailand has tightened border controls with Cambodia, which in turn has asked its troops to stay on “full alert”.

Despite both countries pledging dialogue to handle the issue and calm nationalist fervour, Bangkok has threatened to close the border and cut off electricity supplies to its neighbour.

Phnom Penh announced it would cease buying Thai electric power, internet bandwidth and produce. It has also ordered local television stations not to screen Thai films.

Filing complaint with ICJ

The dispute between Thailand and Cambodia dates to the drawing of the 820-km (510-mile) frontier, largely done during the French occupation of Indo-China from 1887 to 1954. Parts of the land border are undemarcated and include ancient temples that both sides have contested for decades.

The region has seen sporadic violence since 2008, resulting in at least 28 deaths.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced earlier this month that Cambodia would file a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over four disputed border areas, including the site of the latest clash. Thailand, however, has insisted on a bilateral solution.

Hun Manet said in a Facebook post on Friday that the four areas and the border restrictions would not be discussed at Saturday’s talks, adding the government would send an official letter to the ICJ on Sunday on its plan to file the case.

“Cambodia awaits Thailand to clarify its official position at [Saturday’s] meeting on whether Thailand will join Cambodia in referring the four areas to the ICJ,” he said.

Influential former strongman premier Hun Sen, Hun Manet’s father, has criticised Thailand’s military for restricting border crossings and has accused generals and Thai nationalists of fanning the tensions.

“Only extremist groups and some military factions are behind these issues with Cambodia because, as usual, the Thai government is unable to control its military the way our country can,” he said late on Thursday.

The ICJ ruled in 2013 that a disputed area next to Preah Vihear temple belonged to Cambodia, but Thailand says it does not accept the ICJ’s jurisdiction.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia escalated its cold war with Thailand on Friday when it announced a ban on Thai movies and TV shows and a boycott of the neighboring country’s international internet links.

Tensions between the Southeast Asian countries have soared since an armed confrontation in a border area on May 28 that each side blamed on the other and which left one Cambodian soldier dead.

Cambodian officials said the import and screenings of Thai movies would be banned, and that broadcasters would be ordered not to air Thai-produced shows, which include popular soap operas. The government said it would inflict a financial blow on Thailand by rerouting its international internet traffic through other countries instead.

Cambodian and Thai authorities engaged in saber-rattling last week, though they have since walked back much of their earlier statements emphasizing their right to take military action.

But they continue to implement or threaten measures short of armed force, keeping tensions high. Thailand has added restrictions at border crossings. Much of their war of words actually has appeared intended to mollify nationalistic critics on their own sides.

The confrontation reportedly took place in a relatively small “no man’s land” constituting territory along their border that both countries claim is theirs.

The area is closed to journalists, but it appears that both sides withdrew soon after the fatal confrontation to avoid further clashes, without explicitly conceding the fact in order to save face.

“Neither side wants to use the word ‘withdraw’. We say ‘adjust troop deployments’ as a gesture of mutual respect—this applies to both Cambodia and Thailand.” Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was quoted telling reporters this past week.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said Friday on the Telegram social network that his government would act preemptively to establish self-reliance in response to exhortations by Thai nationalists to cut off electricity and internet connectivity to Cambodia.

Camboia’s Minister of Post and Telecommunication Chea Vandeth announced on his Facebook page that “all telecommunications operators in Cambodia have now disconnected all cross-border internet links with Thailand,” and that the move would deprive Thailand of as much as hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, a claim that could not be immediately checked.

The reported move to use circuits bypassing Thailand temporarily disrupted internet connectivity for users of at least one Cambodian service provider.

Thai officials said any plans to cut services to Cambodia were unrelated to the territorial conflict and would actually be targeting the infamous online scam centers in the Cambodian border town of Poipet that have been a problem for several years.

Cambodia’s Ministry of Fine Arts meanwhile informed all film distributors and cinemas owners that starting Friday, the import and screening of all Thai films must be immediately suspended.

Som Chhaya, deputy director general of a popular Cambodian TV channel, People Nation Network, told The Associated Press that his company will comply with another government order to drop Thai-produced shows, and in their place broadcast Chinese, Korean or Cambodian dramas.

Thai films and TV shows have a large audience in Cambodia.

Friday’s actions in Cambodia were taken one day ahead of a planned meeting in the capital Phnom Penh of the two countries’ Joint Commission on Demarcation for Land Boundary to help resolve the conflicting territorial claims that led to last month’s deadly confrontation.

There is a long history to their territorial disputes, Thailand is still rankled by a 1962 ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands that awarded to Cambodia the disputed territory where the historic Preah Vihear temple stands. There were sporadic though serious clashes there in 2011, and the ruling was reaffirmed in 2023.

Cheang writes for the Associated Press.

A new report accuses fashion giants of not considering the welfare of workers affected by climate change in garment factories in Southeast Asia.

Fashion brands including luxury label Hermes, sportswear giant Nike, and fast fashion chain H&M are in the hot seat amid new allegations of climate greenwashing after making commitments to slash carbon emissions in Asia, which is home to more than 50 percent of global garment production.

A report released this morning by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), titled, The Missing Thread, analysed 65 global fashion brands. It found that while 44 of them had made public commitments to reduce carbon emissions, none had adopted what is known as a “Just Transition” policy, a concept first introduced during COP27 in Egypt in 2022.

A Just Transition ensures that workers are not left behind as industries shift towards a low-carbon economy.

Only 11 companies in the study acknowledged the climate-related impact on workers in their social and human rights policies. Just four provided any guidance on managing heat-related stress.

Only two companies among those deemed the most ambitious by the report mentioned the welfare of workers. These included Inditex, the Spanish retail giant that owns the fast fashion company Zara, and Kering, the parent company of Gucci.

“Decarbonisation done without workers as critical and creative partners is not a just transition, it’s a dangerous shortcut,” said Natalie Swan, labour rights programme manager at BHRRC, in a news release.

Currently, the global textile industry relies on 98 million tonnes of non-renewable resources per year, such as oil and fertiliser. At current trends, the fashion industry is on track to be responsible for more than 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“The fashion industry’s climate targets mean little if the people who make its products are not taken into consideration,” Swan said. “It’s not enough to go green. It has to be clean and fair.”

“Brands must stop hiding behind greenwashing slogans and start seriously engaging workers and their trade unions, whose rights, livelihoods and safety are under threat from both climate change and the industry’s response to it. A just transition is not just a responsibility, it’s a critical opportunity to build a fairer, more resilient fashion industry that works for people and the planet.”

Al Jazeera reached out to Nike, Hermes, H&M, Inditex and Kering. None of them responded to a request for comment.

Extreme weather

The effects of climate change have already hit much of Southeast Asia hard. Garment workers in countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam have experienced extreme weather events such as surging temperatures and severe flooding.

In Bangladesh, workers reported fainting from heat-related illnesses. According to the report, factories allegedly failed to provide fans or drinking water. Similar challenges were noted in Cambodia, where temperatures regularly exceeded 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) during a 2022 heatwave.

A third of workers said they had already lost work due to automation. In Bangladesh’s garment sector, 30 percent reported job losses stemming from technological changes. These shifts have disproportionately affected female workers, who are less likely to receive training on new technologies and are often excluded from on-the-job learning opportunities that could help them adapt to evolving industry demands.

In a brief firefight at the end of May, a Cambodian soldier was killed along the countries’ shared border.

Thai and Cambodian forces are expected to return to their previously agreed-upon positions on the border after the two governments reinforced their military presence following an eruption of violence that killed a Cambodian soldier.

Thai Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai said on Sunday that both sides hoped the thorny border issue could be fully resolved through a meeting on Saturday of the Joint Boundary Committee, which was set up to facilitate bilateral negotiations.

But Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn reiterated that his government had called on the International Court of Justice to resolve the border dispute.

“Given the complexity, historical nature and sensitivity of these disputes, it is increasingly evident that bilateral dialogue alone may no longer suffice to bring about a comprehensive and lasting solution,” Sokhonn said.

However, Thailand has said it does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction and proposes to settle the matter through bilateral negotiations.

The two countries have, for more than a century, contested sovereignty over undemarcated points along their shared border when France mapped out Cambodia in 1907 when it was a French colony.

Since 2008, when fighting first broke out over an 11th-century Hindu temple, bouts of violence have sporadically occurred, resulting in the deaths of at least 28 people.

In the most recent outbreak on May 28, a Cambodian soldier was killed in the disputed border region between Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province and Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province.

While the Thai and Cambodian militaries agreed to quell tensions, Cambodia said it could keep its troops in the area despite Thailand urging it to leave.

On Saturday, the Thai army took control of the “opening and closing” of all border crossings it shares with Cambodia, referring to a “threat to Thailand’s sovereignty and security”.

According to government data, Thailand operates 17 official border crossings along the shared 817km (508-mile) frontier.

Earlier on Sunday, the army shortened operating hours at 10 border crossings.

Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai says Thailand reinforces military presence in response to Cambodia move.

Thailand has reinforced its military presence along a disputed border with Cambodia following an increase in troops on the other side, the Thai defence minister has said.

Tensions between the two Southeast Asian countries have been rising since a Cambodian soldier was killed on May 28 in a brief skirmish in an undemarcated border area.

Since the incident, the two governments have been exchanging carefully worded statements committing to dialogue.

Thailand’s Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, who also serves as deputy prime minister, said on Saturday that Cambodia had rejected proposals in bilateral talks held on Thursday that could have led to a de-escalation.

“Furthermore, there has been a reinforcement of military presence, which has exacerbated tensions along the border,” Phumtham said in a statement.

“Consequently, the Royal Thai Government has deemed it necessary to implement additional measures and to reinforce our military posture accordingly.”

He did not provide further details on the extent of reinforcements by either side.

There was no immediate comment from Cambodia.

In a separate statement on Saturday, the Thai army said Cambodian civilians had also repeatedly made incursions into Thailand’s territory.

“These provocations, and the buildup of military forces, indicate a clear intent to use force,” the Thai army said, adding it would take control of all Thai checkpoints along the Cambodia border.

Thailand and Cambodia have for more than a century contested sovereignty at various undemarcated points along their 817km (508-mile) land border.

Tension escalated in 2008 over an 11th-century Hindu temple, leading to skirmishes over several years and at least a dozen deaths, including during a weeklong exchange of artillery fire in 2011.

On Monday, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet said the government would file a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the border dispute.

“Cambodia hopes that the Thai side will agree with Cambodia to jointly bring these issues to the International Court of Justice… to prevent armed confrontation again over border uncertainty,” Hun Manet said during a meeting between MPs and senators.

Thailand has not recognised the ICJ’s jurisdiction since 1960 and has instead called for bilateral talks.

Efforts have been made by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is the current chair of the Southeast Asian ASEAN bloc, and China to reduce tensions, but the border remains disputed.

A meeting of the Cambodia-Thailand Joint Boundary Commission – which addresses border demarcation issues – is scheduled for June 14.

Thailand’s military said it had gathered ‘worrisome’ indications that Cambodia has stepped up its military readiness.

Thailand’s military has said it is ready to launch a “high-level operation” to counter violations of its sovereignty, offering its strongest comments yet following the re-eruption of a long-running border dispute with Cambodia.

In a statement on Thursday night, the Thai military said its intelligence had gathered “worrisome” indications that Cambodia has stepped up its military readiness along their shared border.

“The army is now ready for a high-level military operation in case it is necessary to retaliate against the violation of sovereignty,” the statement said.

“Operations of units at the border have been conducted carefully, calmly and based on an understanding of the situation to prevent losses on all sides, but at the same time, are ready to defend the country’s sovereignty to the fullest extent if the situation is called for,” the statement added.

The top brass of Thailand’s armed forces are scheduled to hold a closed-door meeting on Friday afternoon, while the country’s army, navy and air force have also raised their combat readiness, according to the Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS).

Colonel Chainarong Kasee, a commander of Thailand’s 12th infantry regiment of the Royal Guards, said his troops have been ordered to check that all equipment is in good working order, Thai PBS also reports.

On May 28, Cambodia’s Ministry of National Defence said Thai troops shot and killed one of its soldiers during a brief firefight in a disputed border region between Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province and Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province.

The ministry accused Thai soldiers of opening fire first on a Cambodian military post in the contested border zone. Thailand’s Minister of Defence Phumtham Wechayachai said Cambodian forces opened fire first.

The Southeast Asian neighbours have repeatedly clashed in Preah Vihear’s border region over the years, where a 900-year-old temple sits at the heart of a decades-long dispute that has stirred nationalist sentiment on both sides of the border.

Several deadly clashes took place in the area between 2008 – the year Cambodia registered the temple as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – and 2011, killing about 40 people, including five civilians.

A 2013 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) upheld a 1962 judgement by the same body awarding part of the land around Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia and instructing Thailand to withdraw its personnel stationed in the area.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, the son of long-ruling former leader Hun Sen, has said Cambodia will file disputes over four parts of the border to the ICJ for adjudication and asked for Thailand’s cooperation in the process.

Thailand, which has not recognised the ICJ’s jurisdiction since 1960, has instead called for bilateral talks.

“Thailand and Cambodia already have existing bilateral mechanisms to address these issues,” Thailand’s government said in a statement.

“Thailand reiterates its position as a neighbour committed to resolving issues peacefully and based on international law, treaties, and agreements … as well as satellite imagery and other verified evidence,” the statement added.

A meeting of the Cambodia-Thailand Joint Boundary Commission – which addresses border demarcation issues – is slated for June 14.

Bokeo province, Laos – Khobby was living in Dubai last year when he received an intriguing message about a well-paying job working online in a far-flung corner of Southeast Asia.

The salary was good, he was told. He would be working on computers in an office.

The company would even foot the bill for his relocation to join the firm in Laos – a country of 7.6 million people nestled between China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar.

With the company paying for his flights, Khobby decided to take the plunge.

But his landing in Laos was anything but smooth.

Khobby discovered that the promised dream job was rapidly becoming a nightmare when his Ghanaian passport was taken on arrival by his new employers.

With his passport confiscated and threats of physical harm ever present, he endured months working inside a compound which he could not leave.

The 21-year-old had become the latest victim of booming online cyber-scam operations in Southeast Asia – an industry that is believed to have enslaved tens of thousands of workers lured with the promise of decently paid jobs in online sales and the information technology industry.

“When I got there, I saw a lot of Africans in the office, with a lot of phones,” Khobby told Al Jazeera, recounting his arrival in Laos.

“Each person had 10 phones, 15 phones. That was when I realised this was a scamming job,” he said.

The operation Khobby found himself working for was in a remote area in northwest Laos, where a casino city has been carved out of a patch of jungle in the infamous “Golden Triangle” region – the lawless border zone between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand that has long been a centre for global drug production and trafficking.

He said he was forced to work long days and sleep in a dormitory with five other African workers at night during the months he spent at the scam centre in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.

Khobby recounted the original message he received from an acquaintance encouraging him to take the job in Laos.

“My company is hiring new staff”, he said, adding that he was told the salary was $1,200 per month.

“He told me it was data entry.”

Casino city

The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) where Khobby was lured to for work operates as an autonomous territory within Laos.

Leased from Laotian authorities by Chinese national Zhao Wei, whom the US government has designated the leader of a transnational criminal organisation, life in the GTSEZ is monitored by a myriad of security cameras and protected by its own private security force.

Clocks are set to Beijing time. Signage is predominantly in Chinese, and China’s yuan is the dominant and preferred currency.

Central to the GTSEZ city-state is Zhao Wei’s Kings Romans casino, which the United States Treasury also described as a hub for criminal activity such as money laundering, narcotics and wildlife trafficking.

During a recent visit to the zone by Al Jazeera, Rolls Royce limousines ferried gamblers to some of the city’s casinos while workers toiled on the construction of an elaborate and expansive Venice-style waterway just a stone’s throw from the Mekong river.

While luxury construction projects – including the recently completed Bokeo International Airport – speak to the vast amounts of money flowing through this mini casino city, it is inside the grey, nondescript tower blocks dotted around the economic zone where the lucrative online scam trade occurs.

Within these tower blocks, thousands of trafficked workers from all over the world – just like Khobby – are reported to spend up to 17 hours a day working online to dupe unsuspecting “clients” into parting with their money.

The online swindles are as varied as investing money in fake business portfolios to paying false tax bills that appear very real and from trading phoney cryptocurrency to being caught in online romance traps.

Anti-trafficking experts say most of the workers are deceived into leaving their home countries – such are nearby China, Thailand and Indonesia or as far away as Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Ethiopia – with the promise of decent salaries.

Online ‘butchering’

Khobby told how his “data entry” job was, in fact, a scam known in the cybercrime underworld as “pig butchering”.

This is where victims are identified, cold-called or messaged directly by phone in a bid to establish a relationship. Trust is built up over time to the point where an initial investment is made by the intended victim. This can be, at first, a small amount of the victim’s money or emotions in the case of fake online relationships.

There are small rewards on the investments, Khobby explained, telling how those in the industry refer to their victims as pigs who are being “fattened” by trust built up with the scammers.

That fattening continues until a substantial monetary investment is made in whatever scam the victim has become part of. Then they are swiftly “butchered”, which is when the scammers get away with the ill-gotten gains taken from their victims.

Once the butchering is done, all communications are cut with the victims and the scammers disappear without leaving a digital trace.

According to experts, cyber-scamming inside the GTSEZ boomed during the 2019 and 2020 COVID lockdowns when restrictions on travel meant international visitors could not access the Kings Romans casino.

In the years since, the cyber-scam industry has burgeoned, physically transcended borders to become one of the dominant profit-making illicit activities in the region, not only in the GTSEZ in Laos but also in neighbouring Cambodia and in conflict-ridden Myanmar.

Though not as elaborate as the GTSEZ, purpose-built cyber-scam “compounds” have proliferated in Myanmar’s border areas with Thailand.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that cyber-scamming in Southeast Asia generates tens of billions annually, while the United States Institute of Peace equates the threat to that of the destructive fentanyl trade.

“Cyber-scam operations have significantly benefitted from developments in the fintech industry, including cryptocurrencies, with apps being directly developed for use at [cyber-scam] compounds to launder money,” said Kristina Amerhauser, of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

“Victims and perpetrators are spread across different countries, money is laundered offshore, operations are global,” Amerhauser told Al Jazeera, explaining that the sophisticated technology used in cyber-scamming, along with its international reach, has made it extremely difficult to combat.

Complicit victims?

About 260 trafficked scam-centre workers were recently rescued in a cross-border operation between Thailand and Myanmar. Yet, even in rare instances such as this when trafficked workers are freed, they still face complications due to their visa status and their own potential complicity in criminal activity.

Khobby – who is now back in Dubai – told Al Jazeera that while he was coerced into working in the GTSEZ, he did actually receive the promised $1,200 monthly salary, and he had even signed a six-month “contract” with the Chinese bosses who ran the operation.

Richard Horsey, International Crisis Group’s senior adviser on Myanmar, said Khobby’s experience reflected a changing trend in recruitment by the criminal organisations running the scam centres.

“Some of the more sophisticated gangs are getting out of the human trafficking game and starting to trick workers to come,” Horsey said.

“People don’t like to answer an advert for criminal scamming, and it’s hard to advertise that. But once they’re there, it’s like – actually, we will pay you. We may have taken your passport, but there is a route to quite a lucrative opportunity here and we will give you a small part of that,” he said.

The issue of salaries paid to coerced and enslaved workers complicates efforts to repatriate trafficking victims, who may be considered complicit criminals due to their status as “paid” workers in the scam centres, said Eric Heintz, from the US-based anti-trafficking organisation International Justice Mission (IJM).

“We know of individuals being paid for the first few months they were inside, but then it tapers off to the point where they are making little – if any – money,” Heintz said, describing how victims become “trapped in this cycle of abuse unable to leave the compound”.

“This specific aspect was a challenge early on with the victim identity process – when an official would ask if an individual previously in the scam compound was paid, the victim would answer that initially he or she was. That was enough for some officials to not identify them as victims,” Heintz said.

Some workers have also been sold between criminal organisations and moved across borders to other scam centres, he said.

“We have heard of people being moved from a compound in one country to one in another – for example from Myawaddy to the GTSEZ or Cambodia and vice versa,” he said.

Khobby said many of the workers in his “office” had already had experience with scamming in other compounds and in other countries.

“Most of them had experience. They knew the job already,” he said.

“This job is going on in a lot of places – Thailand, Laos, Myanmar. They were OK because they got paid. They had experience and they knew what they were doing,” he added.

‘What are we here for? Money!’

High-school graduate Jojo said she was working as a maid in Kampala, Uganda, when she received a message on the Telegram messaging app about an opportunity in Asia that involved being sponsored to do computer studies as part of a job in IT.

“I was so excited,” Jojo recounted, “I told my mum about the offer.”

Jojo told how she was sent an airline ticket, and described how multiple people met her along the way as she journeyed from Kampala to Laos. Eventually Jojo arrived in the same scam operation as Khobby.

She described an atmosphere similar to a fast-paced sales centre, with Chinese bosses shouting encouragement when a victim had been ‘butchered’ and their money stolen, telling how she witnessed people scammed for as much as $200,000.

“They would shout a lot, in Chinese – ‘What are we here for? Money!’”

On top of adrenaline, the scam operation also ran on fear, Jojo said.

Workers were beaten if they did not meet targets for swindling money. Mostly locked inside the building where she worked and lived; Jojo said she was only able to leave the scam operation once in the four months she was in the GTSEZ, and that was to attend a local hospital after falling ill.

Fear of the Chinese bosses who ran the operation not only permeated their workstations but in the dormitory where they slept.

“They told us ‘Whatever happens in the room, we are listening’,” she said, also telling how her co-workers were beaten when they failed to meet targets.

“They stopped them from working. They stopped them from coming to get food. They were not getting results. They were not bringing in the money they wanted. So they saw them as useless,” she said.

“They were torturing them every day.”

Khobby and Jojo said they were moved to act in case it was their turn next.

When they organised a strike to demand better treatment, their bosses brought in Laotian police and several of the strikers – including Jojo and Khobby – were taken to a police station where they were told they were sacked.

They were also told they would not be paid what was owed in wages and their overseers refused to give their passports back.

Khobby said he was left stranded without a passport and the police refused to help.

“This is not about only the Chinese people,” Khobby said. “Even in Vientiane, they have immigration offices who are involved. They are the ones giving the visas. When I got to Laos, it was the immigration officer who was waiting for me. I didn’t even fill out any form,” he said.

With help from the Ghanaian embassy, Khobby and Jojo were eventually able to retrieve their passports, and with assistance from family and friends, they returned home.

The IJM’s Heintz, said that target countries for scammer recruitment – such as those in Africa – need better awareness of the dangers of trafficking.

“There needs to be better awareness at the source country level of the dangers associated with these jobs,” he said.

Reflecting on what led him to work up the courage to lead a strike in the scam centre, Khobby considered his childhood back in Ghana.

“I was a boy who was raised in a police station. My grandpa was a police commander. So in that aspect, I’m very bold, I have that courage. I like giving things a try and I like taking risks,” he said.

Jojo told Al Jazeera how she continues to chat online with friends who are still trapped in scam centres in Laos, and who have told her that new recruits arrive each day in the GTSEZ.

Her friends want to get out of the scam business and the economic zone in Laos. But it is not so easy to leave, Jojo said.

“They don’t have their passports,” she said.

Cambodian and Thai officials claim soldiers from other side opening fire first in latest deadly border clash between the neighbours.

Cambodia’s leader has called for calm in the country a day after a soldier was killed in a brief clash with troops from neighbouring Thailand, in a disputed zone along the Thai-Cambodia border.

In a written statement on Thursday, Prime Minister Hun Manet said people should not “panic over unverified material being circulated”, and reassured the country that he did not want a conflict between Cambodian and Thai forces.

“For this reason, I hope that the upcoming meeting between the Cambodian and Thai army commanders will produce positive results to preserve stability and good military communication between the two countries, as we have done in the past,” said Hun Manet, who is currently on a visit to Tokyo.

“Even though I am in Japan … the command system and hierarchy for major military operations such as troop movements remain under my full responsibility as prime minister,” he added.

Cambodia’s Ministry of National Defence said on Wednesday that one of its soldiers was killed in a brief firefight with Thai troops, in a disputed border region between the country’s Preah Vihear province and Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province.

The ministry accused Thai soldiers of opening fire first on a Cambodian military post that had long existed in the contested border zone.

However, Thailand’s Minister of Defence Phumtham Wechayachai said Cambodian forces in the area had opened fire first, adding they had previously dug a trench in the area in an effort to assert Cambodia’s claim over the disputed territory, local media reported.

“I have been informed that the return fire was necessary to defend ourselves and protect Thailand’s sovereignty. I have instructed caution. Although the ceasefire holds, both sides continue to face each other,” the minister said, according to Thailand’s The Nation newspaper.

The Nation also reported that Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra spoke with her counterpart, Hun Manet, and both were working to lower the temperature on the dispute.

“We don’t want this to escalate,” the Thai prime minister was quoted as saying.

Cambodia and Thailand have a long history of disputes along their mutual border, including armed clashes that broke out in 2008 near Cambodia’s Preah Vihear Temple, which was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site that year. Fighting also broke out along the border in 2011.

The Associated Press news agency reports that in February, Cambodian troops and their family members entered an ancient temple along the border and sang the Cambodian national anthem, leading to a brief argument with Thai troops.

The incident was recorded on video and went viral on social media.

UN Office on Drugs and Crime says ‘explosive growth’ in synthetic drug trade led to record seizures of methamphetamine in East and Southeast Asia in 2024.

Drug production and trafficking has surged in the infamous “Golden Triangle“, where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned in a new report on the scale of the regional trade in synthetic drugs.

The UNODC said a record 236 tonnes of methamphetamine were seized last year in the East and Southeast Asia regions, marking a 24 percent increase in the amount of the narcotic seized compared with the previous year.

While Thailand became the first country in the region to seize more than 100 tonnes of methamphetamine in a single year last year – interdicting a total of 130 tonnes – trafficking of the drug from Myanmar’s lawless Shan State is rapidly expanding in Laos and Cambodia, the UNODC said.

“The 236 tons represent only the amount seized; much more methamphetamine is actually reaching the market,” the UNODC’s acting regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Benedikt Hofmann, said in a statement.

“While these seizures reflect, in part, successful law enforcement efforts, we are clearly seeing unprecedented levels of methamphetamine production and trafficking from the Golden Triangle, in particular Shan State,” Hofmann said.

Transnational drug gangs operating in East and Southeast Asia are also showing “remarkable agility” in countering attempts by regional law enforcement to crack down on the booming trade in synthetic drugs.

Myanmar’s grinding civil war, which erupted in mid-2021, has also provided favourable conditions for an expansion of the drug trade.

“Since the military takeover in Myanmar in February 2021, flows of drugs from the country have surged across not only East and Southeast Asia, but also increasingly into South Asia, in particular Northeast India,” the report states.

The UNODC’s Inshik Sim, the lead analyst for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said countries neighbouring Myanmar are becoming key trafficking routes for drugs produced in the Golden Triangle.

“The trafficking route connecting Cambodia with Myanmar, primarily through Laos PDR, has been rapidly expanding,” Sim said, using the acronym that is part of Laos’s official name, the People’s Democratic Republic.

“Another increasingly significant corridor involves maritime trafficking routes linking Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with Sabah in Malaysia serving as a key transit hub,” he said.

Evolving, cell-based transnational organized crime groups based in East and #SoutheastAsia are increasingly adopting technologies across the entire drug supply chain while converging with other organized crime activities.

Read more in our latest report: https://t.co/oL416cuZJ3 pic.twitter.com/pqUfX5FmnF

— UNODC Southeast Asia-Pacific (@UNODC_SEAP) May 28, 2025

The UNODC report also notes that while most countries in the region have reported an overall increase in the use of methamphetamine and ketamine – a powerful sedative – the number of drug users in the older age group has grown in some nations.

“Some countries in the region, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, have reported consecutive increases in the number of older drug users, while the number of younger users has declined,” the UNODC report states, adding that the age trend needed to be studied further.

The UNODC’s Hofmann said the decline in the number of younger drug users admitted for treatment may be due to targeted drug use prevention campaigns.

“It will be key for the region to increase investment in both prevention and supply reduction strategies,” he added.

Southeast Asian leaders are set to hold their first ever summit with China and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as they seek to insulate their trade-dependent economies from the effect of steep tariffs from the United States.

The meeting, in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, is taking place on Tuesday, on the second day of the annual summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

It follows separate talks between leaders of the ASEAN and the GCC, which comprises of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, opening the ASEAN-GCC summit, said stronger ties between the two blocs would be key to enhancing interregional collaboration, building resilience and securing sustainable prosperity.

“I believe the ASEAN-GCC partnership has never been more important than it is today, as we navigate an increasingly complex global landscape marked by economic uncertainty and geopolitical challenges,” Anwar said.

Malaysia is the current chair of ASEAN, which also includes Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

In written remarks before the meetings, Anwar said “a transition in the geopolitical order is underway” and that “the global trading system is under further strain, with the recent imposition of US unilateral tariffs.”

With protectionism surging, the world is also bearing witness to “multilateralism breaking apart at the seams”, he added.

China calls for stronger ties

China’s Premier Li Qiang, who arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, will join ASEAN and the GCC in their first such meeting on Tuesday. He met with Anwar on Monday and called for expanded trade and investment ties between Beijing, ASEAN and the GCC.

“At a time when unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise and world economic growth is sluggish,” Li said, China, ASEAN and GCC countries “should strengthen coordination and cooperation and jointly uphold open regionalism and true multilateralism”.

China is willing to work with Malaysia to “promote closer economic cooperation among the three parties” and respond to global challenges, Li told Anwar.

ASEAN has maintained a policy of neutrality, engaging both Beijing and Washington, but US President Donald Trump’s threats of sweeping tariffs came as a blow.

Six of the bloc’s members were among the worst hit, with tariffs between 32 percent and 49 percent.

Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs in April for most of the world, and this month struck a similar deal with key rival China, easing trade war tensions.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said ASEAN members are “very much looking at building ties with other parts of the world, in particular China, but also the Middle East” to strengthen their economic resilience.

“A measure of the importance that the GCC is also placing on this meeting is the delegation that has been sent here and the seniority of its members,” he added. “The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is here, and we have crown princes from Kuwait and also Bahrain. We also have a deputy prime minister from Oman.”

Anwar said Monday he had also written to Trump to request an ASEAN-US summit this year, showing “we observe seriously the spirit of centrality.” However, his Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said Washington had not yet responded.

‘Timely, calculated’

ASEAN has traditionally served as “a middleman of sorts” between developed economies like the US and China, said Chong Ja Ian from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

“Given the uncertainty and unpredictability associated with economic relations with the United States, ASEAN member states are looking to diversify,” he told the AFP news agency.

“Facilitating exchanges between the Gulf and People’s Republic of China is one aspect of this diversification.”

Malaysia, which opened the bloc’s 46th summit on Monday, is the main force behind the initiative, he said.

China, which has suffered the brunt of Trump’s tariffs, is also looking to shore up its other markets.

Premier Li’s participation is “both timely and calculated”, Khoo Ying Hooi from the University of Malaya told AFP.

“China sees an opportunity here to reinforce its image as a reliable economic partner, especially in the face of Western decoupling efforts.”

Beijing and Washington engaged in an escalating flurry of tit-for-tat levies until a meeting in Switzerland saw an agreement to slash them for 90 days.

Chinese goods still face higher tariffs than most, though.

Critics say the Cambodian government’s attacks on opposition members and activists have gone global.

On January 7, 2025, former Cambodian opposition politician, Lim Kimya, was gunned down outside a busy bus station in central Bangkok.

A former Thai marine confessed to carrying out the hit as a gun for hire, but two Cambodians with ties to their country’s governing party are on the run, suspected of organising the murder.

While Lim Kimya’s family and friends are seeking justice, Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Manet, denies his government had any involvement.

101 East investigates the brazen killing and Cambodia’s increasingly repressive government.

Bangkok, Thailand – Over several years in the mid-1960s, the crumbling ruins of an ancient temple in northeast Thailand were picked clean by local looters.

Possibly hundreds of centuries-old statues that were long buried beneath the soft, verdant grounds around the temple were stolen.

To this day, all the known artefacts from the pillaging spree, collectively known as the Prakhon Chai hoard, sit scattered thousands of miles away in museums and collections across the United States, Europe and Australia.

In a matter of weeks, though, the first of those statues will begin their journey home to Thailand.

The acquisitions committee of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum recommended the release last year of four bronze statues from the hoard, which had been held in its collection since the late 1960s.

San Francisco city’s Asian Art Commission, which manages the museum, then approved the proposal on April 22, officially setting the pieces free.

Some six decades after the late British antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford is suspected of spiriting the statues out of the country, they are expected to arrive back in Thailand within a month or two.

“We are the righteous owners,” Disapong Netlomwong, senior curator for the Office of National Museums at Thailand’s Fine Arts Department, told Al Jazeera.

“It is something that our ancestors … have made, and it should be exhibited here to show the civilisation and the belief of the people,” said Disapong, who also serves on Thailand’s Committee for the Repatriation of Stolen Artefacts.

The imminent return of the statues is the latest victory in Thailand’s quest to reclaim its pilfered heritage.

Their homecoming also exemplifies the efforts of countries across the world to retrieve pieces of their own stolen history that still sit in display cases and in the vaults of some of the West’s top museums.

From Thai temples to the Acropolis in Athens

Latchford, a high-profile Asian art dealer who came to settle in Bangkok and lived there until his death in 2020 at 88 years of age, is believed to have earned a fortune from auction houses, private collectors and museums around the world who acquired his smuggled ancient artefacts from Thailand and neighbouring Cambodia.

In 2021, Latchford’s daughter, Nawapan Kriangsak, agreed to return her late father’s private collection of more than 100 artefacts, valued at more than $50m, to Cambodia.

Though never convicted during his lifetime, Latchford was charged with falsifying shipping records, wire fraud and a host of other crimes related to antiquities smuggling by a US federal grand jury in 2019.

He died the following year, before the case against him could go to trial.

In 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York agreed to return 16 pieces tied to Latchford’s smuggling network to Cambodia and Thailand.

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum has also previously returned pieces to Thailand – two intricately carved stone lintels taken from a pair of temples dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries, in 2021.

While Thailand and Cambodia have recently fared relatively well in efforts to reclaim their looted heritage from US museum collections, Greece has not had such luck with the British Museum in London.

Perhaps no case of looted antiquities has grabbed more news headlines than that of the so-called “Elgin Marbles”.

The 2,500-year-old friezes, known also as the Parthenon Marbles, were hacked off the iconic Acropolis in Athens in the early 1800s by agents of Lord Elgin, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Greece at that time.

Elgin claimed he took the marbles with the permission of the Ottomans and then sold them in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they remain.

Greece has been demanding the return of the artefacts since the country’s declaration of independence in 1832 and sent an official request to the museum in 1983, according to the nongovernmental Hellenic Institute of Cultural Diplomacy.

“Despite all these efforts, the British government has not deviated from its positions over the years, legally considering the Parthenon marbles to belong to Britain. They have even passed laws to prevent the return of cultural artefacts,” the institute said.

‘Colonialism is still alive and well’

Tess Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, a Washington-based nonprofit campaigning against the illicit trade of ancient art and artefacts, said that “colonialism is still alive and well in parts of the art world”.

“There is a mistaken assumption by some institutions that they are better carers, owners, custodians of these cultural objects,” Davis told Al Jazeera.

But Davis, who has worked on Cambodia’s repatriation claims with US museums, says the “custodians” defence has long been debunked.

“These antiquities were cared for by [their] communities for centuries, in some cases for millennia, before there was … a market demand for them, leading to their looting and trafficking, but we still do see resistance,” she said.

Brad Gordon, a lawyer representing the Cambodian government in its ongoing repatriation of stolen artefacts, has heard museums make all sorts of claims to defend retaining pieces that should be returned to their rightful homelands.

Excuses from museums include claiming that they are not sure where pieces originated from; that contested items were acquired before laws banned their smuggling; that domestic laws block their repatriation, or that the ancient pieces deserve a more global audience than they would receive in their home country.

Still, none of those arguments should keep a stolen piece from coming home, Gordon said.

“If we believe the object is stolen and the country of origin wishes for it to come home, then the artefact should be returned,” he said.

Old attitudes have started breaking down though, and more looted artefacts are starting to find their way back to their origins.

“There’s definitely a growing trend toward doing the right thing in this area, and … I hope that more museums follow the Asian Art Museum’s example. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go,” Davis said.

Much of the progress, Davis believes, is down to growing media coverage of stolen antiquities and public awareness of the problem in the West, which has placed mounting pressure on museums to do the right thing.

In 2022, the popular US comedy show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver dedicated a whole episode to the topic. As Oliver said, if you go to Greece and visit the Acropolis you might notice “some odd details”, such as sections missing from sculptures – which are now in Britain.

“Honestly, if you are ever looking for a missing artefact, nine times out of 10 it’s in the British Museum,” Oliver quips.

Gordon also believes a generational shift in thinking is at play among those who once trafficked in the cultural heritage of other countries.

“For example, the children of many collectors, once they are aware of the facts of how the artefacts were removed from the country of origin, want their parents to return them,” he said.

Proof of the past

The four bronze statues the San Francisco museum will soon be returning to Thailand date back to the 7th and 9th centuries.

Thai archaeologist Tanongsak Hanwong said that period places them squarely in the Dvaravati civilisation, which dominated northeast Thailand, before the height of the Khmer empire that would build the towering spires of Angkor Wat in present-day Cambodia and come to conquer much of the surrounding region centuries later.

Three of the slender, mottled figures, one nearly a metre tall (3.2 feet), depict Bodhisattva – Buddhist adherents on the path to nirvana – and the other the Buddha himself in a wide, flowing robe.

Tanongsak, who brought the four pieces in the San Francisco collection to the attention of Thailand’s stolen artefacts repatriation committee in 2017, said they and the rest of the Prakhon Chai hoard are priceless proof of Thailand’s Buddhist roots at a time when much of the region was still Hindu.

“The fact that we do not have any Prakhon Chai bronzes on display anywhere [in Thailand], in the national museum or local museums whatsoever, it means we do not have any evidence of the Buddhist history of that period at all, and that’s strange,” he said.

The Fine Arts Department first wrote to San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum about the statues’ illicit provenance in 2019, but started to make progress on having them returned only when the US Department of Homeland Security got involved on Thailand’s behalf.

Robert Mintz, the museum’s chief curator, said staff could find no evidence that the statues had been trafficked in their own records.

But they were convinced they had been looted and smuggled out of Thailand – and of Latchford’s involvement – once Homeland Security provided proof, with the help of Thai researchers.

“Once that evidence was presented and they heard it, their feeling was the appropriate place for these would be back in Thailand,” Mintz said of the museum’s staff and acquisition committee.

‘Pull back the curtain’

The San Francisco Asian Art Museum went a step further when it finally resolved to return the four statues to Thailand.

It also staged a special exhibit around the pieces to highlight the very questions the experience had raised regarding the theft of antiquities.

The exhibition – Moving Objects: Learning from Local and Global Communities – ran in San Francisco from November to March.

“One of our goals was to try to indicate to the visiting public to the museum how important it is to look historically at where works of art have come from,” Mintz said.

“To pull back the curtain a bit, to say, these things do exist within American collections and now is the time to address challenges that emerge from past collecting practice,” he said.

Mintz says Homeland Security has asked the Asian Art Museum to look into the provenance of at least another 10 pieces in its collection that likely came from Thailand.

Tess Davis, of the Antiquities Coalition campaign group, said the exhibition was a very unusual, and welcome, move for a museum in the process of giving up looted artefacts.

In Thailand, Disapong and Tanongsak say the Asian Art Museum’s decision to recognise Thailand’s rightful claim to the statues could also help them start bringing the rest of the Prakhon Chai hoard home, including 14 more known pieces in other museums around the US, and at least a half-dozen scattered across Europe and Australia.

“It is indeed a good example, because once we can show the world that the Prakhon Chai bronzes were all exported from Thailand illegally, then probably, hopefully some other museums will see that all the Prakhon Chai bronzes they have must be returned to Thailand as well,” Tanongsak said.

There are several other artefacts besides the Prakhon Chai hoard that Thailand is also looking to repatriate from collections around the world, he said.

Davis said the repatriation of stolen antiquities is still being treated by too many with collections as an obstacle when it should be seen, as the Asian Art Museum has, as an opportunity.

“It’s an opportunity to educate the public,” Davis said.

“It’s an opportunity to build bridges with Southeast Asia,” she added, “and I hope other institutions follow suit.”

Anwar Ibrahim came to power in Malaysia soon after ex-PM Najib Razak was jailed for his role in the $4.5bn 1MDB financial scandal.

He has faced criticism after a royal pardon slashed Najib’s sentence while alleged 1MDB mastermind, Jho Low, remains at large.

Anwar leads ASEAN this year as it confronts Donald Trump’s tariffs and rising transnational crime, including a cyber-scam industry in Cambodia worth billions of dollars.

In a 101 East exclusive, Anwar Ibrahim speaks about politics and corruption in Malaysia and his conversations with Cambodia’s PM Hun Manet before the controversial deportation of domestic worker, Nuon Thoeun.