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Cambodia and Thailand traded accusations Saturday of fresh attacks as deadly border clashes entered a third day, leaving...
07/26/2025

Cambodia and Thailand traded accusations Saturday of fresh attacks as deadly border clashes entered a third day, leaving at least 33 people dead and more than 168,000 displaced, as international pressure mounted on both sides to reach a ceasefire.

As of Saturday, Thailand said seven soldiers and 13 civilians had been killed in the clashes, while in Cambodia five soldiers and eight civilians had been killed, said Defense Ministry spokesperson Maly Socheata.

Photo captions:

Residents receive water amid ongoing clashes on the Thai-Cambodian border that extended to the third day, in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia, July 26, 2025. (Soveit Yarn/Reuters)

Juam, 50 sits next to her dog "Krati" inside a temporary shelter in Sisaket province,Thailand, July 26, 2025. (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Displaced residents arrive by tractor as they take refuge in Batthkoa primary school in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia, July 26, 2025. (Heng Sinith/AP)

Evacuees displaced by the ongoing conflict between Thailand and Cambodia line up for food at a makeshift evacuation center inside a Buddhist temple in the Thai border province of Sisaket, Thailand, July 26, 2025. (Lillan Suwanrumpha/AFP)

Displaced residents gather for food at a pagoda in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia, July 26, 2025. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP)

People rest inside a temporary shelter in Sisaket province, Thailand, July 26, 2025. (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Displaced Cambodians receive water at the Battkhao Resettlement Camp in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia, July 26, 2025. (Anton L. Delgado/AP)

Thai residents who fled homes following clashes between Thai and Cambodian soldiers line up for food at an evacuation center in Surin province, Thailand, July 26, 2025. (Sakchai Lalit/AP)

Cambodian soldiers carry a body of a victim from a pagoda in Oddar Meanchey province during fighting between Thailand and Cambodia, July 25, 2025. (AFP)

A Thai soldier stands at the Phanom D**g Rak hospital damaged by artillery shells during clashes with Cambodia in Surin Province, Thailand, July 25, 2025. (Sakchai Lalit/AP)

07/26/2025

Evacuees fled by the thousands from the border of Thailand and Cambodia on Friday, July 25, as the two countries’ militaries traded fire for a second day, an escalation in a long-running conflict that threatened to grow wider.

Rocket attacks and shelling started near the Ta Muen Thom temple, which was also the flashpoint for the initial skirmish on Thursday.

Clashes were reported in 12 locations, up from six on Thursday, according to Thailand’s military.

More than 130,000 people have been evacuated from Thailand’s border regions, said the country’s health ministry, which also reported a number of people killed in two days of skirmishes.

07/25/2025

Voices: Thailand and Cambodia's border tensions have erupted into fighting. Comments from government officials and those directly impacted by the conflict:

"Thai people were so bad, they hit us and ran, killing our soldier as they tried to steal our temple, which we’ve inherited from our ancestors," said Keo Vuthy, a Cambodian grocery truck driver in Phnom Penh. "So I think it is time to retaliate, we lost our patience."

"Nobody wants this to happen," said Samran Lengtamdee, a Thai who evacuated the fighting and spoke from a displaced persons shelter in Surin, Thailand. "We want unity, because we have to make a living. I truly feel for the soldiers. I really do."

07/24/2025

Deadly clashes erupted along the Thai-Cambodian border on July 24, 2025.

The neighboring countries traded blame after skirmishes in disputed areas kill and injure a number of people.

Both sides fired small arms, rockets and artillery, and Thailand called in airstrikes on targets in Cambodia. Thai officials said they were closing the border entirely.

The flashpoint appeared to be the ancient Ta Muon Thom (Ta Muen Thom) temple, a disputed site along the Thai-Cambodian border.

The initial engagement rapidly expanded, engulfing four Thai provinces bordering Cambodia’s northern frontier: Surin; Si Sa Ket, Ubon Ratchathani, and Buriram, according to Thailand’s 2nd Region Army Command.

Each country accused the other of starting Thursday’s skirmishes.

Thailand expels the Cambodian ambassador and recalls its envoy from Phnom Penh amid accusations of Cambodia laying new l...
07/24/2025

Thailand expels the Cambodian ambassador and recalls its envoy from Phnom Penh amid accusations of Cambodia laying new landmines in the disputed border area.

The Thai Foreign Ministry downgraded its diplomatic relations with Cambodia and lodged a formal protest after an investigation by the Thai military allegedly found evidence that Cambodia had laid new landmines in a disputed border area, Phumtham Vejjayachai, the acting prime minister, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Cambodia’s undersecretary of state, Lt. Gen. Maly Socheata, rejected the Thai allegations, saying in a press statement that the border area “still contains landmines left over from past wars that have not yet been fully cleared.”

Photos released by the Royal Thai Army and distributed by the Associated Press on July 23 shows an injured Thai soldier who stepped on a land mine being airlifted via helicopter to a hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province.

Other Royal Thai Army images distributed by the Associated Press show Thai soldiers inspecting a border area in Ubon Ratchathani province on July 20 where the Royal Thai Army said two anti-personnel landmines were found.

China has started to build a massive dam on Tibet’s longest river, a move approved by the central government in December...
07/22/2025

China has started to build a massive dam on Tibet’s longest river, a move approved by the central government in December despite concerns by India, Bangladesh and Tibetan rights groups about its impacts on residents and the environment.

The structure is expected to cost more than 1 trillion yuan (US$137 billion). Once completed, it would be the world’s largest hydropower dam, generating 300 billion kilowatt-hours of power annually, about three times the power of China’s Three Gorges Dam, Xinhua, a state-run news agency, reported last year. Operations are expected to begin sometime in the 2030s.

07/21/2025

Cambodia’s government says at least 2,000 people have been arrested in a crackdown ordered by the prime minister on scam centers which are prison-like compounds that advocacy groups say run on the work of human trafficking victims.

Images released by the government show detainees and seized electronic equipment. Cambodian officials say the detained workers include Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Indian nationals.

Rong Chhun, prominent labor leader and opposition figure, told RFA Khmer that shutting down scam centers would require targeting organizers, not workers.

Ny Sokha, of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, said the government must find and prosecute those who have allowed scam centers to take root and flourish.

The scam center crackdown comes after an Amnesty International report released in June said that the Cambodian government was deliberately ignoring a litany of human rights abuses at the centers, including slavery, human trafficking, child labor and torture being carried out by criminal gangs on a vast scale at dozens of sites across the country.

Scam centers have also figured into Cambodia’s recent political tensions with Thailand. Thailand’s Paetongtarn Shinawatra cited Cambodia’s scam centers as “a hub of world-class criminality and a national threat.”

According to interviews with scam center workers conducted by Amnesty International, workers are being attacked with electric-shock batons, held in cages and sent to “dark rooms” for punishment if they fail to meet productivity targets. Nearly all of the workers Amnesty interviewed had been lured using deceptive recruitment tactics and false promises of legitimate jobs.

Across Southeast Asia, scam centers generate nearly $40 billion in annual profits, according to a United Nations estimate.

In December, RFA published the story of Tu Anh Tu, who left Vietnam to take a job recommended by a friend in a town in B...
07/20/2025

In December, RFA published the story of Tu Anh Tu, who left Vietnam to take a job recommended by a friend in a town in Bavet, a Cambodian border town. Instead, he wound up as one of many people who were trafficked in a scam center.

Young people being deceived into forced labor by criminal gangs has become a pressing issue across Southeast Asia.

The young people are typically held against their will and told to use Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and other platforms to try to scam people, mostly through efforts to convince people to invest in bogus enterprises.

Read Tu's story using the link in the comments.

07/19/2025

Sirens wailed, roads emptied and people were ordered to stay indoors in Taipei on Thursday, July 17, during an annual air-raid exercise in the event of a Chinese missile attack.

Sirens sounded at 1:30 p.m. with mandatory street evacuation, effectively shutting towns and cities across northern Taiwan for 30 minutes.

The annual civilian drill is being held in cities across Taiwan this week, alongside the 10-day Han Kuang military exercises, to prepare the self-ruled island for a potential Chinese invasion.

The drills come as regional tensions between Taiwan and China are increasing.

Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te warned that “threats from authoritarianism have never stopped," in a reference to China.

"No matter it be literary attack and military intimidation, or internal infiltration and political warfare, all of these happen on a daily basis. Under such circumstances, we can only be prepared, we don’t have other options," Lai added.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP and AP

To skeptics, a meme coin is a fast way to make a cheap buck.For exiled activist Li Ying, it’s been a way to bankroll a p...
07/18/2025

To skeptics, a meme coin is a fast way to make a cheap buck.

For exiled activist Li Ying, it’s been a way to bankroll a pro-democracy community that’s challenging Chinese censorship and authoritarian rule.

Li, 32, is better known by his handle on the social media platform X: “Teacher Li is not your teacher.” He’s built a following of more than 2 million by posting news that Chinese authorities don’t want people to see.

07/17/2025

Taiwan’s military is holding live-fire drills in a simulation of its forces fighting an amphibious invasion of Penghu Islands as part of its annual Han Kuang exercise.

Troops fired Javelin missiles, machine guns, and tank rounds at maritime targets.

Taiwanese forces also conducted maritime drills around Matsu Islands involving speed boats, drones, and mortars. Soldiers fired from rubber speed boats and positions on shore, responding to a simulated "grey zone harassment" of the islands by Chinese Coast Guard and fishing vessels.

In this early morning drill, Taiwan's military police used Taipei's subway system as it simulated the redeployment of troops and supplies.

Taiwan’s military also practiced securing and defending a major bridge in Taipei. This time they were firing blanks.

Taiwanese military officials said the Han Kuang drills replicate full combat conditions, including simulated enemy attacks on communications and command systems and a full-blown invasion scenario.

They say the drills aim to show China and the international community that Taiwan is ready to defend itself against any Chinese attack or invasion.

07/16/2025

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un welcomed Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on his yacht in the eastern coastal city of Wonsan.

Kim told Russia’s top diplomat that North Korea was ready to "unconditionally support" Moscow's every effort to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.

Lavrov described Russian-North Korean ties as "an invincible fighting brotherhood" in his meeting with Kim and thanked him for the troops deployed to Russia, according to Russian media.

Relations between Russia and North Korea have deepened since the start of the Russia Ukraine war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang in 2024. Since then, Pyongyang deployed more than 10,000 of its troops and arms to Russia to back Moscow's military campaign.

Lavrov’s three-day visit to North Korea comes after he was in Malaysia for the ASEAN summit, where he met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Lavrov is in China meeting with his counterpart Wang Yi.

North Korea's Defense Ministry said in a statement that it was ready to take military action to counter any security threat, in a warning against South Korea, Japan and the United States.

The warning followed a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber flight near South Korea flanked by the three countries' fighter jets in a defense exercise on Friday. The nuclear-armed North has previously issued similar threats.

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