In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said some 90 percent of Pyongyang’s export earnings had been cut off by a series of international sanctions after the Trump administration “abandoned the failed policy of strategic patience”.

Tensions have escalated dramatically on the Korean peninsula this year after the isolated but nuclear-armed regime staged a series of atomic and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests — and as US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un traded personal insults.

Washington wants North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme and has spearheaded three rounds of UN sanctions against the isolated regime, restricting crucial exports of coal, iron, seafood and textiles from the cash-starved state.

Pyongyang has hit out at those sanctions, calling the latest round “an act of war”, and has vowed to never give up its nuclear programme.

In his piece Tillerson said “a door to dialogue remains open” for Pyongyang but warned “until denuclearization occurs, the pressure will continue”.

At the same time he called on China — Pyongyang’s only major ally — to “do more” to pressure North Korea.

Trump’s administration has been dogged by allegations his campaign team colluded with Russia to help him win last year’s election.

Addressing relations with Moscow, Tillerson said the Trump administration had “no illusions about the regime we are dealing with” and that they were “on guard against Russian aggression”.

But he added that Washington needed to “recongize the need to work with Russia where mutual interests intersect” citing Syria civil war where the two countries have backed opposing sides but pushed for peace talks.

On Iran he struck a less conciliatory tone.

“The flawed nuclear deal is no longer the focal point of our policy toward Iran,” he warned. “We are now confronting the totality of Iranian threats.”

He also defended his cuts to the State Department and USAID budget, saying they were designed to “address root problems that lead to inefficiencies and frustrations”.

Critics say Tillerson’s first year in office has seen scores of key diplomatic posts go unfilled, embassies hampered by cuts and many veteran staff leave the foreign service altogether.

The announcement came as the hyper-wired South emerged as a hotbed for cryptocurrency trading, accounting for some 20 percent of global bitcoin transactions — about 10 times its share of the world economy.

The new rules announced by Seoul include a ban on opening anonymous cryptocurrency accounts and new legislation to allow regulators to close virtual currency exchanges if necessary.

“Officials share the view that virtual currency trading is overheating irrationally … and we can no longer overlook this abnormal speculative situation,” the government said in a statement.

All anonymous accounts currently in use will be closed next month, it added.

The policy package also includes stepping up crackdowns on money laundering activities and financial fraud — including price manipulation — using digital currency trades.

“We will … resolutely respond to such crimes by slapping maximum sentences possible on offenders,” it said, vowing to “leave all policy options open, including closure of a cryptocurrency exchange when deemed necessary.”

The announcement came two weeks after Seoul banned its financial firms from dealing in virtual currencies, most notably bitcoin, as their prices soared, sparking concerns of a bubble largely fuelled by retail speculators.

About one million South Koreans, many of them small-time investors, are estimated to own bitcoin. Demand is so high that prices for the unit are around 20 percent higher than in the US, its biggest market.

Seoul also warned on Thursday that most cryptocurrencies are being traded in the country at prices far higher than elsewhere in the world, blaming factors including “blind speculation”.

In a case highlighting the risks of cryptocurrency, a Seoul virtual currency exchange declared itself bankrupt last week after being hacked for the second time this year.

The Youbut exchange became the first South Korean cryptocurrency exchange to close after the hacking attack that stole 17 percent of its assets.

There have been numerous warnings about a possible blowout in the bitcoin market.

Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said last week that the price surge of the virtual currency was “abnormal,” while Singapore’s central bank advised investors to “act with extreme caution”.

The vice president of the European Central Bank has also expressed concern about the relentless rise in the value of bitcoin and the potential risk accompanying the trend.

Heads turn and drivers cannot fail to notice when the 38-year-old moonwalks across busy intersections, avoiding rickshaws and trucks in the centre of Indore, a city of two million people.

“I have been a Michael Jackson fan for years and copied his moonwalk step to halt traffic 12 years ago,” Singh told Agence France-Presse. “Initially, people were surprised, but it worked wonders over the years and has gained popularity,” he said.

“It’s a tiring task maintaining traffic amid noise pollution and reckless motorists but moonwalking amuses commuters and drivers,” Singh added, after another tiring day seemingly gliding backwards across the street.

Singh claims the number of traffic violations at the high court intersection where he spends most days has fallen over the years. An Indian university is studying his methods to see whether he has cut traffic jams too.

India’s city streets are notorious the world over for gridlock. Drivers, already battling crater-pocked roads and faulty traffic signals, often take out their anger on police trying to keep cars moving and pedestrians safe.

Singh said some of India’s younger drivers have paid for their recklessness with their lives.

“I have picked up the bodies of over 40 youngsters after accidents over the years and I feel terrible,” he said. “I just want youngsters to stay safe and follow rules.”

Singh’s colleagues were initially apprehensive when he used moves popularised by the late King of Pop to attract attention and manage traffic but they have since warmed to his unorthodox tactics, and he now gives moonwalking lessons to fellow officers.

“My parents are very proud of me for doing my job with extreme passion and with an innovative twist that includes Michael Jackson’s step,” he said. – AFP

Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2017/12/28/indias-moonwalking-traffic-cop-turns-heads/#j9ELifdwMhAEr7HY.99

The traffic police patrol car was photographed illegally parked on the roadside in front of Menara Usahawan at Precinct 2 in Putrajaya on Wednesday (Dec 27).

The photo, which has since gone viral, showed the right front tyre of the white car being clamped while three uniformed policemen were seen standing around the vehicle.

The vehicle was unclamped after the policemen paid the fine.

This festive season, many people are planning to hang out at one of the popular countdown parties around town. But Thapanat Thongprasit is preparing to visit a Bangkok temple, where chanting is his mission.

“I have been chanting at a temple on New Year’s Eve for the past five years, after getting so bored hanging out and drinking for years,” a 33-year-old IT salesman said.

Former journalist Pensri Chaleekul does the same thing.

“I was sick of hangovers, I wanted to change my life. So I persuaded my gang to chant at a temple,” said Pensri, also 33.

“At first you might need friends to come along. When you’ve practised more, you can do it at home.”

They both agreed that chanting creates a means of directly accessing higher states of consciousness, and that it is good to enter the year with a peaceful mind.

Chanting in the New Year has become a trend among urban people, thanks in part to promotion from the Culture Ministry.

Culture Minister Vira Rojpoj-chanarat said the campaign kicked off in 2005.

“Since then, more and more people have joined each year,” he said. “We aim to encourage the young generation to join these religious activities. Instead of going out for a party and drinking alcohol, let’s go to the temple and chant to welcome the New year with a peaceful spirit and mind.”

Vira said that the chants were for the monarchy and nation, and for devout Buddhists themselves.

He added that the campaign also aimed to reduce the number of accidents caused by drunk partygoers, as Thailand now tops the road-death list on the World Atlas website. The leading causes of accidents every year are drunk driving and speeding.

In 2017, nearly 20 million devotees chanted in the New Year at 23,577 temples and 879 non-Buddhist monasteries throughout the Kingdom and abroad, according to the Culture Ministry.

This year the ministry, along with more than 20 religious institutes, will host New Year chanting throughout the Kingdom. In Bangkok, the ministry will host the campaign called “Wai Phra 10 Wats” or “Make Merit at 10 Temples”.

The 10 royal temples are under the patronage of the Chakri Dynasty from King Rama I to King RamaX. They are Wat Pho, Wat Arun, Wat Ratcha Orasaram, Wat Benchamabophit, Wat Bowonniwet, Wat Ratchabophit, Wat Suthat, Wat Benchamabophit, Wat Phra Ram 9 Kanchanaphisek and Wat Wachiratham Sathit.

The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority will provide free buses to take people from temple to temple on December 31 and January 1 from 8am to 4.30pm.

The Culture Ministry will host the official chanting at Wat Arun on the Chao Praya River. However, most temples in Bangkok and main temples in rural areas will also preserve the tradition.

During the New Year Festival, the National Museum in Bangkok will display 10 ancient Buddha statues to allow people to pay their respects. Other national museums throughout the Kingdom will also showcase rare Buddha statues with exhibitions running from Saturday to January 31, 2018.

Cooperation on religion

Since the campaign began, the ministry has extended its religious cooperation into the rest of Asia.

More than 100 Thai temples around the globe, along with a dozen other Buddhist temples in Asia, will join the religious activities. Among them are Myanmar’s Shwedagon Pagoda, Indonesia’s Borobudur Temple, Malaysia’s Wat Match-imawat, Phra That Luang Temple in Lao, Japan’s Asakusa Temple, the Royal Thai Monastery in Nepal, Sri Lanka’s Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic and China’s White Horse Temple.

Early this month, Vira and Phra Sophonvachirabhorn, the vice rector for Foreign Affairs at Mahachula-longkongrajavidyalaya University, went to Cambodia to call for cooperation on religion, especially in regards Buddhism.

They met Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An, Minister of Culture and Religion Him Chhem, Supreme Patriarch of the Thammayut order Samdech Preah Sanghareach Bour

Kry and the venerable monk Sumedhadhipati Non Nget.

“Following Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, we persuaded Buddhist monks in Cambodia to join our religious campaign of chanting in the New Year,” Vira said.

“We will ask our monks to join with the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh for chanting. Reciting is a kind of dhamma practice. The more we chant, the more we practise dhamma,” venerable monk Sumedhadhipati Non Nget, abbot of Wat Botumvatey in Phnom Penh, told The Nation.

    Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto wept and hugged her son after being found not guilty of smuggling crystal methamphetamine, a rare outcome in a country where hundreds of people have been sentenced to death for drugs offences in recent years.

“I’m happy now that I’m free,” said the 54-year-old, as she was ushered out of the courtroom after the verdict.

But prosecutors have indicated they want to appeal the acquittal, her lawyer said, meaning Exposto won’t be able to go back home yet and there is still a chance she could be sentenced to death.

She was arrested in December 2014 while in transit at Kuala Lumpur airport with 1.1 kilos (2.4 pounds) of the drug stitched into the compartment of a backpack she was carrying.

The mother of four argued she did not know about the hidden stash of “ice”. She said she had been fooled into carrying the bag after travelling to China to see someone she met online called “Captain Daniel Smith”, who had claimed to be a US serviceman.

Anyone caught with at least 50 grams (1.75 ounces) of crystal meth is considered a trafficker in Muslim-majority Malaysia, and death by hanging is mandatory in the case of a conviction.

However handing down his verdict at the High Court in Shah Alam, outside Kuala Lumpur, Judge Ghazali Cha accepted the defence’s argument that Exposto did not know the bag contained drugs and acquitted her.

“I agree with the defence lawyer that the accused did not have knowledge about the drugs,” he said.

“I believe that at that time her (Exposto) feelings of love towards ‘Captain Daniel Smith’ overcame everything, including her own husband, her family and her future.”

– Hundreds on death row –

Exposto’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah welcomed the verdict but said he was surprised at prosecutors’ intention to appeal as the judge had sided firmly with the defence. Prosecutors have 14 days to lodge the challenge.

After engaging in a long online romance, Exposto had travelled to Shanghai to see “Smith”.

But she did not succeed in meeting her supposed love interest while there and ended up being given a bag by a stranger, who asked her to take it to Melbourne.

When she arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport to change flights, she mistakenly went through immigration as she was unfamiliar with the airport.

She voluntarily offered her bags for customs inspection and the drugs were discovered.

There are at least 900 people on death row in Malaysia, officials have said, but executions have been rare in recent years.

Malaysian lawmakers voted last year to amend legislation so that capital punishment is no longer mandatory in drug-trafficking cases.

But the changes have not yet come into force as they must be passed by the upper house, meaning that in the case of a conviction in Exposto’s case, the judge would have had to impose the death penalty.

Two Australians were hanged in Malaysia in 1986 for heroin trafficking — the first Westerners to be executed in the country — in a case that strained relations.

In 2013 Dominic Bird, a former truck driver from Perth, was acquitted of drug trafficking charges after he was allegedly caught with 167 grams of crystal methamphetamine.//AFP

The Nuclear Regulation Authority handed its approval to the Tokyo Electric Power Co. following a month of public hearings, judging that the two reactors met the stricter safety standards introduced after the disaster, an NRA official told AFP.

The two reactors are situated at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, one of the world’s biggest and the largest in Japan.

Like many other nuclear power plants in the country, the plant in central Japan has been idle since the 2011 meltdown triggered by a tsunami after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake.

The tsunami overwhelmed reactor cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan, causing meltdowns and releasing radiation in the most dangerous nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

TEPCO still needs to get local consent to bring the reactors online, which could take years.

Niigata Governor Ryuichi Yoneyama, who won the local election in 2016 for a four-year term, is known to be cautious about restarting Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.

“We will continue explaining to residents” to address their concerns, TEPCO spokesman Shinichi Nakakuki told AFP.

The company “ultimately” hopes to win approval from local authorities, Nakakuki added.

Sun Thun, a teacher at nearby Treal High School, recalls the last major flood to afflict the province in 2011 as “devastating”.

“Many people lost their houses and fields. The flood also destroyed livestock and killed people while tens of thousands did not have enough food or shelter,” he said, adding that schools were also flooded.

If residents had been informed sooner that a flood was coming, Thun said, it could have made a difference.

“As a citizen of the province, I hope the relevant authorities will be able to inform the people about the natural disaster in time, or beforehand so that they could prepare themselves,” he said.

That’s a diagnosis People in Need had also made.

“A lot of flood deaths have been caused by a lack of information,” said PIN mapping officer Seng Buntheoun.

“People didn’t know when the flood is coming and where it will affect … [but] by measuring the elevation of the terrain, the changes [to the landscape], we can use the data to adjust the warning level accordingly,” he explained.

To that end, PIN has partnered with the provincial and national committees for disaster management in Kampong Thom as well as Kampong Chhnang, Battambang, Pursat, Kratie, Stung Treng, Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey provinces to overhaul the way the government anticipates and reacts to floods.

Data from the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) shows that 47 per cent of deaths due to natural disasters are caused by flooding, numbering 1,150 since 1996. Flooding has been responsible for destroying or damaging nearly 34,000 homes in that time, and for countless more evacuations. Just last year in Kampong Thom, flooding damaged some 1,300 houses.

According to NCDM spokesman Keo Vy, while the province has been spared from major flooding since 2013, it remains one of the most vulnerable regions in the country.

“Kampong Thom, due to its geographical location, is very vulnerable to floods,” he said, noting “water levels have usually risen close to the warning point over the past four years”.

Since 2013, PIN has been scaling up an automated flood warning system over cell phone networks, and last year they began installing sonar-based water level gauges that ping information directly to local authorities, further streamlining the process of notifying residents by phone.

According to Vy, some 70,000 people have registered to use the phone service across 10 provinces.

One such gauge was installed by PIN this month on the Stung Sen Bridge, which could reduce the time it takes for authorities to warn the public from a matter of hours or days to just a few minutes.

Now PIN is flying two $10,000 drones equipped with 18-megapixel cameras to create 3D topographic maps that will for the first time provide authorities with knowledge of how an area will be flooded.

Back on the lot, mapping officer Buntheoun has charted the automated flight path for the day’s survey on a laptop, hooked up to a mobile GPS base. Holding the two-kilogram drone by its wings, he gives it a shake, a propeller begins to whirr, and he launches it into the air like it’s a jumbo paper plane.

“Today we’re mapping about 1.2 square kilometres,” he said. Every few seconds the computer clicks – another photograph received from the camera on the drone’s underbelly.

“The GPS base sends a GPS signal to the drone to give a more precise signal that is accurate to 2 to 3 centimetres,” he explains.

The Stung Sen Bridge, which was recently outfitted with a gauge to detect water levels and notify residents of flood risks. Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon

That accuracy, he says, is reflected when the photographs are run through a modelling programme that transforms them into a 3D map. The result is a far cry from the maps currently used from 2011, which are outdated and imprecise.

“It’s far more detailed than the old data where the length of each pixel was [equal to] 30 metres. Here it’s four centimetres,” Buntheoun said. “It takes into account landscape changes such as building construction … Effects are different from how water will react to a rice paddy versus an urban establishment.”

Heng Sarith, a member of the Kampong Thom provincial committee for disaster management said the updated maps will be a “great” help.

“It shows which areas are the most vulnerable to natural disasters, and which areas are the least affected,” he says.

After 20 minutes, the drone flying overhead comes in for a landing, its battery is swapped out and then it is quickly back in the air. Taken from 200 metres above ground, the pictures will be stitched together, creating a mosaic of the area, and of its vulnerabilities.

Residents living in flood-prone areas can call 1294 for free to subscribe to the flood alert information system.

LG Chem will invest a total of 300 billion won ($278.6 million) to expand its petrochemical facilities in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, the company said Tuesday.

With the investment, the company plans to increase the annual production capacities of crude acrylic acid and super absorbent polymer by 180,000 tons and 100,000 tons, respectively.

CAA is used to produce acrylates and other derivatives used in paint, paper, textile, adhesives, specialty coatings. SAP is mainly used in disposable diapers, female hygiene products and adult incontinence products.

When the expansion is completed by 2019, the chemical giant’s annual production capacity of CAA will increase to 700,000 tons and SAP to 500,000 tons. LG Chem expects its annual sales to grow by 300 billion won.

The global market for SAP is expected to post annual growth of 5 percent, with annual demand reaching 6.75 million tons in 2020, from 5.9 million tons this year, the company said in a statement.

A trove of documents left behind by law enforcement officials at a recently shuttered cockfighting ring allegedly owned by the nephew-in-law of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen appears to show organised payments to police and government officials across Kandal province.

The documents – trampled into the mud behind the shuttered arena along with scraps of scorecards, tickets, invoices for Budweiser and fake $100 bills – paint a picture of an illegal gambling operation allegedly run by Thai Phany that appeared to exist with the widespread knowledge of local authorities.

Among the documents discovered by Post reporters over the weekend are a Wing note recording $200 transferred to the district police chief; a list of monthly “salary payments” to 40 locals, including the village chief and commune chief; a letter from the commune police chief asking Phany for $600 “to fix the roof”; and a handwritten notebook recording payments to “Bong Mab”, a possible reference to Phany’s nickname “Thy Mab”, “TV media”, “inspectors”, “police” and “village security”.

The documents raise questions as to whether the investigation into Phany, a Ministry of Defence bureaucrat who is married to the prime minister’s niece, should be expanded to other government officials. Phany was charged on December 5 for allegedly operating two cockfighting rings, after a leaked WhatsApp message appeared to show the premier authorising authorities to shoot him if he resisted arrest.

Independent observers said the documents showing widespread bribery should prompt an independent investigation into the illegal cockfighting rings in Kandal and Takeo provinces that were shut down earlier this month.

San Chey, country director of the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP), called on the Anti-Corruption Unit to open an investigation.

“There is no need to wait,” Chey said. “I feel very, very disappointed that such a story is happening. That’s why action needs to be taken. If government officials say they are clean, they must commit to fighting corruption as well.”

In plain sight

Locals say the cockfighting ring was operating in Akrei Khsat commune’s Khsach village for roughly a year before a squadron of police, Military Police and soldiers raided the complex earlier this month, bulldozing the arena to the ground and detaining 200 people for questioning.

Phany, the ring’s alleged owner, is the son-in-law of the prime minister’s older brother, Hun San, and a Cambodian-Australian citizen who has a chequered past in both countries.

In 2003, he was caught smuggling more than 300 grams of heroin from Cambodia to Australia and sentenced to five years and six months in prison.

Australian court documents describe Phany as having “strong connections with powerful people in Cambodia” and allege that at one point he paid for an appointment to be a major in the Cambodian army.

In 2010, Phany was arrested in Phnom Penh under the name Thai Sith carrying nearly 500 grams of meth and a gun. His 10-year sentence was eventually commuted by the King in 2015.

Since then, Phany has been working as an official in the Ministry of Defence and leading a ruling Cambodian People’s Party working group in Siem Reap.

But locals in both Takeo’s Bati district and Kandal’s Lvea Em district said he has also been running cockfighting rings in the area, some of which last for just weeks while others have lasted more than a year, like the one in Kandal.

The ring, down a paved road where children fly kites after school, drew wealthy out-of-towners several times a week who parked their luxury cars underneath villagers’ homes and supported a cottage industry of street vendors selling food and drink to the gamblers, locals said.

Phany’s lawyer, Lin Lanin, refused to answer personal questions about her client on Tuesday. When asked about court proceedings, Lanin said only that she “will request to release him on bail at the appropriate time”.

An Australian Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson would not specifically address Phany’s case, saying only that the agency “is providing consular assistance to a dual national Cambodian/Australian man detained in Cambodia”.

“Owing to our privacy obligations we will not provide further comment,” they said.

The paper trail

The documents left behind at the Lvea Em cockfighting ring raise serious questions about to what extent local officials knew – and were possibly involved in – the illegal gambling operation.

Of the nine authorities who signed and posted a letter informing the cockfighting ring of its closure, three appear by name in documents recovered by The Post at the scene.

Those include Lvea Em District Police Chief Heng Sophal, who received $200 via Wing, according to a receipt marked with his cell phone number and the word “district” written in pen. The date of the transfer was not visible.

Sophal, when contacted this week, denied having taken money from the managers of the cockfighting ring. When pressed further, he simply laughed.

Ly Chun Ou, a Military Police official whose name and mobile phone number appear on two documents, including one titled “bird sporting champions of 2017”, also claimed to have no knowledge of the cockfighting ring, although he could not explain why he appears in the documents.

Commune Police Chief An Penh, whose signature appears on a letter asking Phany and his wife for $600 to fix the police station roof due to damage, leaks and having “no place to rest”, also denied involvement in the ring.

When asked about the letter, dated October 8, Penh confirmed the document was authentic but said there was nothing improper about a police official asking the owner of an illegal cockfighting ring for money. Penh added that Phany eventually donated the material for the roof but not the money.

Other government officials, like police officials, also denied they had received bribes but hinted at the ring’s powerful connections.

Doch Chan, the Akrei Khsat commune chief who is named as the recipient of a $100 “monthly salary” on a document found at the complex, denied receiving any money from the cockfighting ring. “My capability is unable to shut it down, so I reported it to the provincial police chief from the beginning,” Chan said. “We had no ability to crack down on it because the ring was powerful.”

Village Chief Sao Sava, who is listed as having also received a $100 monthly salary on the same document, also denied taking money.

“We are small,” Sava said. “We cannot do anything without Prime Minister Hun Sen. He [Phany] is a three-star general.”

The list also appears to name nearly 40 locals who were also receiving monthly payments from the cockfighting ring. One villager who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that she and her parents received between $100 to $150 per month from the cockfighting ring.

Also abandoned at the compound was a handwritten notebook that appears to record expenses at the ring between March and September – showing several thousand dollars per week being paid to people nicknamed “Bong Mab”, “Older Brother” and “Older Sister”, as well as entries like “police” ($20), “inspection by authorities” ($250) and “Bayon TV” ($250).

In addition, investigators also left behind a typed document appearing to detail the monthly budget for the cockfighting ring in Takeo – including $10,700 in “provincial spending”.

Among the listed line items are $2,500 to be paid to the provincial court prosecutor and $1,000 to the head of the Military Police.

A picture of the document was widely circulated on social media shortly after the Takeo cockfighting ring bust, raising questions about why it was also found in Kandal.

Journalists and more

Also among the papers were dozens of Wing notes showing payments to local TV and print journalists, usually in $25 or $50 increments.

Kandal Provincial Police Chief Eav Chamroeun emphasised this angle in his public announcements about the case after the ring was shut down, posting photos on his Facebook page of press passes found at the scene. He made no mention of finding any documents implicating government or police officials. Chamroeun could not be reached yesterday.

Most of the local journalists contacted by The Post denied taking money from the cockfighting ring in exchange for turning a blind eye.

But Ieng Yuhak, editor of online news outlet Kapea Promden, acknowledged he had accepted $25 once, describing it alternately as “for gasoline”, “to show compassion and kindness” and “because they were illegal, therefore they gave us the money”.

“We are journalists,” Yuhak said. “We do not have the right to close the cockfighting ring. We’re not judicial authorities.”

“They [the authorities] also took money like us,” he added. “The authorities want to damage our reputation. Without journalists reporting about it, there would have been no crackdown.”

What’s next?

When asked whether the court would expand the investigation, Kandal court spokesman So Sarin said he did not know. “This is the investigating judge’s work,” Sarin said.

However, corruption experts said the discovery exposes a conflict of interest on the part of investigators. “Such an open illegal gambling cannot be operated without collusion of different local authorities and their superiors,” Preap Kol, executive director of Transparency International Cambodia said in an email. “And of course, corruption facilitates such an arrangement.”

Kol called on the government to appoint an independent body to take over the investigation staffed by the Anti-Corruption Unit. “It is impossible to have an objective and independent investigation conducted by the implicated authorities or their close allies within the same network,” he said.

Anti-Corruption Unit Director Om Yentieng refused to comment on the case when contacted on Tuesday. “There’s nothing new,” Yentieng said. “This is old rice.”