Books: Cambodia’s brother number one

It is 1975 and Khmer Rouge troops are forcibly evacuating Phnom Penh’s residents to the countrysidean exodus that will ultimately lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Monitoring events from Beijing, an elderly Mao Zedong asks visiting Vietnamese leader Le Duan whether he could ever mount such a merciless purge.

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Miss California to appear in ad for conservative group

Miss California Carrie Prejean, who declared her opposition to same-sex marriage during the Miss USA pageant, will star in a new $1.5 million ad campaign funded by the National Organization for Marriage. He didn’t find his mother, but what he did see made him hide under a pile of clothes with other children for days in the prison

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Cambodian war crimes court in corruption probe

A joint Cambodian-United Nations court, currently trying five former members of the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge group on war crimes charges, is itself facing allegations of corruption and bribery. Two employees of the court’s Office of Administration told CNN of an ongoing kickback scheme involving Cambodian staff. The staffers asked their identities be protected out of fear of retribution to themselves and their families.

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First ex-Khmer Rouge member faces genocide court

A former member of Cambodia’s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime became the first from the ultra-Maoist movement to stand trial before a U.N.-backed tribunal on Tuesday. Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, faces charges that include crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva conventions during the regime’s 1975-1979 rule. He is standing trial just outside the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which is made up of Cambodian and international judges.

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