About 470 international short-term election observers are scheduled to arrive in Cambodia in the next week, according to the UN Electoral Assistance Secre­tariat.

Noticed those colorful Sang­kum Thmei posters with the dreamy-looking picture of party president Loy Sim Chheang gazing into the rising sun and thinking of a new society?

Second Prime Minister Hun Sen might not be officially campaigning, but the rest of the CPP slate certainly is.

Nguon Soeur boasts that his Khmer Citizen’s Party is in a unique position to bring a final end to the 30-year-old Khmer Rouge movement.

baddeng village, Kompong Speu province – Ted Ngoy, president of the Free Development Repub­lican Party, said he is “very optimistic” that he can capture two seats in Kompong Speu province.

Reastr Niyum is countering its relatively obscure status and localized intimidation with argu­ably the most vigorous and visible printed paper propaganda campaign in Cambodia, a party official said Thursday.

“The key word is existence. We have to let the people know that we exist,” spokesman and Siem Reap candidate Pou Sova­chana said. “For the last four months, it seems that we haven’t existed.”

The party was created Feb 1 out of prominent former Funcin­pec officials, many of whom hold top government jobs.

Pou Sovachana said Reastr Niyum has sought to counter Na­tional Election Committee-de­creed media restrictions with tireless house-to-house campaigning and a heavy reliance on propaganda, like T-shirts and posters.

“We let the people complain, because even if we complain I don’t think we are going to get the five minutes increased,” the undersecretary of state for Tour­ism said.

National Election Com­mittee rules have limited political parties to five minutes of air time a day on both state-run television and radio during campaigning.

The Reastr Niyum campaign in Siem Reap province also is meeting with widespread intimidation of its party workers, Pou Sova­chana said. One incident came from the boss of a Reastr Niyum member who is a school teacher. She was told not to campaign with Reastr Niyum after a high-profile Buddhist ceremony at the former Khmer Rouge outpost of Phnom Kulen, he said.

“There’s so many incidents like this happening everywhere in Siem Reap every day,” he said.

He said the intimidation is coming from members of “the main party,” or the CPP, who hold positions in the civilian administration. “It’s pure intimidation be­cause…I am here, giving people another option of who to vote for,” Pou Sovachana said. “The people are very scared to wear my T-shirts right now.”

The UN on Thursday reported that at least two recent killings have a “high likelihood” of being politically motivated, one of which appears to have been carried out by local authorities.

The National Election Commit­tee has changed a controversial rule to have ballot boxes stored overnight at polling officials’ homes before being transported to counting centers.

The National Election Com­mit­tee is creating a new commune election commission in An­long Veng so ballots can be counted in the recently integrated Khmer Rouge stronghold, an NEC spokesman said Wednes­day.

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party on Wednesday denounced attempts to blame it for Mon­day night’s grenade attack that killed one and injured eight at a central Phnom Penh amusement park. 

About 100 Funcinpec supporters turned out in memory of activist Thong Sophal at the party’s headquarters in Kandal province Thursday. But the number would have been at least twice that had many supporters in Yeay Hin 1 village not been too afraid to attend, said Thong Sophal’s 40-year-old widow.

The bar patron who sidled up to Tun Sopheap on May 7 was not a man looking for sex, as were most who tended to strike up conversation with the 18-year-old prostitute.

Swindlers selling election ob­server identification cards have left the National Election Com­mittee unsure of how many of the 59,424 national observers it has accredited are authentic, NEC officials said Wednesday.

Cambodia’s second dry port is scheduled to begin operations sometime this month, and shipping industry executives hope the end of the monopoly held by the existing dry port will improve service and lower prices.

Defense co-Minister Tea Banh secured the release of two senior military police commanders from jail last week, defusing a potential standoff between rival police units.

In its first-ever hearing on Wed­nesday, the Constitutional Coun­cil ruled to uphold the National Election Committee’s decision to exclude the Vongkot Khemarak Mohanokor party from this month’s general election.

Four-year-old Srey Mom sits for­­­lornly on an oversized bed in the National Pediatric Hospital, an intravenous drip protruding from her partially shaved head.

No arrests have been made in the Monday night grenade attack that killed one and injured eight at an amusement park in central Phnom Penh, police said late Tuesday afternoon.

After several years of steady growth, capital investment in Cambodia plunged more than 60 percent in the first half of 1998, according to the Cambodia In­vestment Board.