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    Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia Says He Will Resign

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    Mr. Hun Sen, whose party won stage-managed parliamentary elections on Sunday, has been prime minister of Cambodia since 1985. He said he would hand power to his son.Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, one of the world’s longest-serving leaders, said on Wednesday that he would resign next month and hand power to his son.Mr. Hun Sen, 70, made the announcement in a televised address, three days after his political party had declared victory in stage-managed parliamentary elections. He said in the address that his eldest son, Gen. Hun Manet, 45, would succeed him and that the move would not violate any rules in the National Assembly because his son is also a lawmaker.In June, Mr. Hun Sen had said that he would hand over the premiership to his son at some point after the vote. But he also made clear that he had no plans to retire.“Even if I am no longer a prime minister, I will still control politics as the head of the ruling party,” he said at the time.Mr. Hun Sen, who has held power since 1985, said on Wednesday that his son would be confirmed as the new prime minister by Parliament on Aug. 22, according to local news media.His Cambodian People’s Party was always a virtual lock to sweep the election on Sunday. His government has suppressed all meaningful opposition over the years by jailing dozens of critics and shuttering dissenting news media outlets, among other tactics.In March, a prominent opposition leader, Kem Sokha, was sentenced to 27 years of house arrest on a treason charge and barred from running or voting in elections. Another opposition leader with a high profile, Sam Rainsy, lives in exile in France.Mr. Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge fighter, has long maintained tight control of most of Cambodia’s institutions. In recent years he has used social media to reinforce his power.Weeks before the recent election, Mr. Hun Sen’s usually very active Facebook went dark after the oversight board for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, recommended that he be suspended from the platform for threatening political opponents with violence. But a few days before the vote, his account was reactivated. More

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      Cambodian Election 2023: What to Know

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      Hun Sen, the prime minister for nearly four decades, applied familiar tactics ahead of Sunday’s vote to guarantee he would run virtually unopposed, and set the stage for his son to rule the country.Cambodian voters went to the polls Sunday in a Parliamentary election that could set the stage for the first change in leadership since Hun Sen became prime minister nearly four decades ago.Mr. Hun Sen, 70, has announced that at some point after the election he will hand over the position to his oldest son, General Hun Manet, 45. But he has made it clear that he will stay on as a power behind the throne.“Even if I am no longer a prime minister, I will still control politics as the head of the ruling party,” he said in June.Mr. Hun Sen underscored the dynastic nature of this transition, saying at a party meeting last year, “I will become father of the prime minister after 2023 and grandfather of the prime minister in the 2030s.”This dynastic succession within a Parliamentary system, at the sole discretion of Mr. Hun Sen, demonstrates the grip he has on power after eliminating virtually all opposition — through violence, coup, imprisonment, forced exile and manipulation of the courts. Hun Sen’s continuing grip on his country comes as the region is tilting increasingly toward authoritarianism.General Manet, the son of Mr. Hun Sen, at a campaign rally in Phnom Penh on Friday.Cindy Liu/ReutersThe authoritarianism in Cambodia is the end result, three decades later, of a two-billion-dollar intervention by the United Nations intended to foster democracy and the rule of law in a nation still torn by mass killings and civil war.“The history of the international community’s ill-fated attempt to implant democracy in Cambodia should be required reading for anyone planning future United Nations peacekeeping operations,” Craig Etcheson, a former visiting scientist at Harvard University’s School of Public Health, said in an email.The sole credible opposition party, the Candlelight party, was disqualified in May by the National Election Commission, which answers to Mr. Hun Sen, making the victory of his party all but inevitable.This was a replay of Mr. Hun Sen’s tactic in advance of the last election five years ago, when the main opposition party, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, was forced by the politicized courts to disband. As a result, Mr. Hun Sen’s party, the Cambodian People’s party, now holds all 125 seats in the National Assembly, making Cambodia in effect a one-party state.“This repeat of the 2018 election, which had no opposition, should make it clear to the world that Hun Sen has definitively turned his back on democracy,” Mu Sochua, an opposition leader who fled Cambodia to avoid arrest, said in an email.Supporters of Cambodia’s Candlelight Party during a campaign rally in Phnom Penh in 2022. The party was disqualified from running in this year’s election in May.Heng Sinith/Associated PressTo ensure that the election, and the potential succession, went according to plan, Mr. Hun Sen has attempted to stamp out all potential opposition.In February he forced the closure the Voice of Democracy, one of the country’s last independent news outlets. Scores of opposition politicians have been jailed in the last few years or have fled into exile. The most prominent opposition figure remaining in Cambodia, Kem Sokha, was sentenced to 17 years of house arrest in March.Sophal Ear, a political scientist at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, compared Mr. Hun Sen’s electoral manipulations with Cambodia’s record in hosting the Southeast Asian Games earlier this year.By changing rules and adding obscure Cambodian sports like ouk chaktrang, or Cambodian chess, and bokator, a Cambodian martial art, the country was able to raise its medal total to 282, an increase of 219 medals from its total of 63 medals in the previous games.A former middle-ranking Khmer Rouge cadre, Mr. Hun Sen has practiced hardball politics since being installed as prime minister in 1985 during a Vietnamese-backed government.A line at a polling station in Phnom Penh on Sunday.Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSix years earlier, a Vietnamese invasion had ended the murderous four-year rule of the Khmer Rouge, during which 1.7 million people died from execution, starvation and overwork.The Khmer Rouge fled into the jungles, touching off a long-running civil war.The United Nations intervened in 1992 after a peace agreement and conducted an election in which Mr. Hun continued to hold power as co-premier with his rival, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. A tough infighter, he soon became the dominant partner in that position and then the sole prime minister after ousting Prince Ranarridh in a coup in 1997.In campaign speeches he and his surrogates emphasize his successes, including dramatic economic growth, many years of stability and the final demise of the Khmer Rouge.“Hun Sen develops the country well, the country has peace and no war,” said Mai Kompheak, 25, who drives a three-wheel taxi in Phnom Penh. “I don’t want to see Cambodia like Ukraine.”Among his various predictions of the length of his tenure, Mr. Hun Sen said in March 2021 that he would continue in the post “until I want to stop.” He has been laying the ground for a dynastic transition for at least a decade, sidelining potential challengers and publicly promoting his son, General Manet, for the job.Prince Norodom Ranariddh, center left, and Mr. Hun Sen, center right, in 1993. Mr. Hun Sen held power as co-premier before ousting Prince Ranariddh in a coup in 1997.David Portnoy/Associated Press“For all his political successes over the past four decades, Hun Sen now faces a curious challenge: how to step back from a system in which he has made himself indispensable,” Sebastian Strangio, author of “Hun Sen’s Cambodia,” wrote in an email.It will be a risky time as he loosens his grip on power, opening the way for possible infighting and internal upheavals.Beyond the office of prime minister, the election will mark a generational transition in the coming years from the old guard of top officials, many of whom will be succeeded by their sons.“There is every indication that Manet, even more than Hun Sen, will be imprisoned by the system that his father created, and hostage to its dynamics of loyalty and obligation,” Mr. Strangio added. “It is unlikely that Manet possesses the ruthless instinct that has helped his father to remain at the pinnacle of Cambodian politics for so long.”Mr. Hun Sen publicly announced his endorsement of his son in December 2021. He later added a few words of faint praise, saying, “Even if he cannot be like his father, at least his capacity should match that of his father by 80 or 90 percent.”Officials preparing a list of voters at a polling station in Phnom Penh on Saturday as they got ready for Sunday’s election.Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe had been grooming his son for many years, giving him a Western education that includes a bachelor’s degree from West Point, a master’s from New York University and a doctorate in economics from the University of Bristol in Britain.He has risen quickly through the ranks of Cambodia’s military and is now a four-star general, chief of the army and deputy commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces.At the same time, he is in the inner circle of his father’s political party and the head of the party’s youth wing, giving him a platform to connect with young voters, an increasingly influential portion of the electorate.At a village gathering in May, Mr. Hun Sen also gave his son divine credentials, saying his birth was blessed by a powerful local spirit that revealed itself as a bright light that flew over Mr. Hun Sen’s house at the moment he was born.“Manet may be the child of Nhek Ta Anchanh Koh Thmar,” he said, naming the powerful spirit.Sun Narin More

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      Cambodia Strongman Hun Sen Wields Facebook to Undermine Democracy

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      The Cambodian People’s Party created its Cyber War Room about a decade ago. The goal was to support Prime Minister Hun Sen’s regime through social media propagandizing. Led by the prime minister’s son Hun Manet, a troll army used Facebook and other digital platforms to attack his father’s opposition with disinformation and even allegedly wield death threats.Fast forward to the Cambodian election taking place next month. The CPP’s Cyber War Room is back up and running. General Manet, commander of the Cambodian Army and most likely the country’s next prime minister, is reportedly back at the helm, this time defending his father’s legacy and himself.Facebook is extremely popular in Cambodia, with roughly 12 million of the country’s almost 17 million people on the site. Many people in Cambodia use Facebook as a core means of getting information, and social media platforms are critical for the few journalists still producing independent reporting. The populations of many other countries where governments have continually used social media for manipulation, including the Philippines and Turkey, rely heavily on Facebook as well. So why has state-sponsored trolling like this been allowed to endure for 10 years?It will come as no surprise when I say that Big Tech has a lot of problems on its plate, including fury about transnational digital propaganda campaigns, a global outcry about networked disinformation during the pandemic and panic about both real and hypothetic threats of generative A.I.But as one issue pops into the immediate view, the others don’t go anywhere. Instead, the global problems with our online information ecosystem compound. And while society and tech’s most powerful firms jump from one issue to the next, the abusive disinformation practices in places like Cambodia become entrenched. Governments refine their techniques, and opposition groups become less and less present because they are either trolled into submission, arrested, exiled or killed. It all benefits Big Tech, from Meta to Alphabet, which publicly seizes upon the idea du jour while cutting staffs and curbing efforts aimed at combating standing informational issues.What does this mean for the people of Cambodia? For a people who, in living memory, endured the horrors of genocide and totalitarianism?The Cambodian news ecosystem and the lives of Cambodians are controlled by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has led them in some capacity for 38 years. He is quick to justify his long reign by pointing to economic gains before Covid — by which time the country achieved lower-middle-income status through tourism, textile exports and a growing relationship with China. His people have languished in many other ways, however: Environmental degradation is rife, corruption is commonplace, and human rights abuses are worsening.Mr. Sen and his cronies own or control all but the thinnest sliver of the country’s media outlets. They recently banned the main opposition party from running in the coming election because of an alleged clerical error. And curtailing speech on social media has been critical to the consolidation of their power. Facebook, Telegram and other platforms have been central to the CPP’s illicit, strategic and authoritarian control of Cambodia’s information space and, consequently, public opinion.Other despots have made use of highly organized state-sponsored trolling outfits to quash dissent. Some, like Mr. Sen, have also hired their kids to run them. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s Office of Hate, run by his sons, used social media to defame journalists and threaten opposition. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the autocrat recently re-elected as president of Turkey, benefited greatly from organized troll armies operating on Twitter. Back in Southeast Asia, the increasingly tyrannical regimes of Thailand, the Philippines and Myanmar have all deployed cyber-troops to do their oppressive bidding.Another factor is central to understanding why social media firms have failed to curb state-sponsored trolling around the globe: language.Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms have overwhelmingly focused their efforts to counter harmful and purposely misleading content in English. One reason is that they are based in the United States. Another is the malignant supremacy of Western concerns. But the larger reason is that social media companies cannot or will not supply the resources necessary to moderating content in other languages — particularly those such as Cambodia’s Khmer, which is complex and spoken by about 18 million people worldwide. That’s a small number when compared with the roughly 1.5 billion who speak English.This issue is a major problem for our own democracy too. During the 2020 and 2022 elections, social media platforms failed spectacularly in quashing hateful and disenfranchising content aimed at the tens of millions of Americans who speak Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and a variety of other languages. This resulted in communities of color and groups already marginalized in our political system bearing the brunt of digital hate and purposely false information about these contests. According to my research and work with community leaders, this structural disinformation causes apathy, anger and civic disenchantment among minority voters, and as a result, many don’t show up to vote.The strength of global democracy is tied to the number of countries around the world that truly practice it. And while the leaders of relatively strong democracies like the United States obsess over information technology problems and political spectacle in Washington, they fail to do their duty to protect the less fortunate, both in their own country and elsewhere. This, in turn, lets social media companies off the hook.I recently returned from a lecture tour in Cambodia, where I spoke to more than 12 groups of professional journalists, citizen reporters, scholars, students and activists about the informational and political challenges they face online and offline. All told me that they still use platforms like Facebook and Telegram to coordinate, organize and share information about breaking news and elections.Facebook is especially popular in the country, in part because of its controversial Free Basics program, which offers free internet in a number of developing countries via a constrained number of websites (including, naturally, Facebook). Critics derided this as less a benevolent bid to connect the world and more a heavy-handed effort to “capture more of the market in the name of connectivity.” The promise of social media — that it can be the conduit for communication in countries with controlled media systems — remains true for the people I spoke to in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. But this potential is quickly dwindling as people lose faith in the safety of online communication. Meanwhile, Facebook remains a potent means for disseminating propaganda.If Meta, Alphabet and other tech firms do not take swift action to curb state-sponsored trolling, and if policymakers and civil society groups in the United States and other democracies don’t put more pressure on authoritarians like Hun Sen, then Cambodians and many others around the world will lose one of their last means of fighting back. We must speak out about the oppression surrounding the Cambodian election, which takes place on July 23 — and speak out about digital injustice.Samuel Woolley is the author of “Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity” and a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Hun Sen’s Facebook Page Goes Dark After Spat with Meta

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      Prime Minister Hun Sen, an avid user of the platform, had vowed to delete his account after Meta’s oversight board said he had used it to threaten political violence.The usually very active Facebook account for Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia appeared to have been deleted on Friday, a day after the oversight board for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, recommended that he be suspended from the platform for threatening political opponents with violence.The showdown pits the social media behemoth against one of Asia’s longest-ruling autocrats.Mr. Hun Sen, 70, has ruled Cambodia since 1985 and maintained power partly by silencing his critics. He is a staunch ally of China, a country whose support comes free of American-style admonishments on the value of human rights and democratic institutions.A note Friday on Mr. Hun Sen’s account, which had about 14 million followers, said that its content “isn’t available right now.” It was not immediately clear whether Meta had suspended the account or if Mr. Hun Sen had preemptively deleted it, as he had vowed to do in a post late Thursday on Telegram, a social media platform where he has a much smaller following.“That he stopped using Facebook is his private right,” Phay Siphan, a spokesman for the Cambodian government, told The New York Times on Friday. “Other Cambodians use it, and that’s their right.”The company-appointed oversight board for Meta had on Thursday recommended a minimum six-month suspension of Mr. Hun Sen’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which Meta also owns. The board also said that one of Mr. Hun Sen’s Facebook videos had violated Meta’s rules on “violence and incitement” and should be taken down.In the video, Mr. Hun Sen delivered a speech in which he responded to allegations of vote-stealing by calling on his political opponents to choose between the legal system and “a bat.”“If you say that’s freedom of expression, I will also express my freedom by sending people to your place and home,” Mr. Hun Sen said in the speech, according to Meta.Meta had previously decided to keep the video online under a policy that allows the platform to allow content that violates Facebook’s community standards on the grounds that it is newsworthy and in the public interest. But the oversight board said on Thursday that it was overturning the decision, calling it “incorrect.”A post on Facebook by Cambodian government official Duong Dara, which includes an image of the official Facebook page of Mr. Hun Sen.Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe board added that its recommendation to suspend Mr. Hun Sen’s accounts for at least six months was justified given the severity of the violation and his “history of committing human rights violations and intimidating political opponents, and his strategic use of social media to amplify such threats.”Meta later said in a statement that it would remove the offending video to comply with the board’s decision. The company also said that it would respond to the suspension recommendation after analyzing it.Critics of Facebook have long said that the platform can undermine democracy, promote violence and help politicians unfairly target their critics, particularly in countries with weak institutions.Mr. Hun Sen has spent years cracking down on the news media and political opposition in an effort to consolidate his grip on power. In February, he ordered the shutdown of one of the country’s last independent news outlets, saying he did not like its coverage of his son and presumed successor, Lt. Gen. Hun Manet.Under Mr. Hun Sen, the government has also pushed for more government surveillance of the internet, a move that rights groups say makes it even easier for the authorities to monitor and punish online content.Mr. Hun Sen’s large Facebook following may overstate his actual support. In 2018, one of his most prominent political opponents, Sam Rainsy, argued in a California court that the prime minister used so-called click farms to accumulate millions of counterfeit followers.Mr. Sam Rainsy, who lives in exile, also argued that Mr. Hun Sen had used Facebook to spread false news stories and death threats directed at political opponents. The court later denied his request that Facebook be compelled to release records of advertising purchases by Mr. Hun Sen and his allies.In 2017, an opposition political party that Mr. Sam Rainsy had led, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, was dissolved by the country’s highest court. More recently, the Cambodian authorities have disqualified other opposition parties from running in a general election next month.At a public event in Cambodia on Friday, Mr. Hun Sen said that his political opponents outside the country were surely happy with his decision to quit Facebook.“You have to be aware that if I order Facebook to be shut down in Cambodia, it will strongly affect you,” he added, speaking at an event for garment workers ahead of the general election. “But this is not the path that I choose.” More

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      Cambodia Disqualifies Main Opposition Party Ahead of Election

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      Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose grip on power has lasted 38 years, has said he wants his son to succeed him, laying the groundwork for a new political dynasty.For the second consecutive parliamentary election, Cambodia has disqualified the country’s main opposition party, eliminating the only credible challenge to the ruling party of Prime Minister Hun Sen.The country’s National Election Commission on Monday refused to register the party, the Candlelight Party, for a general election scheduled in July, saying it had failed to file required paperwork and was therefore ineligible to take part in the contest.Mr. Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party currently holds all 125 seats in Parliament after government-controlled courts dissolved its main challenger, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, or C.N.R.P., before the 2018 election. The Candlelight Party, with many of the same members, took its place.Opposition party members said they would appeal the Election Commission ruling. After the C.N.R.P. was dissolved in 2017, Mr. Hun Sen has moved on several fronts to neutralize the remaining opposition. Government-controlled courts convicted about 100 opposition figures of treason and other charges, jailing some and prompting several of its leaders to flee into exile.The most prominent opposition figure to remain in Cambodia, Kem Sokha, was tried on a charge of treason and sentenced in March to 27 years of house arrest. In February, the government shut down a popular news outlet, Voice of Democracy, claiming it had published a false report. It was one of the few remaining publications to provide critical coverage of the government.The United Nations Human Rights Commission said at the time that “these actions seriously undermine the civic and political space, including the environment for free and fair elections in July.” Last month, Human Rights Watch accused the Cambodian government of stepping up verbal attacks that had led to violent assaults on members of the Candlelight Party.“Dismantling opposition parties and disqualifying, assaulting and arresting their members before election day means that there won’t be any real election at all,” it said in a statement.Members of the Candlelight Party said the Election Commission had demanded original copies of official party documents, which they said they no longer had because they had been seized in a police raid in 2017.After its ruling, the Election Commission said it had approved the registration of more than 10 other parties. These parties included those aligned with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or small, obscure parties that do not pose a serious electoral challenge to the prime minister.Mr. Hun Sen, 70, has held power for 38 years, eliminating opposition through the courts, through electoral manipulation, through violence and intimidation, and a coup in 1997. He has anointed his eldest son, Army chief Hun Manet, to succeed him and has indicated that the transition of family power would follow this year’s election in July.“This is a very dangerous year for Hun Sen,” Sam Rainsy, a prominent opposition leader, wrote from exile in an essay published online earlier this month. “It’s the year when he decided to establish a political dynasty straight after the elections,” he wrote. More

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      Cambodian Opposition Leader Is Found Guilty of Treason Ahead of Election

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      Kem Sokha, co-founder of the defunct Cambodia National Rescue Party, was accused of conspiring to overthrow the government and sentenced to 27 years’ house arrest.Kem Sokha, Cambodia’s most prominent opposition politician still in the country, was sentenced to 27 years of house arrest Friday on a charge of treason and banned from running or voting in elections.Cambodian courts are not an independent branch of government, and the sentence was the latest step that Prime Minister Hun Sen has taken as he crushes what remains of a political opposition in advance of a July election. Mr. Hun Sen, who has been in power for 38 years, has said he is planning to run in that election and has anointed one of his sons, Lt. Gen. Hun Manet, to succeed him in the future.“It is not right, unfair and can’t be accepted,” said Ang Oudom, one of Mr. Kem Sokha’s lawyers, after the sentence was announced. He said he would appeal but added: “It is a political case, and only politicians can decide.”Outside the courthouse, where several ambassadors had gathered to hear the verdict, W. Patrick Murphy, the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, said the case was fabricated and a miscarriage of justice.“Denying Kem Sokha and other political figures their freedom of expression, their freedom of association, undermines Cambodia’s Constitution, international commitment and past progress to develop a pluralist and inclusive society,” he said.Mr. Kem Sokha, 69, is a co-founder of the now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party, known as the C.N.R.P., along with Sam Rainsy, who has been in self-imposed exile since 2015 to avoid arrest for defamation, among other charges. Mr. Kem Sokha was arrested in September 2017 in a showy late-night raid on a charge of colluding with the United States government to take power in Cambodia.That charge was based on a statement he made in a video about receiving advice from American pro-democracy groups. He has denied the charges, and Washington has dismissed them as “fabricated conspiracy theories.”From abroad, Mr. Rainsy said the charges against Mr. Kem Sokha were “based on a grotesque reading of a standard speech he had made years earlier in Australia.”Mr. Kem Sokha was moved from prison to house arrest just over a year after he was detained and then freed from house arrest in November 2019 but banned from politics. Soon after his arrest, the Supreme Court dissolved the C.N.R.P. after the government accused it of plotting its overthrow.The party posed the most serious threat to Mr. Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, known as the C.P.P., and the C.N.R.P.’s dissolution cleared the way for Mr. Hun Sen’s party to sweep all 125 seats in the National Assembly in a 2018 election.Mr. Kem Sokha’s arrest and the termination of the C.N.R.P. were part of a wide-ranging crackdown on opposition politicians, activists and members of the press that has seen hundreds of people jailed or sentenced in absentia after fleeing abroad. In June, a court in Phnom Penh convicted at least 51 opposition figures of “incitement” and “conspiracy” as well as other charges.Among those convicted was Theary Seng, a lawyer and civil rights activist with dual American and Cambodian citizenship, who is now serving a six-year sentence in a remote prison in Preah Vihear Province.Human Rights Watch, which has strongly condemned each step of the crackdown in Cambodia, called on foreign governments Friday to reassess their approach to Mr. Hun Sen’s government.“It was obvious from the start that the charges against Kem Sokha were nothing but a political ploy by Prime Minister Hun Sen to sideline Cambodia’s major opposition leader and eliminate the country’s democratic system,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.He said the sentence “isn’t just about destroying his political party but about quashing any hope that there can be a genuine election in July.” Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director over Southeast Asia, emphasized the same point, saying, “This verdict is an unmistakable warning to opposition groups months before national elections.”Mr. Hun Sen put the point in graphic terms in a speech in January, in which he warned his political opponents to prepare for assault. He said he could “gather people belonging to the C.P.P. to protest and beat you,” and added, “Be careful. If I can’t control my temper, you will be destroyed.”Sun Narin More

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      Your Friday Briefing: Men Flee Russian Conscription

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      Plus Japan props up the yen and Cambodia concludes its Khmer Rouge trials.A billboard in St. Petersburg promoting military service.Olga Maltseva/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMen flee Russia, fearing draftOne day after President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to bring 300,000 civilians into military service, thousands of Russians received draft papers and boarded buses to training sites. Many others left the country in a rush, paying rising prices to catch flights to Armenia, Georgia, Montenegro and Turkey, some of the countries that allow Russians to enter without visas.Russian officials said the call-up would be limited to people with combat experience. But one journalist said her husband, a father of five with no military experience, had been summoned.Our reporter spoke to a 23-year-old who bought a plane ticket to Istanbul, wrapped up his business and kissed his crying mother goodbye — all within about 12 hours of Putin’s announcement. He said he has no idea when he will return. “I was sitting and thinking about what I could die for, and I didn’t see any reason to die for the country,” he said. Here are live updates.Reaction: The E.U. is scrambling to decide how to respond. Countries are weighing security concerns against their desire to help those fleeing an unjust war.Surveillance: The Times obtained nearly 160,000 files from Russia’s powerful internet regulator, which the government uses to find opponents and squash dissent. Compared with China, much of the work of Russian censors is done manually, but what Moscow lacks in sophistication, it has made up for in determination.The Japanese yen has been sliding against the U.S. dollar.Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersJapan props up the declining yenJapan announced yesterday that it had intervened to prop up the value of the yen for the first time in 24 years, in an effort to stop the currency’s continuing slide against the dollar.Yesterday, the yen passed 145 to the dollar after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s announcement on Wednesday that it would raise its policy rate by an additional three-quarters of a percentage point. The yen has lost over 20 percent of its value against the dollar over the past year, and it has been the worst performing currency among major developed economies this year.Context: The yen’s plunge has largely been caused by Japan’s determination to keep interest rates low. The government’s intervention followed an announcement by the Bank of Japan that it would stick fast to its longstanding ultralow interest rate policy — even as most other countries have begun to follow the U.S. Federal Reserve’s increases.Explore the World of the ‘Lord of the Rings’The literary universe built by J.R.R. Tolkien, now adapted into a new series for Amazon Prime Video, has inspired generations of readers and viewers.Artist and Scholar: Tolkien did more than write books. He invented an alternate reality, complete with its own geography, languages and history.Being Frodo: The actor Elijah Wood explains why he’ll never be upset at being associated with the “Lord of the Rings” movie series. A Soviet Take: A 1991 production based on Tolkien’s novels, recently digitized by a Russian broadcaster, is a time capsule of a bygone era. From the Archives: Read what W.H. Auden wrote about “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first volume of Tolkien’s trilogy, in 1954.History: For years, a weak yen was widely seen as a boon for its export-driven economy, making Japanese products cheaper and more attractive for consumers abroad.Elsewhere: The Bank of England raised its key interest rate by half a point to 2.25 percent yesterday, the highest level since 2008. It is the latest effort to tame high inflation.Khieu Samphan, 91, is the last surviving Khmer Rouge leader. Nhet Sok Heng/Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, via Associated PressProsecuting the Khmer RougeFor more than 15 years, a court in a military camp in Cambodia has been working to prosecute the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the late 1970s.In its final hearing yesterday, it rejected an appeal by Khieu Samphan, 91, the fanatical communist movement’s last surviving leader, upholding his conviction and life sentence for genocide and other crimes.Many victims think the United Nations-backed tribunal, which spent over $330 million, was a hollow exercise conducted far too long after the atrocities were committed. Only three people were convicted, and many of the Khmer Rouge’s senior figures — including its notorious top leader, Pol Pot — were long dead by the time the court was created.Background: From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge caused the deaths of nearly a quarter of the population from execution, torture, starvation and untreated disease as it sought to abolish modernity and create an agrarian utopia.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificKim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, with Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in 2019.Pool photo by Alexander ZemlianichenkoNorth Korea denied a U.S. intelligence report that it was selling millions of artillery shells and rockets ​to Russia, accusing the U.S. of spreading a “reckless” rumor.The Malaysian businessman known as Fat Leonard, who was at the center of a U.S. Navy bribery scandal, was recaptured after he escaped house arrest two weeks ago.Tonga’s enormous underwater volcano that erupted in January may have caused a short-term spike in global warming, scientists said.Yoon Suk Yeol, the South Korean president, was caught on a hot mic calling U.S. lawmakers “idiots,” The Washington Post reports.Around the WorldDavid Malpass, the president of the World Bank, refused to acknowledge human-caused global warming earlier this week. Yesterday, he said he accepted the overwhelming scientific conclusion.A U.S. federal appeals court allowed the Justice Department to resume using sensitive documents seized from Donald Trump in its investigation.U.S. veterans are pushing Congress to grant Afghan evacuees a pass to residency, but some Republicans argue they pose security risks.A deadly cholera outbreak is spreading in Syria, where millions of people, displaced by civil war, lack clean water and health care.What Else Is HappeningCameron Smith/Getty Images for Laver CupRoger Federer will play the last competitive match of his career today in London.For the first time, Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Island, a striking demographic shift that could eventually fuel calls to reunite Ireland.The U.S. Senate ratified an international treaty to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, the planet-warming chemicals found in refrigerators and air-conditioners.The U.S. is on track to break its record for guns intercepted at airport checkpoints in one year. So far 4,600 have been discovered, and nearly 90 percent are loaded.A Morning ReadMohammed Zubair, second from the right, is a founder of Alt News. He was jailed this summer over a complaint from an anonymous Twitter user.Atul Loke for The New York TimesFake news is rising in India, with a surge of disinformation after the rise of Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister. Alt News, an independent website, has emerged as a leading debunker of misinformation, such as stories about child-kidnapping gangs and Muslims spreading Covid.But highlighting hate speech against minority groups has put it on a collision course with Modi’s government: A founder was recently arrested and is accused of spreading communal unrest.ARTS AND IDEASTolkien, for Italy’s right wing?Italy’s national election is on Sunday. Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right politician who is the front-runner to become the country’s next prime minister, has a surprising personal manifesto.Meloni loves “The Lord of the Rings” and sees the fantasy adventure series, written by J.R.R. Tolkien, as something of a sacred text. As a youth activist in the post-Fascist Italian Social Movement, she used to dress up as a hobbit.That might seem like a youthful infatuation. But in Italy, “The Lord of the Rings” has informed generations of post-Fascist youth. They have looked to Tolkien’s traditionalist mythic age for symbols, heroes and creation myths free of Fascist taboos, from which they could reconstruct a hard-right identity.Meloni, 45, said that she had learned from dwarves, elves and hobbits the “value of specificity” with “each indispensable for the fact of being particular.” She extrapolated that as a lesson about protecting Europe’s sovereign nations and unique identities.“I think that Tolkien could say better than us what conservatives believe in,” Meloni said. “I don’t consider ‘The Lord of the Rings’ fantasy.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKelly Marshall for The New York TimesThis roasted mushroom and halloumi grain bowl is warm and adaptable.What to Read“Getting Lost,” a series of diary entries by the French writer Annie Ernaux, recounts an all-consuming romance with a younger man.DrinkThe appletini is back, and it’s ushering in a new martini era.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Even the slightest bit (five letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Phil Pan is our next International editor. He was the first Asia editor of The Times based in Hong Kong and previously served as our Beijing bureau chief. The latest episode of “The Daily” is on Vladimir Putin’s escalation of the war.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Your Friday Briefing: Heat Shakes China’s Economy

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      Plus the U.S. and Taiwan will begin formal trade talks and Cambodia spars with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Good morning. We’re covering overlapping global heat waves and coming formal trade talks between the U.S. and Taiwan.Tea farmers have covered their crops with nets in an effort to shield them from the scorching heat.CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty ImagesHeat wave strains China’s economyFor more than two months, China has faced its most severe heat wave in six decades. The economy is suffering, and the heat wave is forecast to persist for at least another week. The southwest is particularly hard hit.A drought has shrunk rivers and disrupted the region’s supply of water and hydropower. Factories have been forced to close and the region is suffering from rolling blackouts. In two cities, office buildings were ordered to shut off their air conditioning to spare an overextended electrical grid.The intense heat is also expected to affect agriculture and significantly reduce the size of China’s rice harvest, because it has caused long periods of drought.Context: The economy has been headed toward its slowest pace of growth in years, dragged down by the country’s stringent Covid policies. Youth unemployment has reached a record high, while trouble in the real estate sector has set off an unusual surge of public discontentment.Europe: The dry summer has strained Europe’s energy supply, reducing hydropower, threatening nuclear reactors and crimping coal transport. Russian gas cuts could cause further complications.Despite Taiwan’s small size, it is the U.S.’s eighth-largest trading partner.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesU.S. and Taiwan to begin trade talksThe Biden administration will begin formal trade negotiations with Taiwan in the fall, deepening economic and technological ties.The talks, which were announced in June, will focus on 11 trade areas, U.S. officials said, including agriculture and digital industries. In an apparent nod to China, the governments said they would combat market distortions caused by state-owned enterprises.China, which claims the self-governed island as its own, responded to the news with displeasure. An official said that Beijing opposed “any form of official exchanges between any country and the Taiwan region of China.”Background: Relations between Washington and Beijing have deteriorated this summer. After top U.S. lawmakers visited Taiwan this month, China responded by ramping up military drills and firing missiles into the waters around the island. Yesterday, Taiwan held a drill simulating a response to a Chinese missile attack, The Associated Press reported.Region: The U.S. is conducting a separate trade negotiation with 13 Asian nations to form a pact known as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Taiwan expressed interest in joining those talks, but given its contested status, it has not been invited.via The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkDoes the Met have stolen Cambodian artifacts?The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City, worked hard to build up its South and Southeast Asian collection. But 13 items came from a dealer who was later indicted as an illegal trafficker of Cambodian artifacts.Cambodian officials now say they believe many of those items were stolen. They also suspect that dozens of other artifacts were looted, and they believe the dealer, Douglas A.J. Latchford, who died in 2020, often sold stolen items to other dealers and donors before they ended up at the museum.They are now in a standoff with the Met. The Cambodians — who base their claim in part on the account of a reformed looter — have enlisted the U.S. Justice Department.But the Met has not seen the evidence, including the looter’s accounts, which it says it had “repeatedly requested.” The museum, which said it has a track record of returning looted items, has refused to show Cambodia internal documents that might buttress, or undermine, its title to the objects.Context: U.S. officials who regard the looter, Toek Tik, as credible have cited his testimony in three cases. Earlier this month, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York announced the return of 30 looted artifacts that had been sold by Latchford.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificMourners carrying the body of a victim of a mosque bombing in Kabul yesterday.Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated PressA bombing at a crowded mosque in Kabul killed at least 21 people during evening prayers, the BBC reports.Flash floods killed at least 40 people in Afghanistan, adding to overlapping crises.Vanuatu’s president dissolved Parliament yesterday after an attempt to oust the prime minister, Reuters reports.Hundreds of people evacuated their homes as days of torrential rains slammed parts of New Zealand, Reuters reports.The New Zealand police said human remains found in suitcases bought in a storage unit auction belonged to children, The Associated Press reports.The War in UkraineHere are live updates.António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, is visiting Ukraine. Yesterday, he urged Moscow and Kyiv to continue to show the “spirit of compromise” that led to the grain deal. Today, he plans to visit Odesa, where grain is again flowing. Russia’s shelling of Kharkiv killed at least 15 people and destroyed a dormitory for deaf people. Local officials say more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in the war.The U.S. and Russia are competing for control of a sleepy Greek port, which the U.S. is using to send weapons to Ukraine. Turkey also senses a threat.Around the WorldA federal judge ordered the U.S. government to propose redactions to the affidavit the F.B.I. used to search Donald Trump’s home.A judge ruled that the body of José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s longtime ruler, can be returned from Spain. He died last month in Barcelona, setting off a dispute over where to bury him.Soldiers raided seven Palestinian human rights organizations that Israel has accused of having links to terrorism. The U.N. and rights groups criticized the move, saying it was meant to silence criticism of Israel.A Morning Read“As long as we have blood in our body we will fight,” a 70-year-old fighter said.In northern Afghanistan, hundreds of Shiite Muslims joined an uprising led by a former Taliban commander. Times journalists spent time with the rebels.Lives lived: Hanae Mori, a Japanese couturier, was the first Asian woman to join the ranks of French high fashion. She died at 96.ARTS AND IDEASA feud over the Zulu throneThe Zulus have a new king. But it’s not clear exactly who he is.South Africa’s largest nation has been gripped by a battle over the royal succession since King Goodwill Zwelithini’s death last year. This Saturday, Misuzulu Sinqobile Zulu is expected to perform a ritual that will be a precursor to his formal coronation. Last weekend, his brother Simakade ka Zwelithini carried out the same ritual.Misuzulu has already been recognized by the South African government and senior members of the royal family. But his right to the throne is being challenged by Simakade, King Zwelithini’s oldest living son. There has been a scuffle at the royal palace. At least one news outlet ran a poll asking readers to pick a king.During a televised court hearing that weighed custom and constitutional law, a judge ruled in favor of Misuzulu. But his detractors have refused to accept the decision. There’s more at stake than a royal title. The head of the Zulus will control a $3.9 million annual budget provided by the South African government.As the traditional leader of 14 million people, the Zulu king also has a politically influential position. — Lynsey Chutel, Briefings writer based in Johannesburg.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookJoe Lingeman for The New York TimesFor an easy weeknight pasta, try smoked almond pesto spaghetti.What to WatchHere are some unexpected streaming suggestions.What to ReadIn “Elizabeth Finch,” a rigorous new novel from Julian Barnes, an adult student nurses an obsession with his teacher.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: “Ginormous” (four letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. The Times’s Video team won an Edward R. Murrow Award for its documentary about Jan. 6.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on documents at Mar-a-Lago.Lynsey Chutel wrote today’s Arts and Ideas. You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Norodom Ranariddh, Royal Player in Cambodian Politics, Dies at 77

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      He rode a wave of royalist sentiment to win a United Nations-sponsored election in 1993, but was later ousted in a power struggle with his co-prime minister.Prince Norodom Ranariddh of Cambodia, a son and brother of kings who shared the post of prime minister until he was ousted in a coup, died on Nov. 29 in France. He was 77.His death was announced on Facebook by Cambodia’s minister of information, Khieu Kanharith. No cause was given, but Prince Ranariddh had been in ill heath since being badly injured in 2018 in an automobile accident in which his wife, Ouk Phalla, was killed.Prime Minister Hun Sen, the man who ousted Prince Ranariddh in a coup and crushed his political party, said in a statement that he was heartbroken over the loss of “one of the royal noble figures who had sharp will, was extremely intelligent and was loyal to the nation, religion and monarchy.”Bearing a striking resemblance to his popular and charismatic father, King Norodom Sihanouk, the prince rode a wave of royalist sentiment to win a United Nations-sponsored election in 1993.The election followed the 1991 Paris peace accords that officially ended a nearly decade-long civil war in Cambodia. Before the civil war, 1.7 million people were killed from 1975 to 1979 during the genocide under the communist Khmer Rouge.Prince Ranariddh’s electoral rival, Mr. Hun Sen, a hardened former Khmer Rouge soldier who led a communist government backed by Vietnam in Phnom Penh, refused to accept the results of the election and threatened renewed fighting.In a compromise, Prince Ranariddh was named first prime minister, Mr. Hun Sen was named second prime minister and government ministries were shared by officials of their two parties, the royalist Funcinpec and the communist Cambodian People’s Party.Prince Ranariddh with Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2004. The two had shared power a decade earlier, but Mr. Hun Sen ousted the prince in a power struggle.David Longstreath/Associated PressA professor of law who was educated in France and had been teaching there, Prince Ranariddh was not suited to leadership in the harsh political landscape of postwar Cambodia. Mr. Hun Sen, though he was nominally second in command, easily outmaneuvered him.“He had to work through the communist state apparatus including the army and security forces, all firmly under the control of his no less communist coalition partner and rival,” Lao Mong Hay, a leading Cambodian political analyst, said in an email.In 1997 the two men’s private armies clashed in a two-day battle in the streets of Phnom Penh; Prince Ranariddh, who had fled to France, was ousted as co-prime minister, and Mr. Hun Sen declared himself “the only captain of the ship.” Dozens of Funcinpec’s senior officials and military commanders were hunted down and killed.Mr. Hun Sen remains in power today, a self-declared strongman in what is effectively a one-party state.Prince Ranariddh returned from abroad in 1998 to lead a weakened opposition party. When it lost an election that year, he was named president of the National Assembly, a post he held until 2006.The prince renounced any claims to the throne from among many eligible heirs, and in 2004, when his father abdicated, his half brother Norodom Sihamoni was named king by a Throne Council of which Prince Ranariddh was a member.Neither brother inherited their father’s charisma and political adroitness. King Sihamoni, who had been a dancer, reigns as a purely ceremonial monarch.The former King Sihanouk remained a revered figure in Cambodia until his death in 2012 at 89.Prince Ranariddh’s up-and-down political career continued. After being ousted as leader of Funcinpec in 2006, he founded the Norodom Ranariddh Party, was driven into exile by a conviction for embezzlement, was pardoned and returned to Cambodia.He later launched another short-lived party, the Community of Royalist People’s Party, then rejoined Funcinpec and was re-elected party leader. The party never again posed a challenge to Mr. Hun Sen.Prince Ranariddh in 2011. He had an up-and-down political career after being ousted.Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNorodom Ranariddh was born on Jan. 2, 1944, the second son of King Sihanouk and his first wife, Phan Kanhol, a ballet dancer attached to the royal court.The prince was sent to boarding school in Marseille, France, then received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Provence in 1968 and a law degree in 1969.He obtained a Ph.D. at the university in 1975, then took a post there in 1979 teaching constitutional law and political sociology.In 1983, after a coalition of opposition armies formed an armed resistance against Mr. Hun Sen’s Vietnamese-installed government, Prince Ranariddh left his teaching career at the urging of his father and became leader of the royalist forces, which were given the awkward name Funcinpec.The party’s name is an acronym for the French words “Front uni national pour un Cambodge indépendant, neutre, pacifique et coopératif,” which translates as National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, Economic and Cooperative Cambodia.Funcinpec was transformed into a political party in 1993.Prince Ranariddh is survived by a daughter, Norodom Rattana Devi; four sons, Norodom Chakravudh, Norodom Sihariddh, Norodom Sutharidh and Norodom Ranavong; his half brother King Norodom Sihamoni; and several other half siblings. He divorced his previous wife, Norodom Marie, in 2010.Sun Narin More