Phnom Penh  - As the trial of the Khmer Rouge's former chief torturer enters its most crucial stage Monday, court observers and victims of the genocidal regime have raised questions about the troubled UN-backed tribunal's role in Cambodia's search for justice and reconciliation.

More than three decades after the Khmer Rouge was toppled from power, former Tuol Sleng torture prison warden Kaign Guek Eav, known by his revolutionary name Duch, is to appear for the first substantial hearing of his trial on charges of war crimes, torture and breeches of the Geneva Conventions.

Phnom Penh  - The elegant woman has dainty hands and long, narrow feet. Her limbs are incredibly limber - she easily bends back her fingers until they touch her forearm, her toes at a 90-degree angle - the results of decades of training and dedication.

Vong Metry, 56, has been a classical dancer since the age of 5, an occupation that carried a death sentence after 1975, when Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge regime overran the country, killing almost everyone who was not a farmer or worker.

Bangkok  - The value of Cambodia's garment exports in January was 27 per cent lower than in the same period last year as demand in the United States and Europe slumped, national media reported Thursday.

Garment exports were worth about 246 million US dollars in January 2008 but had dropped to about 177 million in the first month of this year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Commerce.

Exports to the United States dropped by about 35 per cent while exports to Europe were down by about 10 per cent.

Phnom Penh - Attorneys for a former Khmer Rouge leader on Wednesday accused judges at Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal of undermining the court's transparency by ordering the defence team to remove legal documents from the defence's website.

Attorneys for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary said in a statement that judges had acted with "flawed legal reasoning."

Phnom Penh- A top judge at Cambodia's UN-backed  tribunal said Monday lack of international funding meant the court would be unable to pay its domestic staff salaries this month.

Kong Srim, president of the tribunal's Supreme Court Chamber, told a plenary session of tribunal judges in Phnom Penh that the international donor shortfall had put the Cambodian side of the hybrid court in a dire financial position.

"Unfortunately the national side of the court will not have sufficient funds for the staff salaries this month," he said.

Cha-am, Thailand - Efforts to set up a human rights body for the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) got off to a bad start Saturday when Myanmar and Cambodia blocked civil society representatives from attending talks with the group's leaders.

The 14th ASEAN Summit being held in Cha-am, 130 kilometres from Bangkok, has been billed as the most "inclusive" meeting of the 42-year-old South-East Asian grouping to date.

The summit kicked off Saturday morning with a series of talks between ASEAN leaders and representatives of civil society, parliamentarians, youth organizations and the business community.