Phnom Penh - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he would visit the Gulf states of Kuwait and Qatar in January to discuss rice exports in a bid to corner the Gulf market.

"Those countries have oil but no rice," he said in a speech carried on state radio during a rice-planting ceremony about 40 kilometres south-west of Phnom Penh. "I think the Gulf can become our rice market."

Cambodia has been exporting low-grade rice to African countries, such as Guinea, and is muscling its way toward being a major regional rice exporter.

Phnom Penh - Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong will meet his Thai counterpart, Taj Bunnag, on August 18 in an effort to settle a potentially explosive border dispute between the two countries, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday.

In a speech broadcast on state radio, Hun Sen said talks between Hor Namhong and Bunnag would be held in the Thai province of Hua Hin, where Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej has a sea-side palace.

"Hor Namhong will meet his Thai counterpart ... on August 18. Hor Namhong will then pay a courtesy visit to the Thai king," Hun Sen said at a rice farming ceremony in the south-western province of Kampong Speu, 40 kilometres west of the capital.

Hanoi - Police in Vietnam arrested four people for smuggling weapons into the country from Cambodia, an official said Tuesday.

Nguyen Thi Xuan Tram, 21, was arrested in the Mekong delta province of An Giang Saturday, carrying two Russian-model K59 handguns and 15 bullets, according to Bui Be Nam, the province's head of the Social Crime Investigation Department.

Tram confessed she had bought the guns and bullets in Cambodia for 2,100 dollars, the official said.

Nam said three other members of the ring, Le Minh Quang, To Viet Hung and To Thanh Hung, were arrested the following day after Tram told police they were involved.

Phnom Penh - Persistent industrial action and strikes by Cambodian unions were a deadly virus threatening the country's garment industry with the potential to kill it, a senior official said Tuesday.

"Strikes are the garment industry's HIV, we are very worried about this," Van Sou Ieng, president of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, was quoted as saying by the English-language Mekong Times.

"We know that some factories are about to close due to strikes and demonstrations and some factories are considering limiting output," Ieng, speaking at a training workshop, said.

Phnom Penh - Cambodian authorities would not rest until they found the killer of opposition journalist Khim Sambo and his son, a minister said Thursday.

Government spokesman and Information Minister Khieu Kanharith called the shooting murder of Sambo and his son in the capital at the peak of national election campaigning in July "embarassing" and said the government was determined to bring the killers to justice.

"We will not rest until we die or catch the perpetrators," Kanharith said.

Bangkok - Thailand expressed satisfaction Tuesday with the outcome of marathon talks with its neighbour Cambodia over joint claims to an ancient Hindu temple on their border that had threatened to turn into a military conflict.

On Monday Thai Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag and his Cambodian counterpart Hor Namhong spent 12 hours at a hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia, trying to defuse an escalating border spat over joint claims to portions of the Preah Vihear temple perched on their common border.