Phnom Penh 

Phnom Penh - Cambodian human rights groups accused the government and military Wednesday of brutally evicting hundreds of families and torching their homes in a rural southern village early in the week.

Rights monitors said at least three people were seriously injured by beatings when soldiers, police and forestry officials forcibly evicted up to 300 hundred families from the 20-hectare site Monday.

Authorities torched about 130 homes on Monday and another 170 on Tuesday in the second such eviction in the area this year, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights said in statement.

Phnom Penh  - UN Assistant Secretary-General Peter Taksoe-Jensen will travel to Cambodia this week to discuss the country's troubled Khmer Rogue tribunal with Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, national

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Phnom Penh - Cambodia's annual Water Festival, or Bon Um Tuk, began in the capital Phnom Penh on Tuesday amid fears for a boat racer who went missing the previous day during training session for the traditional regatta.

The Cambodia Daily newspaper reported 38-year-old Sin Sang from Pursat province in the country's west fell from his team's race boat 50 metres from the shore of Tonle Sap river on Monday.

Phnom Penh - The Cambodian government on Monday launched an investigation into a helicopter crash that killed the country's controversial chief of police and three others on Sunday night.

Hok Lundy, a close ally of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, died along with deputy army commander Sok Sa Em and two pilots when their helicopter crashed en route to the police chief's home province of Svay Rieng near the Vietnamese border.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said an investigation into the incident had begun but declined to provide any further details.

"We are unable to provide specific details until the investigation is completed," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.