Phnom Penh - The Cambodian government official in charge of the Khmer Rouge tribunal pledged to resign if any allegations of corruption prove true, a court spokesman said Tuesday.

"Sean Visoth has pledged he will resign if any evidence of corruption is found, from today," court spokesman Reach Sambath said.

Visoth is the director of administration for the tribunal.

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's mushrooming media outlets and a crisis of advertising revenue has claimed the English-language Mekong Times daily, the paper's editor said Tuesday.

Editor-in-chief Neth Pheaktra said by telephone that a lack of funds had forced the closure of the hard copy edition but that the paper, which also published in Khmer, was still considering options.

"We are not sure (about an internet edition) yet - we are not sure what we will do," he said.

Phnom Penh - Nearly 30 years after the regime ended, a joint UN-Cambodian court set up to try former Khmer Rouge leaders announced it had indicted its first defendant Tuesday - a former torture centre commandant.

"On August 8, 2008 the co-investigating judges delivered a closing order ... indicting Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, and sending him forward for trial for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (war crimes) as regards his role in S-21," the court said in a statement.

Phnom Penh  - Eight foreign tourists and five Cambodians were rescued from a tourist boat which capsized in high winds and sank near the popular tourist hub of Siem Reap, a district official said Monday.

One New Zealander, three Australians and four Britons were rescued from the Vietnamese-skippered 20-metre slow boat by Cambodian vessels which came to the rescue, Tho Sambath, a district governor, said by telephone.

Phnom Penh - Officials from the United Nations Development Programme said Friday that investigations were ongoing into allegations of funding irregularities on the Cambodian side of the joint UN-Cambodian Khmer Rouge tribunal.

The UN said in a statement earlier this week that corruption allegations against the tribunal, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, that were received in late June were being reviewed and as a result funding for the Cambodian side remained frozen.

A spokesman for the media unit of the court was unavailable for comment Friday, but the allegations have stalled distribution of more than 300,000 dollars in wages, which have not yet been paid for July.

Phnom Penh  - The leader of a Hari Krishna-affiliated aid organization in Cambodia was to appeal a conviction for molesting a 12-year-old girl, a Phnom Penh court said Thursday.

Police said US national Thomas Rapanos Wayne, head of a Hare Krishna aid group, was found naked in the company of two girls, aged 12 and 16, when he was arrested in a guest house in the capital in March. The age of consent in Cambodia is 15.

Wayne, alias Tattva Darshan Das, 55, was sentenced Wednesday to two and a half years in prison for committing indecent acts against minors.

"He was convicted but he said he was innocent and he will appeal," court clerk Keing Bokhea said by telephone.