The business climate is changing in Cambodia with the enforcement of a law requiring firms to undergo financial audits.

So far, 400 business will have to provide their financial statements to independent auditors by this coming December, and more will be required to do so as time passes.

Firms that are subject to auditing are those meeting at least two of three criteria - having annual turnover of three billion riel ($731,700), total assets of two billion riel ($487,800) and 100 employees - according to a Finance Ministry regulation.

And speaking of transparency and accountability, the World Bank has announced that it's giving Cambodia $70 million to, "... help reduce its widespread poverty in a package that includes a plan to import cheap electricity from the country's neighbors."

That ought to up the perceived need for microwave ovens and popcorn makers, shouldn't it?

The funds will help "build stronger institutions of governance that will lead to higher growth and faster poverty reduction," Ian Porter, the bank's country director for Cambodia, said in the statement.

I don't quite get how higher growth leads to fast poverty reduction, unless we're only talking about poverty reduction for some, not all. But then, I'm no economist, am I?

For an interesting look at the World Bank from someone who might know a heck of a lot more than I do, this story called, "If a tree falls, does the World Bank hear it?" is worth a read.

It's about the Global Witness report we've talked about before, the one that accused government officials of snagging prime virgin land for themselves without concern for much of anything other than their own bottom line.

This story from the Chicago Tribune takes a look at what they're calling "genocide tourism", the attraction when tragedy becomes a destination.

From Auschwitz to Srebernica to the Killing Fields of Cambodia, some people are compelled to visit, to learn, to see for themselves.

I suspect most of us who've made our way through Tuol Sleng and walked in the footsteps of some of the almost 2 million Cambodians killed under Khmer Rouge tyranny understand how important it can be do feel a place as we acknowledge and absorb the horror that we so fervently hope to prevent ever happening again.

In what seems a sad, crass development, however, the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek near Phnom Penh will soon be abutted by hotel and visitors center. The Cambodian government has hired a Japanese firm to make this a reality. Sigh ...