Continuing with the week's news from Cambodia ...

At the same time Cambodia is courting strip malls, they're also renewing efforts to get UNESCO to classify an ancient temple on the Thai border as a World Heritage site.

The Preah Vihear temple, an 11th and 12th century complex in the far north of the country, is now only accessible from the Thai side of the border, but is of huge significance to Cambodians.

Angkor Wat, the country's biggest tourist attraction and most important cultural symbol, was granted World Heritage status in 1992.

Who knows? Folks might eventually be able to take the train all the way from China to Cambodia, with a stop at Phreah Vihear.

Two Chinese firms are studying the feasibility of a rail line that would link Ho Chi Minh City to Cambodia as one leg of the three-and-a-half-thousand-mile long Trans-Asia Railway plan that would start in China's Yunnan province and end up in Singapore after passing through Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Malaysia.

This is in the works and expected to be complete in 2015. Now that's an Orient Express.

More construction to report ... the construction of the Prek Kdam Bridge over the Tonle Sap River. Also on the cards: construction of the National Road No. 8, the National Road No. 76, and the Prek Tamak Bridge over the Mekong.

$207 million is what's being borrowed to fund the projects, if anyone was wondering about the tab.

And more links between Cambodia and her neighbors come as air service is set to start between Myanmar and Siem Reap, as I was writing a while back. That will make temple touring faster.

As a reminder of just how fragile political security can be in South East Asia, here's a report of arrests connected to a plot to overthrow the Laotian Government.

With all the intrigue of an spy novel or action flick, the real-life story of retired Laotian military men and a former California National Guard officer is very scary.

"We're looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Twiss said in federal court.

Thousands of co-conspirators remain at large, many in other countries, Twiss said.

Yikes.

Japan and Cambodia have signed bilateral investment pact that insures that Japanese firms will be, "treated equally with local firms in terms of regulations and taxation, and the Cambodian side will make efforts to build a favorable investment environment."

I predict more malls.

In an interesting move UNICEF is supporting ... although I can't establish to what extent financially,since their press release is, although big on flourish, very vague on details, ... the training of monks to deal with people living with HIV/AIDS.

“Buddhist monks play an important role to decrease stigma and discrimination against families living with HIV/AIDS,” said the head of UNICEF Cambodia’s HIV/AIDS Section, Haritiana Rakotomamonjy. “Monks provide spiritual and psychological support to families and children affected by HIV/AIDS. They also help mobilize community support to make sure that those children are able to come to their monthly medical visit.”

Thoughts on this, anyone?

Garment factory workers, mostly women, all poor, have nightshift wages slashed as the government amends labor laws to, "create more jobs and attract more foreign companies to invest in the kingdom."

This story really hits me as, like many, the orphanage that cared for my kids is within walking distance of a number of garment factories that employ hundreds of women. Many come from distant provinces to work for money to send home to families ... at $50 per month for the day shift, and now only a 30% shift allowance instead of the 100% they were getting for working nights ... and unplanned pregnancies are often nothing less than tragic. Returning home either pregnant or with a child in arms is simply not an option.

These legions of uprooted and desperate women are often linked to the numbers of abandoned children. Could this pay cut impact my children's birth mothers? It's not unlikely.