In the news - round-up

An article on the Celebrating Cambodia exhibition can be found on the Daily News site here. It's a show of 50 pieces, and includes work by five artists with roots in the SEAsian country, including two Cambodians living in the US, two living in Cambodia, and one non-Cambodian who visits the country frequently. Artwork in the show ranges from paintings to pottery to modern photographs of Cambodia and the exhibit depicts events from Cambodian history, as well as everyday pastoral life.
A very different type of show will be premiered in New York on 21 January. Seven, a documentary theatre piece based on the real-life stories of seven extraordinary women who are part of Vital Voices Global Partnership, will make its stage debut in the Big Apple. The production, featuring seven individual monologues told by seven actresses, is a collaboration between Vital Voices and seven award-winning playwrights. The lives of these diverse and courageous women illuminate the work of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international women's nonprofit in Washington, USA that identifies, trains, and connects emerging women leaders around the world. Cambodia's Mu Sochua will be featured. The former Minister of Women's Affairs in Cambodia (one of only two women in the cabinet), she was co-nominated in 2005 for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work against sex trafficking of women in Cambodia and neighbouring Thailand. More here.
Seattle Times reporter Haley Edwards is travelling around SEAsia and is currently in Cambodia. Read her features on the dancing road between the Thai border and Siem Reap, and the killing fields memorial near the town, here.
The big buzz around the newswires in the last few days has been the intended rally at Tuol Sleng by the US-based Dream for Darfur advocacy group, who'd planned to light an Olympic-style torch on Sunday at the Khmer Rouge's infamous prison in Phnom Penh to remember the victims of genocide and to urge China to press Sudan to end abuses in Darfur. The Cambodian government have said no, though its not yet known whether the rally will take place. Those intending to take part were the US Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli, Hollywood actress Mia Farrow, campaigner and politician Mu Sochua, authors and survivors Theary Seng and Loung Ung and former S-21 inmate Vann Nath. If it goes ahead, 9.30am is the start time.