Jerry Atrick wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 12:33 pm Wild life.

Still a bit young to die though

R.I.P

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 7:34 pm Nate Thayer, Dead at 62, and Stories That Still Resonate
Among his many scoops, Thayer’s work also foreshadowed the rapid growth of Chinese influence in Cambodia.
By Luke Hunt
January 11, 2023
American journalist Nate Thayer, who died on January 3 at the age of 62 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, left behind a trail of good friends and colleagues and a wealth of stories that spanned from Cambodia and China to Iraq and the United States.

Thayer arrived in Cambodia as a reporter with Associated Press. He then worked as a freelancer for the Far Eastern Economic Review and by the early 1990s had become a consistent contributor to the Phnom Penh Post. He covered the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and between 2011 and 2016 we collaborated on North Korea-related stories.

In Cambodia, he scored about 30 front-page bylines in the Phnom Penh Post alone across five or six years in the 1990s, a solid effort given the newspaper came out only once every two weeks.

Often his stories were grand, excellent examples of a journalist writing a first draft of history and they still resonate today. His 1997 interview with Pol Pot remains a case in point; it was a story that has overshadowed all his other work.

But the edgiest story and the one that raised the greatest fears was published in August 1994 when Cambodia was led by two prime ministers, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and HE, and detailed corruption within the ranks of the military.
“This is the Nate story that gave me the most jitters and worries about blowback,” said Michael Hayes, co-founder and then publisher of the Phnom Penh Post.

Another story that I liked but received much less fanfare was published in the same issue. Headlined “Chinese City of Dreams,” the story detailed how the Cambodian government had rejected Chinese plans to build a “new Hong Kong” in the heart of the country.

Thayer was ahead of the game when he broke the story. It included plans to allow 200,000 Chinese nationals the right to immigrate and inhabit the city to be built in an exclusive zone on a 20 square kilometer plot with $1 billion earmarked for its construction.

These were colossal numbers for that time and the article created its own stir both within government and out, particularly among diplomats who were yet to grasp Beijing’s expansion plans and Thayer’s story did serve as an early warning.
In full: https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/nate-th ... -resonate/