"Year Zero" and the International Dateline

Allowing for international time differences, media in some parts of the world have been arriving at April 17 a little later than Australia.

Here is some of the "Year Zero plus 30" coverage from around the globe.

1: Voice of America offers "30 Years After the Khmer Rouge, Justice in Cambodia Still Illusive", by Heda Bayron in Hong Kong.

30 years on, justice for the victims has yet to be served. ... Analysts say Cambodia is running out of time because the top Khmer Rouge leaders may be too old and sick to stand trial.

The piece also quotes Sok Sam Oeun, director Cambodian Defenders Project, and details his push for the proposed United Nations tribunal.

2: The Boston Globe's website offers "The aftershocks of the Khmer Rouge", by Karen J. Coates (author of Cambodia Now: Life in the Wake of War.)

Justice has two parts: punishing the guilty and honoring the victims. Twelve million of those victims are alive today. .... [so] who's the trial for? .... few people really talk about Cambodians. That's wrong.

The article does a vox pop of four Cambodians - translator and mototaxi driver Ke Monin, Po Kith Ly, doctor Ang Sody, and Youk Chhang.

3: The Manila Times offers "The final hours of Cambodia's Khmer Republic", by Jean-Jacques Cazeaux, of Agence France-Presse.

It recaps events over from April 15 to 17, 1975 "as the last lines of resistance were crushed under the Khmer Rouge's advance around Phnom Penh".

For the following 48 hours, day and night without interruption, the reporter witnessed the crumbling of the regime, the distress of its leaders, the final rounds of Cabinet talks and ultimately the collapse of the Khmer Republic.

4: Santa Cruz Sentinel tells of "A tale of two lives: Cambodian genocide tore two sisters apart", by staff writer Peggy Townsend.

It tells of author's Loung Ung's life being turned upside down.

On April 17, 1975, Pol Pot took over Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge rolled into the city, setting in motion a series of events that would bring the death of Ung's parents and two of her sisters - and separation from her beloved sister, Chou.