Robert

Thornton, the owner of the Coyote Ugly bar at Wat Phnom, says municipal authorities

have told him they will come to close his bar on April 5. But Thornton, an American

citizen, says the only way that will happen is over his dead body - and he says he

means it.

Thornton and other business owners along the street there were notified one year

ago that they would be evicted. Business owners were coldly rebuffed when compensation

was requested.

Thornton says the municipal government's refusal to pay compensation is against the

law, in violation of Article 44 of the Investment Code.

He has complained to the government, to the US embassy, to his Congressman back in

the States and to anybody who will listen, all to no avail.

Thornton says that he thinks the events on April 5 may develop into an "international

incident".

**Several motorists involved in a bad car accident were taken to Calmette where they

lay, covered in blood, for almost three hours. No doctor would treat them as there

was no one to sign the forms guaranteeing payment.

One observer suggests that the hospital should sell t-shirts that read "I survived

Calmette" as a means of boosting revenues.

**The Khmer Rouge Tribunal has installed new Suggestion Boxes at their premises.

An informed source says that one of the suggestions received so far is: "If

you really believed in your party you'd give 50 percent."

**Websites are funny things. The Ministry of Interior's website section for Q &

A (http://www.interior.gov.kh/qes_an.asp) allows visitors to submit questions that

one assumes might get answered. But most of the recent questions, if you open them,

only have dozens of URLs for hard porn sites.

**The CPP's website (http://www.thecpp.org/?lang=eng) is actually a useful source

of news on what the government is doing but they may need someone to refine some

of the English.

Two recent articles posted Feb 12 on the site are: "Samdech Hun Sen received

a visiting Vietnamese allegation" and "Samdech Hun Sen Vietnamese Deputy

Prime Minister".

**Anthony Edwards, who acted in the American TV drama ER and also played "Goose"

in the movie Top Gun, was in town last month with his wife and four kids. They were

taking a year off and traveling around the world with a tutor in tow for the kids.

Edwards' kids' tutor said she followed the Rudolph Steiner philosophy of education

which included no use of machines until high school.