Country profile: Cambodia

• Population: 14.1 million (UN, 2003)
• Capital: Phnom Penh
• Area: 181,035 sq km (69,898 sq miles)
• Major language: Khmer
• Major religion: Buddhism
• Life expectancy: 55 years (men), 59 years (women) (UN)
• Monetary unit: 1 riel = 100 sen
• Main exports: Clothing, timber, rubber
• GNI per capita: US $300 (World Bank, 2002)
• Internet domain: .kh
• International dialling code: +855

Head of state: King Norodom Sihanouk King Sihanouk, after failing to resolve the political impasse that followed parliamentary elections in July 2003, left Cambodia in January 2004 for China. He subsequently moved on to North Korea.

Prime minister: Hun Sen

Cambodia's veteran leader Hun Sen was re-elected by parliament in July 2004 after nearly a year of political stalemate.

His Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won general elections in 2003, but failed to gain enough seats to allow it to rule alone. It finally struck a deal with the royalist Funcinpec party, headed by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, in June 2004. The new coalition faced a backlog of work that had built up during the impasse.

One of the world's longest-serving prime ministers, Hun Sen has been in power in various coalitions since 1985. He has denied accusations that he was once a top official within the Khmer Rouge, saying he was only an ordinary soldier.

In 1997 Hun Sen ousted his co-prime minister, Prince Ranariddh of Funcinpec, whilst the latter was abroad. But Hun Sen's failure to win an outright majority in elections the following year meant he had to turn again to Funcinpec to form another coalition.

Born in 1952, Hun Sen joined the Communist Party in the late 1960s and, for a time, was a member of the Khmer Rouge. During the Pol Pot regime in the late 1970s Hun Sen joined anti-Khmer Rouge forces based in Vietnam. He returned to Cambodia in 1979 to serve as foreign minister in the new government.

The fate of Cambodia shocked the world when the radical communist Khmer Rouge under their leader Pol Pot seized power in 1975 after years of guerrilla warfare.

The Khmer Rouge immediately abolished money and private property, and ordered city dwellers into the countryside to cultivate the fields.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians perished during the next three years - many died from exhaustion or starvation, others were systematically tortured and executed for being "enemies of the state".

Only now is Cambodia beginning to put the mechanism in place to bring those responsible for the "killing fields" to justice. Cambodia and the UN have agreed to set up a tribunal to try the surviving leaders of the genocide years.

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Subsistence farming employs 75% of the workforce, with the Mekong River providing fertile, irrigated fields for rice production.

Tourism is of growing economic importance to Cambodia. The temple complex at Angkor is the main draw for visitors.

Well over half of Cambodia is forested, but illegal logging is robbing the country of millions of dollars of badly-needed revenue. The environment is also suffering, with topsoil erosion and flooding becoming prevalent.

The spread of Aids is another threat to Cambodia's future. The country has one of the highest rates of infection in Asia, but has a limited ability to care for sufferers.

Many Cambodian newspapers and private radio and TV stations are dependent on support from political parties. Prime Minister Hun Sen and his allies control several radio and television channels.

Although press freedom is not guaranteed, Hun Sen has declared his support for press freedom, publicly praising the benefits to society of an unfettered media.

There are no restrictions on satellite dish ownership and foreign radio broadcasts can be received easily from neighbouring countries. The BBC and Radio France Internationale are available on FM in Phnom Penh.

The press