Big Oil in Tiny Cambodia: The Burden of New Wealth

SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia


Top officials, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, have been feeding the excitement this year, offering extravagantly optimistic estimates that the oil money could start to flow within two to three years.

But all of this is not necessarily good news.

For many struggling countries, like Nigeria and Chad, oil has been a poisoned bonanza, paradoxically dragging them into deeper poverty and corruption in what some call the oil curse.

NY Times