In Cambodia, where even internal phone calls tend to go astray, the idea of transmitting voice, facsimile or telex messages abroad is fanciful to say the least, but the Financial Times reports that its occasional correspondent John Pedler, currently in the capital Phnom Penh on an aid mission, has surmounted the problem by using a portable combined telex-facsimile-voice package, which he then can carry up to the roof of his hotel and transmit to the UK via the Inmarsat satellite and the earthstation in Norway; after a few initial set-backs, such as facing the wrong way, it appears that against all the odds Pedler is coming through loud and clear – and sometimes clearer than through the paper’s established internal systems.
