Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Give our loot back: Cambodia called on the United Kingdom last week to help it recover objects it says were looted from its temples and smuggled to British museums and warehouses. Culture Minister Phoeurng Sackona said London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum possess stolen Cambodian artifacts including ancient statues, which Cambodians believe hold the souls of their ancestors. The British Museum is thought to have around 100 Cambodian pieces, all of which are in storage; the Victoria & Albert has more than 50. Both museums offered to carefully consider the requests but denied wrongdoing. Many stolen works were likely trafficked by Douglas Latchford, a rogue British art dealer who pillaged Cambodian antiquities worth millions of dollars, even working with the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, before his death in 2020.