Cambodia opens a new $2 billion airport to serve Phnom Penh

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet on Monday inaugurated a major new airport to serve the capital Phnom Penh and boost tourism and foreign investment.

Techo International Airport is a three-runway facility that replaces the nearly 70-year-old Phnom Penh International Airport, which had only one runway.

The new $2 billion airport, in Kandal province about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Phnom Penh. began operating in September. It is a joint venture between the Cambodian government and the Overseas Cambodian Investment Corp.

Hun Manet said he hoped the new airport will be a driving forces in attracting more tourists and investors to Cambodia,"more than before the arrival of COVID-19."

The new airport is initially expected to be able to accommodate 13 million passengers, but its capacity will increase to 30 million after 2030, and up to 50 million by 2050.

The immediate prospects for a rise in foreign tourists have been overshadowed by the highly publicized death of a young South Korean man who reportedly was tricked into working in one of Cambodia’s online scam centers.

Many of the workers there are kept as virtual slaves to conduct online fraud in what is a multi-billion dollar organized crime activity. The illegal industry was highlighted last week when the United States and Britain enacted sanctions against organizers of a major Cambodian gang, and its alleged ringleader was indicted by a federal court in New York.

Tourism suffered another blow in July, when Cambodia fought a five-day conflict with neighboring Thailand. It was halted by a ceasefire but tensions remain high.

Cambodia received about 4 million foreign tourists from January through August this year, Hun Manet said in September. Last year, it received 6.7 million, a 23% increase from 2023.

It is Cambodia's second new major airport in two years. In October 2023, Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport was opened to help serve Cambodia's most popular tourist attraction, the centuries-old Angkor Wat temple complex.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, left, greets his officers together with his wife Pich Chanmony as they inaugurate Techo International Airport in Kandal province, Cambodia, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

A statue of Buddha is displayed at Techo International Airport in Kandal province, Cambodia, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, second from right, presides over together with his wife Pich Chanmony during an inauguration of Techo International Airport in Kandal province, Cambodia, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, front left, prays together with his wife Pich Chanmony to inaugurate Techo International Airport in Kandal province, Cambodia, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

An overview from beside of a new airport of Techo International Airportt in Kandal province, Cambodia, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

BERLIN (AP) — Standing on an open truck making its way through Berlin, Anahita Safarnejad turned to the crowd of Iranian protesters marching behind her and took the microphone.

“No more dictatorship in Iran, the mullahs must go!” she shouted. Hundreds of voices echoed her slogan with the same sense of urgency and desperation.

Across Europe, thousands of exiled Iranians have taken to the streets to shout out their rage at the government of the Islamic Republic which has cracked down on protests in their homeland, reportedly killing thousands of people.

Women have taken a prominent role in organizing the protests abroad, raising their voices against the theocratic government that discriminates against them.

But beyond the anger, there’s also a sense of fear and paralysis. Iran's government has been shutting down the internet and limiting phone calls for days, making it nearly impossible for Iranians in the diaspora to find out if their families back home are safe.

Safarnejad, 34, fled Iran seven years ago. She came to Berlin to study theater but now works in a bar when she's not attending one of the almost-daily protests in the German capital.

Since the demonstrations broke out in Iran in late December, Safarnejad said she's been living in two different realities that are almost impossible to combine. The easygoing hipster life of her new hometown is a jarring contrast to the bloody protests in Iran that she's been following every minute she doesn't have to work, glued to her phone for the latest updates.

While she was initially almost euphoric that the current uprising would finally bring freedom to Iran and she'd be able to go back home, her sense of hope has turned into horror.

Safarnejad hasn't spoken to her brother, also a protester, since communications with Iran were cut off. She's been scouring video on social media showing piles of dead bodies to see if he's among the corpses.

“I'm desperate and don't know how to keep going anymore,” she cried, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she spoke to The Associated Press during Wednesday's Berlin protest.

“I can’t really switch off. I can’t really stop reading the news either," she added, her voice breaking. “Because I’m waiting all the time for the internet to be available so I can get some answers from my family.”

The young woman's horror is felt by many of the more than 300,000 Iranians living in Germany — one of the biggest exile communities in Europe and similar in numbers to France and Britain. Many of them still have family ties to their homeland, even if they left decades ago.

Mehregan Maroufi's Persian cafe and bookstore in Berlin has become a place of solace for Iranians to share their grief without many words — because they know they are all living through the same nightmare.

Maroufi, the daughter of the late Iranian author Abbas Maroufi, welcomes Iranians and everyone else at the Hedayat Cafe, where she serves Persian tea with sweets such as chocolate cake topped with barberries. She lends an ear to anyone who has to get worries off their chest.

“For some, the emotions are still too high and too strong, so to speak, and it’s impossible to talk," the 44-year-old says, adding that she, too, had to force herself to open the cafe on some mornings because the violent images coming out of Iran sucked away all her energy.

“But at least you can find compatriots here. You can talk to a little, and that helps,” she said.

She says she's been listening to and learning from the convictions her fellow Iranians express when they talk about their dreams of an Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that — due to the uprising — now seems closer that ever before.

While most in the diaspora agree that the theocracy has to be toppled, ideas of what a new Iran should look like differ widely.

Adeleh Tavakoli, 62, joined a demonstration outside Britain’s Parliament in London earlier this week. She hasn't been back to Iran in 17 years but has spent decades protesting from afar against the Islamic Republic.

But with the latest wave of protests, she hopes that the Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah ousted by the Islamic Revolution in 1979, will return to power. If he does, she said, she has her bag packed and is ready to get on the first flight.

“For 47 years, our country has been captured by a terrorist regime,” she said. “We’ve been the voice of Iran. All we want is our freedom and to get rid of this horrible dictatorship.”

For Maral Salmassi, who came to Germany as a child in the 1980s, history explains the calls by exiled Iranians for Pahlavi to lead the country.

“As an Iranian, as someone who comes from this culture and knows its culture and history, I can only say that we have had kings and queens for thousands of years. It is our culture," said Salmassi. She is the chairwoman and founder of the Zera Institute think tank in Berlin, which researches democracy, radicalization and extremism.

She added that Iranians make up a multi-ethnic country and "to bring them all together again, we need a constitutional monarchy that symbolically and traditionally represents our identity and reunites everyone ... and then a democratic, federal parliament where everyone is represented equally.”

However, not everyone is convinced by Pahlavi. Maryam Nejatipur, 32, who also joined the protest in Berlin, thinks her country should avoid a cult of personality.

“We don’t need something like Khamenei again. We don’t need one person,” to lead us, she said, as she burnt a portrait of the Ayatollah and used the flames to light a cigarette — an act that's become a symbol of Iranian resistance.

Safarnejad, who led the recent Berlin protest, agrees.

“I don’t belong to the left, I’m not a liberal, I’m not a monarchist,” she stressed. “I’ve been there for women’s rights, I’m for human rights, I’m for freedom.”

Fanny Brodersen and Ebrahim Noroozi, in Berlin, and Brian Melley in London contributed reporting.

Protester Adeleh Tavakoli, left, demonstrates outside the House of Parliament, in London, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

People take part in a rally in support of anti-government protests in Iran, Berlin Germany, Wednesday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Iranian Mehregan Maroufi poses for a photo before an interview with the Associated Press in her cafe in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Iranian Maryam Nejatipur 32, poses for a photo after a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Iranian Anahita Safarnejad, 34, poses for a photo after a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)