Cambodia is among Southeast Asia's most impoverished nations where, according to the United Nations, the majority of the population gets by on just $1 a day.

But that hasn't stopped them from buying mobile phones like mad. As the Phnom Penh Post reports, the country has somehow managed to reach 20 million sales in SIM cards, the little chips inserted into cell phones that are encoded with unique phone numbers.

That's a wild statistic considering that the population stands at 14 million.

How is this possible?

For starters, SIM cards in Cambodia sell for just $2. Basic cell phone models run for about $20 and users can simply pop their SIM into a new handset when they upgrade.

Those prices aren't just a reflection of Cambodia's meager incomes. They're the outcome of intense competition among Cambodia's service providers. The loosely regulated and oversaturated market had, at one point, a whopping nine providers jockeying for customers.

And, finally, Cambodia's mobile phone mania is also owed to its decrepit infrastructure. As the CEO of the Cambodian provider Hello recently told the Phnom Penh Post, the "fixed line infrastructure in Cambodia is quite poor. So, this country has sort of leap-frogged technologies and gone straight to mobile."

All of that amounts to a telecommunications landscape marked by $2 cell phone numbers, effortless handset upgrades and cheap rates. Now don't you despise your U.S. carrier just a little more after reading this?

Cambodia's strongman premier is not known for his poignant appeals for tolerance.

Here's a quote, cited by Human Rights Watch, that reflects his take on dissenters in Cambodia: “I not only weaken the opposition, I’m going to make them dead ... and if anyone is strong enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and put them in a cage.”

And yet, the tough-talking prime minister has come out with a welcome -- but awkwardly worded -- statement encouraging Cambodian society to accept homosexuals.

As the Associated Press reports, he publicly stated that "there should be no discrimination against them just because of their destiny ... most of them are good people and are not doing alcohol, drugs or racing vehicles."

This is all the more confounding given his take, in 2007, on his adopted daughter's lesbian coupling. According to China's Xinhua outlet, he kicked her out of the house and worried aloud that her "girls" would bring bombs and poison to his home.

So has Hun Sen had a change of heart?

Was he just looking to score politcal correctness points last week on United Nations' Human Rights Day -- a day that might otherwise draw attention to his dismal human rights record?

And might he show some of that tenderness towards his Cambodian detractors who are locked up for daring to criticize his rule?

There are plenty of reasons why plotters of horrific atrocities shouldn't get to wait more than three decades before facing their day in court.

But here's the most obvious one: once on trial, they're prone to dementia and have few years left to mete out in bleak cells.

Cambodia's Khmer Rouge trials have already seen one top-tier figure argue, via her legal team, contend that she's too senile to stand trial. That would be Ieng Thirith, the regime's so-called "first lady," who occupied senior positions while the Maoist forces went about bludgeoning, shooting, starving, overworking and generally robbing life from more than 1.5 million people.

The good news is that, despite his lawyers' best efforts, core Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary (Thirith's husband) has just been deemed sane enough for trial, according to the Phnom Penh Post.

This is a refreshing development for a trial that, as I reported in August, has recently teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.