Some unrest seems to be brewing in Asia with escalating exchanges around the border area between Thailand and Cambodia :

PHNOM PENH, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) — “A wing of our Preah Vihear Temple has collapsed as a direct result of the Thai artillery bombardment,” a commander based near the 900-year-old temple was quoted as saying by Cambodia’s Press and Quick Reaction Unit (PRU) of the Office of the Council of Ministers.”The Thai army began shooting at us first, we are taking self- defense and retaliatory measures, now,” the commander said, stressing that the Thais had not honored the ceasefire of Saturday.

PRU did not give the name of the commander.

The commander also said that the Thai army has used gas shell as they fired 130 mm artillery rounds at Cambodian soldiers. Thai army resumed heavy shelling on Cambodia’s troops around 6:40 p.m., he said.

The newly erupted fighting near Preah Vihear Temple between Cambodian and Thai troops stopped at about 9:40 p.m. local time, lasting nearly three hours.

This is the third military clash after the last two conflicts on Feb. 4 and Feb. 5.

So far, there was no immediate report about the deaths and wounds.

The fighting has burst out at Phnom Trap hill and Veal Intry situated 1,600 meters and 1,120 meters respectively from the border inside Cambodian territory towards the Beehive area near Preah Vihear temple.

Colonel Chan Narun, who stations at the Preah Vihear temple, said “the fighting this time is likely bigger in scale than the two previous clashes — the fighting is spread larger along the border,” he said. “Heavy weapons including rockets, machine guns and mortars, artillery have also been used in the exchange fire.”

He said “locals have been evacuating from the areas.”

According to my brother who is trying to find a way back into Thailand after a short cycling tour of Cambodia, there are a lot of troops gathered on both sides and finding an open crossing point is proving rather difficult.

Border skirmishes are apparently not out of the ordinary over there but, as they take their religion quite seriously, flattening a temple with artillery fire will not go down very well at all.

At this rate, there will soon be conflict on every continent.