The London-based forestry monitor Global Witness and the Cambodian government traded a fresh round of barbs over the weekend, following Global Witness's calls on World Bank chief Robert Zoellick to investigate corruption in Cambodia's logging sector.

"The Cambodian government, increasingly desperate to defend their already tarnished public image, has issued a press release demanding a change in Global Witness' leadership and a call to the organisation's donors to cut funding," Global Witness said in a statement Friday.

A Cambodian Embassy statement earlier this month called the group's recommendations to the World Bank "amusing and disturbing."

Global Witness issued a lengthy report earlier this year linking illegal logging to Prime Minister Hun Sen, his family and an extended "kleptocratic elite."