UN special Rapporteur Rhona Smith’s request to meet with jailed opposition leader Kem Sokha in a Tbong Khmum prison was rejected by an investigating judge who cited “important tasks” that needed to be completed before outsiders were allowed such access. ...

About 50 Boeng Kak residents protested outside Prime Minister Hun Sne’s Peace Palace yesterday and submitted a petition to the Council of Minister asking for land titles in their long-running dispute with a company part-owned by CPP senator Lao Meng Khin. ...

The leaders of seven major unions and labor confederations announced yesterday in a joint statement that they will form an inter-union committee to rally the government on raising the country’s minimum wage of $61, with the unions believe is too low. ...

Displaced villagers from two Phnom Penh neighborhoods on Wednesday submitted a petition to the UN’s human rights envoy, who is in Cambodia on a routine fact-finding mission. The envoy, Surya Subedi, was visiting the Phnom Penh eviction site of Borei Keila ...

The families of two maids working in Malaysia asked Preah Vihear’s anti-human trafficking office and the human rights group Adhoc yesterday to intervene on behalf of their daughters, whom they haven’t seen or heard from since last year, officials said. ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court summonsed 23 villagers from Chikor Leu commune to present themselves – and any relevant documents – at a July 12 hearing with representatives of the two sugar companies that bulldozed their farmland and evicted them from their homes in 2006. ...

Svay Rieng Provincial Court has summonsed the three female workers wounded during a protest at Kao Ve Garment Factory in Manhattan Special Economic Zone for one more round of questioning before the case against the former Bavet city governor is sent for trial. ...

The Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) has requested adding four trading sessions to its two current sessions in the hopes of increasing trade volumes.  The request, if approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia, could see new sessions added within a month. . ...

The Kandal Provincial Court issued an injunction yesterday against Yung Wah Industrial Co. Ltd., preventing the company from selling assets at its two garment factories in Takhmao City where thousands of workers have been protesting the past two days over unpaid wages. ...

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia media reported that the country would soon begin to receive maids from both Cambodia and Vietnam, but Cambodia has denied the reports, saying they have no intention of sending maids to anywhere in the Middle East and Arab world. ...

Elections in Cambodia are just three days away and the inevitability of Hun Sen’s return to power has been reinforced by the official refusal to allow Sam Rainsy to stand against the Prime Minister after the opposition leader’s return from self-imposed exile. ...

A Kampong Speu judge released the vice-president and a member of the Free Trade Union on bail yesterday after the court questioned the two about their alleged roles in a violent demonstration at Sabrina Garment factory. ...

Another alleged member of the gang suspected of being responsible for last month’s shootings of a Japanese tourist and an American expatriate was arrested following a shoot-out on Saturday. Sok Hok, 28, was apprehended in the capital’s Prampi Makara district. ...

More than 2,000 garment workers at a Vattanac II Industrial Park protested in front of the complex, threatening to block National Road 3 and demanding the reinstatement of 11 union officials and the firing of the manager who allegedly dismissed them. ...

Creative agency Briq has expanded to Cambodia, its second office globally after first launching in Singapore four years ago. Briq International Cambodia will offer marketing and communication solutions – creative, production, digital services, strategic planning and research, content development, public relations, media and activation. ...

The Chinese government signed to provide 300 biodigesters to Cambodian households on Monday, officials said. Sar Chetra, deputy secretary general of the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, signed to receive the donation from Song Xiaoguo, economic councilor at the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia. ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide nine poor rural provinces in Cambodia with year-round access to markets and social services through a $118 million project to provide a safer, cost-effective rural road network. ...

The Phnom Penh municipality launched the capital’s second bus line yesterday, running for 68 stops from the night market to Takhmao town in Kandal province. ...

The cost of a blaze that ripped through a backpack factory in Phnom Penh’s Dangkao district last Tuesday amounted to almost $1 million, an administrator at the factory said Monday. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday will charge six construction workers and a company manager in connection with a building site accident that killed a woman on Sunday, while work on the site has been suspended on government orders, officials said Tuesday. ...