A lack of inspectors, human resources as well as holes in wire fences have been found at Cambodia’s three airports during checks ahead of a UN aviation audit in October, according to officials. ...

Cambodia must accelerate economic reform and develop a sense of “urgency” if it wishes to continue to attract American investment amid growing regional competition, the head of the US-ASEAN Business Council said yesterday. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday urged members of the armed forces and civil servants not to envy teachers and doctors who get higher wages, saying teachers were in the field of growing human resources. ...

Stung Treng provincial authorities say they have warned villagers living upstream of the Lower Sesan II dam to expect floods in September as one of the dam’s 50-megawatt turbines goes into operation. ...

Makro Cambodia, the local arm of international cash-and-carry wholesaler Makro, held a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday for construction of its first outlet in the Kingdom, which is expected to launch operations in December. ...

The International Finance Corporation and Amru Rice, one of Cambodia’s biggest rice exporters, launched a new partnership yesterday to improve the competitiveness of the Kingdom’s rice sector, according to a press release. ...

Phnom Penh Governor Khoung Sreng has asked owners of container trucks, cement trucks and other heavily loaded vehicles to cease use of three main roads in the capital in a bid to ease congestion. ...

Some 130 families in Preah Sihanouk province yesterday requested the intervention of provincial authorities to solve a dispute with their deputy village chief over the construction of a small bridge in their town yesterday. ...

Ratanakkiri provincial authorities yesterday denied accusations by a group of villagers that the authority of O’Yadav and Andong Meas districts hired ethnic minority villagers to cut the forest along the Cambodia-Vietnam border. ...

A group of 70 people from six communities in Phnom Penh have petitioned City Hall to clarify how the construction of rail side roads will affect them, amid fears they could lose their homes. ...

In what one observer said was simply an act of politicking, the opposition CNRP on Thursday said it would push its campaign pledge of giving $500,000 to every commune in the National Assembly. ...

The wife of the Srekor commune police chief in Stung Treng province has been charged and placed in pre-trial detention for possessing some 400 logs of luxury wood near the couple’s home. ...

Prince Norodom Ranariddh is officially back in the political game. The Ministry of Interior has approved the former prime minister’s Community of Royalist People’s Party (CRPP), Ranariddh’s cabinet chief, Noranarith Anandayath, said yesterday. ...

Dozens of taxi drivers in Poipet City protested Monday against the creation of a new checkpoint where they are forced to pay costly bribes to transport goods that have been smuggled across the border from Thailand. ...

In an unanticipated act of leniency yesterday, Prime Minister Hun Sen established a new committee to deliver pardons to mothers jailed with their children, according to several attendees of the conference where the announcement was made. ...

Provincial authorities here are closely monitoring the movements of the Ka­zantip festival’s organizers to ensure that no replica parties are in the pipeline after the cancellation of the famously debauched rave earlier this week. ...

Angry locals burned tires on the Chroy Changva peninsula Friday to protest the building of a road through their village, which is at the center of a land dispute with the Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC). ...

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong met with Vice Foreign Minister of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Ri Kil Song on Wednesday to discuss ways to boost trade and investment ties, a Cambodian spokesman said. ...

Military police in Takeo province last night arrested a military general and close aide of ousted Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei, who was officially removed from his position Wednesday amid allegations of vast corruption. ...

A total of 23 Montagnard asylum seekers, including one female, were transported to Phnom Penh between late April and mid June after hiding out in the forests of Ratanakkiri for months, an anonymous source said yesterday. ...