Among the 50 prisoners who were pardoned or received sentence reductions for the Water Festival this year, several were convicted of serious crimes, such as rape, murder and human trafficking, according to a review of the roster included in the most recent Royal Book. ...

Social media celebrity and card-carrying CPP member Thy Sovantha yesterday said she will file a lawsuit against wildlife NGO head Suwanna Gauntlett alleging discrimination after the latter allegedly denied her access to an ecotourism program the group is launching today in Koh Kong province.​ ...

The government yesterday maintained it was opening a path to citizenship for roughly 70,000 ethnic Vietnamese people living in Cambodia, though many have lived here for generations, and advocates say a current drive to revoke “irregular” government documents is effectively rendering many stateless. ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy announced that 88 percent of villages nationwide will be electrified by the end of the year, setting the government on its way to achieve its goal of connecting every village in the country to the national grid by 2020. ...

Phnom Penh International Airport last Thursday hit the two-million-passenger mark in a year for the first time. The figure included all international and domestic passengers arriving at, and departing from, Phnom Penh International Airport since the beginning of this year, a press release said. ...

The U.S. firm selling credits for a carbon trading scheme that could earn Cambodia tens of millions of dollars said yesterday that sales could start in a matter of months, despite mounting claims of deforestation within the community forests set to anchor the project. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has denied media reports he violated his own ban on economic land concessions, saying he only signed contracts that had been agreed upon prior to his decision. Local media have reported in recent days Hun Sen’s signature on multiple land concessions ...

Major clothing brands sourcing from Cambodia’s garment factories have expressed concern about the growing number of strikes in the country and called for the renewal of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) aimed at preventing strikes, a representative from the International Labor Organization (ILO) said yesterday. ...

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged RMB 329 million ($53 million) in assistance to Cambodia on Sunday during a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen, a Cambodian official said. Ieng Sophalet, an assistant to Hun Sen, told reporters that the grant would be used for water resource ...

More than 400 workers of the Next Apparel (Cambodia) factory in Kandal province protested for a third time Saturday and destroyed property while demanding the reinstatement of two workers fired for attempting to establish a union, the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU) ...

The first Banking Careers Forum, organised on Friday by CamEd Business School with the support of leading banks and Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), attracted hundreds of students –  the majority of them studying accounting and banking – to participate and find job opportunities in the ...

More than 2,000 student volunteers yesterday were sent to measure land in 19 provinces, starting the second phase of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nationwide land-titling program. Of the 2,016 volunteers, 1,362 are new and the rest are returning for the second time. ...

Workers in the border town of Bavet continued a week-long strike Monday after a meeting to discuss wage increases was delayed for a second time to next week. Sources said all workers left the Tai Seng and Manhattan special economic zones after working for an hour. ...

Potential real estate investors in Siem Reap are being advised to look towards retail strips rather than hotels, according to Cambodian real estate professionals. Knight Frank’s Cambodia chief, Sunny Soo, said that while the hotel industry is well supplied, the town lacks an organised retail strip. ...

A thousand employees walked off the job at Nex-t Apparel (Cambodia) Co Ltd in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district yesterday after two workers were fired for collecting money to buy water for strikers at a neighbouring factory. Demonstrations at Nex-t are set to continue today. ...

Cambodian Investment Management’s social-media marketing and advertising business has launched Dynamo Innovative Digital Advertising, the group said last week. Dynamo will inherit 10 clients, managing 20 social-media pages, 90 per cent of which are on Facebook and 10 per cent on LinkedIn. ...

Three males attempting to smuggle luxury wood on Saturday evening were thwarted by authorities in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima district, provincial forestry officials confirmed yesterday. The suspects now being detained at the provincial police station are Vor Vanser, 16, Le Fy, 16, and Cheurng Vanseurn, 18. ...

A group of European Union parliamentarians will arrive in the Kingdom today to “study and research” the organisation of elections, the resolution of land disputes, democratic development and EU development projects, according to a statement issued by the National Assembly yesterday. ...

Possible remains of three missing U.S. soldiers recovered in Cambodia was repatriated to Hawaii on Wednesday for testing, officials said. During a ceremony at Phnom Penh International Airport, American soldiers carried three white coffins draped with U.S. flags onto a C-17 military cargo plane. ...

A draft law meant to improve the maintenance and construction of Cambodia’s dilapidating roads was passed yesterday in a one-sided session of the National Assembly that saw ruling party lawmakers lambast Public Works and Transport Minister Tram Iv Tek for his allegedly poor stewardship. ...