The European Union pledged €10 million in preparation of the upcoming 2017 and 2018 elections yesterday, which the National Election Committee (NEC) hopes to add to in a new budget they will be submitting to the government, according to NEC officials. ...

Despite their overwhelmingly female workforce, garment factories in Kompong Speu province fail to adequately address the maternal health and child-care needs of their staff, according to new study set to be released by the French NGO Enfants and Developpment. ...

About 60 families in Battambang town gathered yesterday to demand that the owner of an ice-making factory stop releasing polluted water into the creek that runs through their neighborhood in Romchek village 5 as well as on their land. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen will attempt to renegotiate the $1.5 billion of Soviet-era debt Cambodia accrued during the 1980s when he visits Russia in May, according to a post on the premier’s Facebook page.   ...

Phnom Penh’s police chief on Thursday blasted his subordinates for doing an inadequate job of controlling weapons issued to officers, and announced that police had begun a “weapons census” in an effort to deal with the problem.   ...

A relative of Cambodia’s ambassador to South Korea, who was detained on Monday amid a corruption probe, yesterday claimed the envoy was innocent, as the Anti-Corruption Unit reportedly prepared to send the case to court.   ...

Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company, announced it has signed a letter of intent with VIP Jets Ltd. for the first Bell 505 Jet Ranger X in Cambodia. This is also the first Bell Helicopter aircraft signed for in Cambodia. ...

Thailand’s plans to sell off 11.4 million tons of its rice stockpile over the next two months is concerning Cambodia, which fears the sale will drive global prices down as the Kingdom struggles to meet its own export target. ...

Officials and environmentalists have congratulated Vietnam and the United States on a recent climate changed agreement signed between the two former adversaries, saying the co-operation will have a positive impact on mitigating the effects Of the phenomenon in the region. ...

A government investigation into the collapse of a road next to Phnom Penh’s Olympic Stadium during a flash flood on Wednesday has concluded that a powerful development company’s adjacent construction site was at fault, officials said on Thursday. ...

As farmers across the country continue to recover from crop devastation wrought by a plague of armyworm caterpillars, those in Koh Kong province are facing a new outbreak that is decimating young rice plants, officials said ­on Monday.   ...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday that Cambodia should improve its business climate and enhance competitiveness by upgrading infrastructure, improving the quality of labor, and strengthening governance as China changes its trade pattern by moving up the value chain. ...

A mixed force of 7,000 military and security personnel will be deployed to protect Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visits Cambodia later this month for his first visit since coming to power, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. ...

As floods have been raging on in many provinces, especially in the outskirts of the capital, locals are demanding the government inspect all boreys, factories and other developments in affected areas to ensure that there are proper drainage and road systems. ...

Despite having access to other sources of information about the election process, including television and smartphones, Cambodia’s urban poor remain heavily reliant on potentially biased village-level officials when it comes to voter registration, according to a new report. ...

A local subsidiary of a South Korean confectionary giant is investing $40 million to develop what it claims will be the world’s largest pepper plantation on a sprawling 1,000-hectare estate in eastern Cambodia, a company executive said yesterday. ...

The French Agency for Development has granted a 30 million euro, or $31.1 million, loan for the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) to expand one of its four water plants and increase its water distribution in the capital. ...

In what some are calling one of the most significant threats to democracy that Cambodia has faced in a generation, the CPP-controlled National Assembly on Monday voted to give the government and courts sweeping new powers over political parties. ...

Members of Mekong River Commission and civil society groups will be heading to Luang Prabang in Laos to attend the regional stakeholder meeting on Wednesday to discuss Laos’ proposal to build a third dam on the Mekong mainstream, the Pak Beng. ...

Four senior officials for rights group Adhoc will remain behind bars after the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the Court of Appeal’s ruling that they should be held in detention while awaiting trial, but gave no reason for the decision. ...