Two Mother Nature activists, who were released from prison yesterday, said they had been “robbed” of their freedom for the past five months after being arrested for documenting suspected illegal sand-bearing vessels in Koh Kong without evidence that they had committed a crime.​ ...

One man has been arrested and more than 100 planks of second-grade luxury timber seized by authorities in Kampong Thom yesterday. Hang Vunn, 22, was arrested by Sandan district police after he was found to be operating an illegal sawmill in Sochetr commune. ...

Tess International, a Malaysia-based provider of software solutions for the financial sector, signed a distributor agreement yesterday with Cambodian management consulting and business technology firm IdeaLink Consulting to provide software to Cambodian banks and microfinance institutions that helps them combat financial crimes. ...

Pen Sovann, Cambodia’s first prime minister after the Vietnamese invasion in January 1979 that swept the Khmer Rouge from power and a serving opposition member of parliament, passed away at his home in Takeo province’s Duan Keo town on Saturday evening aged 80. ...

News that Laos will move ahead with the proposed 912-megawatt Pak Beng dam, which would be the third mainstream dam in Laos’ Lower Mekong River, has sparked criticism from environmental groups who say downstream countries should decide the fate of potentially harmful development projects. ...

Prospective voters ran into problems yesterday during the first publication of the country’s new voter lists. Citizens will have until January 14 to check their names and information on voter lists to confirm they are correct, either in person, at registration offices or online. ...

Political parties are scrambling to complete their internal processes and register ahead of this year’s commune elections, which are to be held in June. The National Election Committee (NEC) will be accepting registration applications for all parties’ candidates from March 3 to 5. ...

A government task force charged with eliminating illegal fishing on the Tonle Sap lake has destroyed more than 100 km of nets and other equipment seized in Kompong Chhnang and Kompong Thom provinces this month, officials said on Monday.   ...

Phnom Penh Autonomous Port (PPAP) will distribute a cash dividend of 1,059,039,488 riel ($261,148), or 256 riel per share, to its private shareholders for its 2016 operations, the port operator said in a filing to the Cambodian Securities Exchange (CSX). ...

The US-based nonprofit Global Financial Integrity (GFI) measured illicit financial flows – the illegal movement of money or capital from one country to another – and found that as much as $45 billion in trade activity in Cambodia over the period was not accounted for. ...

Numerous members of the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF), the body tasked with lobbying on the sectors behalf, have stopped paying membership dues and export fees, claiming that they cannot afford to as the industry continues to struggle with high production costs and regional export competition. ...

The Cambodia National Rescue Party yesterday celebrated its top female candidates before the upcoming communal elections at an event under the slogan “Thousands of Lights for Women”, though women’s rights activists criticised the strategy as lacking teeth in fostering greater representation for women. ...

Turning away from the traditional tools of providing information about weather forecasts, people now can access real-time weather alerts on their smartphones and mobile phones via SMS and voice messages to better help them prepare to avert disasters caused by severe climatic events. ...

This is a typical morning for many villagers in Kampot province’s Kampong Trach district, where almost 400 families are members of Kampot Pepper Promotion Association. Black Kampot pepper currently sells for $15 per kilogramme, while red fetches $25 and white $28 per kg. ...

About 30 villagers escorted two environmental activists from Kandal province’s Sa’ang district to the relative safety of Phnom Penh yesterday after the pair were allegedly harassed by local police for helping coordinate a protest against sand dredging in the area the day before. ...

A senior Vietnamese leader has met with Cambodia’s National Assembly to request the continued acknowledgement of Cambodian-born Vietnamese, Vietnamese investors and to request that young Vietnamese born in the country be allowed to study in Cambodian public schools. ...

Following the recent agreement to increase the minimum wage in the garment sector, a productivity fair is due to start on Friday in Phnom Penh, organised by the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MoLVT) and the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC). ...

Italy, along with six other European Union countries, has filed a fresh request to European Commission to limit the volume of rice imported from the Kingdom by activating a “safeguard clause” that allows EU member states to impose barriers to protect against trade imbalances. ...

Cambodia’s economic growth is expected to remain stable this year and the next, but structural reforms and a rebalancing of the budget is critical in the medium term to sustain economic growth, the Asean+3 Macroeconomic Research office (AMRO) said yesterday in a report. ...

A little-known Chinese company is investing $200 million in a massive timber plantation in Stung Treng that the government has equated to “replanting the forest”, despite concerns among environmental protection groups that existing forest will be destroyed in favour of non-native commercial species. ...