When Cambodia National Rescue Party President Kem Sokha stood arm-in-arm with three newly minted deputies earlier this year, the quartet seemed eager and ready to address the party’s next challenge at hand: critical commune elections that could greatly bolster grassroots support. ...

More than 200 families who have been locked in land disputes with sugar firms will have at least some of their land returned to them after the Ministry of Land Management approved their claims yesterday, though hundreds more families are still waiting for resolution. ...

Six Vietnamese nationals were arrested on Wednesday afternoon in a Military Police raid that saw 30 officers confiscating at least 100 illegally felled trees and 10 logging vehicles from an economic land concession in Kratie province’s Snuol district near the border with Vietnam. ...

Both the miners and brokers at the mining site said the land on which the mining is conducted costs roughly $10,000 per hectare per year in a deal between the rubber plantation owner and a gemstone businessman who they referred to as the “boss”. ...

Cambodian and Chinese officials and business leaders yesterday signed 19 agreements during a visit to Phnom Penh by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, boosting Chinese investment at a time when the regional power has upped its economic and political support for Hun Sen’s government.​ ...

Rights groups say families being forced off their land by development projects recently revealed to have World Bank Group backing could probably file successful complaints against the institution, effectively forcing it to help the families save their homes or at least win better compensation. ...

Executives at Singapore-listed energy firm KrisEnergy Ltd say they have settled terms with the Cambodian government and are ready to sign a long-awaited production-sharing agreement that would pave the way for the first-ever extraction of petroleum from Cambodian territorial waters. ...

The two main political parties contesting the upcoming commune elections revealed disparate campaign budget plans yesterday, with the opposition pledging to spend over $1 million and a spokesman for the ruling CPP saying his party will not be creating a central campaigning budget at all. ...

The Kingdom’s investment authority signed an agreement yesterday to promote and protect investments between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Cambodia, a move government officials hope will attract foreign direct investment from the oil-rich Gulf state, which currently stands at almost zero. ...

The United States announced on Friday it was ending funding for the election, and promised more “concrete steps”, after the Supreme Court dissolved the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) at the request of the government, on the grounds it was plotting to seize power. ...

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. ...

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. ...

A group of NGOs from the education sector yesterday urged the government to boost education spending to at least 20 percent of the country’s budget – a benchmark the Ministry of Education had hoped, and failed, to hit last year under its strategic plan. ...

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. ...

Denis Hew, director of the policy support unit at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Secretariat said that Cambodia and Laos, in particular, should seek to chart a different course in Asean rather than following growth models of more developed economies, such as Malaysia or Thailand. ...

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. ...

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. ...

In 2012, the number of phone users in Cambodia would stand at about 17.56 million and by 2015, about 21.31 million. And internet users in 2012 will reach to 1,739,618 by 2015, an increase of 1.89 million, His Excellency, Sarak Khansaid. ...

Cambodia on Friday inaugurated a food industry laboratory with Chinese aid, aiming at assisting food quality improvement, research and technology development, officials said. The China-Cambodia Food Industry Laboratory is situated in the complex of the Industrial Laboratory Center of Cambodia in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district. ...

The third edition of CAMBUILD, one of the country’s biggest international building and construction conferences, is scheduled for September 10-12 on Koh Pich. Three hundred participants are expected to exhibit at the event. ...