Cambodia celebrated its 62nd year of independence from France yesterday, an opportunity that leading figures from both of the country’s political parties quickly took to promote their own agendas.During the official ceremony, attended by thousands of students, members of the armed forces and others, King ...

A government minister has threatened legal action, and disability groups are up in arms, after a small Cambodian airline forced a disabled passenger to pay $240 on top of her ticket price for help getting on and off an aircraft.Bassaka Air has admitted demanding the ...

For the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.On Monday, lawmakers for the ruling party passed the country’s new $4.3m national budget — at least the third time in two years the opposition has gifted the CPP the chance to ...

Forty years after the murderous regime of the Khmer Rouge swept to power in Cambodia, British charity workers are leading the effort to clear the landmines that are still the scourge of the country.Cambodia is one of the most densely landmined countries in the world ...

Hundreds of cubic meters of timber on a Mondulkiri economic land concession leased to the Uni-Green Company burned to the ground yesterday after an alleged fire from a nearby forest jumped to the property, according to provincial governor Svay Sam Eng, who added that despite ...

About 40,000 Battambang rice-farming families already suffering steep losses from a severe drought are at risk of seeing their crops wiped out entirely by devastating floods as late seasonal rains start to kick in. A drought that meteorologists have blamed on the tail-end of an ...

At the unveiling of the new Japanese-owned Sunrise Hospital in Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen said thAt such tourist-focused medical facilities would boost confidence in visitors and investors to Cambodia. Mr. Hun Sen described the $35 million hospital in Chrouy Changvar district, which on its ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday responded to calls from acting opposition leader Kem Sokha for Cambodia’s “political family” to unite for the upcoming Pchum Ben festival, saying he would observe a “ceasefire” amid the escalating war of words between himself and the opposition. Speaking at a ...

The government plans to create “cheque de vacances” or holiday vouchers by 2017 to encourage middle-income Cambodians to travel within the country, according to an official from the Ministry of Tourism yesterday. Chhay Khunlong, deputy director-general of tourism at the ministry, said holiday vouchers will enable ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court has rejected an appeal from an opposition senator to be released from trial detention on bail. at least 10 other activists and supporters of the Rescue Party have been similarly arrested, charged and detained in recent months, as the two sides ...

Approximately 3 million students in 12,000 state schools across the country are at risk of drop-out or under-performance as a result of inadequate basic infrastructure, according to research by a coalition of civil society groups.The warnings came following a forum convened in the capital on ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has agreed to legally protect nearly 1 million hectares of the Kingdom’s forest land, including the Prey Lang forest. Speaking during the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport’s annual meeting at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Mr. Hun Sen said he ...

Cambodia is looking to secure its first commercial contract for the export of swiftlet nests to China, but must first demonstrate compliance with the Asian giant’s hygiene protocols, a government official has said. Hean Vanhan, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Agriculture, said swiftlet nests, ...

A university student in Siem Reap province was detained and sent to court yesterday after allegedly posting a death threat against Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng on the social networking site Facebook.Tao Savoeun, a 26-year-old graduate of the University of South-East Asia, located in Siem ...

The arrest on Saturday of a registered British sex offender, employed at a Phnom Penh school for the past year, has cast doubt on the screening of foreign nationals working with children in Cambodia.With wanted sex offender Paul Prestige’s extradition pending, the British Embassy yesterday ...

The National Election Committee’s $1 million pilot project last month to test its new computerized voter registration system revealed that the registration process is inefficient and needs to be sped up, a group of NGOs calling itself the Electoral Reform Alliance (ERA) said at a ...

Garment and footwear industry stakeholders yesterday converged in Phnom Penh to discuss how to develop the sector to be sustainable and competitive.Run by the French Development Agency (AFD), the textiles conference at the capital’s Sunway Hotel heard that improving employees’ living and working standards, and ...

Cambodia’s badly overcrowded prison population leapt by nearly 20 per cent in the first 10 months of this year, government data show, raising serious health concerns.The figures, released by the Interior Ministry’s general department of prisons yesterday, show that there were 17,522 prisoners in jails ...

Three Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force ships dropped anchor in Cambodian waters yesterday, mooring at a Sihanoukville provincial port for a three-day visit meant to strengthen the relationship and boost bilateral ties between Cambodia and Japan, according to General Chhum Socheat, spokesman for the National Defense ...

The Ministry of Agriculture has taken action to prevent millers from purchasing paddy rice at below market price from farmers, currently struggling to produce enough marketable rice crop to make ends meet. The ministry, in a statement issued on Monday, ordered all provincial agricultural departments to ...