The trade commissioner and foreign affairs representative of the European Union (E.U.) have turned down a request from 13 members of the European Parlia­ment that they immediately investigate Cambodia’s much criticized economic land concessions, but said they were monitoring the issue closely. In a March letter ...

Up a sweeping jungle valley in a remote corner of Cambodia, Chinese engineers and workers are raising a 100-meter- (330-foot-) high dam over the protests of villagers and activists. Only Chinese companies are willing to tame the Tatay and other rivers of Koh KOng province, ...

Members of the Prey Lang Community Network yesterday called on the government to approve a forest preservation sub-decree that has been in draft form since 2011. Hoeun Sopheap, representative of the Kampong Thom provincial Prey Lang community, said the sub-decree would help protect the biodiversity of ...

Five years after first ratifying the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), Cambodia remains delinquent in honouring some of its commitments under the treaty, UN representatives said yesterday. Under the OPCAT, Cambodia was obliged to create an independent National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) to ...

The Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court laid fresh charges of money laundering on the detained chairman of an embattled British investment firm on Friday, the same day that a provincial official was arrested in relation to fraud charges the businessman was already facing, a court official ...

Drug seizures jumped last year, while drug arrests remained relatively steady, according to the annual report from the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD) released Monday. As in 2012, methamphetamine retained its position as the most commonly seized type of drug. Police confiscated 17.3 kg of methamphetamine ...

The government now requires union leaders to prove that they have no criminal record before registering new branches of their organization, according to a statement from the Ministry of Labor, a decision that comes less than a week before planned nationwide strikes in the garment ...

It took three illegal border crossings, several bribed officials and six months in an overcrowded detention centre before Mohammed Ibrahim* finally arrived in Cambodia. Four years later, the ethnic Rohingya, a victim of violence and oppression in strife-torn Rakhine state in Myanmar’s west, is one of ...

According to the Copenhagen Accord hosted in Denmark, developed countries had to provide US$ 30 billion for 2009-2012 to kick start emissions reduction measures for the less-developed countries and promised to offer US$ 100 billion for long term finance a year by 2020. “Cambodia needs approximately ...

Local private airline Aero Cambodia intends to launch domestic chartered flights by the end of this year once it receives approval from the government. The airline is preparing to apply for its air operator certificate from the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) and hopes to ...

Villagers facing relocation from the site of the planned Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province were told last week that they would be moved 15 kilometres from the river they rely on for fishing, a commune chief said yesterday. Seak Mekong, commune chief in ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has given approval to grant state-owned land to three private companies despite issuing a temporary ban on land concessions, drawing criticism from local NGOs concerned about increasingly frequent land disputes in the country. Copies of three subdecrees obtained by RFA showed ...

Sales of Cambodia’s World Trade Organization-certified palm sugar from Kampong Speu province dipped to 12 tonnes at the end of the harvest season this year, about a 30 per cent decline from 2012. Two districts with palm trees in Kampong Speu province were granted geographical indication ...

Cambodia’s garment manufacturers and trade unionists on Monday began a negotiation on pay rise for garment workers in 2014 but reached no any agreement because the union representatives demanded to double the current wage. The talk was made between the employers represented by Nang Sothy, co-chair ...

Cambodia held an inter- ministerial meeting on Monday to discuss and prepare documents for a talk with China in November in order to further enhance bilateral ties and cooperation, officials said. Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the Monday’s meeting ...

Cambodia’s government should make public a proposed law aimed at regulating the country’s labor movement, a rights group said Thursday, amid concerns that it includes provisions for the suspension of unions and for severely restricting their right to freedom of association. Requests from civil society to ...

The visit of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to Beijing, capital of China, came to an end successfully, bringing closer relations between the two nations, a Cambodian senior official said on Sunday. Hun Sen toured in Beijing from Friday to Sunday to attend the Dialogue ...

Multinational consulting and engineering firm Pöyry has signed a contract with the Lao government to supervise construction of the divisive Xayaburi hydropower dam in the country’s north, it announced Friday. This work, carried out by its Energy Business Group, will include reviewing the design and ...

Cambodia and the United States on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding on low emissions and climate resilient development in Cambodia, according to a press statement from the U.S. Embassy to Phnom Penh. The deal was inked between Cambodian Minister of Environment Mok Mareth and Rebecca ...

Faced with widespread evictions and opaque private sector deals, activists in Cambodia are calling on the government to be more open and transparent about land concessions, beef up mechanisms for resolving land disputes, and abide by the rule of law. It is estimated that ...