The campaign season is now underway in the Kingdom and at least three political parties have included in their platform promises to release the “political prisoners” of the court-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) should they win the July 29 polls. ...

Military police in Banteay Meanchey province’s Preah Neth Preah district on Sunday confiscated endangered animals from two men suspected of poaching wildlife in Thailand. District military police Commander Sin Rasy said yesterday that authorities managed to stop an SUV transporting endangered wildlife. ...

The Court of Appeal yesterday heard the bail request of the former director of the small Khmer Economic Development Party, who had been handed a sentence of two years in prison for defrauding a land buyer out of $150,000 in 2008.​ ...

Officials impounded eight luxury vehicles in the past week, including four over the weekend, after the customs department and military police began stopping cars in Phnom Penh looking for vehicles brought into the country without their owners having paid the proper import tax.​ ...

While still relatively small, the number of trademark applications has grown in Cambodia and the country’s low volume means that the Kingdom boasts among the fastest times in Southeast Asia for registering a trademark, a government adviser told a business workshop yesterday. ...

In a rare move, the National Police on Monday leveled accusations of illegal logging against a number of government-granted economic land concessions (ELCs) in the eastern province of Mondolkiri, singling out a Chinese-owned rubber plantation and wealthy businessman Soeng Sam Ol. ...

In an effort to standardise wedding rituals, Cambodia’s achars, or laymen who carry out Buddhist rites of passage, have been invited to a 10-day training course next month in the capital, the Ministry of Cults and Religion announced last week. ...

Large-scale “bio-sand” filters have been found to be among the most cost-effective water cleaning methods in the Kingdom, according to a recent evaluation by the Trailblazer Foundation, which hopes to start installing them in villages soon.   ...

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over the fractious political situation in Cambodia on Sunday, in a two-sentence statement issued through his press office that rights activists on Monday blasted for its timidity and brevity.   ...

The Ministry of Culture released a book on Monday of about 68 Khmer sculptures that were stolen from museums in Battambang City during decades of war and conflict, and intends to use the publication in a global search to recover the artifacts. ...

Authorities say they have discovered irregularities among the 170,000 thumbprints the CNRP gathered in support of a petition seeking King Norodom Sihamoni’s intervention in the current political crisis, deputy National Police chief Kang Sokhorn said on Tuesday.   ...

President Trần Đại Quang hosted a reception in Hà Nội yesterday for Cambodia’s Senior Minister and Minister of Cults and Religion, Him Chhem, during which he stressed the need for the two countries to boost religious cooperation in bilateral and multilateral frameworks. ...

Announcing that more than 160,000 immigrants are living in Cambodia without proper documentation, the Interior Ministry on Friday said it would give the majority of the group an opportunity to stay in the country, while the opposition pushed for a blanket deportation. ...

Almost a year since the latest wave of Montagnards began arriving in the country, claiming to be fleeing persecution in Vietnam, the Interior Ministry said on Friday that all but 13 of them have been given three months to return home or face forced repatriation. ...

A group of South Koreans and Cambodians employed by a Korean developer faced off with an excavator and a bulldozer clearing land for a wealthy local businessman in a dispute over 6 hectares of land in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district on Wednesday. ...

THAILAND and Cambodia will work on strategies next month in a bid to boost bilateral trade by 30 per cent a year over the next five years, while also stimulating more investment in planned special economic zones (SEZs). ...

After nearly two months tied to a tree near the Lumphat district office in Ratanakkiri province, a female elephant has finally been rehoused by the Mondolkiri Project Elephant Sanctuary, which purchased the animal in early October, according to the sanctuary’s founder. ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has levelled further criticism at the Vietnamese army’s alleged control of 40,000 hectares of economic land concessions (ELCs) in Ratanakkiri province, claiming that the grants are in violation of the Cambodian constitution. ...

A 60-year-old Mexican national working at a school in Sihanoukville was convicted of sexually abusing two young girls yesterday and sentenced to two years in prison, with one year of the sentence suspended, according to APLE Cambodia, a child rights NGO. ...

The Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) will work closely with the government to curb Vietnamese rice imports flooding the domestic market and channel more lending to domestic millers so that they can compete with rivals in neighboring countries, it said yesterday in a statement. ...