National government
Ministries and other national bodies
Three provincial police chiefs shuffle jobs
Three provincial police chiefs will move into different jobs over the next three days due to their retirement or election to council positions, a police official said Tuesday. Kompong Chhnang provincial police chief Brigadier General Ath Khem will be replaced by his deputy, Brigadier General Prak ...
Saing Soenthrith
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/three-provincial-police-chiefs-shuffle-jobs-59237/
Australian media cite Hun Sen Facebook page on refugee deal
A post on a Facebook page that Prime Minister Hun Sen has denied is his own was cited Tuesday by both the Sydney Morning Herald and Australia’s national broadcaster as having officially announced the Cambodian government’s agreement to resettle asylum seekers held by Australia. Mr. Hun ...
Alex Willemyns and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/australian-media-cite-hun-sen-facebook-page-on-refugee-deal-59229/
Minister to address beatings
Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith has pledged to meet with Daun Penh District Governor Sok Sambath to discuss the targeting of journalists by hired district security guards, said UNESCO country representative Anne Lemaistre, who met with the minister on Friday. The minister is also keen on ...
Kevin Ponniah and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/minister-address-beatings
Some 2,000 Chinese flee Vietnam to Cambodia: Cambodian deputy PM
Approximately 2,000 Chinese businesspeople and tourists have crossed the Vietnamese border into Cambodia these days to escape anti-China riots in Vietnam, a senior Cambodian official said Tuesday. “Some 2,000 Chinese nationals have fled Vietnam to Cambodia,” Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng told reporters. ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-05/20/c_133348158.htm
Cambodia sees rise of Asean tourists in Q1
Cambodia received 424,300 visitors from Asean countries in the first quarter of the year, up 4 per cent year-on-year. Data from the Tourism Ministry showed tourist arrivals from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) accounted for 33 per cent of 1.27 million overseas arrivals from January ...
Bernama News Staff
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=1039613
Greens will try to force Senate vote on plans to settle refugees in Cambodia
The Greens will attempt to force a vote in the Senate on plans to resettle in Cambodia refugees whose claims for protection are recognised on Nauru and is challenging Labor to block any deal. The party’s immigration spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, is confident any deal with the ...
Benefits for teachers? Not yet
The government has a response to teachers’ request for health insurance: We’ll provide it if you buy it. At a meeting in Takeo province this past weekend, the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association (CITA) said an upcoming teacher strike would include health insurance on the list of ...
Laignee Barron and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/benefits-teachers-not-yet
Five months on, witnesses recall Muon Sokmean’s beating
Muon Sokmean, a 29-year-old garment worker, scrambled off Veng Sreng Street on January 3 with military police in violent pursuit, brandishing their batons. What had been a militant protest for a $160 minimum wage in the garment sector—with many protesters lobbing rocks and crude Molotov cocktails ...
Mech Dara and Alex Consiglio
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/five-months-on-witnesses-recall-muon-sokmeans-beating-59115/
Caltex strike deal doesn’t hold up
After Caltex managers allegedly reneged on an agreement to pay workers a $20 bonus to suspend a strike for two months, employees say they would only return if the deal is in writing. In a Friday meeting, the Cambodian Food and Service Workers Federation agreed with ...
Phak Seangly and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/caltex-strike-deal-doesn%E2%80%99t-hold
Teachers who claimed graft told to keep quiet
Teachers in Oddar Meanchey province, who last week accused district education officials of stealing their salaries, were on Monday threatened with expulsion for talking to the media, a teachers union said. The Anlong Veng district education director summoned about 15 teachers and school officials to the ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/teachers-who-claimed-graft-told-to-keep-quiet-59124/
TVK director resigns, apparently in response to gov’t criticism
Kem Gunawadh, the long-serving director-general of TVK who helped set up the state broadcaster in 1983, resigned abruptly on Saturday in what his successor said was a reaction to government criticism over his decision not to broadcast live that morning’s annual Royal Plowing Ceremony. The resignation ...
Phann Ana and Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/tvk-director-resigns-apparently-in-response-to-govt-criticism-58980/
Cambodia’s tourism short of staff
Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism says the country’s tourism sector is growing at an unsustainable rate that will cause a massive shortfall in skilled tourism-related labour. The ministry’s statistics department director, Kong Sopheareak, told local media that as tourist arrivals increase substantially every year, the challenge is ...
Wanwisa Ngamsangchaikit
http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2014/05/cambodias-tourism-short-of-staff/
Grenade attack on deputy chief prosecutor’s home
A grenade was thrown into the home of Kompong Thom Provincial Court deputy prosecutor Say Nora on Saturday night but the official escaped injury as he was not at home when the device exploded, police said. Provincial police chief Phan Sopheng said the attack was an ...
Saing Soenthrith
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/grenade-attack-on-deputy-chief-prosecutors-home-58988/
Chong villagers block Chinese engineers from reaching dam
A group of 20 ethnic minority Chong villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley blocked the road Friday to prevent a group of Chinese engineers from reaching the site of a controversial proposed dam. A number of Chong villagers have been intermittently camping near the road ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/chong-villagers-block-chinese-engineers-from-reaching-dam-58944/
Judicial laws put independence of courts in jeopardy
Three constitutionally mandated judicial laws would adversely affect the independence of the courts if they are passed in their current draft state, legal experts warned on Friday. Draft versions of the Law on the Organization and Functioning of the Supreme Council of the Magistracy, the Law ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/judicial-laws-put-independence-of-courts-in-jeopardy-58942/
Oz an example for mining reform
Inspired by Australian mining regulations, the Cambodian government is considering a raft of changes to the mineral resources mining law, including a rethink of the sector’s comparatively high tax rate. Citing discussions held with Western Australia state mining industry representatives last week, Meng Saktheara, secretary of ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/oz-example-mining-reform
Maids set to work abroad, but safety fears linger
After a three-year moratorium on sending maids overseas—sparked by a spate of serious abuses by recruiters and employers—momentum is building to once again send hundreds of thousands of Cambodian women to work overseas as domestic servants. Since Prime Minister Hun Sen shut down the industry in ...
Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/maids-set-to-work-abroad-but-safety-fears-linger-58853/
Veng Sreng Street Upgrade behind schedule
The head of a construction company working to upgrade Phnom Penh’s dusty, potholed Veng Sreng Street said Thursday that the project would take twice as long to complete as expected. In November, Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong announced that a 6.5 km strip of the road—which ...
Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/veng-sreng-street-upgrade-behind-schedule-58872/
Overtime at school goes unpaid
Six months after the government announced that bank accounts for all civil servants would put an end to late salaries and rampant graft, secondary school teachers in Prey Veng say they are owed long overdue payments. In addition to their regular salary, which they already received, ...
Laignee Barron and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/overtime-school-goes-unpaid
Cambodia rethinks passport life
A decision to extend the validity of Cambodian passports from three to 10 years should encourage more Cambodians to travel, claims the Ministry of Interior. The ministry’s General Directorate of Identification head, General Mao Chandara, was quoted by local media as saying, the department would begin ...
Wanwisa Ngamsangchaikit
http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2014/05/cambodia-rethinks-passport-life/
Cambodia bars Vietnamese protest
The Cambodian government said Thursday it will not allow Vietnamese living in the country to protest Chinese incursions in the South China Sea. Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said Cambodia does not allow any foreigners to protest other nationalities. The spokesman made the statement ...
Bangkok Post News Staff
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/409925/cambodia-bars-vietnamese-protest
Nearly 850 protests this year: police
Almost 850 demonstrations or strikes have occurred nationwide since the year began – a seemingly anarchic average of more than six a day, the General Commissariat of National Police announced this week, blaming politicians, NGOs and trade unions for helping to incite demonstrators and “complicating ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/nearly-850-protests-year-police
17 families reject payout from minister’s wife
A special committee set up in March to settle a long-running land dispute between 52 families in Kompong Chhnang province and the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem has finished its work, leaving 17 families without a deal. Deputy provincial governor Dork Sothea, who ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/17-families-reject-payout-from-ministers-wife-58741/
Interior Ministry seeks new recruits
The Interior Ministry is seeking 478 students to work in prisons and offices across the country, according to an announcement posted online Monday. The ministry’s message, posted to the website of the National Committee for Sub-National Democratic Development, calls for 80 candidates to work as prison ...
Hay Pisey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/interior-ministry-seeks-new-recruits-58745/