National government

The value of Cambodia’s overall trade volume for 2013 is expected to reach $16 billion, according to the former Minister of Economy and Finance, Keat Chhon. The figure comes to a 14.4 per cent rise from last year. ...

In a letter to three government ministries, a local domestic worker rights group last week demanded wage increases and limitations on work hours. Von Samphous, president of the fledgling Cambodian Domestic Worker Network (CDWN), sent the letter to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Ministry ...

Representatives of 17 tourism- related companies from southeast Guangdong province of China on Friday met with their Cambodian counterparts in order to seek possibilities for tourism cooperation. The Chinese delegation was led by Zhao Yufang, Vice-Governor of Guangdong Province, while Cambodian side was headed by Pak ...

The Ministry of Justice yesterday held the first of what it said would be regular forums soliciting the input of civil society on judicial reforms, and promised a new measure that it maintained would streamline the courts’ workflow. Citing widespread frustration among citizens, Justice Minister Ang ...

Krousar Thmey, the country’s pre-eminent NGO working to educate disabled children, is in the process of being integrated into the Education Ministry, the company’s director and government officials confirmed Thursday. Speaking on the sidelines of the National Workshop on Inclusive Education, Herve Roqueplan, director of Krousar ...

Kimseang spent much of his childhood enduring harassment and verbal abuse, with teachers and other children dismissing him because of a visual and physical impairment. While the kingdom has seen overall access to education improve from a 69 per cent net enrollment rate in 1991 ...

Civil society groups held a workshop in Phnom Penh on Thursday in which government officials and lawmakers were invited to discuss post-election land grabs and land-based conflict, although the ruling CPP failed to turn up to the event. Though incidents of land-grabbing appeared to decrease ahead ...

Kandal provincial authorities and officials from multiple ministries are investigating the apparent theft of historical artefacts from a stupa at Oudong Mountain said to contain some remains of Buddha himself. Relevant authorities were tight-lipped yesterday about which objects were missing, but a local news outlet reported ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng on Wednesday said that the government had begun formalizing the process for obtaining electronic national identity cards in a bid to reduce graft carried out by local authorities. Speaking on the sidelines of the 10th Government Discussion Forum on Electronic Identity at ...

Disabled Cambodians were promised a “society without barriers” by Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday in a speech on Cambodia’s Day of Persons with Disabilities in Phnom Penh. About 1,500 disabled Cambodians marked the day at a gathering of more than 2,000 people in the capital’s Koh ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng has ordered all prison, detention and rehabilitation center chiefs to accommodate and give full access to delegates from the U.N.’s Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT), whose five-day mission to assess the use of torture, cruelty and other inhumane treatment ...

The Phnom Penh municipal health department on Monday said that it would allow a health center claiming to cure diseases such as cancer and diabetes through “detox” treatments to remain open, despite previous claims that it had already been shut down. Sok Sokun, director of the ...

The government will deploy double the usual number of armed security personnel on the streets of Phnom Penh on Tuesday to keep control of the large number of rallies planned in the city to celebrate International Human Rights Day, a military police official said Monday. “We ...

A law student who filed a complaint with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court against the city’s police and military police chiefs over the fatal shooting of a bystander by authorities during a protest last month took his complaint to the U.N.’s human rights office on ...

The minister of posts and telecommunications on Monday insisted an edict ordering the country’s seven mobile phone operators to abide by a law that sets minimum prices for calls is only temporary. Prak Sokhon, the newly-appointed posts and telecommunications minister, said the order was necessary because ...

Cambodia’s telecommunications ministry yesterday defended intervening in the market by fixing minimum prices for mobile phone calls, rationalising the base charges as necessary to stem the loss of tax revenue and avert a monopolised industry. The floor price was introduced in 2009 to prevent the demise ...

Taking strides to curb Cambodia’s high maternal and child mortality rates, health officials yesterday launched a $14 million initiative to improve women’s limited access to reproductive health care. During the three-year Partnering to Save Lives campaign, funded by AusAid, NGOs Care Cambodia, Marie Stopes and Save ...

In order to promote and facilitate people to people exchange between Cambodia and Japan, both governments have agreed on visa exemptions and the issuance of long-term and multiple visas, according to a press release issued by Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. In the ...

Cambodian authorities unlawfully detain hundreds of drug users and others deemed “undesirable” in centers where they face torture, sexual violence, and forced labor, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch called for the immediate closure of the country’s eight detention ...

Seventy National Police generals have been signed into retirement by Prime Minister Hun Sen, having surpassed civil servants’ mandatory retirement age of 60 years old. The request to retire the generals was made in a letter to King Norodom Sihamoni by the premier on November 27, ...

Authorities issued an arrest warrant last week for the director of a local NGO involved with an operation that allegedly bilked thousands out of money by claiming the company could find them work in South Korea. Warrants for the arrests of Theun Samnang, head of NGO ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday issued a statement ordering that anti-graft education be incorporated into the national schooling system as part of a wider effort to stamp out corruption in the country. The statement, released in the lead-up to International Anti-Corruption Day, which falls today, ...

Cambodia and Japan agreed to grant visa exemption to diplomatic and official passport holders, aiming at further enhancing bilateral ties and cooperation, said a press statement from the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday. The statement said the two countries have agreed to provide visa ...

The National Assembly will vote this month to decide whether the ruling CPP’s recently removed Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy, Suy Sem, will be appointed as the new Minister of Mines and Energy, CPP lawmaker Chheang Vun said Friday. Mr. Sem’s return to his old, ...