Government

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan expressed support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Cambodia yesterday, responding to Nepal’s new constitution – which has been described as the first in Asia to enshrine protection for the rights of LGBT people. ...

Getting a head start on campaigning for the 2018 elections, opposition leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha yesterday promised Cham voters in Kampong Chhnang’s Kampong Tralach district that a change in the country’s leadership would mean a change in its approach to land disputes as ...

A 12 per cent pay rise for civil servants that will take effect this coming January will be a step towards helping reduce corruption and “unofficial fees,” analysts said. ...

From a simple stall on a street corner in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon district, Khuon Andy sells SIM cards, between 40 and 60 per month. Half of his customers provide identification to make their purchase, and half of them do not. ...

Two days after Prime Minister Hun Sen told the U.N.’s new special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia to focus her efforts on tackling racial discrimination, deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha on Thursday used a Cham Muslim religious ceremony to argue that there is no ...

Civil servants will see their salaries raised again from January as part of incremental annual pay increases scheduled through 2018, the government announced yesterday.Next year’s raise will mean about 200,000 civil servants will have their basic salaries increased by 12 per cent from the current ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen left Cambodia Wednesday for UN summits in New York, where hundreds of Cambodian-Americans are preparing to protest, demanding the release of political and environmental activists currently in detention in the country. ...

Members of the ruling party and opposition met Wednesday to discuss amendments to the election law for local commune councils. The five points are election campaign procession, campaign period, raising party signs in public places, punishment, and reprimands on civil servants. ...

Cambodia has officially become a dialogue partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The memorandum was signed on Thursday in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Forum in China’s north-western city of Xian by Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and SCO Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev. ...

Leaders from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) will continue discussing a draft law on commune council elections next week, members of the party said yesterday. ...

The Interior Ministry has reiterated its claims that a new law requiring NGOs and associations to register with the government does not apply to small community-based groups, despite recent efforts by police to apply the legislation to a group of families in Kratie province. ...

Leaders of the ruling and opposition parties yesterday met to hash out disagreements over commune election laws, but seemingly steered clear of sensitive matters such as the imprisonment of an opposition party senator and 14 political activists.Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng and ...

Vietnam has accused Thailand of violating international law after the shooting of four Vietnamese fishermen, one of whom was killed, by Thai maritime police in the Gulf of Thailand. ...

Cambodia is now free of “blue-ear” pig disease, which had infected more than 4,000 pigs in five provinces last month, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday. ...

A British businessman jailed for more than 2 1/2 years without conviction was removed from the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on the first day of his trial Wednesday after accusing the court of gross malpractice and threatening to walk out himself. ...

The US has steadily been increasing its engagement with Southeast Asia, launching in recent years a wide range of programs. Among them is the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, which launched under President Barack Obama in 2013 and aims to develop leaders in the region ...

From September 25 to 27, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will attend the UN Summit for the adoption of the Post 2015 Development Agenda and the Global Leaders’s Meeting on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, where he will deliver his remarks at the two submits. ...

A top mining official on Wednesday urged the government of northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province to crack down on a group of Vietnamese running an illegal gold mining operation villagers and rights groups say is being protected by local authorities. ...

Phnom Penh is studying the prospect of a toll highway to run from the capital to Phnom Penh International Airport, a dangerous stretch of road that kills many people each year. ...

The National Museum will undergo a massive expansion, but this will not include removing the Royal University of Fine Arts which sits behind it, officials at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts told a public forum yesterday. ...

The Labor Ministry on Tuesday warned unions that if they failed to reach a consensus on a new minimum wage for the garment sector ahead of Friday’s Labor Advisory Committee meeting on the issue, the committee would not consider any proposal from the unions at ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen called for all gasoline local companies to cut their prices in line with falling world prices for oil. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday warned that a CNRP victory in the 2018 national election would inevitably lead to war when the opposition party starts redistributing land from the rich to the poor, something that opposition leader Sam Rainsy said would only be done ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) submitted a letter to the Ministry of Interior on Monday recommending that bureaucratic obstacles preventing the Kingdom’s 60,000 monks from registering to vote be resolved. ...