Government

A Malaysian-flagged oil tanker that was hijacked by pirates last week was spotted in Cambodian waters by the Australian air force Thursday, according to Malaysian state media. Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh, however, said the vessel never passed through the country’s territorial sea. ...

Cambodia cremated its former Senate president, Chea Sim, in front of Wat Botum early Friday morning. ...

A Health Ministry official said Thursday that an investigation in the wake of a devastating HIV outbreak in Battambang province’s Roka commune late last year had revealed more than 3,000 unlicensed doctors operating across the country. ...

Opposition lawmaker Mao Monyvann on Thursday rebuked the government over its repeated refusals to publicly release a copy of a map of Cambodia’s border with Vietnam, saying he would push ahead with a banned press conference to publicize the lack of transparency on the issue. ...

The European Union says the Cambodian government has agreed to the first part of a comprehensive plan they have been wrangling over for more than a year to properly compensate thousands of families that have lost land to sugarcane plantations. ...

Despite his jet-black hair, Sam Rainsy turned 66 in March. And it was clear in an interview with Khmer Times this week that the leader of Cambodia’s opposition is mellowing. ...

The Health Ministry has drafted Cambodia’s first-ever law to control the sale and consumption of alcohol, which imposes a minimum legal drinking age of 21 and would fine retailers who sell liquor to anyone underage. ...

The Cambodian government yesterday renewed its public call on Vietnam to halt activities it says are encroaching on Cambodian territory, this time citing a military post currently under construction along the border in Kandal province’s Koh Thom district. ...

More than 30,000 people are expected to turn out for CPP President Chea Sim’s funeral procession in Phnom Penh on Friday, with security around the city to be ramped up accordingly, a festival official said Wednesday. ...

More than 200 Cambodian fishermen trapped in Indonesia were scheduled to be returned home Thursday morning on a charter Boeing 737 airliner following the intervention of Indonesia’s Fisheries Ministry and Cambodian diplomats in Jakarta. ...

Judicial police ignored an arrest warrant for former Khmer Rouge navy commander and accused war criminal Meas Muth, putting the government in breach of the rules of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, declassified documents released by the tribunal Wednesday show. ...

Cambodia on Wednesday renewed its call for Vietnam to cease immediately the construction of a military post at an undemarcated border area between Cambodia’s Kandal province and Vietnam’s An Giang province. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen is set to take over the presidency of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, following the death of party leader Chea Sim last week. The move will shore up solidarity in the party, which has become increasingly united, party members say. ...

When the International Organization for Migration agreed to help Cambodia with a controversial refugee resettlement plan earlier this year, it did so on the condition that the government furnish the refugees already in the country with the paperwork they need to find employment. ...

Opposition lawmakers said they will demand that Prime Minister Hun Sen halt ongoing efforts to demarcate Cambodia’s border with Vietnam until after the 2018 election to guarantee a consensus on the controversial boundary. This came as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday again moved to ...

Less than a week after Unicef announced that primary school enrollment in Cambodia had reached a high of 94.5 percent, government officials and foreign donors met Tuesday to discuss ways to improve the quality of the education those students are getting. ...

The National Election Committee has created a pair of new commissions, with one aimed at keeping relevant stakeholders informed of the reformed body’s activities and another coordinating electoral activities with Provincial Election Committees. ...

The city will close traffic on a few main roads during the funeral procession for former president of the senate Chea Sim on Friday morning from 6 am to 12 pm, according to a City Hall press release.  ...

French police will arrive in Cambodia in October to reinvestigate two separate murders of French nationals that have yet to be solved by Cambodian police, an Interior Ministry official said Tuesday. ...

A Cambodian man who had been illegally logging rosewood across the border in Thailand was shot dead by Thai soldiers on Friday, a village chief in Oddar Meanchey province said Tuesday. ...

Cambodia slid five places down the annual Global Peace Index released Tuesday, ranking 111th out of 162 countries surveyed. But despite ceding five of the seven spots it gained in last year’s index—which measures safety, security, conflict and militarization—the country received a slightly higher score ...

A police search of three buses that were smuggling goods from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh has turned up more than 14 tons of clothes, paint thinner and other materials, officials said Tuesday. ...

The labor minister said Tuesday there were so few underage workers in the garment industry that “we can count them on our fingers,” but a unionist and an NGO countered that child labor was still rife in the country’s smaller garment factories. ...

The Chinese government on Monday provided 200 sets of ultrasound machines to Cambodia in order to contribute to the improvement of the country’s health quality and services. Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo handed over the equipment to Cambodian Health Minister Mam Bunheng at a ceremony ...