Government

Resolution continued to elude 17 former bus drivers for the Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation Company yesterday when a demonstration at the company’s headquarters was roughly dispersed by company security after the ex-staffers tried to block buses from leaving. Sambath Vorn, president of the union whose founding ...

Sok Hieng* is concerned about a government census of foreigners that some observers believe will focus primarily on those of Vietnamese descent. “I am afraid that I will be forced to leave Cambodia because I do not have ID yet,” said Hieng, a 33-year-old construction worker ...

Civil society advocates – who last week called on parliament to consider amending the constitution to limit prime ministers to two terms in office – are now trying to enlist former premiers to back their proposal. The group, which includes well-known political analysts and representatives of ...

A group of Kompong Chhnang villagers in a fight for land with the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem delivered petitions to the Ministry of Justice and National Assembly on Monday, one of five communities from across the country that have recently traveled ...

Even within the country’s notoriously overcrowded prison system, inmates in this northern province live in particularly harsh conditions. Approximately 120 prisoners, including 16 women and three children, are held in four cells in the Oddar Meanchey provincial police headquarters. “In one cell we keep 20 or more ...

This week lawmakers from Cambodia’s opposition party are being voted onto 10 parliamentary commissions. This is a key part of a political deal in which the opposition finally agreed to take its 55 seats in parliament, ending its year-long boycott over alleged vote-rigging in the ...

Two NGOs on Monday launched an online campaign to galvanize public support for providing students with free textbooks after a survey found that 85 percent of high-school pupils lack the necessary books for their studies. The Khmer Institute for National Development (KIND) and the Affiliated Network ...

The facilities at O’Chrey Primary School in Battambang province are allegedly so basic that it’s difficult to conceive of it as an actual school. The 219 grade one to four students get their lessons crowded in a wall-less storage hut at the edge of a cornfield, ...

A group of families involved in a land dispute with a businessman in Battambang province will today submit petitions to the National Assembly and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet to plead for intervention. The more than 300 families, from Bavel district’s Boeng Bram commune, maintain that ...

Hundreds of garment workers traveled from a Kompong Chhnang factory to Phnom Penh on Monday to petition the Ministry of Labor to intervene in their dispute with factory management. About 3,000 workers from the Chinese-owned Jiun Ye Garment factory have been striking since August 18, accusing ...

A livestock industry representative has called on the government to cap Cambodia’s only live pig export company’s trade with Laos, citing shortages in the local market. CP Cambodia, a subsidiary of the Thai conglomerate CP Global, exported some 25,000 head of live swine – boars, sows ...

Cambodian and Argentine senior officials met here on Monday to discuss ways to promote ties and cooperation for mutual benefits. The meeting was made between Cambodia’s Foreign Secretary of State Ouch Borith and Argentina’s deputy State Secretary for Foreign Ministry Carolina Perez Colman. ...

Experts say that Cambodia’s economic growth remains fragile and unsustainable, bringing environmental degradation, social inequality and, at times, unrest to the country. Cambodia has maintained a high economic growth rate in recent years, up to 8 percent, “but that high growth comes with high costs,” said ...

A national seminar on youth and cultural development was held here Monday with an aim to encourage young people to help safeguard, preserve and develop national culture, officials said. The two-day event brought together 700 participants, including culture officials, artists, archeologists, historians, and youths, said Culture ...

A Hanoi-HCM City direct air route, which was once described as “impractical” by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), has come closer to reality as the Cambodian and Lao governments have pledged to create favorable conditions for Vietnam to use Cambodian airspace on the ...

The Committee to Promote Women in Politics (CPWP), and civil society groups in Cambodia have asked the National Assembly and ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) to keep Mrs. Khuon Sodary as second vice president of the National Assembly. In a statement issued on Monday, the groups ...

About 70 residents from Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district were blocked on Saturday from marching to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh villa, where they planned to appeal for support in a long-running land dispute. The residents were representing 134 families from four villages in Chhvang ...

Days after the Australian government announced it had approved the export of 10,000 live cows to Cambodia, a local firm has revealed that it is nearing completion of the Kingdom’s first modern slaughterhouse in Preah Sihanounk province – and that it is set to be ...

The Interior Ministry’s general department of immigration began its “census” of ethnic Vietnamese people living in Cambodia on Sunday, with Sok Phal, the department chief, touring Pursat province villages along the Tonle Sap lake. Pursat provincial police chief Sarun Chanthy said that General Phal and a ...

Amid reports of increased mass-fainting incidents in Cambodia’s garment sector, workers, employers and government officials gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday for a roundtable discussion on the issue. The conference, which was organised by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, identified issues such as workday lengths and ...

The Ministry of Labour plans to delay signing off on a controversial agreement to reopen a pipeline of Cambodian maids to Malaysia until a deal is reached on a second agreement regarding other migrant workers, a ministry official said yesterday. Labour Ministry spokesman Heng Sour told ...

Businesses in Phnom Penh have been ordered to dismantle signs and advertisements erected on public property without the permission of City Hall. In a letter sent to businesses on Wednesday and published on the city’s website yesterday, City Hall said companies found to have been flouting ...

To get his teenage daughter and niece on a plane yesterday after 10 months of alleged abuse and forced marriages in China, Kim Vicheat* said he had to bury his family in debt because the Cambodian consulate refused to fund their repatriation. The two 19-year-olds told The ...

A unique harvest is under way in the rice fields of Cambodia where tens of thousands of wild rats are being trapped alive each day to feed a growing export market for the meat of rural rodents. Popularly considered a disease-carrying nuisance in many societies, the ...