Government

Villagers in Ratanakkiri province blocked National Road 78A on Thursday for more than three hours as authorities tried to push through to evict them in favor of a rubber company, police and villagers said. About 400 villagers blocked the section of the road that links O’Chum ...

Despite presenting no hard evidence against defendants throughout the two trials of 23 men arrested during a strike that turned deadly in early January, a prosecutor used his closing statement yesterday to up the charges against union leader Vorn Pov. The final day of two trials ...

Control of a 17-seat district council in Kompong Cham province was determined by a Buddhist monk pulling a name out of a box Wednesday after election results revealed an equal number of votes for both parties. The CPP and CNRP each came away with 36 votes ...

A group of about 200 farmers from Kratie province refused on Thursday to leave a pagoda in Phnom Penh—their home base for protests against their eviction at the hands of a Vietnamese rubber company—as the city’s deputy governor warned them that the municipal government would ...

Two union leaders narrowly escaped arrest yesterday morning when employees on strike at a Phnom Penh garment factory forced their release from police and security guards, fellow union officials said. Seang Sambath, president of the Worker Friendship Union Federation, said WFUF vice president Mao Vannak and ...

A rights group worker has earned a court summons for monitoring villagers who were embroiled in a Preah Vihear land dispute with a Chinese company. Lut Sang, the Khmer Ponlok employee scheduled to appear in provincial court today, said that he was only a passive observer ...

Education officials yesterday shifted the onus of pirated and illegally sold state textbooks onto students, faulting the teenage pupils for fuelling demand. “If there are no buyers, there will be no sellers,” Lim Sotharith, director of the Education Ministry’s textbook department, said during a forum on ...

The single-party National Assembly sat for the third day of its third plenary session Thursday, with a senior ruling party lawmaker calling on Information Minister Khieu Kanharith to examine whether journalists who call the Assembly “single party” can be punished under law. Sixty-four of the 68 ...

The three-ton haul of illegal elephant ivory seized by port officials on May 9 originated in Kenya and was then shipped through Malaysia to Cambodia in two freight containers, the chief of Sihanoukville Autonomous Port’s customs and excise department said Thursday. Most of the elephant ...

Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture have called on farmers to cease using chemical pesticides and adopt environmentally friendly methods in an effort to increase yields and reduce damage to produce. At an agriculture workshop on biological control agents hosted yesterday by the Ministry of Agriculture, ...

A car belonging to Ly Thida, the director of the Kompong Cham provincial department of economy and finance, was involved in a fatal hit-and-run collision Thursday in the province’s Choeung Prey district, a police official said. District deputy police chief Cheang Se said two people were ...

As news broke yesterday evening that the Thai political situation had evolved from martial law to a full-blown coup d’etat, Cambodian government officials said they hoped the army’s takeover would be transitional and dismissed any concerns that tensions could rise on the Cambodia-Thailand border. ”We wish ...

Cambodia’s construction sector received a total investment of 851 million U.S. dollars in the first three months of 2014, up 311 percent compared with 207 million U.S. dollars over the same period last year, the official figures showed Thursday. During the January-March period this year, the ...

Ruling party lawmakers at the National Assembly pass the first of three draft laws in judicial reform, defying an opposition boycott and ignoring calls for further review by outside legal experts. The Law on the Organization of the Courts will put more power within the Ministry ...

Cambodia’s ruling and opposition parties resumed talks Thursday in a bid to end a nearly 10-month political standoff, with the two sides still remaining far apart on how to reform the electoral body which oversees the ballot. Opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) lawmaker Kuy Bunroeun, ...

A Chinese-funded agricultural park has been inaugurated in Banteay Meanchey province in northwestern Cambodia. Banteay Meanchey provincial governor Kousom Saroeuth and Xiao Yi, head of international relations office of the Department of Agriculture of China’s Yunnan province,jointly unveiled the Friendship Park of Agricultural Science and Techniques ...

Twenty-two Chinese higher education institutions jointly held a one-day education exhibition here on Thursday with an aim to boost education cooperation between China and Cambodia and to attract more Cambodian students to study in China. The 2nd edition of China Higher Education Exhibition is held at ...

A stone wall from the Angkorian-era Banteay Chhmar temple that was damaged in a rainstorm last month will be repaired in July, an official said yesterday. Yang Tangkouy, a provincial official, said the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts is cooperating with UNESCO on the restoration ...

During his second day under questioning on charges of inciting violence and property damage at a January 2 protest, union leader Vorn Pao was presented with photographs showing his tuk-tuk packed with rocks, and a video of him calling on low-ranking police to turn their ...

Municipal and military police on Wednesday blocked a group of about 100 displaced farmers from Kratie province who were attempting to deliver a petition to the Cambodian Red Cross’ Phnom Penh headquarters calling on the group to help them in their land dispute with a ...

Accompanied by his wife, Bun Rany, Prime Minister Hun Sen continued his trip to China on Tuesday evening by attending a dinner reception hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to state news agency Agence Kampuchea Press. Mr. Hun Sen and his delegation of high-level officials ...

Sacred burial grounds and community forests should be granted more protection under a new government proclamation issued this month, but rights groups and land-grab victims are wary that, without proper enforcement, it will amount to little in practice. An interministerial proclamation, or prakas, signed by ...

The government asked Cambodians to avoid all nonessential travel to Bangkok following Thailand’s imposition of martial law. “The situation is calm and we will continue monitoring it, but travellers planning to go to Thailand should hold off for now,” Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said after an ...

Government spending increased 32 per cent last year, while increases in both domestic revenue and foreign aid helped stabilise Cambodia’s budget deficit, according to budget statements from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF). The consolidated financial records, which were released on May 8, show Cambodia’s ...