Government

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 ...

The single-party National Assembly sat for the second day of its third plenary session Wednesday, discussing two of eight chapters of the draft law on the Organization and Functioning of the Courts. The CPP-only parliament—minus 55 boycotting opposition CNRP lawmakers-elect—convened to discuss the first of three ...

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said that radio journalist Lay Samean, who was badly beaten by district security guards on May 2 while covering a planned opposition rally, may have provoked the violence by calling the guards “yuon’s dogs”, among other insults. The minister added, however, that ...

A mother and child were killed on Tuesday in what Russey Keo district residents described as a tornado-like storm that stripped off roofs, split trees and swept chairs and baby chicks into the skies. According to villagers, the unprecedented weather started with clouds thickening and turning ...

Employees of Caltex petrol stations in Phnom Penh are returning to work today after management offered to raise salaries by $20 a month and not withhold pay for time missed during the strike, which started earlier this month. ...

Cambodia’s progress in reducing maternal mortality was recognised internationally this week at the 67th World Health Assembly in Switzerland. Efforts to increase the number of skilled birth attendants and an increase in the number of 24-hour emergency centres available to pregnant women were both credited with ...

More than 400 people clashed with police and military police in Ratanakkiri province on Wednesday as authorities attempted to bulldoze their houses to make way for a rubber company plantation, villagers said. Authorities managed to bulldoze the houses of about 200 families, who they said had ...

The National Assembly yesterday opened debate for the first time on the first of three controversial judicial draft laws, approving in principle the first two chapters of the Law on the Organisation and Functioning of the Courts, in the continued absence of the opposition Cambodia ...

Media watchdogs on Wednesday expressed concern that the resignation on Saturday of Kem Gunawadh, long-serving director-general of state broadcaster TVK, was due to the station’s airing of an opposition campaign spot showing violent government protest repressions. In a statement, the Cambodian Center for Independent Media and ...

CPP lawmakers on Wednesday began debating the first of three judicial reform laws, ignoring an opposition boycott of the National Assembly and calls from outside legal experts for outside review of drafts they say are substandard. Critics say the draft laws will not improve the widely ...

The opposition party leader Sam Rainsy sent an open letter Tuesday to Interior Minister Sar Kheng to resume talks between the two parties to break the current political deadlock. “I would like to inform all observers that today [Tuesday] I contacted Deputy Prime Minister and Interior ...

About 13,000 people, aged between 18 and 35 years old, have been using drugs in Cambodia, up from roughly 7,000 users in 2007, Meas Vyrith, secretary general of the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD), said Wednesday. “It is estimated that a drug user spends about ...