Government

Megabank Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. said Tuesday that it will boost business collaboration with Acleda Bank, Cambodia’s leading commercial bank, and Absa Bank in South Africa, Japan’s Jiji Press reported. The Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. unit said it has dispatched a staff member to a ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that the Southeast Asian nation has no ambition to develop a nuclear power plant, but wants to use nuclear technologies in agriculture, health, and animal breeds. The prime minister made the remarks during a meeting with Yukiya Amano, director ...

The Ministry of Information has rejected an application by independently run Beehive Radio to expand its operations nationwide. Beehive, which carries Voice of America and other international programming, currently serves Phnom Penh through an FM frequency. It had applied to expand radio relay stations throughout the ...

The continuing suspension of traffic-law enforcement by traffic police since the run-up to July’s national election has had a detrimental effect on road safety practices, a senior Ministry of Interior official admitted Tuesday. Road safety groups have already expressed concern that the decision to halt enforcement ...

An official at the Takeo provincial department of labour was arrested on Friday and charged for allegedly embezzling more than $310,000 from vocational teachers, the ACU and a prosecutor said yesterday. ...

Economic freedom in Cambodia worsened over the past year, according to the latest report from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in the US. Cambodia is ranked 108 out of 178 countries surveyed, with an overall score of 57.4, a 1.1-point dip from ...

After the Ministry of Labour denied a food service union official registration, a union official is crying foul, asserting that authorities are discriminating against her group – a charge the government denies. The Cambodian Food and Service Worker Federation (CFSWF), a 4,000-member union representing workers in ...

An unscheduled bathroom break led to the discovery of 27 pieces of unexploded ordnance in Kampong Speu’s Samrong Tong district on Monday, military police said yesterday. ...

Vietnam Dairy Product Joint-Stock Co, better-known to milk lovers as Vinamilk, was granted a licence on Monday to open a $23 million processing facility in Phnom Penh’s Special Economic Zone. A statement to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange released by the dairy giant on Monday ...

Thousands of garment workers from four factories have gone back on strike this week to protest a decision by their employers to withhold pay for the days they did not work during recent nationwide strikes. Between 8,500 and 12,500 workers at four factories—two in Phnom Penh, ...

Cambodia’s opposition has been in talks with Prime Minister Hun Sen to find a deal to end the political crisis caused by last year’s disputed general election and a compromise may be near, two analysts briefed on the matter said. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy and his ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi, who is on his 10th fact-finding mission to Cambodia, met with opposition CNRP leader Sam Rainsy on Tuesday ahead of a planned meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen and other senior government officials Wednesday. Reached by telephone after the meeting ...

More than 100 work-study participants employed by NGO Digital Divide Data (DDD) in the capitol’s Chamkarmon district jumped on the strike bandwagon on Monday, demanding the same monthly wage garment workers are calling for, a union representative said yesterday. Employees are charged with transforming physical documents ...

Construction on Phnom Penh’s first international-standard critical-care center is expected to begin in April, and when completed it will offer state-of-the-art medical technology and highly trained staff, according to an official with the Japanese firm in charge of the project. “[Construction] is supposed to start from ...

Cambodia’s opposition leaders were questioned in court Tuesday in connection with recent protests against strongman premier Hun Sen — a case they denounced as politically motivated. Prosecutors at Phnom Penh Municipal Court spent several hours grilling Sam Rainsy and his deputy Kem Sokha about unrest that ...

The Free Trade Union (FTU) on Monday reported an overall increase in industrial action by its local branches last year with 136 total strikes in the first 11 months of 2013, up 35 percent from all of 2012, when there were 101 strikes by its ...

Defying a new ban on public gatherings, more than 50 activists and monks gathered outside the local U.N. human rights office Monday morning to demand the immediate release of 23 men who were arrested earlier this month during violent clashes between police and garment workers. The ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy and Prime Minister Hun Sen discussed the possibility of offering amnesty to senior government officials in order to allow for “an honourable exit of the leaders”, Rainsy was quoted as saying to the French newspaper La Libération last week. Rainsy reportedly said in the ...

In his first public remarks of the year, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday took pains to recount his experience under the Khmer Rouge and thanked Vietnam for overthrowing the brutal communist regime. Speaking at the inauguration of a Vietnamese hospital, in the presence of visiting Vietnamese ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday reiterated that he would not step down as demanded by the country’s main opposition party since the contested election last July. “No need to speak much. I will not step down,” he said during the groundbreaking ceremony for a ...

The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia, Surya Subedi, who began his 10th fact-finding mission to Cambodia on Sunday, has been asked to investigate issues faced by ethnic Khmer Krom people after five monks were arrested for participating in garment worker protests earlier this month. In ...

Secret negotiations between the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and the opposition are close to reaching a solution to the political stalemate that has gripped Cambodia since July’s general election, according to sources privy to the discussions. Officials from both parties yesterday denied that talks had occurred, ...

The Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court laid fresh charges of money laundering on the detained chairman of an embattled British investment firm on Friday, the same day that a provincial official was arrested in relation to fraud charges the businessman was already facing, a court official ...

The Ministry of Defense on Monday said that a complaint filed against a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) commander in Banteay Meanchey province for alleged corruption and other crimes had already been resolved in 2011. On Friday, provincial RCAF soldiers informed local rights group Adhoc of ...