Government

As Cambodia nears its second district and municipal council elections in May, about 200 women councilors from the sub-national level attended a workshop Friday to call for political parties to increase the number of women candidates in the upcoming election. Currently, 12 percent of councilors at ...

Transparency International Cambodia (TIC) said it could not vouch for the official outcome of July’s national election because of the large number of ballots cast by people without proper paperwork or forms in lieu of official identification, yet another independent report casting doubts on the ...

Striking garment factory workers and protesting CNRP supporters should respect people of other nationalities and make sure they act within the boundaries of the law, Defense Minister Tea Banh said Thursday. Speaking at an opening ceremony for three new Royal Cambodian Armed Force science laboratory buildings, ...

Cambodian Minister of Labor Ith Samheng on Friday afternoon held an urgent talk with the representatives of six pro-opposition trade unions after they have led tens of thousands of workers off work in protest against low wage increase for 2014. As the meeting was going on, ...

American lobby group Human Rights Watch has lashed out at Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, for her trip to Cambodia earlier this month. In a commentary posted Thursday, it noted that the IMF recognized that corruption threatened market integrity, distorted competition, ...

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Surya P. Subedi, on Friday reiterated his call for calm and restraint as demonstrations are now taking place daily in Phnom Penh. “Demonstrations such as those of recent days and weeks are a ...

Analysts say a recall election is possible within Cambodian law, despite statements to the contrary by Prime Minister Hun Sen. Hun Sen, who left Thursday for an official state visit to Vietnam, said in a speech last week he would not step down—something opposition supporters ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen approved the creation of three new districts for Phnom Penh on Wednesday. Four existing districts are being divided to create the new areas, dubbed Chbar Ampov, Prek Pnov and Chroy Changva. Phnom Penh City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche told the Post last ...

The economic fallout from garment worker protests and the industry’s response is expected to cost the key sector millions of dollars while tarnishing the country’s reputation among international buyers, interviews with suppliers and figures from previous periods of labour unrest show. Disputes over wages came to ...

Election monitor Comfrel released its final assessment of the 2013 national elections yesterday, detailing a raft of irregularities, while at the same time acknowledging that the opposition’s claims of having won the election were undermined by its reluctance to provide concrete evidence. The 147-page report makes ...

School textbooks paid for by the Asian Development Bank have been routed to district education offices, some of which are charging schools for books that are supposed to be free, an NGO investigation has found. The textbooks on Khmer literature, maths, geography, morality and science were ...

Cambodia will conduct a live fire drill from Dec. 27-31 in order to strengthen capacity for the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces in defending territory integrity, Defense Minister Gen. Tea Banh said Thursday. “The exercise is to test our new weapons,” he told reporters. “It is also ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) on Thursday asked all its members to temporarily stop production operations this week due to concerns over security and safety after thousands of workers walked out of work in protest against the 19 percent wage hike in the ...

High-ranking members of the royalist Funcinpec party have said they are set to file a court complaint against the party’s senior leaders for allegedly attempting to sell the party’s headquarters for their own personal gain. Sok Sa Vann, a member of the party’s steering committee, maintained ...

Finding out why women’s voices are not being listened to is imperative to increasing the proportion of female political representation in Cambodia, a meeting heard yesterday. The Committee to Promote Women in Politics (CPWP) – which is made up of 12 organisations – hosted discussions in ...

The Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training on Wednesday said that any activities made by the unions against the minimum wage of $95, agreed upon by the Labor Council, are against the law. After the wage talks yesterday, the Labor Council agreed to raise ...

A representative of the Zongtex Garment Manufacturing company in Phnom Penh on Tuesday denied employing workers as young as 15 to make U.S. government clothing, following an exposé by The New York Times on poor standards in factories producing U.S. government attire. On Sunday, The Times ...

The Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court has summoned for questioning three villagers accused of torching in May a shed on disputed land granted to the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem. The case is another example of courts resurrecting longstanding land disputes that had gone ...

An estimated 3,000 garment workers from various factories rallied at the capital’s Freedom Park on Wednesday to protest against the low wage hike for 2014. The strike was led by pro-opposition trade unions. It happened a day after the government decided to raise a monthly minimum ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen is scheduled to pay a three-day visit to Vietnam later this week, a move criticized by opposition officials who say the premier should stay in Cambodia to deal with the country’s ongoing political deadlock. “What is necessary at this time is to ...

While the European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht never told the Ministry of Commerce that Cambodian rice was “30 per cent” mixed with the same product from Vietnam, he did say Cambodia had to better ensure that its harvest was homegrown and not from ...

CPP lawmakers have lined up behind their prime minister, Hun Sen, insisting in recent statements that a new election the opposition is demanding will never happen, and would not even be legally possible. Experts familiar with the law, however, said legislation does allow for fresh elections, ...

A rice trader on Monday filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Unit, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet and three ministries alleging that officials in Kompong Cham province had wrongly fined her for an overweight truck after using improperly weighted scales. Saing Darlin had her truck impounded ...

Dozens of ruling party lawmakers have signed a letter calling opposition demands for a re-election or the resignation of Prime Minister Hun Sen an attempted coup. The letter, signed by 54 Cambodian People’s Party lawmakers including senior MP Cheam Yeap on Friday and released to the ...