Government

Cambodia’s National Election Committee (NEC), which oversees the country’s polls, should be revamped with representatives picked by an independent panel in a transparent manner with the involvement of all stakeholders, a group of non-governmental organizations said in a report after investigating the latest disputed elections. The ...

The Ministry of Justice yesterday held the first of what it said would be regular forums soliciting the input of civil society on judicial reforms, and promised a new measure that it maintained would streamline the courts’ workflow. Citing widespread frustration among citizens, Justice Minister Ang ...

The Vietnamese embassy fired back yesterday at opposition party leader Sam Rainsy’s claim that Vietnamese companies granted economic land concessions in Prey Lang forest are turning the area into a Vietnamese “colony”. On Wednesday, Rainsy visited the forest and claimed that CRCK, a Vietnamese firm granted ...

Krousar Thmey, the country’s pre-eminent NGO working to educate disabled children, is in the process of being integrated into the Education Ministry, the company’s director and government officials confirmed Thursday. Speaking on the sidelines of the National Workshop on Inclusive Education, Herve Roqueplan, director of Krousar ...

Kimseang spent much of his childhood enduring harassment and verbal abuse, with teachers and other children dismissing him because of a visual and physical impairment. While the kingdom has seen overall access to education improve from a 69 per cent net enrollment rate in 1991 ...

Credit Suisse, a financial services firm based in Switzerland, has been accused of aiding land grabbing in Cambodia by becoming a major shareholder in Vietnamese rubber giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) Group. In a statement released today, Global Witness (GW), an NGO based in England, ...

Civil society groups held a workshop in Phnom Penh on Thursday in which government officials and lawmakers were invited to discuss post-election land grabs and land-based conflict, although the ruling CPP failed to turn up to the event. Though incidents of land-grabbing appeared to decrease ahead ...

Cambodia exported 332,000 tonnes of rice in the first 11 months of the year, up 94 per cent year-on-year. The country exported rice to 63 countries and territories with Poland, France, Malaysia, Thailand, the Netherlands and China as its main importers, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reports ...

Kandal provincial authorities and officials from multiple ministries are investigating the apparent theft of historical artefacts from a stupa at Oudong Mountain said to contain some remains of Buddha himself. Relevant authorities were tight-lipped yesterday about which objects were missing, but a local news outlet reported ...

Cambodia’s opposition leader called Wednesday for a halt to land concessions granted by the government to foreign companies in the country’s vast Prey Lang Forest, calling for greater protection of one of Southeast Asia’s last remaining lowland evergreen woodlands. Cambodia National Rescue Party President Sam ...

A day after authorities carted away 11 protesters intending to camp out in front of the United States embassy, a similarly ad hoc group of citizens struggled to deliver petitions to three embassies in the capital yesterday. The group of about 50 were blocked by police ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has landed in hot water with women’s rights activists after publicly questioning whether Prime Minister Hun Sen was being “weaker than a woman” by not calling for a new election like Thai leader Yingluck Shinawatra in the face of popular protests. Speaking ...

Eight Cambodians have died from malaria so far this year, compared to 37 in the same period last year, a drop of about 80 percent and a sign that the country could soon reach the goal of zero malaria deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) ...

A report released by a U.S. financial research firm today says that Cambodia lost an average of $133 million per year between 2002 and 2011 through crimes such as import and export tax evasion, illegal movements of money and smuggling. The report, released by Global Financial ...

Senior government ministers yesterday rejected the Cambodia National Rescue Party’s call for Cambodia to follow the lead of Thailand and take the country back to the polls. Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng said yesterday that there was no chance a new election would ...

The first ever Annual Journalism Ethics Awards ceremony was held Wednesday in Phnom Penh, which conferred a total of 19 awards on five national newspapers and eight national television stations in recognition of their adherence to ethical journalism. The newspapers garnering awards in categories including balance ...

Communities threatened by the planned construction of three hydropower dams in Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri provinces will today submit to the Chinese Embassy a petition demanding that the embassy intervene against Chinese companies investing in the dams. The petition, to be presented in Chinese, Khmer and ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng on Wednesday said that the government had begun formalizing the process for obtaining electronic national identity cards in a bid to reduce graft carried out by local authorities. Speaking on the sidelines of the 10th Government Discussion Forum on Electronic Identity at ...

Taxi drivers staged a large protest Wednesday at a customs checkpoint in Poipet City over customs officials’ demands for what the protesters said was an exorbitant tax on a small load of goods. At the checkpoint Wednesday, more than 50 taxi drivers blocked the road for ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen left here on Thursday for a week-long visit to Japan and the two countries are expected to sign four deals including defense cooperation, a senior official said. One of them is the memorandum on defense cooperation and exchanges between the two ...

The United States government on Wednesday launched a HIV research project in Cambodia, aiming to collect and disseminate critical data that will help the country in the fight against HIV. Men Chean Rithy, coordinator for the newly-launched HIV Innovate and Evaluate Project, said the U.S. provided ...

Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said Wednesday that information sector has played a very important role to further enhance ties and cooperation between Cambodia and China, saying that Cambodia is looking forward to broadening information cooperation with China. “Information sector is a potential and effective way ...

A day of peaceful demonstrations gave way to an evening of unrest last night as a handful of protesters were removed from a small patch of land across from the United States embassy and a grup of uninvolved people threw Molotov cocktails towards riot police ...

Disabled Cambodians were promised a “society without barriers” by Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday in a speech on Cambodia’s Day of Persons with Disabilities in Phnom Penh. About 1,500 disabled Cambodians marked the day at a gathering of more than 2,000 people in the capital’s Koh ...