International relations

The Ministry of Mines and Energy invited the head of an NGO battling to stop construction of a highly criticized dam in a remote area of Koh Kong province to meet with ministry officials Friday. Signed by Mines Minister Suy Sem and dated April 25, the ...

Refugees who are resettled in Cambodia by the Australian government will be unlikely to gain employment rights, get an education or be given permanent residency, according to a peak international development body. The Australian Council for International Development said Australia had entered “uncharted territory” by resettling ...

The Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Hong said that Cambodia is committed and willing to improve the country’s human rights and democracy record. Namhong said during a meeting yesterday with Ms. Flavia Pansieri, the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, at Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...

A Senior Cambodian official has said his country has tentatively agreed to accept asylum-seekers who had been seeking to settle in Australia. Foreign Ministry Secretary of State Ouch Borith told reporters there was an agreement in principle to take the asylum-seekers, who are being held in ...

Tea Banh, deputy prime minister and defense minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, met with Yu Jianwei, deputy political commissar of the Chinese Armed Police Force (APF), in Phnom Penh on Monday. The two sides exchanged views on issues of enhancing communication and cooperation between ...

The government has agreed to review its resettlement agreement with families relocated from railways as part of an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded rehabilitation project, but has refused a recommendation to set up a debt-relief scheme for the evictees, according to an action plan released by ...

At least three Cambodians who have travelled to work as maids in Singapore since August last year as part of a pilot scheme have complained to worker welfare groups there about employer abuse and poor working conditions, including molestation and the slapping of a worker. In ...

Cambodian deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong on Tuesday met with two United Nations senior officials to discuss relations and cooperation between Cambodia and UN on social and economic development and human rights.     The two officials are Haoliang Xu, assistant to the UN secretary ...

The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) revealed its plans Monday for a Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City expressway that will halve travel time between the two cities. At an estimated cost of $2.2 billion, the initial target date for completion of the expressway is ...

The French Agency for Development (AFD) announced yesterday that it will provide $24 million to finance privately owned water and power providers to supply rural areas that state-run utilities cannot reach. During a ceremony held at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the AFD and the ...

The U.N.’s deputy high commissioner for human rights, Flavia Pansieri—who is on a week­long mission in Cambodia —has been asked to address an arbitrarily enforced ban on public assemblies, which has been in place since January. In a letter dated Monday, Muth Chantha, secretary-general of the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said that Cambodia was eager to have Japanese investors to build factories and produce goods for exports to the world market. The premier made comments during his meeting on Sunday with Tishimitsu Gotegi, Minister of Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Industry of ...

The Association of the Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, has chosen 2015 as the year to realize its economic integration as the ASEAN Economic Community. Yet, there are only several months left, ASEAN doesn’t seem​ to be ready. How can ASEAN realize this goal? Although ...

Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia’s largest income earner, reported a 16 percent surge in exports in the first three months of 2014, the figures of the Ministry of Commerce showed Monday. The Southeast Asian nation exported apparel and footwear products in equivalent to 1.56 billion U.S. ...

More than 100 Cambodians were deported from Thailand yesterday after Thai security forces conducted operations over the weekend aimed at stemming the flow of illegal immigrants. Net Sary, Cambodia’s consul-general in Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province, said yesterday that 120 Cambodians, including four minors, were deported after ...

A little more than two years after signing off on a scheme aimed at improving protection of the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, experts said last week they were concerned that Mekong dams would see wholesale destruction of the population. During a two-day workshop that closed on ...

UNESCO, the Battambang provicial government and tourism officials held talks yesterday on plans to list the province on the UN arm’s World Heritage Cities Program. As part of the first of several conferences on sustainable tourism for the conservation of cultural and natural heritage and the ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng said Thursday that the government is still considering an Australian government proposal to take in asylum seekers intercepted while trying to reach the country. Speaking on the sidelines of a ceremony to swear in the heads of the new general departments of ...

The United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of assembly has called the Cambodian authorities’ continuous blockade of Freedom Park, the enforcement of which saw security guards attack journalists and supporters of opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua on Monday, “deeply disturbing”. “The authorities have no legal basis for ...

Recent arrests by Thai authorities of groups of suspected Uighur refugees along the Cambodian border have experts convinced that Cambodia has once again become a transit hub for members of the minority group fleeing religious and political persecution in China. Last week, 14 Uighurs were reportedly ...

Foreign Minister Hor Namhong has written a letter to the newly appointed Cambodian ambassador to South Korea to censure him over the alleged involvement of his family members in embassy affairs. In the letter, dated Monday, Mr. Namhong warns Ambassador Suth Dina not to allow ...

Belarus is ready to transfer technology to Cambodia to implement big strategic projects, Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich was quoted as saying Wednesday. In a report from Minsk, the Belarusian Telegraph Agency said Myasnikovich made the remarks during a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen who ...

The genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda were both aided by local media and propaganda, and the role of foreign media covering them is often criticized as insufficient. In interviews with VOA Khmer, media experts said more funding of that sector could help prevent such errors ...

The appointment of General Sok Phal to head the Interior Ministry’s newly formed department to monitor migrant workers has raised concerns over his close familial connection to a labor recruitment industry fraught with human rights abuses. Gen. Phal’s sister, Ung Seang Rithy, is the owner of ...