Ministries and other national bodies

Authorities will not renew operating licenses for sand-dredging companies in Cambodia if impact studies on the industry are not completed by the time the licenses expire at year-end, a ministry official said Friday. ...

The chief of police in Preah Sihanouk province has been removed from his position and will be replaced by Chuon Narin, deputy chief of the Phnom Penh municipal force, according to the Interior Ministry. ...

Three owners of sand dredging companies were among 11 people arrested Thursday by military police—working in tandem with the Ministry of Mines and Energy—for operating without a proper license, according to a spokesman for the ministry. ...

The government will provide scholarships to poor public school students in grades 1 through 12 in an effort to curb drop-out rates.​ ...

The justice minister on Wednesday wrote to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court requesting that the judge in charge of a case surrounding a long-running land dispute report to the ministry, following intervention from the National Assembly’s human rights commission. ...

The head of the Interior Ministry’s general department of immigration issued a statement on Wednesday reminding foreigners working in Cambodia that they are required to hold a work permit—and will face fines if they do not. ...

When Defense Minister Tea Banh addressed graduates last month at Cambodia’s prestigious Army Institute, he directed his thanks to the guests who made it all possible: a group of crisply dressed officers from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al on Wednesday announced the creation of a recurring annual $5-million fund to help Phnom Penh and every provincial capital clean up their trash-strewn streets, especially outside homes and restaurants. ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng on Wednesday ordered police across the country to focus on investigating and arresting the leaders of illegal-drug syndicates rather than low-level traffickers and users. ...

Cambodia has made some progress in improving its education system in line with its 2015 UN Millennium Goals, but dropout rates remain high, due to endemic poverty and corruption. Universal literacy and 9th-grade education were the second-highest goal in the development plan, whose progress Cambodia will ...

Representatives for some 200 families in a yearslong land dispute with the Union Development Group (UDG) in Koh Kong province met for the first time with both company and government officials Tuesday but left with little to show. ...

Despite a 72 percent increase in the number of drug-related arrests last year compared to 2013, 50 percent less drugs were seized during the same period, an official from the National Authority for Combating Drugs’ (NACD) said Tuesday. ...

Approximately 200 lawmakers, educators and civil society and development partner representatives met here on Tuesday to discuss reform measures to improve educational system in Cambodia. Hang Chuon Naron said Cambodia now has more than 7,000 primary schools with about 2 million students, 5,750 secondary schools ...

Cambodia is not meeting many of its UN Millennium Development Goals, which are coming due this year, but it has made progress in the reduction of infant mortality. Currently, 28 of 1,000 children born in Cambodia die before reaching the age of one. That number is ...

Cambodia will host the first International Youth Cultural Symposium (IYCS) from April 12-17 in a bid to exchange culture between Cambodian youth and those from ASEAN and its dialogue partners, an education official said Monday.​ ...

Incensed by the prime minister’s assertion last week that the “same faces” always show up at protests, a group of Phnom Penh’s most prominent anti-eviction activists picketed City Hall on Monday to vent their anger. ...

Thirty-six villagers remained hospitalized Monday afternoon after about 800 fell ill on Saturday from eating tainted sandwiches distributed at a World Vision event in Siem Reap province’s Chi Kreng district, officials said. ...

Cambodia’s second trip to the South Pacific island nation of Nauru to find refugees Australia is holding there who are willing to resettle in Cambodia has been unsuccessful, Interior Ministry immigration department chief Sok Phal said Monday. ...

Refugees who met with Cambodian immigration officials last week on the Pacific island of Nauru were told they would be given permanent visas and travel documents but would have to pay for English-language education and would lose all but emergency financial support after a year, ...

At the Coffee Resort in Sen Monorom, the capital of Mondulkiri province, business is booming. In just an hour, about 50 tourists, local and foreign alike, come through, ordering coffee or avocado shakes to go. Coffee beans and avocados grow well here, and now, thanks to ...

Kem Sokha, the vice president of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, has been summoned to appear in Phnom Penh Municipal Court a week after being threatened with a lawsuit by Prime Minister Hun Sen. ...

The Japanese government on Monday awarded nearly US$230 million in grant aid and loans to Cambodia. The loans are for a city transmission and distribution system expansion project in Phnom Penh and improvement of National Road No. 5, linking Phnom Penh and the Thai border. ...

Recruitment agencies are pressing for an MoU on Cambodian domestic maids to be approved, saying it had been stuck at the Malaysian side for several months. They said the Cambodian government was ready to lift the ban imposed in 2011, but lamented that Malaysian authorities were ...

The Ministry of Public Works and Transport called on the directors of public works in Phnom Penh and the provinces to crack down on fraudulent truck-weighing checkpoints around the country. ...