Government

As senior members of the ruling CPP gathered in Phnom Penh this weekend for their annual congress, the party gave itself a glowing performance review and noted almost no areas for improvement, according to a 49-page report distributed to delegates at the two-day event. ...

Following a troubled rollout of the January 1 Traffic Law, the government announced yesterday in a press conference that an inter-ministerial team has been established to determine what amendments will be made in reaction to widespread criticism from the public and civil society. ...

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s decision-making central committee will hold its annual congress this weekend on Phnom Penh’s Koh Pich. ...

In his latest abrupt policy backtracking, Prime Minister Hun Sen used a speech on Thursday to rescind a recently announced plan to ban dual nationals from leading political parties—an effort that had ostensibly been aimed at the self-exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy. ...

The number of drug cases and people arrested for drug crimes in 2015 more than doubled year-on-year, while the volume of drugs seized shot up 18-fold, according to police. ...

A Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmaker is calling on young Cham party activists to rally support for the opposition party, expressing a desire to see a politician from the Muslim minority join the National Assembly. ...

The government is planning to gradually reduce tariffs on most goods imported from other ASEAN member states to zero, putting Cambodia ahead of what is required of it under the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA), officials said.   ...

Three applicants have been shortlisted for the top spot on the reformed National Election Committee, with a final decision to be made on January 15. ...

Russian authorities have temporarily detained a cargo ship flying the Cambodian flag near Crimea in the Black Sea on January 3, a spokesman for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said yesterday. ...

The Vietnamese province of Dak Lak is donating cash and materials to build a new police station across the border in Mondolkiri’s Koh Nhek district, according to a police official. ...

Cambodia’s first juvenile justice law, in the works for nearly a decade, will be passed by the end of this year, according to the Ministry of Social of Affairs. ...

The General Department of Taxation notified patent owners that they have three months to pay taxes owed on their patents, but they can do so at banks this year for the first time,  its director general said yesterday. ...

Another arrest warrant has been issued for opposition leader Sam Rainsy—who is living in France to avoid two years in jail for a defamation conviction—after he failed to turn up for questioning about a separate forgery and incitement case last month. ...

The Ministry of Environment on Monday inaugurated its palatial new headquarters in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district, the result of a state-private land swap. ...

The Ministry of Commerce announced last week a $400 million proposal by three Chinese firms to build state-run rice warehousing facilities to increase the Kingdom’s storage capacity. ...

The Cambodian government officially took charge of the ticket sales at the Angkor Archeological Park on January 1, after Prime Minster Hun Sen announced in November an end to the Sok Kong-owned Sokimex’s control of the service. ...

Stricter controls on guns – including those carried by police – will be put in place following a spate of violent crimes involving firearms in recent weeks. ...

The head of Cambodia’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU), Om Yentieng, has apologised for suggesting that the Kingdom’s traffic police might be corrupt.Yentieng’s about-face came yesterday at a public meeting about the new Traffic Law – which goes into effect today – attended by Deputy Prime Minister ...

Hun Many, the youngest son of Prime Minister Hun Sen and a CPP lawmaker, revealed during a radio show on Wednesday his ambition to follow in his father’s footsteps and become the future prime minister. ...

Administrators at Phnom Penh’s Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital on Thursday refuted claims that hospital staff denied a brain scan, blood transfusions and surgery to a wom­an suffering from severe head wounds—a charge leveled by her husband shortly before she died there on Wednesday afternoon. ...

Hun Manet, eldest son of Prime Minister Hun Sen and a senior military official, took to Facebook yesterday to defend his father’s handling of the demarcation of the Cambodia-Vietnam border. ...

Stung Treng provincial governor Kol Sam Ol said on Tuesday that he had been replaced by his deputy, Mom Saroeun, and sent to work at the Interior Ministry in Phnom Penh. ...

Nhay Chamroeun, one of the two Cambodian National Rescue Party lawmakers savagelybeaten in front of the National Assembly in late October, may be seeking legal recourse through the US justice system. ...

Nearly 70,000 Cambodian migrant workers have been registered this year as legal workers in Thailand, according to a report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released yesterday.  ...