Provincial and local governments

A provincial military police commander was named yesterday by a major conservationist group as the alleged owner of a huge haul of illegal rosewood confiscated in Kampong Speu province this week. At around 3 a.m. on Tuesday, Wildlife Alliance rangers intercepted a truck carrying 12.5 cubic ...

Kompong Chhnang provincial police on Tuesday arrested one of six suspects wanted for the murder of a journalist in Cholkiri district nearly nine months ago, police said Wednesday. Suon Chan, 44, who worked for the infrequently published Meakea newspaper, died on the way to the hospital ...

Activists from two local rights groups yesterday accused soldiers in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district of seizing their cameras and stopping them from investigating a land dispute. ...

Two Pailin provincial councillors are calling for a corruption probe of former governor and current council president Y Chhien, accusing him of using $400,000 “not transparently”, and possibly pocketing revenue from sales of natural resources. Cambodia National Rescue Party council members Ven Ra and Sou Dina ...

About 80 villagers locked in a land dispute in Preah Vihear province found their planned march to the National Assembly blocked by security forces in the capital’s Meanchey district yesterday. Village representative Meng Chanthorn said that the quashed march, which was ultimately abandoned without the use ...

About forty public bus drivers who protested over wages at the weekend were told yesterday to work or resign. The bus drivers claim Phnom Penh City Hall promised them salaries of between $300 and $350 per month beginning in September, but were still paying them only ...

Three representatives of the Khmer National Liberation Front said they were attacked yesterday morning by Daun Penh district security guards while attempting to file a letter to City Hall requesting permission to hold an anti-Vietnamese protest later this month. ...

Around 40 drivers of the city’s new public buses protested on Saturday in front of the night market in Phnom Penh to demand a higher wage, but an official said they were “confused” about the salary agreement. ...

Y Chhien, the three-star military general and former bodyguard of Pol Pot, has resigned from his position as chief of the Pailin Provincial Council, an Interior Ministry official confirmed on Thursday. Rumors had circulated for days that Lieutenant General Chhien, the first governor of Pailin, would ...

Two protesters from the Boeung Kak lake community are weeks away from long-awaited land titles after City Hall officials yesterday measured plots for them amid a small crowd of angry former residents. ...

At least six labor unions to be led by Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, will hold public forum at the Freedom Park on October 12 to discuss minimum wage demand for footwear and garment workers. A plan to hold the ...

Authorities in Kratie province on Saturday night discovered nearly 90 pieces of luxury-grade wood stockpiled just outside the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) headquarters in Chhlong district, where they believe the timber was being staged for transport to Tbong Khmum province to the south, officials ...

The provincial government in Preah Vihear is pushing ahead with a compensation and housing scheme for villagers whose existing homes are in the way of a cultural preservation area near the province’s famous 11th-century temple. But the villagers are reluctant to accept the package, saying the ...

Hy Narin, the Meanchey district police chief arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Tuesday, was questioned on Thursday by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over allegations that he stole more than $600,000 from the state and its citizens during his eight years as police ...

City Hall has banned street marches for World Teachers’ Day and World Housing Rights Day, ordering participants to confine their activities to Freedom Park instead. World Teachers’ Day and World Housing Rights Day occur on October 5 and 6, respectively. Planners for both expressed disappointment ...

Fearing loss of land, about 150 farmers in Svay Rieng province yesterday marched to the provincial hall, filing a petition that demands land titles on their property. Many villagers in Svay Chrum district’s Chhoeuteal commune lost parts of their property in 2011, when a dam was ...

Pailin provincial authorities are searching for a suspect who allegedly commissioned the excavation of a gold mine on land the protection of which is funded by the foundation of American actress Angelina Jolie. Provincial environmental police are holding three men at a spot where they were ...

An opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party district councillor in Phnom Penh was arrested yesterday in connection with a CNRP-led protest at Freedom Park on July 15 that turned violent. At least 15 CNRP members or supporters have been charged in connection with the violence, which saw ...

A CPP commune chief in Battambang province led more than 150 villagers in a demonstration on Friday outside the local office of rights group Adhoc after a representative of the organization accused the official of corruption for allegedly selling plots of public land to local ...

Villagers whose homes will be destroyed if the controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam is built are to deliver today a letter to provincial authorities announcing that they refuse to be resettled. Meach Mean, coordinator of the 3S Rivers Protection Network, said the villagers, who hail from ...

A torrential downpour that lasted over three hours yesterday morning has left many in the capital struggling with flooded houses, businesses and travel conditions, sparking outcry that authorities have not done enough to manage the rain’s effects. Flooding took place in virtually every district in ...

About 2,000 workers from the Chinese-owned Juhui Footwear factory in Kompong Cham province began a fresh round of protests on Friday and Saturday over claims that the factory is refusing to rehire unionists who were fired during a strike earlier this month, a provincial official ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng on Thursday announced plans to raise salaries of commune and village officials in an effort to close the gap between earnings of high- and low-ranking civil servants. The draft sub-decree, which will see wages of commune chiefs rise from 300,000 riel per ...

Holidaymakers flocked to Cambodia’s temples and beachside towns during the September 22-24 Pchum Ben holiday break, officials said yesterday. Nou Sophal, director of the Sihanoukville department of tourism, said the province received about 67,600 visitors over the three-day festival period, up some 76 per cent over ...