International relations

Bilateral trade volume between Cambodia and its neighboring Vietnam has hit 2.7 billion U.S. dollars in the first nine months of the year, up 10 percent compared with the 2.45 billion U.S. dollars over the same period last year, a Cambodian trade official said Thursday. Kem ...

The Chinese government on Thursday signed up to provide a free-interest loan of 200 million Renminbi (33 million U.S. dollars) to Cambodia for social and economic development projects. The agreement was inked between Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo and Cambodian Finance Minister Aun Porn Moniroth ...

In the past two years, the French embassy in Phnom Penh has been drawn into at least two high-profile cases in which their nationals have died in suspicious circumstances in Cambodia. In an attempt to improve forensic investigations in the Kingdom, the French embassy announced ...

Cambodian and Thai military officials met yesterday morning to discuss the implementation of the International Court of Justice’s ruling on Preah Vihear, with both sides pledging to keep the peace and the Thais agreeing to withdraw to the new line of demarcation. Monday’s judgment declared that ...

Laos is pushing ahead with construction of a second dam on the Mekong River despite objections from environmental and civil society groups. Work on the main part of the Don Sahong hydropower dam near the Cambodian border in southern Laos will begin by the end of ...

The Council of Ministers has approved a draft law aimed at protecting the patent rights of traditional Cambodian products, which if violated could be met with a fine of up to $5,000 and a five-year jail term. The law on geographical indication (G.I.), a status given ...

The International Court of Justice yesterday unanimously declared that its 1962 judgment awarding the Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia also gave the Kingdom sovereignty over the promontory that the temple sits on. But while the announcement was initially greeted as a resounding victory by some in ...

The government affirmed its commitment to bilingual education for ethnic minority children in Cambodia’s northern provinces at a UNESCO conference in Bangkok last week. Speaking at the fourth International Conference on Language and Education: Multilingual Education for all in Asia and the Pacific, Ton Sa Im, ...

Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology Lim Kean Hor said Monday that he would seek an investigation into a $1.5-million haul of river sand exported to India in April in spite of a ban on the export of dredged sand handed down by Prime Minister ...

Cambodia should have sovereignty over disputed land around the Preah Vihear temple on the border with Thailand, the UN’s highest court has ruled. The International Court of Justice in the Hague said Thailand must withdraw any soldiers from the area. Cambodia sought a clarification of the ...

The government plans to raise $3.51 billion in state revenue in 2014 in order to finance a $3.4 billion draft budget, an increase of about 14.5 percent compared to the previous year, when the government raised $2.98 billion in revenue, according to a draft of ...

Koh Kong Sugar has offered to settle its yearslong dispute with Cambodian families who accuse its plantations of stealing their land, but the farmers remain wary of being able to secure a fair deal. The firm, a subsidiary of Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Limited (KSL), ...

Turkey has opened an embassy in Cambodia to boost friendship and cooperation between the two countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said Saturday. Turkey decided to open the embassy “after the general elections were organized in a smooth, democratic, free and fair ...

Laos is taking steps to convince neighboring countries of the merits of the planned Don Sahong hydropower project over Mekong River. Lao government officials organized a site visit on Sunday and Monday so that interested parties could see the site first-hand and get a sense of ...

This year, the Cambodian people celebrate their 60th National Day as well as the birthday of the Cambodia Kingdom’s royal army under the bright leadership of King Norodom Sihanouk, who relentlessly struggled against the French colonialists to gain independence (09-11-1953 – 09-11-2013). In 2010, Father ...

Declaring that it has “zero tolerance” towards land grabbing, Coca-Cola has agreed to investigate a long running case in Cambodia where villagers are seeking court action against a company accused of seizing their land to make way for plantations linked to the supply of sugar ...

US Ambassador William Todd on Thursday urged the Cambodian government to strengthen the skills of its laborers, in order to meet the needs of an integrated Asean in 2015. The 10 Southeast Asian countries that comprise Asean are all moving toward an integrated economic block, which ...

A huge haul of river sand dredged in Cambodia has been quarantined at the southern Indian port city of Cochin since its arrival in April despite a ban on sand exports instituted by Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2009. India’s Deccan Chronicle news­paper reported on Tuesday ...

The National Assembly of Viet Nam presented 1,000 tonnes of rice to Cambodian flood victims at a ceremony held in Phnom Penh yesterday. The latest floods took the lives of 80 people and resulted in economic losses of around US$1 billion. ...

The European Union (EU) signs Wednesday to provide Cambodia with equipment to detect illicit trafficking and criminal use of nuclear and radiological materials. The agreement was inked between EU Ambassador to Cambodia Jean Francois Cautain and Om Yentieng, vice-chairman of the Secretariat of National Counter-Terrorism Committee. Under the deal, ...

After repeatedly equivocating about whether it has lifted a 2011 freeze on new lending to Cambodia in response to the government’s forced evictions of families in Phnom Penh, the World Bank has said that the suspension is still firmly in place. “The World Bank has not ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) is requesting that $15 million be allocated to Cambodia from a new $100 million grant to stop the spread of resistance to the best available drugs currently used to fight malaria. Eva Christophel, the WHO’s regional malaria adviser in Manila, said ...

The aid sector needs more transparency to ensure that the public knows exactly where and how money is being spent, a consortium of NGOs said Tuesday. Tek Vannara, deputy executive director of the NGO Forum, said at a workshop in Phnom Penh that while the Council ...

CPP and Senate President Chea Sim was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government on Sunday in recognition of his contributions to the strengthening of relations between the two countries. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Sim, ...