The Cambodia Daily

A visiting U.S. human rights envoy on Tuesday urged the government to release and drop charges against five current and former rights workers arrested in April amid what he called a deteriorating political situation in which the courts have disproportionately targeted state critics. ...

International media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said in a statement released on Tuesday that it was concerned by what it characterized as a “surge” in threats against journalists and news organizations in Cambodia in recent weeks.   ...

Forestry officials in Preah Vihear province confiscated more than 1,100 kg of valuable rosewood early on Tuesday morning, while the two men suspected of transporting the wood were on the run, officials said.   ...

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared to rebuke Cambodia’s position on the South China Sea dispute over the weekend, saying that an international tribunal’s ruling on China’s territorial claims should be respected.   ...

Turkey’s ambassador to Cambodia alleged on Monday that a top international school in Phnom Penh is overseen by the “terrorist organization” behind last week’s thwarted coup in Turkey—prompting a threat of legal action by the school.   ...

A judge postponed the start of a defamation trial against National Election Committee official Ny Chakrya on Monday after the two Siem Reap court officials who brought the case against him failed to show up at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court.   ...

An official at the Finance Ministry’s customs and excise department has been jailed on bribery charges following his arrest by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) last week on suspicion of taking kickbacks from foreign companies.   ...

A police official from Takeo province was arrested in Vietnam on Saturday night after fatally shooting one man and injuring a second at a restaurant just across the border, officials said on Sunday.  ...

China will provide Cambodia with more than half a billion dollars in aid, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced yesterday, less than a week after Cambodia again declined to support an Asean statement critical of Beijing’s claims to the hotly contested South China Sea. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has signed a sub-decree formally removing Kry Seang Long from his position at the Education Ministry following reports that he sexually assaulted his interpreter during an official visit to South Korea in May.   ...

Prominent union leader Pav Sina was questioned in court on Thursday about a forgery and disinformation complaint filed against him by a garment factory, a charge he rejected as being an invention meant to stall attempts by workers to unionize.   ...

Employees of a controversial monkey breeding farm in Pursat City who protested earlier this week for higher wages have accepted their employer’s offer of a $16 monthly wage increase, authorities said on Thursday.   ...

As the government plans to transfer roughly 60 percent of detainees at the notorious Prey Speu detention center to a “mental illness” center in Kandal province, mental health experts expressed doubts this week over the country’s capacity to provide proper care. ...

Two weeks after police rounded up blind and disabled performers begging for money on streets around Phnom Penh in a bid to prevent traffic congestion, the performers were back on the streets on Wednesday, defiantly defending their right to earn their keep. ...

A group of 16 Montagnard asylum-seekers who fled to Cambodia from Vietnam over the past two years returned to their home country on Tuesday after failing to secure refugee status in Phnom Penh, an Interior Ministry official said on Wednesday. ...

For years, archaeologists excavating pre-Angkorian sites in Banteay Meanchey province unsuccessfully attempted to stop the looting of the area’s temples and buried treasures.   ...

A $9 million grant to promote government accountability in Cambodia and strengthen nongovernmental groups across the country was announced on Tuesday by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).   ...

A study of drinking water sources in Kandal province found widespread contamination from human excrement, posing a health risk to residents that likely mirrors the situation across Cambodia, the authors say.   ...

The disgraced former director of Koh Kong’s provincial agriculture department will not be prosecuted despite admitting to profiting from the illegal sale of state land, Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon said on Monday.   ...

The Finance Ministry has rescheduled a trio of timber auctions that had been set to start today after a continued lack of interest from buyers, although bidding for a lot in Stung Treng province will go ahead on Wednesday as planned.   ...

A pile of illegally logged wood discovered by police in Ratanakkiri province earlier this month along a road built by a local rubber plantation often accused of illegal logging has since gone missing, a Forestry Administration official said on Sunday.   ...

The use of mobile weighing stations to combat overloaded transport trucks will be extended next month to factories, warehouses, quarries, construction sites and other sources of heavy shipments, the Transport Ministry has announced.   ...

Police in Ratanakkiri province say they are investigating the origin of a pile of first grade logs stashed along a road built by and leading out of a Vietnamese-owned rubber plantation that has long been the target of illegal logging accusations.   ...

Rice exports fell almost 6 percent during the first half of the year, to 268,190 tons, according to government figures—despite the industry’s repeated calls for help to prevent such a decline.   ...