The Cambodia Daily

After focusing their efforts on educating drivers about the traffic law for the past two and a half months, police will today begin strict enforcement of the new rules, imposing fines and punishments on offending motorists, the National Road Safety Committee announced on Friday. ...

Cambodia’s health regulation system is in need of deep reform, not just minor adjustments, as it is failing to meet its national needs and ASEAN obligations, according to a new report. ...

About 20 members of the opposition party’s permanent committee traveled to Manila on Saturday night for a two-day conference with CNRP President Sam Rainsy, who remains in exile, party spokesman Yem Ponhearith said on Sunday. ...

Cambodian and Australian officials on Sunday denied claims made by a Rohingya refugee from Burma over the weekend that he was being poorly treated in Phnom Penh, with the Interior Ministry’s refugee director calling the man “a liar.” ...

The Kampot Provincial Court will continue to investigate three villagers and an NGO worker after they were arrested and released on Friday for allegedly setting up an illegal checkpoint to extort money from timber and firewood transporters in Kampot’s Chhouk district, according to officials. ...

Local rights groups have raised major concerns about Cambodia’s sweeping new Telecommunications Law, which gives the government virtually unchecked spying powers and criminalizes any electronic communication deemed to cause “national insecurity.” ...

Although an eviction deadline passed on Sunday for guesthouses, restaurants and bars along Sihanoukville’s popular O’Tres Beach, less than half of the businesses had left as of the evening, with others seeking to negotiate a deal with authorities that would allow them to stay. ...

In what one commentator described as “a bold step”, the Interior Ministry’s prisons department has seemingly admitted it has a drug problem, and last week sent a letter requesting the Health Ministry’s assistance in tackling it. ...

The CPP appears set to pass a controversial trade union law next month despite conceding it is “not 100 percent perfect” and failing to address a litany of objections from unions, employers and the opposition party. ...

More than 200 activists attempting to cycle from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to the National Assembly in Phnom Penh to mark International Women’s Day were penned in by authorities Tuesday morning after pedaling less than 100 meters. ...

A task force made up of police and investigators from a child protection organization Thursday began searching in Siem Reap province for wanted Dutch pedophile Pieter Ceulen, according to a member of the team. ...

The province of Banteay Meanchey will build a new market for vendors displaced from the Long Keur market on the Thai side of the Poipet border, a provincial official said yesterday, adding that vendors will be allowed to continue selling their counterfeit goods at the ...

A week after an alliance of millers and exporters criticized the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) for its inaction in the face of the sector’s possible collapse, the federation Wednesday announced the formation of a new task force to manage challenges facing its members. ...

Health Minister Mam Bunheng said Wednesday that he was unconcerned by a letter sent to him by the head of the National Assembly’s health commission last month concerning a spate of recently discovered HIV cases in Kandal province.   ...

The head of the National Assembly’s legislation commission said he hoped to have a controversial draft union law passed “very soon” after the latest round of feedback from unions and employers during a public workshop at Parliament on Wednesday. ...

Government officials who travel overseas for work will have to turn over their service passports when they return to Cambodia starting this month due to misuse of the documents to overstay official trips and partake in unrelated work, according to a Foreign Affairs Ministry statement. ...

More than 200 activists attempting to cycle from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to the National Assembly in Phnom Penh to mark International Women’s Day were penned in by authorities Tuesday morning after pedaling less than 100 meters.​ ...

Another 73 families in Stung Treng province have accepted the government’s offer of new land in exchange for the farms they will lose to the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam currently under construction, the second group to take the deal.​ ...

As the government issued a familiar package of platitudes and promises on International Women’s Day, a walk through a single rural village in Kandal offered a shocking glimpse into how widespread – and widely accepted – domestic abuse remains in the Kingdom. ...

An Iranian husband and wife are the latest refugees to return home after being resettled in Phnom Penh as part of an expensive deal between Cambodia and Australia, immigration officials said Monday. ...

The head of the Interior Ministry’s bodyguard unit has called for more women to be recruited into the force to protect senior female officials and visiting dignitaries. ...

More than 80 truck drivers used their vehicles to temporarily block a highway in Stung Treng province early Sunday morning in protest after authorities stopped them for being overloaded, officials said. ...

Police burned nearly 45,000 marijuana plants growing on public forest land in Takeo province on Tuesday and Wednesday after they were tipped off by local villagers, police said Thursday. ...

A prominent anti-dam activist in Koh Kong province who has been jailed since October was convicted Thursday of illegal logging and given a suspended prison sentence, allowing him to walk free but leaving the shadow of a criminal conviction hanging over him. ...