Government

Australia’s pact to allow some refugees to be transferred to Cambodia sets a troubling precedent for international practices on handling asylum seekers, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The deal, signed yesterday in Phnom Penh, applies to an initial 200 refugees detained by Australia ...

Negotiations held on Friday between garment factory owners, union leaders and government officials failed to set a new industry minimum wage for next year, but a final decision will be reached by October 10, according to Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng. The tripartite Labor Advisory Council ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday asked Philippines to expand tourism cooperation between the two countries. Hun Sen made the comments during a meeting with Neo A Wong, outgoing Philippine Ambassador to Cambodia, at the Peace Palace. ...

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 ...

The number of people killed in traffic accidents during this year’s Pchum Ben holiday and preceding two days increased by nearly 50 percent over the same period last year, a senior police official said on Thursday. From Saturday through Wednesday, there were 49 fatalities, compared to ...

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 ...

Two solar-powered buses will soon be put to the test on Phnom Penh’s bus line 1, City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche said yesterday. The test buses will operate from 6am to 6pm, saving enough energy to run more than four hours at nighttime along the route, ...

Ruling party lawmaker Chheang Vun yesterday called for the governor of Battambang province to intervene in a long-running land dispute between 38 villagers and wealthy tycoon Lem Tealeng. ...

Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia’s largest income earner, reported a 12.6 percent rise in exports in the first seven months of 2014, according to the data of the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday. The country exported apparel and footwear products worth 3.47 billion U.S. dollars during ...

Cambodia and China’s Yunnan province signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) here on Monday on media cooperation and exchanges. The deal was inked by Buth Bovuth, chief of the Cambodian Information Ministry’s General Department of Information and Broadcasting, and Wu Jingbo, deputy chief of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China’s Yunnan Provincial Committee, with the presence of Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith and Ge Guangzhi, deputy director of Department No. 6 of the Information Office of China’s State Council. ...

13 people were killed, and 47 others were injured in road accidents on Sunday, a day ahead of Pchum Ben festival from 22-24 September, website of General Commiosariate of National Police said. ...

About 1,000 workers protested outside the Chinese-owned Komchay Mear Trading factory in Prey Veng province on Saturday morning after managers refused to give them a government-mandated salary advance for the Pchum Ben holiday, officials and unionists said on Sunday. The protest was short-lived, however, ending Saturday ...

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong flew to New York on Sunday evening to attend the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which is slated to be held from Sept. 24 to Oct. 1. The minister will deliver a speech at the U.N. session on ...

The Cambodian Interior ministry is carrying out a census to identify how many foreigners – legal and illegal – are living in the country. ...

Transparency International Cambodia yesterday presented findings of a recent scathing report on corruption to the newly formed parliamentary anti-corruption commission. ...

Holiday travelers will get a preview of Phnom Penh’s new Cambodia-China Friendship bridge during the final days of the Pchum Ben festival, according to City Hall. ...

More than 200 university students yesterday called on the government to publicly release the latest version of the controversial cybercrime law, amid fears it will lead to a clampdown on their currently unrestricted use of social media sites like Facebook. ...

Three Thai men arrested in Cambodia for allegedly carrying counterfeit U.S. $100 bills with a face value of more than $7 million planned to circulate the fakes in rural areas where they would be less likely to be detected, police said Saturday. The men were arrested ...

National Assembly President Heng Samrin has given himself the power to deny access to the assembly compound, including the offices of all lawmakers, to anyone not employed by the government and has barred all private citizens from testifying before—or sitting in on—assembly commission meetings. In ...

Tycoon Try Pheap has collected an estimated 1,500 cubic metres of timber from Forestry Administration offices since the government in July issued his companies permission to confiscate “waste wood” from their offices and from the Ministry of Environment, according to preliminary government figures obtained by ...

Phnom Penh’s City Hall warned tobacco companies at a meeting yesterday to stop flouting a sub-decree that prohibits all forms of tobacco advertising, or else face closure or fines. The municipality said some companies were skirting the 2011 sub-decree by using more creative ways to sell ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday that the country needs about 11 billion U.S. dollars for public investment to support the implementation of the government’s priorities from 2013 to 2018. ...

With National Assembly President Heng Samrin attending a conference in Laos, CNRP Vice President Kem Sokha on Wednesday hosted his first official foreign visit since becoming first vice president of parliament in late August. ...

The National Assembly asked Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng to provide Korean-language test paper for free to or sell in the lowest price for workers as the current test paper costs USD 24. ...