News

For more than a year, mystery has shrouded a museum in Siem Reap. The facts have been few and the details sparse. What’s known is that a North Korean company invested about $10 million for construction, and that artists from the hermit kingdom flew in ...

Starting Thursday, tourists from 35 countries could enter Thailand and Cambodia with single visa as foreign ministers of the two countries agreed on Wednesday. Under the Acmecs single visa, tourists from Australia up to United States could apply entry visa at Thai or Cambodian embassies or ...

An ambitions new agricultural development project backed by a former US diplomat is aiming to dramatically revamp the sector and bring profits back into the hands of farmers. Sichan Siv, a Cambodian with dual citizenship who spent five years serving as US ambassador to the UN, ...

Three New Zealand companies will leave their mark on Kids City, a massive new family entertainment complex in Cambodia offering 7000 square metres of indoor activities, shops, cafes and an ice skating rink on the top floor. When it opens in March, visitors to the 12-story ...

Human rights groups in Cambodia fear a new south-east Asian declaration of human rights could conversely offer the government in Phnom Penh a figleaf to clamp down on dissent. Cambodia signed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) human rights declaration on Sunday, two days ...

Cambodia’s ASEAN economic minister said the official launch of the negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will lead to potentially forming the biggest single market in the region and is much bigger than the traditional markets of the US and the EU. An economist ...

A plan to create a free trade area covering roughly half the world’s population by 2015 was initiated yesterday by regional and world leaders meeting in Phnom Penh. During the Asean and related meetings at his office, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that the group of ...

Prime Minister John Key has joined a launch of Asian free trade talks – but made it clear he favours a US-backed deal. The East Asian Summit wrapped up in Phnom Penh yesterday with Asian leaders formally announcing a start to negotiations towards a Regional Comprehensive ...

Asean leaders yesterday failed again to form a common front towards geo-political disputes with China over the South China Sea as the Philippines vowed to continue shouting while Cambodia tried to contain discussions to the two immediate sides. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations hoped ...

U.S. President Barack Obama pressed Prime Minister Hun Sen on the government’s human rights record during a closed-door meeting between the two leaders in Phnom Penh yesterday, calling for fair elections and the release of all political prisoners. In the first visit to Cambodia by a ...

Premier Wen Jiabao said on Monday China supports pushing forward an Asian free-trade area, which will cover 28 percent of world’s total export volume. Previous reports said China is expected to make announcements on Tuesday in Phnom Penh that it will join the talks for the ...

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard is aiming for an ambitious trade agreement that not only covers ASEAN and its neighbours but leaves the door open for other entrants. Ms Gillard arrived in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh on Monday for the East Asia Summit, which is set ...

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak arrived in Cambodia on Sunday for a series of international summits, including one involving the newly re-elected U.S. president, Barack Obama, about freer trade and other cooperation issues in the region. On Monday and Tuesday, Lee will attend a trio ...

The SET-listed Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Plc (RATCH), Thailand’s largest private power producer, is to delay the purchase of a coal mine in Indonesia, as the global coal price has dropped sharply. Ratch had planned to acquire a mine to serve its new coal-fired power plants ...

East Asian leaders will discuss how to address economic and financial disorder when they meet heads of the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and the World Trade Organization next week, a source said Wednesday. The source, who asked not to be named, said the ...

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will travel to Australia, Thailand and Cambodia next week as part of America’s strategic tilt to the Asia-Pacific, even as crises in the Middle East demand the Pentagon’s attention and resources. In a week-long trip starting Sunday, Panetta will head to ...

ASEAN says it will study how to implement a proposed economic partnership with its six external partners that might lead to the foundation of world’s largest economic bloc. The proposed bloc, dubbed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) or “ASEAN+6” , would integrate ASEAN’s 10 ...

At the ceremony yesterday making the official start of the National Election Committee’s new mandate, NEC chairman Im Suosdey criticized the U.N. human rights envoy to Cambodia for taking an exceedingly harsh view of the country’s much derided electoral system. In a July report to the ...

Cambodia, with a total population of 14,952,665 as of July 2010, is located in Southeastern Asia, bordering the Gulf of Thailand, between Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. The country mostly has a tropical climate and covers a total area of 181,035 km2 Cambodia’s key natural resources include ...

The number of foreign tourists arriving in Cambodia increased 23 per cent in the third quarter of the year compared to the same period last year, according to new statistics from the Ministry of Tourism.  The data show the number of tourists who arrived in the ...

The Australian Senate yesterday urged the Cambodian government to run free and fair national elections next year without the “harassment or intimidation” of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who remains in self-imposed exile avoiding an 11-year jail sentence. The appeal comes only days after the European Parliament ...

FedEx has officially opened its new South Pacific Regional Hub in Singapore, the largest consolidated facility in the Asia-Pacific region. The $97 million hub is the first and only express transportation facility in Singapore. The 282,700-square-foot integrated facility houses air, ground and clearance operations under one roof ...

Thirty families uprooted by Cambodia’s railway rehabilitation project have filed a complaint with Australia’s highest human rights body, alleging rights abuses as a result of the partially AusAid-funded rail project. The complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission was made on behalf of the families by NGOs Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive ...

Thailand has to revise its strategy concerning a regional single visa scheme, or it could lose millions of tourists to neighbouring countries, which are kicking off the “CLMV Single Visa” next year without the Kingdom’s participation. Five countries – Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar – ...