France and Australia have congratulated Prime Minister Hun Sen on his official re-election in July’s contested vote, with their endorsement coming as opposition leader Sam Rainsy visits Europe urging donors to suspend ties with the new government. While many other countries—mostly in Asia—were quick to congratulate ...

Opposition party lawmaker Son Chhay has sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Sok An asking for the immediate suspension of a Vietnamese rubber plantation in the endangered Prey Long forest, accusing the firm of illegal deforestation. In the letter dated Wednesday, Mr Chhay also asked ...

Authorities in Prey Veng province yesterday agreed to cut the price of water from 1,800 riel to 1,200 riel a cubic metre after more than 1,000 people blocked National Road 11 for the fourth consecutive day. Acting provincial police chief Dim Yarum said yesterday an ...

Cambodian rice trader TTY Corporation has said the Kingdom cannot meet a new 200,000-tonne export quota for shipping high-quality rice to China. State-owned Sinograin’s order for three varieties of milled fragrant rice was a deviation from an agreement struck with TTY in August, TTY deputy director-general ...

The government has approved Qatar as a destination for the growing number of Cambodian labourers seeking employment overseas. Workers will not be recruited for housekeeping services, however, private sector officials said. The abuse of maids in Malaysia – many of whom were reportedly under-aged – has ...

Guangxi Nonferrous Metal Group invested $21.95 million in the construction of a steel processing plant, the data shows. The Chinese company planned to invest as much as $500 million in Preah Vihear province, China’s state-owned Xinhua news agency reported in November. China’s Xing Yuan Kang Yeak ...

Cambodians working in South Korea this year are expected to remit up to US$80 million to the Kingdom as up to 40 per cent more Cambodian labour heads to the East Asian nation compared to last year. The Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training expects at ...

Nearly two months after the 45th Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting concluded with ministers failing to issue a joint communique for the first time in the block’s history, Cambodia remains on the defensive, this week disseminating yet another agressive letter to the editor of a regional newspaper. In a ...

Apsara Authority on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with three Japanese companies to conduct a feasibility study to solve various environmental problems in the Angkor area. The MoU was signed between Bun Narith, director general of Apsara Authority, Shoichi Kobayashi, chairman of the Japan ...

India is financing the construction of a US$70 million transmission line to bring electricity from hydroelectric projects in Laos to Cambodia, according to Indian Chamber of Commerce President Debasish Pattnaik. Speaking yesterday after the official launch of the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia (ICC), Pattnaik ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen returned home yesterday from a quick trip to Beijing with the promise of some $523 million in new loans and grants, one day after Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jabao praised Cambodia for helping China maintain “friendly relations” with Asean. Speaking with ...

Economic land concessions (ELCs) benefit only a minority, the human rights consequences of the concessions are stark, and Cambodia’s sustainable economic development is threatened by the practice. U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi told the Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday. Mr. Subedi cited uneven access to ...

The homes of 137 families in Pursat province’s Phnom Kravanh district have been demolished since Tuesday, when more than 60 police, military forces and forestry officials began evicting families from land claimed by Touch Hiv, an agricultural company, local officials and villagers said yesterday. “We ...

Police targeting of sex workers for arrest has made them vulnerable to contracting or spreading HIV, according to a U.N. report released yesterday. The U.N. report, Sex Work and Law in Asia and the Pacific-Laws, HIV and human rights in the context of sex work, states that ...

About 40 families in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district are disputing local authorities’ demand that they abandon their homes without compensation so the government can increase a nearby canal’s capacity. The residents, who were asked on September 28 to vacate their homes within a week by Meanchey ...

Some 285 million workers will migrate for employment when ASEAN countries open their borders to each other in 2015, Prime Minister Hun Sen predicted yesterday, as he urged speedier regional legislative action to ensure they could travel safely. At an ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Council meeting, the premier warned ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen mockingly declared that opposition pledges to increase the salaries of civil servants marked the arrival of “the season of promises” ahead of next year’s elections, during a speech yesterday. The premier deemed boosting salaries by reducing tax losses attributed to graft unfeasible  because ...

The president of the group responsible for rooting out government graft said yesterday that his investigators will look into allegations of corruption filed by state-owned Telecom Cambodia (TC) employees against the director-general of the company, Lao Saroeun. Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) President Om Yentieng told reporters after ...

About 200 people from Siem Reap’s Angkor Chum district protested outside the district governor’s office on Friday, calling for private electricity company Duong Narin to lower its prices and asking the state electricity authority to connect to their area, protesters said yesterday. The residents of ...

The Free Trade Union has vowed to stage a mass strike in the garment and footwear industries if its demands for an extra US$30 per month of bonuses for workers are not met, union president Chea Mony said yesterday. The union sent a letter to Minister ...