រដ្ឋាភិបាល
No loans until poll: World Bank
Discussions on restarting World Bank loans to Cambodia will not commence until after the 2013 elections, a bank official said yesterday. After a landmark freeze on loans announced in December 2010, a response to the forced evictions by the government of residents of the Boeung Kak ...
National Assembly Lawmakers Reject SRP Budget Suggestions
Lawmakers at the National Assembly yesterday debated the government’s plan for public spending next year, with the opposition challenging the government’s plans to rack up more foreign debt. Since the draft of the 2013 budget was released last month, the opposition has come forward with detailed ...
Cambodia Retains Its Reputation for Corruption
Cambodia continues to rank among the most corrupt countries in the world and much needs to be done to enforce the Anti-Corruption Law and investigate allegations of corruption, Transparency International (T.I.) Cambodia said yesterday. According to T.I.’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Cambodia ranked 157th among ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-retains-its-reputation-for-corruption-6475/
Mounting Foreign Concerns as 2013 Budget Plans Under Way
WASHINGTON DC – Seven opposition lawmakers say they have found new ways to reduce the national debt and are requesting that the National Assembly’s finance committee meet with them before drafting the 2013 national budget. The lawmakers, from the Sam Rainsy and Human Rights parties, say ...
Opposition Wants Debt Lowered in 2013 Budget
The opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) has requested the National Assembly to reduce by 75 percent the amount of new debt the government is allowed to take on next year under the latest draft of the 2013 national budget. Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay, who sent the ...
Cambodia plans 3.1 bln USD for national expenses next year: minister
Cambodia planned to allocate 3. 1 billion U.S. dollars, in equivalent to 19.8 percent of the country’s GDP, for national expenses in 2013, a 12.9 percent rise year-on-year, finance minister Keat Chhon said Friday. Speaking to reporters after a meeting at the National Assembly, the minister ...
1 in 20 Firms Carry Out Environment Assessments
Only about 5 percent of the roughly 2,000 major development projects, such as dams, roads and bridges, approved by the government between 2004 and 2011 carried out environmental impact assessments, an official at the ministry of Environment said yesterday. Speaking at a workshop in Phnom Penh ...
Simon Lewis and Khuon Narim, P.1
http://www.cambodiadaily.com
Bilateral Talks, and Their Two Interpretations
Two polarizing narratives emerged after the Monday night discussion between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Hun Sen, with the U.S. claiming it had been “tense,” while Cambodia insisted the talks were cordial. When it came to agenda, Mr. Obama put human rights, electoral and ...
Obama Presses Hun Sen on Human Rights
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 ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/obama-presses-hun-sen-on-human-rights-record-6174/
SOS Obama protests gain traction
Capitalising on recent worldwide attention to their plight, some 200 villagers who say they’ve been robbed of their homes and land staged a vivid and stylised protest yesterday aimed at President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling for intervention in Phnom Penh’s land-titling ...
Cambodia Drops a Spot in Asean as Burma Reforms
THE ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is used to fending off “interference” by the West in the internal affairs of some of its members. In recent years the human-rights record of the regime in Myanmar has been the tenderest of these sore spots. ...
Cambodia's Parliament Ratifies Conventions On Nuclear Safety
The National Assembly of Cambodia on Wednesday ratified two international conventions on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency and Nuclear Safety to maintain security and prevent nuclear proliferation. “Cambodia has neither nuclear power plant nor chemical weapon plant; Cambodia is a country ...
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v6/newsindex.php?id=709118
Corruption Continues To Stymie Development, Transparency Advocate Says
Corruption remains a major impediment to Cambodia’s development, but the systemic practices associated with it can be curbed if the government takes serious action, a transparency advocate says. Preap Kol, executive director of Transparency International Cambodia, told VOA Khmer in a studio interview recently that Cambodia ...
Charged Rights Worker Returns to Cambodia; Hearing Pending
Human Rights investigator Chan Soveth has returned to Cambodia more than two-and-a-half months after leaving in the face of a criminal charge that is thought to be linked to an alleged insurrection that took place in Kratie province in May. On August 14, the court charge ...
Evictees still awaiting Obama
As more than 100 protesters continued to spend their days camped outside the US embassy appealing for the release of two land activists, a delegation from Amnesty International visited the Boeung Kak Community yesterday to offer support for their fight Amnesty International would continue to monitor ...
Cambodia: shrinking forests breed violence
Hang Serei Oudom told his 7-month pregnant wife that he was going out to meet a source. A journalist for Vorakchun Khmer Daily, he was investigating illegal logging for luxury woods in the jungles of Cambodia’s northeastern Ratanakkiri province. Three days later, on Sept. 11, he ...
2013 National Budget to Rise Above $3B
Government spending next year will total more than $3 billion, a 16.2 percent increase from the $2.6 billion set aside for 2012, according to a draft of the national budget obtained Friday. The budget states that the government will allocate some $400 million, or 13.32 ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/2013-national-budget-to-rise-above-3b-5428/
Anti-Eviction Protesters Camp at US Embassy for Second Day
Anti-eviction protesters set up camp in front of the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh for a second day yesterday, but ended their protest in the early evening when a petition to U.S. President Barack Obama was taken into the diplomatic mission by an embassy guard. “The ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/protesters-camp-at-us-embassy-for-second-day-5358/
Destroyed houses spark debate in Kampot
A company owned by a board member of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce has been accused of illegally destroying more than 80 houses in Kampot province’s Chhouk district, a claim vigorously denied by the firm and local authorities. Chan Pheng, a villager from Chi Bak village ...
Tax revenue up from 2011
Cambodia collected $633 million in taxes over the first 10 months of this year, a 31 per cent rise from $483 million over the same period last year, according to the General Department of Taxation. However, an opposition watchdog claimed the amount is still far ...
Anti-Eviction Protesters Appeal to Obama
As Barack Obama was declared president of the United States for a second term yesterday, about 50 anti-eviction protesters for the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities camped out in front of the U.S. Embassy and appealed for the president’s help in addressing land rights ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/anti-eviction-protesters-appeal-to-obama-5315/
Cambodian Appeals Court Upholds Detention of Land Activists
Two land activists from forced evictions in Phnom Penh will not be released on bail as they await trial on incitement charges widely seen as an attack on free speech. The two women, Yorm Bopha and Tim Sak Mony, were arrested in early September and accused ...
Families complain to volunteers
Twelve families from Koh Kong province on Nov. 6 filed a complaint with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s youth volunteers and the Department of Land Management, requesting assistance in a land dispute with businessman, Heng Huy. Pok Yon, the families’ representative, said that earlier this year, Heng ...
Union Tells EU, US to Not Inspect Activist Case
More than 100 moto-taxi and tuk tuk drivers who are part of a little-known workers union submitted a letter to the U.S. Embassy and the European Union Delegation yesterday, asking them not to intervene in the case of Boeng Kak activist Yorm Bopha. It is not ...