ភ្នំពេញប៉ុស្តិ៍

A ruling party lawmaker and parliamentary spokesman said yesterday that the National Assembly will consider invoking an internal rule that could force the opposition party to replace its elected lawmakers with lower-ranked candidates from within the party if their boycott continues beyond a deadline. Principle 83 ...

The government in May held back on implementing widely unpopular rules that would have raised the price of mobile phone calls so as to not upset consumers – and potential voters – just months ahead of the national election, according to Cambodia’s independent telecommunications regulator. “Before ...

The Cambodia National Rescue Party has said it plans to expand the mass demonstration already slated for Tuesday in Siem Reap to include another large rally in the capital. The CNRP announced late last month it was moving its first in a series of new rallies ...

The long-awaited resumption of international adoptions may finally occur in the new year, officials from the ministries of Justice and Social Affairs said yesterday, though no time table is yet in place. While the freeze on adoptions – put in place in 2009 with the passage ...

Cambodia could soon get its first Chinese-run digital television station, the latest local project hailing from a country that represents one of the Kingdom’s largest foreign investors. Yu Hua, deputy director of Yunnan Mobile Digital TV Corporation, based in China’s Yunnan province, met with Cambodia’s Minister ...

Representatives from civil society and the opposition gathered yesterday to push for the adoption of an access to information law – a move that comes less than a month after Prime Minister Hun Sen urged the Ministry of Information to hasten its development. Two laws dealing ...

Two people who were quoted in a report implicating tycoon Try Pheap in illegal logging have been issued fresh summonses to appear in Kandal Provincial Court on defamation charges. Sen San and Ouk Sambo were originally scheduled to appear in the court last Friday, but San ...

A semiannual study of defendants’ rights in Cambodian courts released this week found an alarming prevalence of pre-trial detention in cases involving juvenile suspects, who are routinely blended with adult prison populations. The Cambodian Center for Human Rights’ sixth semiannual report of trial rights, which cited ...

Mobile phone call promotions undercutting the government’s minimum pricing regulations are to be outlawed – again. Minimum charges will be applied to mobile phone calls from on Thursday with the return of the Telecommunication Regulator of Cambodia’s (TRC) rules on call tariffs, the regulator confirmed yesterday. On ...

US and Cambodian governments have presented a united front calling for the country’s agriculture industry to diversify, modernise and commercialise. US ambassador William E Todd and the Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development Yim Chhay Ly led an ...

A senior ruling party official yesterday accused foreign journalists and media outlets in Cambodia of interfering in the Kingdom’s governance and urging political instability. Speaking to reporters in the capital, Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker and National Assembly spokesman Chheang Vun said a number of journalists – ...

The launch of a new airline promising regular flights between Phnom Penh and China has been stalled, awaiting government approval. Apsara International Air – co-owned by Chinese and Cambodian investors – now plans to begin operations sometime in 2014 as talks between the airline and the ...

More than six years after the slaying of Free Trade Union president Hy Vuthy, one of the men convicted of his murder, Chan Sophorn, 35, appeared in court yesterday for a retrial. Sous Sam Ath, the judge presiding over the case at the Phnom Penh Municipal ...

A 31-year-old man was killed on Monday when part of an illegally dug gold mine collapsed in Battambang’s Phnom Proek district, commune officials said yesterday. Bon Boern, 31, died at the scene, while Ath Kri, 21, was treated at the provincial hospital for a head injury, ...

Government officials yesterday laid the blame for Cambodia’s deforestation on villagers gathering firewood. “Every day, they need fuel for cooking – that’s a lot of logging,” Chheng Kimsun, director general of the Forestry Administration, said at a workshop aimed at addressing sustainable forest management. Gathered at the ...

An investigation by BBC news program Panorama into the misuse of Global Fund aid to Cambodia has claimed that the Fund “watered down” a report released last month, which exposed a network of corruption in Cambodia’s health sector. But Panorama, which obtained a leaked copy of the original ...

Cambodia has the dubious distinction of coming in third place in a survey released this week purporting to measure countries’ suffering. In the well-being poll compiled by US research company Gallup, more than a third of Cambodian respondents rated their quality of life as abysmally low, ...

About 300 cubic metres of luxury timber is being felled every day and transported on boats to Vietnam and Thailand from four districts in Koh Kong province, according to an investigation by a local rights group. Chea Hean, director of the Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation ...

In their final deployment as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s national land-titling program, 55 student youth volunteers will be sent to measure 50,000 hectares of land following a nearly six-month moratorium on the program. The deployment was officially launched at a ceremony in Kandal province ...

Phnom Penh commuters fed up with navigating the city’s increasingly busy streets will have a chance to test a new public bus service beginning in February. Phnom Penh Municipality spokesman Long Dimanche yesterday confirmed a one-month trial of a bus service along a 7.5-kilometre route running ...

A nearly four-month strike, punctuated by a violent clash between unionists and police that left one bystander dead, could come to an end this afternoon. Officials from SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd and the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) – which represents a ...

Global Witness, a United Kingdom-based NGO, has alleged that Deutsche Bank has dropped the majority of its holdings in a Vietnamese company that operates rubber plantations in Cambodia, amid accusations the firm is involved in land grabbing and illegal logging. In a statement released today, Global ...

A military court may pursue legal action against a Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmaker-elect and newspaper publisher after the Council of Ministers yesterday filed a complaint against him. Dam Sith, editor-in-chief of the pro-CNRP Moneaksekar Khmer newspaper, published the text of a speech given by CNRP ...

The UN urged government and financial organisations to stimulate Cambodia’s flailing micro-insurance industry yesterday, after a study found the country’s poor are vulnerable to indebtedness during a crisis. The United Nations Development Business (UNDB) hosted a working group yesterday at Phnom Penh’s Sunway Hotel launching the ...