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Government officials were still tight-lipped about the 2014 draft budget yesterday, though some details did continue to trickle out, such as the announcement of a sizeable increase in national defence spending. Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker and banking and finance committee member Cheam Yeap said yesterday that ...

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Hun Sen called for urgent fortification of Cambodia’s resistance to climate change, singling out recent flooding as evidence of the severe consequences the country faces. But at a press conference yesterday, opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua accused the Prime Minister of weakening ...

Defence lawyers representing well-known businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary, also known as the “Crocodile Grandma”, requested the Court of Appeal to consider voiding the tycoon’s warrant for arrest yesterday. Sokountheary was convicted for encroaching on public land and sentenced in absentia to four years and six months in ...

A huge haul of river sand dredged in Cambodia has been quarantined at the southern Indian port city of Cochin since its arrival in April despite a ban on sand exports instituted by Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2009. India’s Deccan Chronicle news­paper reported on Tuesday ...

The Phnom Penh Autonomous Port has requested that City Hall reduce the length of its daily ban forbidding container trucks from traveling on Phnom Penh roads between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. because cargo is unable to reach the port, resulting in a decrease in ...

Teachers across Cambodia are insisting pay raises aren’t just an election year issue. More than 30 representative teachers gathered for the start of a three-day seminar in Phnom Penh yesterday to continue demanding living wages. The teacher are asking for 250$ per month, according to seminar ...

Three people have died, six remain missing and more than 100 homes have been affected by heavy rains that began on Wednesday in Kampong Chhnang and Kandal provinces, local authorities said yesterday. Prak Sophorn, director of the Kampong Chnnang provincial Cambodian Red Cross office, said yesterday ...

An eco-tourism initiative in Mondulkiri hit a snag this week when authorities asked management to vacate overnight guests while provincial officials determine whether the project is properly licensed to operate a guesthouse. Guests of the Elephant Valley Project (EVP), which is located in a Forestry Administration ...

The country’s draft $3.4 billion national budget for 2014 proposes yet another $920 million in new debt to make ends meet, the same amount taken on this year, according to a copy of the spending bill obtained Thursday. The draft budget calls for nearly $400 million—or ...

Months ago, Chinese engineers were posting markers for a hydropower dam opposed by villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley. This week, in marked contrast, monks draped trees in iconic saffron sashes as they blessed the very forest the dam would destroy. The saffron robes ...

Authorities said Thursday they were closely watching the development of the world’s big­gest storm to materialize so far this year as it hits the Philippines today before moving west toward Vietnam and Cambodia in the following days. “Our first step is to keep a close eye ...

More than $600 million flooded out of Cambodia’s entire banking system during the third quarter of this year, as fears of post-election chaos set off panic and mass withdrawals, new figures from the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) reveal. The figures, obtained yesterday, were the first ...

The National Assembly of Viet Nam presented 1,000 tonnes of rice to Cambodian flood victims at a ceremony held in Phnom Penh yesterday. The latest floods took the lives of 80 people and resulted in economic losses of around US$1 billion. ...

Ningbo Thermal Power (shse:600982) will invest less than USD 16.67 million in building a thermal power arm to develop a heat and power cogeneration project in Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone (SSEZ), Cambodia. The joint venture will be responsible for building the heat and power cogeneration ...

Garment industry, Cambodia’s largest income maker, reported a 24 percent rise in exports in the first ten months of 2013, according to figures of the country’s Ministry of Commerce Thursday. The figures showed that the country exported garment products in equivalent to 4.76 billion U.S. dollars ...

Environmentalists and NGOs are threatening to sue developers of a controversial hydropower dam, claiming the project would cause irreversible damage to the Mekong River. The Don Sahong dam, a 260-megawatt project proposed on a site less than two kilometres north of the Cambodian-Lao border, is expected ...

Muhibbah Engineering (M) Bhd and its joint venture partner has secured two contracts valued at US$87mil (RM276mil) to build and expand two airports in Cambodia. Muhibbah has a 30% stake in SCA [Societe Concessionnaire de L’Aeroport]. The duration for the Phnom Penh Airport and Siem ...

It’s taken years of waiting – and protesting – but families in the capital’s Boeung Kak community yesterday saw City Hall officials measure land in their villages. Representatives of the city were deployed yesterday to villages 24, 22 and 6 to demarcate land as a step ...

Three more unionists have been suspended as a result of the violent strikes at a Kampong Speu garment factory in May and June, a Free Trade Union official said yesterday. Sabrina (Cambodia) Garment Manufacturing factory’s FTU president Sun Vanny, vice-president Sem Sopheak and general secretary Chi ...

CPP lawmaker Chheang Vun on Wednesday lauded the economic and social benefits of the widespread clearing of Cambodia’s forests for development projects. Speaking to reporters at the National Assembly after a meeting with the Vietnamese Ambassador Ngo Anh Dzung, Mr. Vun, who is also the spokesman ...

The opposition party has called on microfinance institutions to renegotiate payment terms with flood-affected loan holders. This year’s floods have affected 20 provinces and more than 1.7 million people, with 31,314 households evacuated, according to the Humanitarian Response Forum. The Cambodia National Rescue Party has asked that ...

The National Assembly’s CPP-run finance committee approved the country’s $3.54 billion draft budget for 2014 Wednesday, its last hurdle before debate and a possible vote can be held by the full Assembly, where the opposition is still refusing to take nearly half the seats. “After the ...

Forestry Administration officers sent two suspected wildlife smugglers to court in Stung Treng province yesterday after they were arrested while allegedly smuggling disembodied heads and hooves of the increasingly rare Chinese serow – a type of wild goat – into Cambodia from Laos, officials said. Provincial ...

The house always wins, except when there’s a disputed election scaring gamblers away from the tables. That’s the message from Entertainment Gaming Asia Inc, which operates casinos in Poipet town and Pailin province as well as supplying NagaWorld casino with slot machines. According to the company, Cambodia’s ...