News

The latest version of the government’s draft law on NGOs, which was approved by the Council of Ministers in January, is identical to an earlier version made available to civil society in 2011, with several outstanding concerns still intact, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights ...

Embattled union leader Ath Thorn yesterday said that he had begun a fundraising effort, trying to come up with $25,000 in bail money by the end of the week. Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU), said union members would begin ...

A familiar figure has popped up atop a building that authorities in Phnom Penh ordered demolished in October for violating height restrictions around the Royal Palace: a statue of late King Father Norodom Sihanouk. “I have built a King statue on the top of my building ...

Forestry officials arrested four men and confiscated two pickup trucks containing illegally logged luxury timber en route to Vietnam on Sunday in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district before releasing both the men and the timber after fining them thousands of dollars, officers and a rights group representative ...

The China Railway Group’s planned $7.5 billion Cambodian north-south railway line has been delayed due to funding shortages, according to the company’s top official. Originally slated to begin construction last year, China Railway’s chairman, Li Changjin, told the South China Morning Post that work on the 400-kilometre railway ...

The justice minister yesterday defended three long-awaited laws on judicial reform which were approved by the Council of Ministers last week in a move slammed by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) as lacking transparency. Minister of Justice Ang Vong Vathana said that the “three ...

A deputy district military police chief in Kampong Thom’s Santuk district is under scrutiny for allegedly clearing up to seven hectares of community forest land for personal gain, and district officials are investigating the case with the aim of presenting it at the provincial court ...

A member of the much-maligned National Election Committee said yesterday he hoped that the body would cease to be merely a “paper tiger” and be granted strong powers to punish political parties for electoral transgressions when future election reforms are put in place. Speaking at the ...

Small and medium-size enterprises (SME) have been urged by the Cambodian government to employ more environmentally friendly practices at a green industry workshop in Phnom Penh yesterday. Cham Prasidh, minister for the Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts, said SMEs and handicraft producers’ reliance on fossil fuels ...

Ang Mealatey, the former president of Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court, was appointed president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday, ending the eight-year tenure of Chiv Keng. Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana and Supreme Court President Dith Munty presided over the ceremony of around 100 ...

The vast majority of the country’s 600,000-strong garment factory workforce appeared to be back on the job Monday despite a call from unions to continue a stay-at-home strike until Tuesday. Eight unions had spent weeks urging workers to stay home after the Khmer New Year from ...

The U.N.’s human rights office in Cambodia expressed concern Monday that 22 detained protesters may not be allowed to attend their trials on Friday, while the government insisted that the prisoners will be transported to the court. Two minors were arrested for intentional violence for their ...

A team of disabled security guards hired to protect the embattled SL Garment Factory in Phnom Penh is seeking the formalization of their employment and an end to what they claim is the factory’s exploitation of their impairments. In November—at the height of an occasionally violent, ...

Military police and local forestry officials in Stung Treng province confiscated more than 90 pieces of luxury-grade Thnong wood from a private farm on Sunday, but only after the suspected owner escaped, according to officials. Provincial court prosecutor Chroeng Khmao said a joint force of military ...

Seven Borei Keila community activists were summonsed to Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday to back up a complaint they filed accusing high-ranking Prampi Makara district officials of assault for their role in the violent dispersal of demonstrators in February. ...

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The National Election Committee on Monday has asked political parties not use campaign of upcoming municipal, provincial, city and district council election, and transform it into protest. The calls were made by Mean Sati, member of the National Election Committee, in a meeting with political parties ...

Seven people were injured Monday when opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua clashed with security forces outside Freedom Park in the Phnom Penh. Mu Sochua is leading a non-violent campaign by attempting to enter the park in protest of the government’s current ban on public gatherings. ...

Malaysia’s leading armoured vehicle maker DRB-Hicom Defence Technologies Sdn Bhd (DefTech) is setting its sights on Cambodia and Myanmar, said chief executive officer Amril Samsudin. ...

Vietnam’s HAGL JSC is expanding its overseas plantations and plans to harvest corn in Cambodia and Laos this year, Bloomberg News reported Monday. ...

Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority is scheduled to hold this week its annual general meeting of shareholders, the second since its shares were listed two years ago. The meeting is due to take place at the authority’s headquarters in Daun Penh district on Thursday morning. ...

Mike Weeks and Delayne Weeks of Canada had a dream five years ago: create a gold mine. Do it in a nation that has never produced gold commercially. Use the process to educate and enrich an impoverished population. The country is Cambodia. The mine is in northeast ...

Three people were arrested in Banteay Meanchey province on Friday during a protest in which more than 400 vendors rallied against orders to move to new market sites. In what authorities said was an effort to “restore public order”, police and military forces were deployed to ...

Nearly two years have passed since Cambodia’s leading forestry activist, Chut Wutty, was gunned down in the Cardamom Mountains. After a long wait, more than 100 activists, supporters and monks will finally make the pilgrimage on Saturday to the spot where he was killed to pay ...