News

Speculation continues over if and when Cambodia National Rescue Party president Sam Rainsy will return to Cambodia, where he now faces a two-year prison term, as grassroots opposition members yesterday expressed “disappointment” at their leader’s continued absence.CNRP officials will meet today in Phnom Penh to ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court has issued a warrant for the arrest of a prominent activist and former monk currently living in self-imposed exile who it says has been found guilty of forging public documents and wearing monks’ robes after being defrocked. ...

The growth of new enterprises across many different sectors in Cambodia is driving the rapid growth of insurance premiums and policy holders, the head of the Kingdom’s insurance industry body said yesterday. ...

Cambodia recorded 85 landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) casualties in the first nine months of this year, a 37-percent decrease compared with 135 casualties over the same period last year, according to a report yesterday. ...

Cambodia fared dismally in the 2014 budget transparency index compiled by the US-based International Budget Partnership, scoring only eight out of 100 and coming in near the bottom of the 102 countries surveyed, at 94. ...

Rubber and palm oil giant the Socfin Group has committed to a global “zero-deforestation policy” across Africa and Asia amid a legal dispute with ethnic Bunong communities in Mondulkiri province’s Bousraa commune. ...

Cambodia’s external public debt is well within acceptable limits, but remains vulnerable to financial shocks such as export slowdowns or exchange rate fluctuations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its latest assessment of the Kingdom’s economy. ...

Cambodia’s Ministry of Health is warning the public to beware many skin whitening creams, which have been found to have high levels of mercury in them. Whitening is a common practice in Cambodia, for both men and women, in a culture where lighter skin is ...

President Barack Obama pledged Tuesday to help Asia-Pacific allies boost their maritime security as part of talks with leaders in the Philippine capital, Manila. The White House announced a package of up to $259 million in new aid over the course of two years, including ...

Conservation experts and residents in Kratie province say they are concerned for the wellbeing of the Mekong River dolphin, especially if a major hydropower project is built upstream. Only about 80 Mekong dolphins are estimated to now live in Cambodia, down from 200 in 1997. ...

For the second time in three weeks the United Nations has expressed concern over increasing tensions between Cambodia’s Government and opposition, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today calling the arrest warrant issued against opposition leader Sam Rainsy “worrisome.” ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen will lead a high-level ministerial delegation to Malaysia over the weekend, to attend a number of Asean and Asian regional summits. ...

Beijing says it will oppose attempts to make its island-building activities in the South China Sea the focus of this week’s leaders’ summit in the Malaysian capital. ...

For many Southeast Asian countries, Japanese developmental aid may be synonymous with building bridges, roads and public facilities. But besides its infrastructure-building capacity, Japan is also boosting one of the strategic tools of diplomacy at its disposal: human resource development. ...

The victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement in Burma after years of military rule and repression is already starting to unnerve autocrats nearby. Last week, Sam Rainsy, an opposition leader in Cambodia, declared that the democrats’ “resounding” victory “has created panic among the last ...

Benny Widyono, a former UN official in Cambodia during its transition period in the 1990s, says the country’s mass killings were in part a result of the Cold War. ...

The Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) and the Association for SMEs of Cambodia will jointly hold the fifth Cambodia Rice Forum to discuss the future of the country’s rice industry with major stakeholders. ...

Cambodia must work to close the skills gap between its labor force and the domestic job market in order to maintain its economic growth, according to a report released on Monday by the Asian Development Bank and the International Labor Organization. ...

Several trade unions representing some of the garment sector’s 700,000 workers petitioned lawmakers on Monday to make important changes to a controversial draft union law before passing it and warned of mass protests if they were ignored. ...

Authorities have detained five Chinese nationals for questioning following the brutal slaying of a Chinese woman at her apartment in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Sunday evening, police said on Monday. ...

A stern warning to clean up or pay up was issued to litterbugs yesterday, with Interior Minister Sar Kheng announcing fines for improper waste disposal across the country. According to the sub-decree, people who do not follow guidelines on separating waste, or who dump or ...

A U.S. naval fleet docked in Sihanoukville on Monday for the sixth annual Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (Carat) exercises with the Royal Cambodian Navy. ...

Hundreds gathered yesterday in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park for the fifth Cambodian Grassroots People’s Assembly, where they called for issues ranging from deforestation to democracy to be addressed ahead of ASEAN integration. ...

After years of land-grabbing that has eroded a protected forest in Battambang Province, forestry administration officials took a forceful step yesterday to crack down on the problem. In the early hours of the morning, a team from the forestry administration alongside local police entered the ...