The Cambodia Daily

With crucial local elections around the corner and a national contest set for next year, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday returned to warning Cambodians that a vote for anyone but the long-ruling CPP was a vote for plunging the country back into the bloody ...

Cambodia ranked 157th in the world and last in Southeast Asia, according to the report, released on Tuesday by NGO Open Data Watch, dropping four points since last year to a total score of 22 out of 100.​​ ...

Breaking further from traditional partners, Cambodia has aborted a planned military exercise with Australia, a defense official said on Tuesday, tilting the country’s allegiances once again toward China. ...

Thai authorities withdrew a 700 percent import tax increase on Cambodian fish vendors on Thursday after the angered cart-pushers formed a wall of baskets teeming with fresh fish along a border checkpoint on Thursday in protest, according to Poipet authorities. ...

Investigators have arrived in Kompong Thom province to pursue allegations that the provincial police chief and two of his deputies routinely accepted bribes of up to $7,000 in exchange for jobs or promotions, officials said on Thursday. ...

Two more foreign banks—one French and one Vietnamese—announced plans earlier this week to open branches in Cambodia.   ...

Illegal miners in the remote reaches of Cambodia are repelling government inspectors with armed middlemen, the Mines and Energy Ministry said on Wednesday as it hosted its annual meeting in Phnom Penh.   ...

Besieged by color revolutionaries, agitators and criminal politicians, the Interior Ministry kept the country safe from encroaching instability—at least, that was the ministry’s boast on Wednesday at its annual meeting. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday pulled the country’s mobile operators into his aggressive campaign to clear up any confusion about the relationship between the government and microfinance institutions (MFIs), ordering them to send audio and text messages telling subscribers that MFIs were private entities. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s time spent posting selfies and broadcasting speeches live on Facebook appears to be paying off, according to a new study that ranks world leaders’ Facebook pages by level of engagement. ...

Despite initial hopes that the man who tortured her 2-year-old son last year would face trial in Cambodia, the child’s mother said on Tuesday that Vietnamese police have informed her that the abuser would not be extradited from Vietnam. ...

In what some are calling one of the most significant threats to democracy that Cambodia has faced in a generation, the CPP-controlled National Assembly on Monday voted to give the government and courts sweeping new powers over political parties. ...

A government task force charged with eliminating illegal fishing on the Tonle Sap lake has destroyed more than 100 km of nets and other equipment seized in Kompong Chhnang and Kompong Thom provinces this month, officials said on Monday.   ...

Watching the premiere of Angelina Jolie’s new film “First They Killed My Father” in the shadows of the ancient ruins of Angkor on Saturday night, Riem Vet was transported back to his teenage years living under the Pol Pot regime. ...

More than 400 Laotian soldiers have crossed into Cambodian territory to block military engineers from constructing a road, sparking an armed buildup in the border area over the past two weeks, Cambodian officials said on Sunday. ...

Ratanakkiri provincial authorities have seized hundreds of logs and three trucks full of wood from the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary and are investigating the possible involvement of a nearby rubber plantation, officials said on Sunday.   ...

Germany’s car manufacturers are on edge as the U.K., their No. 1 importer, prepares to leave the E.U. And although expanding into Cambodia’s market is unlikely to ease their anxiety, German investors who gathered in Phnom Penh on Thursday said whatever potential might exist here ...

A U.S. congressman on Wednesday called on the CPP to abandon an imminent vote on legislation that would give the Cambodian government sweeping new powers to abolish its political rivals, the same day the U.S. ambassador met with CNRP acting President Kem Sokha to discuss ...

The National Assembly will vote on Monday on landmark legislation giving the government unprecedented new powers to suspend and dissolve its political rivals, and with barely a note of concern from the democracies helping bankroll the country. ...

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday upheld a $25,000 fine for three environmental activists who fled the country after being convicted of threatening to destroy a sand dredging barge in Koh Kong province in 2015. They are now debating returning home, however, after the court ...

Undeterred by the $500,000 lawsuit filed against him by Prime Minister Hun Sen, political commentator Kim Sok returned to the radio waves on Tuesday to say that the government could settle the case against him by releasing video footage of Kem Ley’s murder. ...

The ruling CPP on Monday pressed ahead with legal amendments that would let the government move to dissolve political parties over the crimes of their leaders or if the parties make “serious” legal mistakes, saying the changes could be passed within days. ...

Political commentator Kim Sok’s worldly possessions—two iPhones, an iPad and $200 in savings—may soon become Prime Minister Hun Sen’s property after the premier filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the commentator for allegedly claiming that the CPP killed Kem Ley. ...

Sam Rainsy, the longtime leader of Cambodia’s beleaguered democracy movement, resigned as president of the opposition CNRP on Saturday in the face of the government’s threats to dissolve the entire party over his criminal record. The brief letter said only that he was resigning for ...