The Cambodia Daily

The investigation and trial following the brutal attack on two opposition lawmakers by members of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s personal bodyguard unit last year has all the hallmarks of a “blatant cover-up,” according to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday. ...

Cambodia’s new Traffic Law has been a runaway success for road safety, Interior Minister Sar Kheng claimed yesterday, hours after a collision between two trucks carrying garment workers left two dead and nearly 60 injured.   ...

Between 2009 and 2012, the Ministry of Environment went on nationwide leasing spree, signing over vast swaths of the country’s nominally protected areas to private companies for rubber plantations and other agribusiness ventures.   ...

With rain finally starting to fall across the country, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday declared an end to the relief campaign he launched last month to counter the worst drought in decades, calling the devastating dry spell an opportunity for “lessons” in governance. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen announced on Wednesday that the country would resume holding a three-day Water Festival this year after canceling the annual festivity four times in the past five years.   ...

After setting a date this week for next year’s commune elections, Prime Minister Hun Sen used a speech on Wednesday to urge officials to speed up work to ensure that 2 million people without new identification cards are able to obtain one by election day ...

Battambang police have called upon the Interior Ministry’s anti-terrorism department for help arresting the creator of a video that suggests corrupt officials have sold off the province’s most important reservoir.   ...

Amnesty International has designated four human rights officers and an election official who were jailed earlier this month as “prisoners of conscience” and will call on millions of members around the world to petition the government for their release.   ...

Next year’s commune council elections will be held on June 4, according to a decision signed on Tuesday by Prime Minister Hun Sen, marking the first nationwide ballot since the 2013 election that led to the reform of the National Election Committee (NEC). ...

Less than two months after Sihanoukville authorities evicted scores of vendors along O’Chheuteal Beach deemed to be an eyesore, a private developer has begun constructing a new “pub street” just 50 meters from the same shore. ...

Plans to rebuild Phsar Kandal have struck fear into the market’s community of longtime vendors, who gathered on Monday over concerns they will become the latest victims of Phnom Penh’s surging inner-city development boom.   ...

The Interior Ministry has made tentative plans to send a delegation of three people to the South Pacific island of Nauru next month to meet and vet two more refugees who have volunteered to resettle in Cambodia.   ...

Alan Doss, executive director of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s eponymous foundation, met with officials from the CPP, CNRP and National Election Committee (NEC) on Monday as the first step in the body’s efforts to help election reform here.   ...

About 200 Cham Muslims turned out to the Al-Serkal Mosque near the old Boeng Kak lake in Phnom Penh on Friday to protest a controversial road that the government plans to build through the mosque’s land. ...

People smoking tobacco in offices, restaurants and other public spaces will have to indulge their habit in clearly demarcated smoking areas or both the smoker and establishment owner will face fines, the Ministry of Health announced. ...

A military officer convicted of fraud and sentenced to one year in prison in October is still em­ployed by the National Defense Uni­versity (NDU), the school con­firmed this week, despite the fact that the officer’s co-conspirator is now behind bars.   ...

Any appointments to the National Election Committee (NEC) to replace CNRP-appointed Rong Chhun, who now faces a criminal trial for “intentional violence,” would have to be approved by the ruling CPP under current laws, a lawmaker said on Thursday. ...

Teachers at Toul Mead Primary School in Siem Reap province tell students to bring drinking water from home to keep them hydrated in the scorching heat. But water is increasingly hard to come by as the worst drought in decades drags on.   ...

More than 300 families in Kompong Speu province this week signed a deal with Senator Ly Yong Phat’s Phnom Penh Sugar Company aimed at ending their long-running land dispute, though several of the families have yet to agree on compensation.   ...

The World Bank’s board of directors could vote today to renew a project for landless families in Cambodia that has run into major problems, a move that would effectively lift a five-year freeze on lending its own money to the country in protest over forced ...

About 100 additional families have accepted compensation pack­ages from Union Deve­lop­ment Group (UDG) to relocate and make way for the massive development project the Chinese firm is building along the coast of Koh Kong province, according to the Environment Ministry.   ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday began a four-day visit to Moscow, where he is expected to sign a number of bilateral agreements and participate in the Russia-ASEAN summit. ...

All beaches in Sihanoukville must be fully open to public access, including the currently guest-only beach in front of the Sokha Beach Resort, the National Committee for Cambodia Bay Management and Development decided at a meeting on Monday.   ...

The first outbreak of H5N1 this year was confirmed in Kampot province on May 10, health officials said yesterday. ...