The Cambodia Daily

The rehabilitation of Cambodia’s dilapidated railway network is nearly six months behind schedule, and with more than a year’s worth of work to do, the project is running out of money, a consultant for the Ministry of Public Works and Transport said yesterday. Paul Power, a ...

Echoing longstanding calls from conservation groups, the World Bank says in a new report today that governments need to look past low-level criminals to tackle illegal logging and to follow the money the illicit trade generates instead. That trade of illegal logging generates up to $15 ...

Chinese President Hu Jintao will pay an official state visit to Cambodia between March 30 and April 2, a trip that will coincide with the Asean-European Union Business Summit and will finish just one day before the annual Asean summit commences in Phnom Penh, an ...

The Republic of Congo has become the latest country to throw its support behind Cambodia’s bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2013-2014 term, Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said yesterday. Henri Djombo, visiting Congolese minister ...

Laos yesterday released seven of 23 Cambodians who have been apprehended across the border since the start of the year on suspicions of illegal logging, according to a military and district official. ...

Opening statements started yesterday in a trial pitting Kompong Chhnang province villagers against the wife of Minister of Industry Suy Sem over a long-standing land dispute. However, the plaintiffs and human rights workers monitoring the trial criticized yesterday’s proceedings, which were allowed to proceed despite ...

The government last month granted four companies a total 23,000 hectares of land concessions for agro-industry projects and a special economic zone (SEZ), according to human rights groups, which said it obtained the information from government documents. An additional 500 hectares inside a wildlife sanctuary were ...

The Chinese and South Korean governments have been granted permission to build 565 km of new railroad in Cambodia and have already conducted feasibility studies, according to a government report released yesterday. In its annual report, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport said that plans ...

The long-awaited Cambodian Credit Bureau (CBC) launched yesterday, a move that is expected to increase the amount of information banks retain on the history of borrowers in the banking system. Despite loan disbursals in the banking sector growing by 25 percent last year, banks have so ...

The first trial in a long-running land dispute with the wife of Industry, Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem will start today at the Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court, a human rights worker and court officer said yesterday. Court prosecutor Penh Vibol confirmed that the court would ...

Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong yesterday asked the UN’s visiting head of humanitarian affairs for extra support in preparing for future natural disasters, according to ministry spokesman Koy Kuong. ...

Two weeks before the opening of the 20th Asean Summit in Phnom Penh, preparations are under way to increase security and clean up Cambodia’s capital ahead of the arrival of hordes of foreign dignitaries on April 3. According to Phnom Penh deputy military police chief Pong ...

Forestry officials in Ratanakkiri province, along with provincial officials, have carried out several operations in three districts this month that netted about 100 cubic meters of various types of luxury wood, but no suspects were arrested, officials said yesterday. ...

An outbreak of a mosquito-borne virus new to Cambodia with similar symptoms to dengue fever has been detected in Kompong Speu’s Kong Pisei district, a Health Ministry official said yesterday. Director of the Ministry of Health’s communicable disease control department Dr. Sok Touch said that 98 ...

The Cambodian government has employed two lawyers to assist in the release of Cambodian loggers arrested by Thai officials for crossing illegally into Thai territory to cut trees, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong said yesterday. ...

Svay Rieng Provincial Prosecutor Hing Bunchea said yesterday that he had summoned two of the three women shot at a Bavet City special economic zone (SEZ) for questioning next week, and denied accusations that investigators were dragging their feet on the case. Rights groups continued to ...

The government has chosen representatives of two obscure NGOs to send to an annual meeting between civil society groups and regional leaders during next month’s Asean summit in Phnom Penh, sparking an outcry among other non-governmental groups that say this will prevent critics from being ...

For the second time in a month, Forestry Administration officials in Kratie province’s Snuol district have found hundreds of cubic meters of first-grade wood that had been smuggled to a site near the tributary of the Prek Pao river, officials said yesterday. As in previous wood ...

More than 100 Boeng Kak residents protested at various locations around Phnom Penh yesterday after the Phnom Penh Municipality rejected their appeal to grant land titles to 58 families facing eviction. ...

Nine non-governmental groups issued a statement late last week urging the country’s National Election Committee (NEC) to enforce laws that bar political parties from using state resources. “The NEC has to punish the politicians and parties who use the state resources,” said Yong Kim Eng, ...

Two workers were blinded and three others were injured on Saturday after a fire they built on a cassava plantation in Kratie province set off an unexploded ordnance (UXO), Pi Thnou commune police chief Sum Hon said yesterday. ...

Several days after a report that Australian transportation company Toll Holdings would abandon its stake in a joint venture to operate Cambodia’s railway system, the company remained silent Friday on its future plans here. “Let’s wait for the truth rather than make assumptions,” he added. ...

The court prosecutor investigating last month’s shooting of three female factory workers at a special economic zone (SEZ) denied a newspaper report claiming the chief suspect, former Bavet City Governor Chhouk Bundith, had confessed to shooting the women. Svay Rieng Provincial Court prosecutor Hing Bunchea said ...

For hundreds of years, the ancestors of Vam Sovann have lived in Koh Kong province’s remote Araeng valley. Some 70 km from the nearest national road, Mr. Sovann’s village has no electricity or phone coverage, no paved roads or running water; instead, it has access ...