News

Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong used an inauguration ceremony for new buildings at Wat Sras Chak on Tuesday to call on politicians and civil society groups to stop distracting Buddhist monks with activities unrelated to religion. Speaking to hundreds of people at a ceremony to inaugurate ...

Cambodia’s petrol retailers have been ordered by the government to hand over import information and financial records in what looks to be the first steps toward installing fuel-price legislation. The Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) announced publicly yesterday via state-owned media Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) ...

Election watchdog Comfrel said yesterday that the National Assembly was not doing enough to solve Cambodians’ problems despite the opposition party having joined in August. The group said that numerous land disputes, the use of lethal force on protesters by authorities in January last year ...

Officials are investigating Preah Sihanouk Provincial Hospital after anonymous complaints were put forward against its director, accusing him of corruption and a lack of transparency. According to anonymous letters written by doctors and nurses in the hospital and widely disseminated, hospital director Seng Nong has been ...

Over 470,000 units of unauthorised or expired drugs were confiscated during a crackdown on unlicensed medical facilities in Siem Reap City this week, according to provincial police. The inspections of health facilities started on Friday with city economic police working with the provincial health department to ...

While pushing forward discussions on the slated whistleblower law, the Anti-Corruption Unit is also working on exposing a “conspiracy network” that “could be very harmful to national interests”, ACU chief Om Yentieng revealed on Monday. During a seminar on journalists’ role in good governance and anti-corruption ...

Rights group Adhoc on Tuesday urged the government to work harder to help Cambodian domestic workers still suffering abuse from their employers in Malaysia or from the Cambodian recruitment agencies that sent them there, including 63 women the organization says have effectively disappeared. At a press ...

A monday walk-out by cleaners at Phnom Penh International Airport has resulted in the company the airport enlists for sanitary services agreeing to hike employees’ monthly salaries by $20 yesterday. More than 30 employees at HCC Co, the airport’s cleaning service, walked off the job, demanding ...

A woman who allegedly presented herself as both a relative of Prime Minister Hun Sen and the sister of logging magnate Try Pheap was arrested by military police in Poipet town on Monday on suspicion of fraud, provincial military police commander Or Borith said yesterday. ...

The Interior Ministry promoted three senior police officials to the rank of deputy National Police commissioner in a ceremony Tuesday afternoon, swelling the ranks of deputy commissioners to 15 in apparent preparation for three other deputies to retire. In the absence of Interior Minister Sar Kheng, ...

Cambodia’s Minister of Health on Tuesday vowed to eliminate the country’s unlicensed medical clinics and hire more health care providers, after an unauthorized medical worker who admitted to reusing syringes was linked to a mass HIV infection in a remote western village. ...

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that phones, iPads and other possessions confiscated from six opposition lawmakers during the violent July 15 protest at Freedom Park would not yet be returned. Presiding judge Yos Sokhoeun said that the items could not be returned based on the ...

Growth in tourist arrivals slowed down last year to the lowest rate since the global financial crisis, according to preliminary figures provided by the Ministry of Tourism on Monday. The number of visitors arriving by all modes of transport reached 4.5 million last year, up just ...

The electoral reform working groups from the ruling CPP and opposition CNRP have canceled both their scheduled meetings this week and are now unlikely to complete talks in time for the new election commission to be created next month, CNRP lawmaker Eng Chhay Eang said ...

The Court of Appeal on Monday upheld the protest-related convictions handed down to 11 activists in November, but reduced the prison sentences of all but the most high-profile members of the group. Seven of the defendants were arrested in mid-November for blocking traffic during a ...

Almost a quarter of Cambodian students aged 7 to 14 are forced to give up school because their work intercedes, according to a new study by UNESCO. With 10 per cent of 7- to 14-year-olds classified as child labourers, Cambodia has more young children working ...

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is overhauling his nation’s overseas adoption system and wants to get Cambodia involved in the process, according to Australian media. Abbott requested Attorney General George Brandis pursue fresh agreements and adoption negotiations, including with Cambodia, Bulgaria, Latvia and Kenya, the Sunday ...

Villagers in Koh Kong province were sent back to the drawing board yesterday, when the Court of Appeal upheld the provincial court’s decision that about 62 hectares of land belongs to Heng Huy Co. ...

Nearly a hundred villagers living along a river located in Sa’ang district’s Koh Anlong Chin commune in Kandal province recently protested against the plans of one company to dredge sand in the area. On Sunday, employees of sand-dredging company Sok Teang Import Export, which has been ...

Villagers in three provinces are currently being surveyed by the Ministry of Rural Development and South Korea’s International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) for an upcoming development pilot project. The surveys in Takeo, Kampong Speu and Tbong Khmum provinces seek to find 30 villages to be a part ...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday released a statement condemning National Military Police Commander Sao Sokha for his admission that he sanctioned a “partisan use of force” in a January 15 speech in which he spoke of opposition protesters as the military police’s foes. ...

Wildlife experts fear for the health of a migratory vulture from Central Asia after it was captured by villagers in Kampot province’s Teuk Chhou district and taken to a notorious private zoo. The Himalayan vulture, also known as the Himalayan griffon, which rarely visits Cambodia, was ...

As 14 Montagnard asylum seekers continue to evade authorities in the forests of Ratanakkiri province, an official said Sunday that police deported seven “Vietnamese Jarai” from the northeastern province on Saturday. Ratanakkiri provincial police chief Nguon Koeun said border police arrested the seven on Saturday in ...

Seeking to amend Cambodia’s shortage of skilled labourers and equip young secondary school graduates with employable trades, the government will soon roll out a new technical training curriculum at select high schools. ...