News

More than 100 ethnic minority activists trying to protect community forests have been arrested, jailed, threatened and subjected to violence so far this year, a major local rights group has said. In a statement released yesterday, Adhoc condemned the “discriminatory” treatment of indigenous people who have ...

Ethnic Bunong in Mondolkiri province’s Sen Monorom City said Tuesday that they would no longer cooperate with local officials in fighting illegal logging and that they would begin to confiscate loggers’ equipment and burn illicit timber themselves. At a press conference in Phnom Penh, representatives of ...

Villagers who will be displaced if the controversial Lower Sesan II dam is built called on the developers yesterday to postpone construction for five years, allowing time for a comprehensive resettlement scheme to be devised. But a government official dismissed their request as “beyond the pale”, ...

District security guards were deployed to Chroy Changva peninsula Tuesday to intercept villagers who were ready to smash a pipe that has been pumping sand onto their land for the past year. The roughly 40 families occupy the northeastern corner of a 387-hectare swathe of wetlands ...

Security guards working for a firm building a resort in Koh Kong province beat a woman who was trying to farm the land from which she had been evicted, she has told police. Khun Phall, 40, said that on Monday evening, she and family members returned ...

City Hall met with urban planning experts and officials from relevant ministries Tuedsay to discuss building a new overpass on Russian Boulevard, near the Institute of Technology, and extending the existing paved walkway along Phnom Penh’s riverside to Koh Pich bridge, according to Chrean Sophann, ...

Two Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers were arrested on Monday while smuggling luxury wood in Kompong Thom province, military police said Tuesday. ...

The Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) has said its decision to cut off funding to Agir Pour Les Femmes en Situation Precaire (Afesip) came partly because of the continued involvement of embattled anti-human-trafficking activist Somaly Mam in the local NGO. In a statement on Monday, the SMF ...

The Siem Reap provincial department of education, youth and sports overruled a decision by the director of the provincial teachers training center to ban two outspoken teachers-in-training from their upcoming final exam after a successful protest by about 250 of their peers Tuesday. Vin Savy, 21, ...

Acting Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said yesterday that Thailand would eventually resume talks with Cambodia regarding the International Court of Justice’s decision last November that clarified Cambodian sovereignty over the promontory on which the Preah Vihear temple sits. ...

The tax imposed on the export of acacia chips is to be abolished to help boost exports of the locally grown raw product, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced on Monday. Speaking at the grand opening of Aeon Mall, Hun Sen said that acacia chips exported to ...

A member of Interior Minister Sar Kheng’s cabinet was on Tuesday sentenced to one year in jail for fraud after he was found guilty of accepting $38,000 in 2011 from a Taiwanese-Canadian national in exchange for citizenship documents that were never delivered. ...

Cambodia and China are drafting a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to stamp out the exploitative trade of Cambodian women to China, where there have been increasing reports of women being abused by their Chinese husbands and sold into the sex trade. The diplomatic push comes in ...

When Men Chan started out as a cyclo driver in Phnom Penh in 1966, his services were in demand and his salary was modest but adequate. Now—like most of his colleagues across the city—the 71-year-old is struggling to make ends meet as his income stagnates and ...

A blustery Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday used a speech at a National Fish Day event to lash out against the opposition CNRP, comparing the party to the mafia and suggesting it create its own country “on the moon.” Just before helping release thousands of ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen marked National Fish Day on Tuesday in Kompong Chhnang province by urging fishermen to refrain from illegal fishing and report lawbreakers. The government bans fishing in the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers during the breeding season to allow fish stocks to ...

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Ouk Rabun said Tuesday that Cambodia’s fisheries production rose 6.7 percent from a year earlier to 728,000 tonnes last year. Speaking at a National Fish Day ceremony at Kdol Reservoir in Peam commune in Samaki Meanchey district in Kampong Chhnang province, ...

Cambodia vehemently denied that it has supported Japan‘s plan to enhance its military role, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday. “The spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation wishes to strongly reject the recent publications of Kyodo ...

Mondolkiri provincial villagers on Tuesday accused authorities there of colluding with a development company involved in serious deforestation. The Phnong minority villagers say the wife of the deputy provincial governor owns the company, Villas Development, which is allegedly involved in illegal logging. The activists spoke Tuesday ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday said his party will stand firm on its position that a simple majority vote in parliament be used to select members of the National Election Committee. His Cambodian People’s Party is in negotiations for electoral reform with the opposition, which ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that his government had decided to release a Thai ” yellow-shirt” activist Veera Somkwamkid at the request of Thai army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, head of the National Council for Peace and Order. Hun Sen made the remarks at ...

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong met on Tuesday with visiting Permanent Secretary and Acting Minister of Thai Foreign Ministry Sihasak Phuangketkeow to discuss cooperation over migrant workers. More than 250,000 Cambodian migrant workers, mostly undocumented, fled Thailand last month at rumors that the Thai junta would ...

Thailand’s Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Sihasak Phuangketkeow will visit neighbouring Cambodia this week.   Mr Sihasak, in his capacity as Acting Foreign Minister, is scheduled to visit Phnom Penh on Tuesday and Wednesday July 1 and 2 to deepen bilateral ties between the two nations. ...

Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said Monday that Thai border officials may be letting Cambodian migrant workers back into Thailand with incomplete paperwork, opening them up to the same risks both countries have been trying to avoid since a mass exodus of Cambodian workers over ...