Ministries and other national bodies

A group of activists and villagers from southwestern Cambodia’s Koh Kong province petitioned outside the country’s parliament Thursday, calling on lawmakers to intervene against a sand dredging company they say is operating in the area without a license. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday morning denied a bail request from former municipal penal police officer Hang Vuthy and in the afternoon retried him over his role in a 2003 conspiracy to murder national military police commander Sao Sokha. ...

Tuy Thida, a 28-year-old traffic police officer, says she doesn’t take bribes. Surveying traffic at the intersection of Sihanouk Boulevard and Street 63 in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, Ms. Thida could be the face of the Interior Ministry’s push to increase female representation among the nation’s ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy will hold an auction next month putting up for sale four licenses to dredge sand along a stretch of the Mekong River, according to a statement posted to the ministry’s website on Tuesday. ...

A Cambodian rice exporter is expected to take part in an Iraqi bid for 30,000 tons of milled rice late this month, a company’s representative said Wednesday. ...

Ten jailed members of the Khmer National Liberation Front (KNLF), an advocacy group that vocally opposes the ruling CPP, were questioned at the Court of Appeal in Phnom Penh on Tuesday over their bid to secure bail. ...

An environmental nongovernmental organization and young Cambodians opposed to sand dredging will petition the country’s parliament and relevant ministries to stop companies from digging up sand in a southwestern province, activists said. ...

Nearly three weeks after releasing an official price list for basic public services such as the production of passports and ID cards aimed at combating corruption, Interior Ministry officials Monday admitted that the new prices were not yet being applied. ...

The United Nations agency responsible for refugees has washed its hands of Australia’s controversial deal to send refugees from the tiny Pacific island of Nauru to Cambodia. ...

The deputy director of the Cambodian News Channel (CNC), a local 24-hour television news station, has been appointed undersecretary of state at the Interior Ministry, according to a copy of the April 11 royal decree awarding him the position. ...

The Ministry of Interior on Sunday said no refugees from Nauru were expected to arrive in Cambodia for the next few days, contradicting recent comments from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy has announced that it will grant two sand dredging licences around Phnom Penh Port, just days after declaring that no new licences would be issued until economic impact assessments had been carried out. ...

Cambodian Labor Minister Ith Samheng said on Sunday that the country’s garment and footwear industries, the kingdom’s largest foreign currency earner, are comprised of 1,087 factories with 700,000 direct jobs. ...

A police officer was arrested on Tuesday night for firing his state-issued K-59 pistol into the air after getting into a fight at a Khmer New Year party in Phnom Penh, but he was released without charge the same night, police said. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen will attend the 10th Anniversary of the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership Summit to be held from 22-23 April in Jakarta and the Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Asian-African Conference on 24 April in Bandung, Indonesia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs ...

Anti-Corruption Unit chief Om Yentieng said Monday that he planned to continue questioning ousted Phnom Penh Court director Ang Mealaktei following the Khmer New Year holiday, which begins Tuesday and ends Thursday. ...

A Guinness World Records judge kicked this year’s Angkor Sankranta festival into action Monday by officially declaring a 4-ton sticky rice cake produced for the Khmer New Year celebration to be the largest ever made. ...

Former Meachey district police chief Hy Narin has had corruption charges against him upheld by Phnom Penh Municipal Court after he allegedly misappropriated almost $700,000 from the state budget over eight years. ...

Five months behind bars has done nothing to deter Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak activists from taking their demands to the streets. Just one day after their release from the capital’s Prey Sar prison, the female activists – often at the helm of Phnom Penh demonstrations – ...

An environmental activist and a fisherman said Sunday that about 70 residents of Koh Kong province had worked together over the past few days to chase away sand-dredging barges they accused of operating illegally around Koh Kapi island and damaging vital fishing grounds. ...

The Our Home center in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district has reopened under interim management after its director, Hang Vibol, was jailed last month and charged with abusing boys at the organization’s orphanage, which housed more than 50 children but was shuttered and will remain closed. ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will roll out a new Agricultural Extension Policy that will look to boost the sector by making new knowledge and technology easily accessible to farmers and communities, in a bid to increase efficiency and productivity in the sector. ...

Power system engineering and technical solutions provider Pestech International Bhd has become a concession owner in Cambodia after it secures a project worth RM1.59bil. ...

Cambodia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Southeast Asia. The number of women dying during pregnancy or childbirth has dropped in recent years. But it is still far short of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The Cambodian government accepted those goals ...