Ministries and other national bodies

The National Bank of Cambodia on Tuesday officially issued a new 50,000-riel banknote (in equivalent to 12.5 U.S. dollars) in order to mark King Norodom Sihamoni’s 61st birthday, which falls on May 14. A sub-decree on the issuance of the new banknote was endorsed by ...

After days of defiance from the opposition against a ban on public assembly, the government issued orders yesterday for opposition rallies across the country to be allowed to go ahead, officials said. Tep Nytha, secretary-general of the National Election Committee (NEC), said the body and the ...

Passports issued to Cambodians will soon be valid for 10 years instead of three, officials at the Ministry of Interior said yesterday. General Mao Chandara, head of the ministry’s General Directorate of Identification, said that by July, the department will begin to issue long-awaited 10-year passports. ...

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport is plunging public schools into the digital age with a new interactive technology plan fit with bells, whistles and 3G applications, light-years ahead of its mostly dirt-floor school houses. The five-year, $1.3 million project, developed and funded by Cellcard, ...

Defendants in a mass trial of 25 men and teenagers accused of joining a string of violent garment worker protests continued to profess their innocence during the second day of hearings at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday. Twenty-three of the men were arrested in ...

More than 170 families in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district submitted a petition to City Hall on Monday complaining about wealthy businessman Khun Sear’s decision to build a wall in the middle of a road in their neighborhood. The road in Chak Angre Leu commune is under ...

Four parents in Kampong Cham province have filed complaints with provincial police alleging that their daughters are being sexually abused by their husbands in China, officers said yesterday. Thol Meng, deputy bureau chief of the provincial anti-human trafficking department, said a total of 10 concerned mothers ...

Some 500 supporters of union leader Vorn Pao and 24 others arrested during a string of garment worker protests since November will rally in front of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday on the second day of their trials, a union official said. All 25 ...

Condemnation has grown following Friday’s attack on a journalist near Freedom Park as the Ministry of Information joined the U.N. Human Rights Office in denouncing the attacks. On Saturday, the U.N.’s human rights representative in Cambodia, Wan-Hea Lee, called for an investigation into the beating of ...

A number of provincial and district councilors aligned with the opposition have not been paid in the past two months following a Ministry of Interior directive in March calling for their salaries to be halted and positions revoked, according to the secretary-general of the Sam ...

About 80 activists from Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila and Boeng Kak communities protested outside City Hall on Monday morning, but were confronted by municipal security guards who prevented them from delivering a petition to the governor. Sar Soun, a representative of families from the Borei Keila ...

An unsettled, decades-old $1.5 billion loan from the then-Soviet Union to Cambodia’s Vietnam-backed 1980s government emerged as the key talking point during a meeting between Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and Russia’s new ambassador to Cambodia yesterday, a ministry spokesman said. The meeting between Namhong and Russian ...

Russia invites some Ministers of Cambodia to visit Russia to sign Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral consultation between the two countries, a government official said. The invitation was made during a meeting Monday between Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and Dmitry Tsvetkov, new Russian Ambassador to ...

The Ministry of Information condemned recent insult, threat and violence against journalists, saying that those activities seriously violated the freedom of press in Cambodia. The appeal was made after many journalists were recently threatened and seriously injured in an attack by security forces, while they were ...

Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Temasek Foundation are launching a new training programme to train senior Cambodian government officials in public administration and governance. ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will lead a high delegation to attend the 24th ASEAN Summit and Related Meetings to be held from May 10 to 11 in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, according to a foreign ministry’s statement on Monday. The prime minister will be accompanied ...

Days after authorities repeatedly cracked down on demonstrations, opposition party supporters staged a rolling rally across Phnom Penh yesterday, filling up roads for hours and blocking major intersections. About 500 people with tuk-tuks and motorbikes gathered at the Cambodia National Rescue Party headquarters in the ...

A meeting at the Ministry of Mines and Energy on Friday about plans for a controversial hydropower dam in Koh Kong province failed to assuage fears among those trying to stop the project that construction had already been approved. During Friday’s meeting, officials from the ministry ...

The head of the Post and Telecommunications Ministry’s inspection department was arrested Friday and questioned at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Saturday for allegedly having stolen about $100,000 from the ministry over several years, according to Minister Prak Sokhon. He said Chem Sangva was reported ...

Human Rights Watch says three draft laws on the verge of approval by the National Assembly, intended to assure the independence of Cambodia’s courts, would do just the opposite, and has called on the government to withdraw them. The Council of Ministers approved the trio of ...

For months now, Daun Penh district security forces, identifiable by their dark blue uniforms, black motorbike helmets and merciless truncheon swinging, have been unleashed on protesters, opposition and otherwise, as the all-too-willing enforcers of government-approved crackdowns. But as district forces have begun targeting more journalists during ...

A senior official of the Posts and Telecommunication Ministry was arrested for corruption yesterday, according a local newspaper. ...

U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri on Friday wrapped up a five-day mission to Cambodia, saying that she was concerned and “deeply saddened” by the violent beating of bystanders and journalists after a May Day gathering near a cordoned-off Freedom Park. In prepared ...

Amnesty International on Friday lambasted a pending deal that would see people seeking asylum in Australia to be resettled in Cambodia. “Australia should be ending its offshore processing and detention of asylum seekers, not looking to outsource its refugee responsibilities to another, much poorer country,” ...