News

In his first public speech following this week’s ASEAN summit, Prime Minister Hun Sen offered lavish praise for China’s financial largesse and congratulations for its newly appointed Communist Party heads. Speaking to thousands of villagers during a ceremony to inaugurate National Road 8 in Prey ...

Two polarizing narratives emerged after the Monday night discussion between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Hun Sen, with the U.S. claiming it had been “tense,” while Cambodia insisted the talks were cordial. When it came to agenda, Mr. Obama put human rights, electoral and ...

U.S. President Barack Obama pressed Prime Minister Hun Sen on the government’s human rights record during a closed-door meeting between the two leaders in Phnom Penh yesterday, calling for fair elections and the release of all political prisoners. In the first visit to Cambodia by a ...

The U.S. will address human rights abuses in Cambodia and urge Prime Minister Hun Sen to conduct free and fair elections and end a culture of land grabbing during President Barack Obama’s visit to Phnom Penh next week. Samantha Power, senior director for Multilateral Affairs and ...

Adding to a growing list of foreign groups to censure the Cambodian government in the lead-up to the ASEAN Summit, the International Labour Organization yesterday ranked Cambodia among the biggest violators of the right to freedom of association. The Cambodia section of the report, which collated ...

Despite a moratorium on the granting of new economic land concessions (ELCs), the government has approved at least 32 ELCs since Prime Minister Hun Sen announced their suspension in May. According to sub-decrees dated from May onward and provided by local human rights group Adhoc, Mr. ...

Cambodia has decided to go ahead with the construction of a dam on a Mekong tributary, but conservation groups are concerned that not enough study has been done on the hydropower project’s environmental consequences. Construction on the 400 megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam in northwestern Cambodia’s ...

Thousand of families that stand to be evicted when construction work on the Lower Sesan 2 Dam begins in 2014 will each receive a 1-hectare plot of land for a home as well as a 5 additional hectares for growing crops, provincial officials said yesterday. Provincial ...

Kratie province – Cambodia’s transformation from war-torn basket-case to one of Asia’s most promising emerging economies is being overshadowed by a backwards lurch in human rights and land policies that critics say are entrenching poverty. Next week’s visit by Barack Obama, the fist by a U.S. ...

Some of the U.S.’ most senior lawmakers are urging Barack Obama to speak out on what they called Cambodia’s deteriorating human rights situation when the U.S. president makes what will be the first visit to the country by a sitting American leader later this month. ...

The leaders of two of Cambodia’s biggest donors, China and Japan, will attend the up coming Asean and East Asia summits in Phnom Penh next week, Prime Minister Hun Sen confirmed during a speech in Siem Reap province yesterday. “China Prime Minister [Wen Jiabao] will arrive ...

Government spending next year will total more than $3 billion, a 16.2 percent increase from the $2.6 billion set aside for 2012, according to a draft of the national budget obtained Friday. The budget states that the government will allocate some $400 million, or 13.32 ...

A Chinese hydropower company, identified as Consultant CECCI, along with Royal Group and Vietnamese power giant Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI), will be in charge of the Lower Sesan 2 dam construction project in Stung Treng province, as well as the relocation of the 5,000 affected ...

Six months after Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a moratorium on the granting of economic land concessions (ELCs) and a legal review of the concessions that already exist, the Agriculture Ministry has yet to begin the review process due to rain, and the danger of ...

Lao officials and executives of a Thai construction company conducted a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday in Xayaburi to inaugurate the first dam to be built on the lower mainstream Mekong, putting to one side concerns that the dam could devastate fisheries in Cambodia and Vietnam. Prior to ...

Construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam in Stung Treng province will begin in 2014 and the government will spend next year relocating some 5,000 people from villages that are located in the dam’s future reservoir area. Located near the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok ...

The US yesterday criticised Laos for announcing it will begin building the 1,285-megawatt Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River today without studying its potential effects on Cambodia and Vietnam. A spokesperson from the US State Department in Washington said the government was concerned construction of the ...

Sketchy details that fail to specify when construction of the Lower Sesan 2 hydro dam will begin, or name the Chinese company involved, have villagers fearing for their future, representatives and environmental groups say. Since the Council of Ministers announced on Friday it had signed off ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has said that the company responsible for building the Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province will be in charge of constructing homes for thousands of villagers that will be displaced according to a statement Friday by the Council of ...

Improvements to Cambodia’s banking and finance sector are expected to come about as a result of the 2013 national budget, a Council of Ministers spokesman said. “We will dedicate resources to ensuring macro-economic stability,” spokesman for the Council of Ministers, Phay Siphan said. These measures, in conjunction ...

The government has allocated more than $3 billion for total government spending in 2013, an increase of 19.2 percent on the $2.6 billion the government planned to spend in 2012, according to a statement issued by the Council of Ministers on Friday. The statement did not ...

King Father Norodom Sihanouk passed away today in Beijing at the age of 89, 59 years after he declared Cambodia’s independence from France. Sihanouk was a greatly charismatic leader revered as something of a God King during the height of his power in the 1950s and ...

Officials from four government bodies along with a personal adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday urged two US government-funded radio stations to be more professional and law-abiding during a closed-door meeting at the Council of Ministers. While little information was forthcoming regarding the content of ...

The Ministry of Information and Council of Ministers has summoned representatives from US government-funded radio stations for an unprecedented meeting to discuss the stations’ content, goals and level of professionalism, government officials said yesterday. In a letter dated Monday and signed by Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice ...