News
Hun Sen Offers ‘Back Pay’ to Ousted Opposition Lawmakers
Prime Minister Hun Sen has offered to pay back the lost salaries of opposition lawmakers who were stripped of their parliamentary posts in June by the then CPP-led National Assembly, a CNRP official said. The offer to back-pay the 27 lawmakers from the Sam Rainsy Party ...
Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/hun-sen-offers-back-pay-to-ousted-opposition-lawmakers-42679/
Cambodia sees fewer female lawmakers in upcoming parliament
Twenty-five out of the 123 lawmakers elected during the July 28 national election are female, the official election results have shown. Sunday. The figures indicated that the number of women-lawmakers in the upcoming fifth legislature of the National Assembly is lower than that of the previous ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-09/10/c_132708901.htm
Senior CPP Officials Agree to Give Up Lawmaker Positions
The National Election Committee (NEC) on Monday said that a host of senior ruling party officials had resigned from their elected posts in Parliament in order to allow lawmakers lower down the party’s rostrum of candidates to be given a seat in the National Assembly. “The ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/senior-cpp-officials-agree-to-give-up-lawmaker-positions-41986/
Reform talk from CPP
The Cambodian People’s Party is prepared to make sweeping changes during its fifth government mandate, including improving the often-criticised judiciary and prioritising social justice, a government spokesman said. This “period of reform” would see deep-seated changes across a number of ministries in response to grievances expressed ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/reform-talk-cpp
Fresh Faces on CPP’s Shortened List of Lawmakers
When the ruling CPP takes its seats in the new National Assembly, its members of Parliament will include a few new faces, and significantly less old ones, according to ratified election results announced by the National Election Committee (NEC) on Sunday. The CPP’s poor showing in ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/fresh-faces-on-cpps-shortened-list-of-lawmakers-41902/
Forest Cleared for Stung Treng Dam Construction
Logging has officially begun in Stung Treng province in preparation for the construction of a massive hydropower dam, but local authorities and villagers said Wednesday that the clearing of forest is going unchecked outside the official dam concession area. The Lower Sesan 2 dam was approved ...
Kuch Naren and Dene-Hern Chen
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/forest-cleared-for-stung-treng-dam-construction-41693/
BHP Billiton Faces Bribery Charges After Abandoned Project
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the country’s financial regulator have informed Australia-based mining giant BHP Billiton it could still be charged over allegations the company bribed overseas officials, which include claims of improper payments to members of the Cambodian government. Prime Minister Hun Sen ...
Opposition Voters in Preah Vihear Claim Threat of Eviction
Locals and rights groups on Wednesday said dozens of farmers in a village in Preah Vihear province have been singled out for eviction after supporting the opposition CNRP in last month’s vote, a claim their village chief denied. Residents of Choam Ksan district’s Kom Prak village ...
Villagers in a drawn-out land fight summonsed
Five Tumpuon villagers have again been summonsed for questioning by the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court in a lengthy dispute after private firm Ly Sokim Co Ltd accused villagers of destroying its property. In the latest summons, dated July 30, villagers are warned that failing to show up ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-drawn-out-land-fight-summonsed
Prices fluctuate due to poll
As election data trickled in on Sunday evening and a fear set in borne of uncertainty and a beefed-up police presence, demand for basic commodities surged, food prices briefly rose, and some banks saw an expected rise in withdrawals. Sales of rice jumped from their normal ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/prices-fluctuate-due-poll
Election worries for tourists
Chris Leyland had forgotten about Cambodia’s national elections when he made plans to travel into Phnom Penh from Vietnam with Jess Jackson, 34, and her two children. Had Leyland, a 41-year-old from Oxford, UK, remembered that it wasn’t going to be a normal weekend in Cambodia, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/election-worries-tourists
Opposition Party Rejects Election Results, Wants Investigation
The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) on Monday rejected the results of the national election, calling for a joint committee to be established to investigate what the opposition party said were vast irregularities in Sunday’s polls. “The Cambodia National Rescue Party demands for the establishment ...
CPP Wins, but Suffers Loss in Parliamentary Majority
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) claimed victory in Sunday’s national election, but saw its majority severely diminished, ceding 22 National Assembly seats to the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), the party’s first major setback since the U.N.-backed election in 1993. According to ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/cpp-wins-but-suffers-loss-in-parliamentary-majority-37210/
Big opposition gains
The ruling Cambodian People’s Party saw its ironclad grip on the National Assembly weaken dramatically, dropping 22 seats in winning 68 of 123, with the opposition the beneficiary and the CPP’s royalist coalition partners winning none at all in an election rife with alleged irregularities. Though ...
IPU Finds Assembly Has Little Loans Oversight
Cambodia’s National Assembly is lacking, compared to other countries’ parliaments, in the oversight it exercises over new loans taken out by the government from international financial institutions, according to a new report. The study, published Tuesday by Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the World Bank, found ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/ipu-finds-assembly-has-little-loans-oversight-36432/
Cambodia election will not have influence on tourism
Tourism is one of the major sectors supporting the Cambodian economy. Last year, the country attracted 3.58 million foreign tourists, generating 2.2 billion US dollars in revenues. The Cambodian Minister of Tourism Thong Khon said Tuesday that the July 28 national elections in Cambodia would not ...
http://www.eturbonews.com/36396/cambodia-election-will-not-have-influence-tourism
Hun Sen Mocks Opposition Request for Donors to Freeze Aid
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday rebuked the opposition for urging foreign donors to refrain from signing any new agreements with the government until after the election and boasted of a new $26 million handed over last week by the European Union (E.U.) E.U. Ambassador ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-mocks-opposition-request-for-donors-to-freeze-aid-31547/
Australian Police Say Appropriate Steps Taken in BHP Bribery Case
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said Monday they have taken the necessary steps to investigate claims that the world’s largest mining company, BHP Billiton, bribed officials in Cambodia and played down reports that it had mishandled one the country’s largest cases in corporate corruption. “The ...
Protesters Mix Petitions, Black Magic to Get Land
Sporting red bandanas and armed with the accoutrements of Khmer black magic, several hundred demonstrators representing embattled communities throughout the country held noisy protests outside several government offices yesterday, where they placed curses on corrupt officials and submitted written petitions demanding justice. Unlike previous protests that ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/protesters-mix-petitions-black-magic-to-get-land-30761/
On World Environment Day, a Call to Save Cambodia’s Forests
About 200 people celebrating World Environment Day on Wednesday gathered in front of the National Assembly to submit a petition asking the government to stop the destruction of Cambodia’s forests. A report released by the WWF last month said that Cambodia has lost almost a ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/on-world-environment-day-a-call-to-save-cambodias-forests-29329/
CNRP Lawmaker Visits Controversial Plantation
Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay said yesterday that he would ask the government to cancel the land concession of a Vietnamese rubber firm in Ratanakkiri province he accused of logging and exporting wood illegally. Mr. Chay, a candidate in July’s national election for the Cambodia National Rescue ...
Homeowners petition ADB
The occupants of 90 Phnom Penh households whose homes were partially or completely dismantled to make way for the Railway Rehabilitation Project partly funded by the ADB have demanded the bank offer them fair compensation. In a letter submitted to the Inter-Ministerial Resettlement Committee, the ADB, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052165738/National/homeowners-petition-adb.html
Compulsory insurance for car owners planned
Private car owners could soon be required to buy motor insurance if a planned law amendment gets the green light, stoking optimism that such a bill could put the brakes on Cambodia’s high rate of hit-and-run accidents. Currently, only commercial vehicles, such as buses, legally require ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013051465590/Business/compulsory-insurance-for-car-owners-planned.html
Opposition Lawmakers Want ‘Social’ Land to Go to Farmers
Cambodian lawmakers have passed a new law on agriculture, but critics say the law does not go far enough to protect the country’s farmers. The law passed on Thursday evening, but not before debate at the National Assembly. During the debate opposition representatives called on the ...