News

Chinese firms have huge ambitions for Cambodia, with a second firm this week proposing three projects worth an estimated US$6.5 billion to the National Assembly yesterday, but no deadlines were set for the implementation of the projects, according to officials. Pan Xiaoping, chairman of Ruijin Investment Holding Ltd, ...

Cambodia is mulling over a nuclear power option to feed its anemic energy sector, although private sector pundits called the rough plan a dream – a dangerous one at that. The government plans to use atomic energy in the future as oil, coal and biomass power ...

Following the release of the country’s first nationwide economic census earlier this year, the government is now planning to carry out a similar census dedicated to the agriculture sector, a government official said yesterday. Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun announced the government’s intention to carry out ...

The President of Cambodia’s National Assembly, Heng Samrin will make a two nation tour to Vietnam and Laos from July 20-30 to further enhance bilateral ties, according to a press release from the National Assembly on Wednesday. ...

Boeung Kak demonstrators left the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh disappointed yesterday after their petition calling for the release of 15 Boeung Kak lake residents locked in Prey Sar prison was not accepted. About 50 villagers, flanked by supporters, marched to the palace from the National ...

About 200 people, including activist monk Loun Savath, rallied outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh yesterday in support of the 13 Boeung Kak women sentenced to prison in a three-hour trial last Thursday. Supporters of the women, including villagers, unions and human rights groups, called ...

About 100 residents from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community rallied in front of the National Assembly yesterday to demand the release of 13 women sentenced to jail last week and two others now in pretrial detention for opposing evictions resulting from a real estate project ...

About 100 tuk-tuk drivers, motorcycle taxi drivers, vendors and other informal transportation workers protested against the high price of gasoline yesterday at the National Assembly, claiming the high petrol prices are cutting into their small profits. Vorn Pao, president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy ...

About 400 villagers in Kratie province’s Snuol district blocked national road 76A for three hours yesterday to demand that authorities release a villager who had been arrested earlier in the day for allegedly inciting villagers embroiled in a land dispute, villagers and a district official ...

Following a three-hour debate at the National Assembly, lawmakers passed a draft law approving the $2.5 billion the government spent in 2010. During the debate, CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap presented a 10-page document that he said justified the $2.5 billion in spending, which was 25 percent ...

The National Assembly yesterday passed Cambodia’s first law on pesticide and chemical fertiliser control, which the government hopes will regulate the use and sale of dangerous chemicals on agricultural products. Currently, hazardous pesticides are sold with little regulation and often without proper labeling that instructs farmers ...

Rolling out what may be the world’s longest krama, some 130 protesters presented the National Assembly with a petition yesterday morning bearing thousands of thumbprints urging lawmakers not to pass a trio of pending laws. “We all urge the government to stop its attempt to pass ...

The Senate yesterday spent just 90 minutes ratifying the record $2.6 billion budget law for 2012, which will allow the government to borrow up to $1.1 billion from foreign lenders, according to a Senate statement ...

Total government spending in 2012 is set to reach $2.62 billion, an increase of 9 percent on the $2.4 billion the government had budgeted to spend in 2011, according to a copy of the 2012 draft budget law obtained yesterday. As part of the new budget, ...

Seventy-one out of 89 National Assembly lawmakers yesterday voted to approve the construction of a coal power plant in Preah Sihanouk province by a company run by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin and his daughter, and licensed the plant to sell electricity to Electricite du ...

The opposition has raised conflict-of-interest concerns over another agreement headed to the National Assembly today guaranteeing the government will buy electricity from a power plant to be constructed by a company owned by ruling party Senator Lao Meng Khin. However, it was unclear yesterday whether the ...

PHNOM PENH A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) said here Saturday that the CPC is willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with Cambodian political parties to boost mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Cambodia. Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing ...

Government officials yesterday dismissed the World Bank’s recently revealed decision to freeze funding for new projects in Cambodia to protest a Phnom Penh real estate project that has forced thousand of families out of their homes. A housing rights group closely following the evictions said ...

Twenty-nine community representatives from Kampong Speu’s Phnom Sruoch district travelled in person to the National Assembly building in Phnom Penh yesterday to file a complaint against provincial governor Kang Heang and other officials, accusing them of “robbing a total of 950 hectares of farm land”.  ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called for greater regional cooperation to tackle a range of environmental problems in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, but did not specifically address the threat posed by dams. “I call on all countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region to place more emphasis ...

7 unions working together have said that they refuse to support a union law that has been drafted as the government has ignored their recommendations.  The potential legislation is said to be prohibitively restrictive and the unions have said they will boycott by organizing peaceful ...