News

Royal Academy of Cambodia scholar Sok Touch said Wednesday that his border research team has started inspecting markers planted along the 1,228-km frontier with Vietnam, visiting six colonial-era posts since last week as part of a process that he says will take two years. ...

Police from the Interior Ministry’s central security department on Saturday arrested the man who last month threatened to “shoot the head of Sok Touch,” a scholar recruited by the government to research its contentious work demarcating the border with Vietnam, an official said Sunday. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has ordered the government to launch a satellite surveillance system to monitor the country’s border areas in an effort to bolster national defense and curb illegal activities such as logging, drug trafficking and people smuggling, officials said Sunday. ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday approved a draft strategy on 2015-2018 public debt management. ...

The Cambodian government will return 18 map sections to the UN, but opposition officials say they still doubt the legitimacy of maps used in marking the border with Vietnam. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen today ordered all competent forces to take immediate legal actions against anybody who continue accusing government of using “fake maps” in planting border markers with Vietnam. ...

Sam Rainsy, leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), yesterday slammed the deal the government made with Australia to take in asylum seekers detained on the Pacific island of Nauru to Cambodia. ...

The U.N. loaned maps of Cambodia’s border with Vietnam to the government Thursday, with Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong hailing the maps’ similarity to the government’s own as proof that it has not been demarcating the border using illegal maps drawn by Vietnam. ...

A senior official with Cambodia’s ruling party on Wednesday dismissed opposition leader Sam Rainsy as insincere after he pledged his Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) would scale back criticism of the government for its handling of a border dispute with neighboring Vietnam. ...

Officials from the Council of Ministers and the Justice Ministry will meet today to discuss the arrest of former opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a directive on Thursday for the formation of an ad hoc committee of government officials to review maps loaned to Cambodia by the U.N. in order to check them against maps being used by “concerned parties.” ...

Military, government and ruling party officials on Thursday distanced themselves from deputy military commander Chea Dara’s comments this week that the “army belongs to the Cambodian People’s Party,” insisting that the military remains neutral. ...

The government needs about $2.4 billion to begin 331 public investment projects, such as roads and schools, planned for the next three years, according to a statement released by the Council of Ministers on Friday. ...

The Senate is scheduled to vote Friday on the controversial Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO), despite a boycott by the opposition party and heated opposition from civil society.  ...

Meach Sovannara, lead spokesman for the opposition, threatened to play the American card if the Municipal Court does not drop its investigation of him for his role in violent protests at Freedom Park last year. ...

Foreigners who join protests against the government will now be subject to arrest and deportation, Phnom Penh’s governor and the government’s spokesman said yesterday, in the latest effort by the CPP to curb outside influence in the country’s political affairs. ...

The contentious law on associations and NGOs will likely pass the Senate this week, after it is reviewed tomorrow and Wednesday opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) senator Kong Korm said yesterday. ...

Cambodian officials are praising Thailand’s decision to deport 109 Muslim Uighur immigrants back to China last week. ...

Opposition lawmaker Real Camerin is set to revisit a contested area of the Cambodia-Vietnam border in Svay Rieng province on July 19, despite being injured during a brawl there last month. ...

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday calling on the Cambodian government to cancel a draft law that would strictly regulate NGOs and associations in the country, warning that its passage could cost Cambodia up to $700 million in development aid. ...

The Cabinet approved a Law on Accounting and Audits at a meeting Friday morning. ...

The government will not accept more Montagnard asylum seekers from Vietnam because it lacks the resources to do so and does not want to provoke Hanoi, Council of Ministers’ Phay Siphan told Khmer Times yesterday. ...

The nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Cambodia told the U.S. Senate foreign relations committee this week that fair elections would be his priority, while a Cambodian government spokesman said he hoped the new ambassador would repair “bad” diplomatic relations between the countries. ...

Opposition lawmaker Mao Monyvann on Thursday rebuked the government over its repeated refusals to publicly release a copy of a map of Cambodia’s border with Vietnam, saying he would push ahead with a banned press conference to publicize the lack of transparency on the issue. ...