News

Twelve Cambodians were shot dead by Thai security forces on March 5 after illegally crossing the border from Choam Ksan district in Preah Vihear province to log timber, Cambodian officials said yesterday. Another three illegal loggers were killed on Wednesday and two others are still missing, ...

A class of 110 military officers-in-training who graduated from a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) academy in Kompong Speu province last week have been granted the name of “Techo Development” officers, according to a post on the website of the ruling CPP. The class, which graduated ...

A day after union leader Vorn Pov was violently arrested during garment strikes in early January, he was driven to an unknown location and told by armed officers to get out of the vehicle. The union leader said his group of co-accused share a cell ...

Armed soldiers will continue to patrol Veng Sreng Street, the garment factory-lined thoroughfare in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district where military police shot dead five workers during a nationwide strike last month, until labor unrest in the garment sector subsides, the deputy commander of the ...

The Forestry Administration in Kampot province on Tuesday confiscated about 2 cubic meters of illegal timber from a truck in Toek Chhou district’s Stung Keo commune, officials said. The bust is at least the third in a week, with forestry officials confiscating 200 pieces of illegal ...

A brigadier general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) whose home and rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province were raided by police last week claimed Sunday that the authorities had apologized to him after he threatened them with a lawsuit. Police had raided Brigadier General Chhit ...

The number of four-star generals in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) grew Thursday as 29 former lieutenant generals were promoted at a ceremony in Phnom Penh presided over by Defense Minister Tea Banh, who last month underlined the army’s role as defender of Prime ...

More than 60 wooden homes in Pursat province were burned to the ground Wednesday by officials in Veal Veng district, who claimed that the owners were living on state land, rights group Licadho said. “On Wednesday morning, police, military police, RCAF soldiers and the deputy provincial ...

A brigadier general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) whose home and rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province were raided by police over the weekend said Monday that he was not responsible for the dozens of pieces of illegal luxury wood confiscated during two separate ...

In the weeks that 17-year-old garment worker Yon Chea languished in prison, he spent hours staring out of the window at a concrete wall, certain that he would never see his home or his family again. “I never thought I would get out. There was a ...

The Ministry of Defence will dispatch more than 300 members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) to Mali as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, a senior government official said yesterday. ...

In case the 29 officers Prime Minister Hun Sen promoted on January 30 to four-star general were not enough, six Interior Ministry police chiefs were also promoted to the same top rank late last month. A January 22 royal decree, obtained Wednesday, elevated the six lieutenant ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen approved a request from Defense Minister Tea Banh last week to promote 29 lieutenant generals to the rank of four-star general, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense. The promotions, which follow repeated calls from General Banh last month for ...

CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann on Thursday moved to clarify his position on the armed forces after the Defense Ministry accused him of “looking down” on the government and the work of the army. In a lengthy written statement issued Thursday, Mr. Sovann spoke in glowing terms ...

General Neang Phat has become the second senior military official to wade into the current political impasse between Prime Minister Hun Sen’s CPP government and the CNRP, accusing the opposition party of trying to destabilize the country, according to a local media report. Gen. Phat, who ...

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday signed a spending bill that suspends some funding to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government until an independent investigation into last year’s disputed national election is carried out, or until the opposition CNRP ends its boycott of parliament. The bill targets ...

A Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) officer and his son-in-law were arrested separately on Thursday and Friday in Battambang and Banteay Meanchey province for producing tens of thousands of dollars of counterfeit U.S. banknotes, officials said Sunday. Police arrested Tang Thearith, 35, in Poipet City on ...

As military police began a 10-day training program with the U.S. military in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, questions are being raised again over Washington’s ongoing support to Cambodian security forces involved in serious human rights abuses. On January 3, military police officers opened fire with AK-47 ...

The Ministry of Defense on Monday said that a complaint filed against a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) commander in Banteay Meanchey province for alleged corruption and other crimes had already been resolved in 2011. On Friday, provincial RCAF soldiers informed local rights group Adhoc of ...

Dozens of soldiers from the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) in Banteay Meanchey province have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing their superiors of serious corruption, stealing veterans’ pensions, nepotism and illegal logging. For three years, a representative of the soldiers said, they had ...

The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) on Friday voiced its support for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government as anti-government protests have intensified in recent weeks. “The RCAF vows to support the leadership of Prime Minister Hun Sen in the fifth term government,”the Ministry of Defense ...

The number of people shot dead while illegally logging luxury wood in Thailand decreased significantly in 2013 compared to 2012, although a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) official provided numbers much lower than provincial police officials, whose number also differed from human rights groups. Brigadier General ...

Cambodia will conduct a live fire drill from Dec. 27-31 in order to strengthen capacity for the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces in defending territory integrity, Defense Minister Gen. Tea Banh said Thursday. “The exercise is to test our new weapons,” he told reporters. “It is also ...

The constant hum of chainsaws almost drowned out Buddhist monk Sam Kim Sath, 65, as he stood this week in a wildlife sanctuary on Oral Mountain, Cambodia’s highest peak. Forest in the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary, in the eastern part of the Cardamoms, is being “obliterated” ...