Author: Niem Chheng
The historic direct flight from Cambodia to New Delhi, India, operated by Cambodia Angkor Air, commenced on June 16. Unfortunately, however, direct flights with Vientiane, Laos have been put on hold. The first flight to New Delhi carried Cambodian passengers and delegates to the inaugural “Cambodia-India Tourism Year 2024” event, held on June 17 in New Delhi. “Historic event! Direct flights between Cambodia and India have been officially launched by Deputy Prime Minister Neth Savoeun and Indian Ambassador to Cambodia Devyani Khobragade,” said a June 16 social media post by the Indian Embassy in Cambodia. “The event also marks the…
Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol, first vice-president of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), has been on a door-knocking trip to Europe, meeting with numerous companies in Spain and Germany from June 10-12. The council published details of his meetings with these companies, the latest being with Bayernhafen Nuremberg, which specialises in transportation and logistics, on June 12. He informed the company’s CEO, Ingmar Schellhas, that his mission to Europe was to highlight the investment potential in Cambodia. He also visited the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal to learn about the company’s experiences in using the canal for linkage to the…
The number of detainees in Cambodia prisons has risen steadily to almost 50,000. This is an unprecedented number for the Kingdom, according to Nouth Savna, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Prisons (GDP). In an interview with the interior ministry’s television station, broadcast today, Savna explained that despite the expansion of prison facilities, there is still not enough space to accommodate the growing number of inmates. “I believe additional prison infrastructure would only be a short-term solution. We can spend millions or even billions of dollars on expanding jails, but remember that the more prisons we…
Prime Minister Hun Manet and many government ministries celebrated this year’s June 12 World Day Against Child Labour, held under the theme “Let’s act on our commitments: End Child Labour!” While no recent figures were available, child labour cases have been recorded before in the Kingdom, often at brick kilns, where children were reportedly employed in order to help their parents escape from debt. Am Sam Ath, operation director at rights group LICADHO, explained today that his NGO published a report in November last year. While inspecting kilns in 21 locations, it determined that several of them were exploiting child…
Prime Minister Hun Manet has instructed all government ministries and other state institutions to define their roles more clearly and examine ways to improve efficiency, without any unnecessary increase in staffing levels or promotions. He even suggested that surplus units be merged or even dissolved if their duties are not in line with the policies and framework of the seventh mandate government. Civil society officials applauded his instructions and called for all individual officials and institutions to have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, to avoid overlapping tasks and areas of responsibility. In a notice which was circulated today, the prime…
Wildlife outside the zoo is hard to spot without camera traps, but their meat can be found on unwritten menus – through the whispers of sellers – in some local restaurants in Koh Kong and several other provinces. As of April last year, when the first phase of the Ministry of Environment-led zero snaring campaign came to a close, at least 52 restaurants had “voluntarily” stopped selling wild game. Several more committed to cease serving such items during the second phase of the initiative. With authorities vowing to crack down on illegal wildlife trafficking, some NGOs are also working towards…
A young girl, perhaps 15, in a simple white shirt and blue skirt walks into a cafe in Siem Reap town and makes her way to the playground. She perches atop a child’s slide and takes out a vape, then remains for five minutes, exhaling thick clouds of white smoke. At a cafe in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district, a group of five to 10 high school students gather over the weekend to play games on their phones and laptops. Many of them smoke cigarettes or vapes as they play. Such scenes are commonplace in many cafes and marts across…
A civil dispute over a loan – which has remained unresolved for over 14 years – has finally reached a solution, thanks to the newly-established National Authority for Alternative Dispute Resolution (NADR), a mechanism for resolving civil, commercial and other kinds of disputes as permitted by law through mediation and conciliation out of the court system. A June 7 press statement from the NADR General Secretariat explained that both parties had filed a legal complaint over the loan agreement, and had seen the case go all the way from the court of first instance to the Supreme Court, a process…