Samdech Preah Akka Maha Sangharajadhipati Tep Vong, the Great Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia, has reportedly passed away at the age of 93 after a long illness, according to the Ministry of Information. Venerable Tep Vong has been receiving treatment at Phnom Penh’s Calmette hospital for the last several months. Former Prime Minister Hun Sen and several other members of the Kingdom’s leadership visited him in hospital to pay their respects in recent months.
Author: Niem Chheng
Former Prime Minister Hun Sen is set to fly to Bangkok today to pay a visit to his friend Thaksin Shinawatra, former Prime Minister of Thailand, according to his Facebook post. Thaksin was recently paroled from a one year jail term and has been allowed to return to his home. Hun Sen, currently the head of the Supreme Privy Council to the King, and Taksin have been very close since 1992, and have repeatedly referred to one another as “God brothers”. As former prime ministers of the two neighbouring Kingdoms, they have met on many occasions, on both official and…
Petitions of support are pouring in, from the general public to state institutions, endorsing Prime Minister Hun Manet’s decision to dismiss any state officials found to be involved with illicit drugs. Comments have been made in writing as well as in self-shot video clips, with ordinary citizens, artists, civil servants and politicians clamouring to share their support. “I fully support the prime minister’s decision to take strict action against drugs. I also call on the public to join the cause of preventing drug use and to stay clear of drugs,” said pop singer Ton Chan Seyma. Manet signed a February…
Prime Minister Hun Manet has ordered that all state officials, from the national to the sub-national level, who are found to be positive for narcotics will be dismissed from their posts. “I just signed the order. We will increase the implementation across the whole spectrum of government. This means that all civil servants, members of the armed forces and authorities at the national and sub-national level will be fired if they test positive or are found to be involved with drugs,” he said. “There will be no more tolerance within state institutions,” he added. Manet issued the warning while addressing…
A man accused of faking a story about inappropriate behaviour by a senior traffic police officer was charged with malicious denunciation and forgery and placed in pre-trial detention by the Phnom Penh Municipal court this week. If found guilty, he is facing up to three years in prison. A February 17 statement by the court identified the suspect as Yim Sophana, 34, who created a social media account using the name “Kong Molina” (named as “Molika” in the police report), using a profile picture of a beautiful woman to attract public attention. Earlier this month, the suspect used the fake…