Cambodia Morning News For October 2

Cambodia’s Supreme Court Overturns Defamation Conviction of Election Official, Citing Lack of Evidence
Cambodia’s Supreme Court on Monday rejected the defamation conviction of deputy secretary-general of the National Election Committee (NEC) Ny Chakrya citing a lack of evidence, ordering the country’s Appeal Court to hold a retrial of his case.
— Radio Free Asia

Cambodia vows to fight illegal wildlife trade
Cambodia vowed to combat illegal wildlife trade and prepared to cooperate with UN members to conserve natural resources, environment minister Say Samal said yesterday.
— Khmer Times

Ticket revenue at Angkor soars to more than $85 million
The government earned $85.5 million in revenue from the sale of tickets at the Angkor Archaeological Park during the first nine months of the year, a hike of nearly 13 percent, figures released yesterday by Angkor Enterprise showed.
— Khmer Times

How Cambodia is clearing landmines to rebuild peace
Cambodia’s tumultuous history, marked by 30 years of violence has left millions of landmines around the country. During the civil war, warring factions laid an estimated four to six million landmines. Over a million have been cleared by the government, and others have exploded or been cleared unofficially, but many more remain.
— GOVINSIDER

Kampot rail scheme dismissed as ‘fantasy’
Kampot provincial governor Cheav Tay created an unauthorised investment scheme last week. But the plan has been dismisssed as a “baseless fantasy”. He set up a firm called Kampot Capital Development, which plans to raise $50 million from individual investors to develop a high-speed rail and a provincial airport.
— Phnom Penh Post

BRCM buys $3 million stake in Vietnam’s Tima
Cambodia-based private equity firm Belt Road Capital Management (BRCM) has invested $3 million into Tima, a Vietnam’s financial marketplace and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform.
— Khmer Times

The Country Where ‘Everybody Has a Loan’
As the sun rises beyond the Mekong River over the village of Ta Skor near Cambodia’s capital, 60-year-old farmer Sophal and his wife are hard at work trying to revive their flood-damaged corn crop. Sophal said his harvest was once the lifeblood of his family, providing them with enough food and income to survive, but after a few bad years he began taking out small loans from various microfinance institutions (MFIs) to cover his losses. Now, he doesn’t know if he will ever clear the debt of $2,000.
— Bloomberg

New tech centre to prepare youth for Industry 4.0
As part of plans to adapt to technological trends, the government announced last week the construction of a centre inside one of the nation’s leading universities that will focus on the skills young tech entrepreneurs need to succeed in the digital economy.
— Khmer Times

China Supports Measures Taken by Cambodia against Chinese Law Breakers
China has reiterated its support for Cambodia’s crackdowns of crimes committed by Chinese coming to Cambodia.
— Agence Kampuchea Press

PM to deploy helicopters to monitor illegal logging
Speaking before members of the Cambodian diaspora in the US on Sunday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said he has ordered helicopters to be deployed above forests in the Kingdom to monitor illegal logging activities.
He also expressed his disgust towards “forest thieves” or illegal loggers and called for their arrest.
— Phnom Penh Post

Only 15 out of 47 make it in pioneer law course
Some 15 students graduated on Friday with a double degree – Executive Master of International Business Law from Belgium’s University Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and a Master of International Business Law from the Royal University of Law & Economics (Rule) in Cambodia.
— Phnom Penh Post

Eight charged over failed coup
Eight people suspected of being members of the Khmer National Liberation Front have been arrested for trafficking illegal firearms meant to be used in a plot to overthrow the government, National Police spokesman Lieutenant General Chhay Kim Khoeun said yesterday.
— Khmer Times

The sobering reality of Cambodia’s free education drive
Cambodia has long promised to provide free primary and secondary education to every child within its borders. But with a quarter of a million kids still out of school, how can the Kingdom keep its most vulnerable from slipping through the cracks?
— Southeast Asia Globe

Authorities start moving families living on Tonle Sap
Kampong Chhnang provincial authorities have started to relocate more than 2,300 Cham and Vietnamese families living on the Tonle Sap river to dry land in order to clean up the environment. Provincial Governor Chhour Chandoeun yesterday said that authorities have started to move the 2,397 families out in stages and hope to complete the work by the end of the year
— Khmer Times

Feature photo Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

This week’s Cambodia morning news feature photo acknowledges World Teachers’ Day, October 5.

Find our previous morning news feature photos in the AEC News Today Morning News Feature Photos gallery where you will find a pictorial display of daily life throughout the Asean Economic Community (AEC).

Cambodia morning news by AEC News Today is your one stop source for Cambodia news on matters of governance and policies affecting Asean business communities. It is published M-F by AEC News Today: Governance, not government; policies not politics.