The British Embassy on Wednesday declined to say whether the U.K.’s visiting foreign secretary raised concerns over the arrests of three Mother Nature environmentalists charged with plotting and insulting the king.
Prach Chan, a ruling party lawmaker, former governor of Battambang and Tbong Khmum, and an ex-Interior Ministry official noted as a close aide to Interior Minister Sar Kheng, is set to become head of the National Election Committee.
In a long-planned ceremony, Defense Minister Tea Banh presented Cambodia’s first drop of oil, extracted from deep under the sea at the country’s offshore Apsara oil field, less than a week after the company behind the project announced liquidation amid financial woes.
New inmates arriving to Banteay Meanchey and Svay Rieng provincial prisons tested positive for Covid-19 — in the latter case, after being in contact with nearly 50 people — with the disease now having spread to at least seven prisons.
An inmate has died of Covid-19 and more than 100 have the virus at the Kampong Speu Provincial Prison, the provincial governor said on Tuesday while denying he knew exactly when the outbreak started.
A prisons department spokesperson on Wednesday confirmed there were Covid-19 cases in Phnom Penh’s PJ prison but would not say how many, while the mother of a prisoner there said her daughter had heard of widespread transmission.
The Interior Ministry prisons department, Preah Sihanouk provincial administration and Phnom Penh City Hall this week would not offer clarification on a human rights group’s claim that there are “hundreds” of Covid-19 cases in the country’s prisons.
Police detained an informal-workers union official and placed him in two-week quarantine in Banteay Meanchey province as he was gathering names of members facing economic difficulties amid the nation’s ongoing Covid-19 outbreak.
A Cambodian man accused by police of impersonating a law enforcement officer and transporting a Chinese man outside a locked-down Covid-19 “red zone” in Sihanoukville was sent to the provincial court on Wednesday, a court official said.
Sihanoukville became the second city to designate a “red zone,” putting five villages under stringent lockdown measures for 14 days starting Friday, as the coastal province sees an uptick in Covid-19 cases.
Mother Nature activists were “gathering strength for an uprising” as evidenced by a Zoom conference where they insulted government leaders and the king, while three arrested activists acknowledged they wanted people to rise up, the Interior Ministry said.
Updated: US Ends Funding in $21M Prey Lang Project,… Jun 17, 9:41 am 
Soldiers Shoot Farmer in Attempt to Reclaim State Land Jun 3, 9:42 pm 
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NagaWorld’s Top Union Leaders Receive Dismissal Notices May 28, 8:19 pm 
Arrests of More Mother Nature Environmentalists… Jun 18, 6:14 pm 
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