A REPORT prepared in advance of an international summit on United Nations Millennium Development Goals has placed Cambodia among the top five countries in terms of progress, offering a far rosier assessment than other recent updates.

THE White House has announced that United States President Barack Obama will meet Southeast Asian leaders this month in New York as America tries to bolster its role in a region facing a rising China.

PRIME Minister Hun Sen has accused officials of encroaching on land in Thma Da National Park, located in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district, and warned that those who do so in the future would be subjected to “strict measurements”.

TWO residents of Kampong Speu province’s Omlaing commune said yesterday that they had been summoned to the provincial court to face allegations that they are living on land belonging to the Phnom Penh Sugar Company.

A 30-YEAR-OLD woman training to work as a domestic servant suffered light injuries early yesterday morning after she fashioned a rope out of various pieces of clothing and tried to rappel down the side of a three-storey training centre in the capital’s Sen Sok district, officials said.

A LOCAL organisation has accused Kampong Speu’s provincial governor and top military commander of involvement in illegal logging and plans to file complaints with the Anticorruption Unit next week.

THE Cambodian army plans to relocate a major military base in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Srouch district, fearing that live-fire training exercises by troops could pose a danger to local communities, a military official said.

THE United States plans to ramp up efforts to deport non-citizens who commit crimes, according to a statement released in the wake of a controversial operation last week involving the deportation of five Cambodians.

RUSSEY Keo district authorities have relocated 35 families from the Tonle Sap riverside to new homes on the outskirts of the city, two years after they were made homeless by a riverbank collapse.

POLICE in Ratanakkiri province arrested two Vietnamese men with the help of an ethnic Jarai leader on Saturday, after the pair were reportedly found illegally felling trees in Andong Meas district.

OFFICIALS from the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia will meet with union representatives today in an effort to reiterate their position on the Kingdom’s newly established minimum wage and avert a planned strike.

TWENTY-SEVEN communes in Kandal province are to become part of the Phnom Penh municipality in what government officials say is an effort to better control increasing sprawl from the centre of the city.

A 7-MONTH-OLD baby suffered minor injuries when provincial forestry officials demolished the homes of about 30 families near Kbal Chhay Waterfall in Preah Sihanouk province, villagers and rights activists said.

AROUND 300 villagers in Kandal province gathered yesterday at the provincial court to protest the arrest of a representative involved in a land row with a local development company.

Police in Tuol Kork district arrested a man on Thursday after he attempted to prevent them from investigating a car crash that left one man injured.

A 17-YEAR-OLD inmate from Preah Sihanouk provincial prison died in hospital on Friday, two days after falling out of his bed and seriously injuring his head

AROUND 700 construction workers employed at the Vattanac Capital high-rise on Monivong Boulevard resumed their work on Saturday following a three-day protest for increased pay.

FIVE Cambodians, including one woman, arrived in the Kingdom yesterday after being deported from the United States as part of a controversial operation that the American embassy in Phnom Penh described as an example of “excellent bilateral cooperation”.

THIS week’s conviction of four men for distributing anti-government leaflets in Takeo province may have come at the behest of the Vietnamese government, an opposition lawmaker said yesterday.

LAWYERS for former Khmer Rouge Brother Number Two Nuon Chea have appealed a decision by judges at Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal not to investigate allegations of political interference by government officials.