Long-running talks between Cambodia's would-be coalition parties sputtered into action again yesterday after a two-week hiatus but failed to move any closer to resolving differences, party officials said.
Cambodia remains without a government 11 months after national elections despite a tentative March agreement between the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and royalist FUNCINPEC party to revive their coalition.
Prime Minister Hun Sen's CPP won the polls last July but failed to secure enough seats to govern alone, forcing it to find a coalition partner.
The tortuously slow negotiations made a breakthrough early this month when the parties finally agreed on a joint political platform, but since then have foundered on dividing government posts.
"The CPP's stance remains the same; [we want] a 60-40 split," CPP spokesman Khieu Kanharith told reporters, adding that the issue of controlling ministries was not discussed at the talks yesterday.
FUNCINPEC spokesman Kassie Neou said meanwhile that his party would not budge on its demand for half of all posts.
"The two parties remain very far from each other," he said.
The parties did agree yesterday to hold a "package vote" among MPs to elect Hun Sen back to his position and royalist chief Prince Norodom Ranariddh as national assembly president in one vote, as well as other procedural issues, Khieu Kanharith said.
Cambodia's national assembly has not met for more than a year, holding up important legislation including bills to allow a Khmer Rouge tribunal to begin and the kingdom to accede to the WTO.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS