Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Commander Hun Manet, who is widely expected to replace his father as Cambodian prime minister later this year, yesterday was promoted to his country’s highest military rank.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, 71, explicitly declared his support in December 2021 to have the US Military Academy-trained Hun Manet succeed him through constitutional means.
Hun Sen last month hinted strongly that he intends to step down when a new government is installed after July’s general election.
“Now we have found the young generation that will come to replace us. We should hand over to them and just stay behind them,” Hun Sen said at the time.
Hun Manet, 45, was made a four-star general — a promotion from his three-star lieutenant-general’s rank — at a ceremony attended by about 1,000 senior officers at the Cambodian Ministry of National Defense in Phnom Penh.
He was formally granted his promotion last month by King Norodom Sihamoni, whose position is largely symbolic.
In a statement posted on Facebook after the promotion ceremony, Hun Manet thanked the king, his father, Cambodian Minister of National Defense Tea Banh and all the army’s officers for their trust and support, and for providing him a chance to serve Cambodia and its people.
Hun Manet holds several key security posts, and was elevated in 2018 from the 865-member Central Committee of his father’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party to its 37-member Standing Committee, the country’s key decisionmaking body, making him a de facto member of his father’s inner political circle.
In a speech at the ceremony, Tea Banh — one of Hun Sen’s most important early supporters — credited Hun Manet for upgrading and reforming Cambodia’s military since he became army chief in 2018.
Hun Sen has led Cambodia with an iron fist for 38 years, and during the election in 2018 vowed to stay in office for two more terms, until 2028.
He often spoke of having Hun Manet succeed him, and appointed him to several high-profile and important positions.
Hun Sen said the new post-election government would likely be formed in September.
Hun Sen has maintained power as an autocrat in a nominally democratic framework.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS