New reports of border officials at Poipet International Checkpoint demanding extra from travellers crossing the border between Cambodia and Thailand have again thrown the spotlight on the oft-maligned western gateway to the Kingdom, with an opposition lawmaker pledging action to stop the “anarchy”. ...

Dwindling donor funding for combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis could have a critical impact on low-income countries like Cambodia, a new study has found, with some health workers in the Kingdom saying that the squeeze is already being felt.   ...

Tourism industry executives and government officials from Thailand and Cambodia gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday for a roadshow on the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) segment of the tourism industry to find ways to work together to drive new business.   ...

The US Army Corp of Engineers is providing Cambodia with new tools to understand its growing groundwater shortage. Last week, the Ministry of Environment, US Army Corp of Engineers and National Council for Sustainable Development hosted a three-day technical exchange on groundwater modelling. ...

Cambodia’s newest microfinance institution FASMEC Microfinance officially launched yesterday.With a start-up capital of $1 million raised from a handful of investors on the new company’s board, the MFI hopes to expand its loan portfolio by the end of 2016. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called for stronger enforcement of regulations on the promotion and sale of baby formula, linking a decrease in the number of women who breast-feed to an increase in un­lawful and misleading advertising that misrepresents milk substitutes and deceives new mothers. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son, Hun Manet, announced on Sunday that he would not be attending a Khmer New Year parade he was invited to in Long Beach, California, in the face of vocal opposition from some of the community’s Cambodian-Americans. ...

Two weeks since the central bank launched its FAST system, which provides instant riel-denominated fund transfers between banking institutions, operations are running smoothly, with usage of the new electronic payment system expected to pick up as it integrates more customers.   ...

The number of new HIV infections in Cambodia nearly doubled over the past decade—the greatest increase in Asia—while less than a third of Cambodians living with the virus are receiving medication to slow its development, according to a report released this week. ...

The local arm of tobacco giant Japan Tobacco International (JTI), which makes Camel, Winston and Mevius cigarettes, has blasted the Association of the Tobacco Industry of Cambodia (ATIC) for failing to ensure its members adhere to new regulations mandating graphic health warnings on cigarette packages. ...

A new survey of what the country’s 700,000 garment workers earn and spend in a typical month has concluded that the median take-home pay of a garment factory employee is $191, higher than the minimum wage, but lower than what employers have claimed. ...

Rhona Smith, the U.N.’s new special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, on Tuesday addressed the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva for the first time, telling the body that she planned to focus on marginalized people in the country. ...

A set of new global standards for adolescent health care released by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS this week indicate that a worldwide gap in health care provision for youths is magnified by Cambodia’s comparatively young population, officials and experts said yesterday. ...

A controversial proposed animal swap that would have seen elephants Kiri and Seila sent from the notorious Teuk Chhou Zoo in Kampot to a zoo in Japan in exchange for other exotic species has been officially called off, new documents show.   ...

Some 34 families in Kampong Chhnang’s Lorpeang village yesterday filed a new petition at the provincial hall urging authorities to intervene in a nine-year land dispute with KDC International, which villagers say has reached a bottleneck and is affecting their daily lives. ...

The government claims not to have issued a single permit to export Siamese rosewood since it agreed to strict new trade rules for the exceedingly rare trees, and says it will look into a U.N.-managed database that states otherwise.   ...

The Labor Ministry on Tuesday warned unions that if they failed to reach a consensus on a new minimum wage for the garment sector ahead of Friday’s Labor Advisory Committee meeting on the issue, the committee would not consider any proposal from the unions at ...

National flag carrier Cambodia Angkor Air (CAA) yesterday launched a new route to Laos and Vietnam, aiming to tap the rising numbers of nationals from the two countries visiting the Kingdom as well as the foreign tourists visiting neighboring countries. ...

A week after an alliance of millers and exporters criticized the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) for its inaction in the face of the sector’s possible collapse, the federation Wednesday announced the formation of a new task force to manage challenges facing its members. ...

Days after a law went into effect requiring all cigarette packages sold in Cambodia to be plastered with graphic images of the health effects of smoking—blackened lungs and an infant on a respirator—there was little evidence of the new packaging in the capital. ...