Cambodia’s microfinance sector is continuing to grow at a rapid pace, with loan disbursements in the first six months of this year increasing almost 50 percent on last year, according to an industry association. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday sentenced the owner of a massage parlor to five years in prison for prostituting a 16-year-old girl and four women at his establishment earlier this year. ...

Anti-human trafficking police arrested a man and a woman at Phnom Penh International Airport on Tuesday night, as they attempted to send two Cambodian women to be sold as brides in China. ...

Youths raised concerns about the potential environmental impact of petroleum discovery and use at a roundtable discuss on Saturday during which they debated with officials eager to continue searching and tapping into new energy resources. ...

Deutsche Bank and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) have poured millions of dollars into Vietnamese rubber companies operating in Cambodia that have engaged in illegal logging and forced evictions of local farmers, the environmental rights group Global Witness says in a new report ...

The deaths of four more Cambodian over the past two weeks brings to 11 the number of people killed by Thai soldiers so far this year while illegally logging across the border. The death toll is fast approaching the 15 Cambodians killed in the entirety ...

Japanese Ambassador Masafumi Kuroki yesterday said he hoped the government arrests the gunman behind the Feb. 20 triple shooting of protesting workers in Svay Rieng province, and that safety must be ensured for investors in the special economic zone (SEZ) where the incident took place. ...

Koh Kong villagers facing the loss of their land to a Chinese mega-tourism project held a news conference in Phnom Penh yesterday to appeal to the government for the right to remain on their property. Kith Ten, 54, from Kiri Sakor district’s Prek Khsach commune, ...

A government committee yesterday approved a draft sub-decree aimed at protecting the endangered Mekong River dolphin and will send it to the Council of Ministers within a few weeks. Among the provisions contained in the sub-decree is the creation of a 180-km-long conservation area stretching ...

Confusion continued to swirl around the fate of Bavet city Governor Chhuk Bundith yesterday after the Interior Ministry last week identified him as the sole suspect in the Feb. 20 triple shooting of protesters at a special economic zone (SEZ). While human rights groups claimed yesterday ...

Myanmar’s moves toward economic and political reform would not subtract from Cambodia’s regular stream of foreign investment, experts and insiders said – at least not in the short run. Word of an investor-friendly Myanmar has spread quickly with the US’s partial waiver on trade sanctions in ...

Cambodia’s garment sector yesterday looked more like a teacher to regional economies such as Myanmar than a student of China and other export juggernauts. With more than 500 garment and shoe factories – adding a new one every 10 days, according to the Garment Manufacturers Association ...

The rift between Cambodia and the Philippines over the role of China in addressing the South China Sea issue continued to widen yesterday, with the Philippines’ president telling his counterparts during an Asean Summit meeting that China should be left out of discussions on a ...

Cambodia would significantly strain its land and water resources if a projected series of large-scale hydro-power dams are built along the Mekong, according to projections released this week. Fish remains the primary source of protein and researchers [from the Australia National University in Canberra and World Wildlife Fund] ...

About 300 workers entered their sixth day of strikes yesterday at a bra factory in the capital, which manufactures lingerie supplied to Victoria’s Secret and Valentino, but their hopes of a quick resolution were dashed when a Ministry of Social Affairs official admitted he was ...

A Cambodian journalist, who reported on forest crimes in Ratanakkiri province for a little-known newspaper, was found murdered in the trunk of his car yesterday, police said. Hang Serei Odom, 42, a journalist at the Khmer-language Virakchun Khmer Daily, had been missing since Sunday, when he ...

Resident of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood burned straw effigies symbolizing corrupt government officials yesterday to make the one-year anniversary of demolition of eight homes at the contest site. Roughly 100 protesters gathered at the site of the demolitions and set fire to eight scarecrow-like effigies ...

The Ministry of Labour has played down reports it is close to sending domestic workers to Singapore, a country that has only recently granted foreign maids a weekly day off. The two countries’ governments had been in talks with Singapore’s Association of Employment Agencies about placing ...

When Sok Kheurn travels to the city of Siem Reap, some 32 kilometers from her home in Banteay Srei district, Siem Reap Province, the 58-year-old woman is always astounded by the differences she  sees. While in her village, everyone gets water from wells and light at ...

Hattha Kaksekar Limited, one of the country’s largest microfinance institutions (MFIs), is in talks to become a commercial bank by 2014, an official at the micro-lender said yesterday. The move, if successful, will be in line with the Central Bank’s policy to support MFIs in diversifying ...