The country’s draft $3.4 billion national budget for 2014 proposes yet another $920 million in new debt to make ends meet, the same amount taken on this year, according to a copy of the spending bill obtained Thursday. The draft budget calls for nearly $400 million&mdash;or <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/spending-on-defense-and-security-up-17-in-2014/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

More than 1,000 people marched to the Kompong Thom provincial referral hospital on Saturday to mark World Diabetes Day and raise awareness of the chronic disease, which affects 3 percent of Cambodians and is increasing due to changing diets. Saturday’s event was organized by Mopotsyo, a <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/diabetes-on-rise-due-to-unhealthy-lifestyles/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

When a group of six unions organized nationwide strikes in December demanding a $160 minimum wage, the opposition CNRP aggressively took up the cause. Opposition leaders rallied support outside factory gates around the country and tens of thousands of garment workers flooded into Phnom Penh’s Freedom <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/cnrp-looks-for-quieter-plan-of-action-as-labor-strike-looms/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

The government has agreed to review its resettlement agreement with families relocated from railways as part of an asian Development Bank (aDB)-funded rehabilitation project, but has refused a recommendation to set up a debt-relief scheme for the evictees, according to an action plan released by <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/government-agrees-to-review-of-railway-evictees/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

More than a dozen ethnic minority communities from Cambodia’s northeast filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on Monday, accusing it of breaking its own safeguard policies by investing in rubber plantations they say are stealing their land and illegally logging their forests. The <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/minorities-complain-to-ifc-over-rubber-farm-funding/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

Thailand’s Tourism Ministry has been biting its nails since the country’s military declared a coup on Thursday and imposed a nighttime curfew, but a Cambodian official said Sunday that it is too soon to say whether the lock-down will have a knock-on effect on tourism <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/thai-tourism-threatened-by-coup-effect-on-cambodia-uncertain/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

More than 100 workers of Shenzhou garment factory in Phnom Penh fainted Thursday, one day after a similar mass fainting at the same factory. The first workers fainted at about 8 a.m., setting off a chain reaction that sent the entire workforce running from the factory <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/more-than-100-workers-faint-at-shenzhou-garment-factory/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

32,000 macaques primates have been exported from Cambodia over a 4 year period according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The Species Survival Network has said that there is a significant trade in the animal and that it is most commonly used <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/impact-analysis-urged-for-massive-trade-in-macaques/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

A new high-end privAte hospitAl in Phnom Penh, A collAborAtion between CAmbodiA’s Sokimex And Ho Chi Minh City’s well-known Cho-RAy HospitAl, is set to hire 280 CAmbodiAn heAlth cAre workers in the next yeAr, According to A SundAy sAtAtement posted on the City HAll website. <A href='https://opendevelopmentcAmbodiA.net/news/new-privAte-hospitAl-to-employ-208-cAmbodiAns/ ' clAss='cAmbodiA-color'>...A>

Insurance companies have operated at a loss through the first nine months of the year, paying out a total of $32.5 million over $20.4 million in generated revenues, according to data released by the Cambodian Reinsurance Company on Friday. Ty atith, a senior underwriter at the <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/insurance-firms-at-loss-through-first-three-quarters/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

Military police in Ratanakiri province arrested an RCaF officer Monday evening for shooting a 20-year-old villager who was riding his motorcycle across land at the center of a long-running land dispute between ethnic minority villagers and rubber company DM Group, officials said yesterday. RCaF second lieutenant <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/villager-shot-by-soldier-at-site-of-land-dispute/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

A consulting firm commissioned by the LAo government to prepAre A report on the controversiAl US$3.8 billion XAyAburi dAm project hAs rejected clAims by environmentAlists thAt their Assessment wAs “biAsed” due pArtly to existing ties with A project bAcker. On WednesdAy, conservAtion group InternAtionAl Rivers clAimed <A href='https://opendevelopmentcAmbodiA.net/news/firm-denies-dAm-report-biAs/ ' clAss='cAmbodiA-color'>...A>

The government has granted China’s Xinwei Telecom a license to become the country’s tenth mobile phone operator and the second firm to roll out so-called 4G technology, the fastest and most advanced network currently available on the market. Those in the telecommunications industry said that the <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/chinas-xinwei-becomes-countrys-10th-mobile-operator/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

More than 1500 factory workers yesterday marched from the Manhattan Quing Dao Textiles Corp in Kompong Cham province to the provincial headquarters to ask authorities to force the factory owner to abide by two arbitration council rulings, a union representative and a factory worker said <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/protest-continues-at-factory-linked-to-manhattan-sez/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

The construction of a new $17.5 million women’s cancer hospital specializing in gynecological services will break ground this summer, one of the co-founders said yesterday. Janne Ritskes, the director of Tabitha Cambodia, an organization that works to improve the lives of poor Cambodians, said the 220-bed <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/womens-cancer-hospital-to-open-in-phnom-penh-in-2015/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

Overseas labor recruitment agencies that send maids to Malaysia are planning to lay off about 1,000 staff members as they prepare to close down many pre-departure training centers following a growing scandal around abuses and criminal activity during the recruitment, training and sending of maids. an <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/maid-abuse-scandals-to-lead-labor-recruiters-to-lay-off-staff/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

The government failed to evaluate social and environmental impacts before granting economic land concessions to private companies, while officials and company staff used the courts to intimidate residents during land disputes, representatives of NGOs said at a conference in the capital yesterday. “The courts are not <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/courts-systematically-used-to-threaten-villagers-ngos-say/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

Less than two weeks after the Tonle Sap authority reportedly installed a ban on large-scale fish exports, Prime Minister Hun Sen declined to endorse the order and re-opened exports, officials said yesterday. Chan Youttha, secretary-general of the Tonle Sap authority, said it had prepared a report <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/hun-sen-overturns-recent-large-scale-fish-export-ban/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

The US government is working with a Cambodian microfinance institution to finance $2.7million in loans to farmers and small- and medium-sized agro-businesses in Battambang, Kompong Thom, Pursat and Siem Reap provinces in order to improve their access to credit, the US Embassy said. USaid will work <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/us-supports-2-7m-in-loans-for-agriculture/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>

Beer promoters are hoping a new documentary chronicling the conditions they face in the workplace will pressure beer companies to increase their wages and reduce harassment from customers. The documentary, launched yesterday at a meeting with members of the Cambodian Food and Service Workers Federation (CFSWF), <a href='https://opendevelopmentcambodia.net/news/beer-promoters-seek-higher-wages-and-increased-respect/ ' class='cambodia-color'>...a>