Dotted with rice fields flanked by palm trees, Cambodia’s southeastern province of Kampong Speu is nothing short of picturesque. But behind the idyllic exterior is an on-going struggle to turn this region’s natural beauty into a global attraction and improve the lot of poor local farmers, ...

The minimum wage for garment factory workers can only be raised if international clothing brands sourcing from Cambodia pay more for their products, a Ministry of Labor official said Tuesday. Khieu Savuth, chief of the Ministry of Labor’s labor conflict commission, laid down the challenge a ...

Eight-year-old Sokun* spent almost the first seven years of his life in prison. Unlike other Cambodian children who have the freedom to play and run free, countless hours of his early life were spent in a hot, squalid and teeming cell in the prison where his ...

More than 400 people clashed with police and military police in Ratanakkiri province on Wednesday as authorities attempted to bulldoze their houses to make way for a rubber company plantation, villagers said. Authorities managed to bulldoze the houses of about 200 families, who they said had ...

A group of eight villagers from Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri provinces facing displacement by the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam lodged a petition Thursday with the Chinese Embassy and three ministries demanding that the developer negotiate with them. “The affected families have never been ...

Soaring prices for gasoline and goods have hurt some Cambodian consumers, causing what economists have said was a drop in the living standard of the Kingdom’s lower-income population. Gasoline traded at 5,300 riel per litre in Phnom Penh yesterday, an increase of about  12 percent ...

Borei Keila evictees sleeping under stairs at the site where their houses were bulldozed in January would die unless more aid organisations provided them with food, an NGO representative said yesterday. Amnesty International paid for the Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF) to deliver more than 1,200 ...

Local chiefs in Stung Treng province claimed on Monday that the Mekong River has risen by almost 2m, submerging floating cabins at a local tourist attraction, while in Kratie province, a police chief said the water level has risen by 0.5m, flooding Kampi Resort. Preah ...

The Ministry of Health has called on the people to take 11 preventive measures to protect themselves from food or alcohol poisoning during the Khmer New Year celebration. Those who felt unwell should immediately seek medical treatment, it said. On Friday, the ministry said hundreds ...

About 70 families who live in floating houses along the Tonle Sap river in Kampong Chhnang province say excessive heat and low water levels have resulted in large-scale die-offs on their fish farms. Van Srey Em, a fishery community representative in both Phsar Chhnang and ...

Blame is being passed around on the cause of flooding along the Boeung Trabek canal which inundated people’s homes after two consecutive days of heavy downpours on Monday and Tuesday as the rainy season moves into full swing. The finger is being pointed at pumping ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday announced the expansion of the provision of free bus services for the next two years to monks, senior citizens, person with disabilities, workers, students and children under one metre in height. Late last year, the government had announced to provide free ...

A request from the Khmer Vietnamese Association for the Interior Ministry to delay the relocation of Vietnamese familes living on the Tonle Sap river in Kampong Chhnang province has been rejected. The KVA’s letter, submitted last week, asked the ministry to intervene in the relocation of ...

Unlicensed orphanages have six months to register with the government under new legislation that also strictly defines the circumstances under which children can live at such facilities.The sub-decree “management on children care centres” signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on September 11 sets out nine ...

The rights of LGBT people took centrestage at an event to celebrate Human Rights Day at the FCC mansion in Phnom Penh yesterday.Organised by NGO CamAsean, which advocates on behalf of marginalised people, the morning conference included a rap performance by lesbian and transgender teenagers, ...

The United Nations adopted a sweeping set of targets aimed at improving the lives of the poor and protecting the environment over the next 15 years on Friday.Called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they target issues like gender inequality, poverty, and climate change, and replace ...

Ethnic Vietnamese residents of Tonle Sap Lake are continuing to head back to Vietnam in droves due to overbearing and costly rules being strictly enforced by local authorities, robbing many of them of the only homeland they have ever known. Minority Rights Organization (MIRO) official Seorn ...

Ry Sovanna is a Cambodian citizen, but in 2013 he was not able to exercise one of his most basic rights – voting. Mr. Sovanna was living in Thailand at the time, and there was no way for him to file his ballot in the ...

A collection of houses and other structures belonging to nine families living alongside a canal in the capital’s Russey Keo district was destroyed yesterday by a large group of men sent by local authorities.   ...

In the remote province of Ratanakiri, in northeastern Cambodia, deforestation and climate change are taking a heavy toll on communities.Drought has damaged crops, from rice to sesame, cashews, beans and potatoes, making it hard for farmers here to earn a living. And deforestation has greatly ...