Social development

Civil society organisations yesterday asked the government to strengthen legal measures against perpetrators of violence against women and children.The request was made at the 2018 One Billion Rising Campaign at the Chenla Theatre in Phnom Penh, where more than 300 people gathered to discuss protecting ...

Cambodia’s economic freedom score dropped seven ranks in the annual Economic Freedom Index released by the Heritage Foundation, a US-based, conservative-leaning think tank. The 0.8 point dip in the score from last year put Cambodia’s economy in the “Mostly Unfree” category, ranking 101 out of ...

In an apparent reversal, Stung Treng province authorities on Friday said they would build public infrastructure for the 83 households from Srekor and Kbal Romeas villages who were displaced by flooding from the reservoir of the controversial Lower Sesan II Dam but declined to move ...

Violence in Cambodia has escalated in recent months with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s attempts to quash competition ahead of the upcoming elections on July 29, 2018. Security and surveillance measures have been strengthened, media outlets have been closed down, protests have been met with violence and mass ...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a 30-month sentence for land activist Tep Vanny on charges relating to a 2013 protest outside Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house that turned violent, leaving the Boeung Kak resident to serve out more than a year of her remaining ...

Phnom Penh City Hall yesterday said that demonstrations, strikes and protests increased last year when compared to 2016. A report released yesterday said that 2017 saw 1,760 demonstrations, strikes and protests, an increase of 162 compared to 2016. Last year, there were 613 protests by citizens and ...

A new laboratory to monitor food products and ensure their safety opened on Tuesday in Svay Rieng province, near the border with Vietnam. It is the third such facility to open in the kingdom in the last few years, after other labs came online in Banteay ...

More than 1,700 beggars and homeless people were removed from the streets of Phnom Penh and sent to social affairs centres last year. According to City Hall’s annual report, which was released yesterday, authorities rounded up 1,727 beggars and homeless people from all city districts over ...

Families forced to relocate due to the construction of the Lower Sesan II Dam are asking Stung Treng provincial authorities to register their new village as indigenous collective lands. The 67 families from Sre Ko commune received authorisation to set up the new village on their ...

Two more families have accepted compensation to leave the Borei Keila area to make room for development, as the long-running land dispute creeps ever closer to an end. ...

A Cambodian representative to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) said yesterday that new guidelines for hydropower development agreed to late last month don’t fully address threats to the health of the imperiled waterway. ...

Cambodia’s government has ordered internet service providers to block online access to The Cambodia Daily newspaper, which closed last year amid a widespread crackdown on media and civil society groups criticizing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party.​ ...

Fourteen families in Koh Kong province’s Kiri Sakor district filed a court complaint today against 60 security guards employed by Union Development Group (UDG) for allegedly destroying their crops and small huts on land belonging to the development conglomerate.​ ...

The Ministry of Health has warned that dengue fever cases could spike this year after a fall in cases in 2017 when compared to 2016. A report from the ministry said that in the first three weeks of 2018, there was a 130 percent spike in ...

Stung Treng province officials have announced they will not build public facilities for those villagers who refused to relocate to the government’s resettlement site when their villages were flooded late last year by the reservoir of the controversial Lower Sesan II Dam. ...

District authorities warned Borei Keila residents yesterday during a meeting to stop protesting lest they be arrested. On Wednesday, representatives from seven families gathered in front of the house of Suy Sophan, the owner of Phanimex, to demand what they deem just compensation for vacating their ...

A study of the mass administration of anti-malarial drugs in two provinces of Cambodia has shown the challenges that surface during such interventions, including the spread of “rumours” among villagers, which can decrease participation, new research shows. ...

A small-scale research study carried out in Cambodia has indicated that the performing arts can serve as a form of catharsis and have value as potential reparations for survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime. ...

City Hall has decided to reintegrate more than 100 beggars and homeless people from the Phnom Penh Transit Centre in Por Senchey district after they received sufficient training. ...

Authorities suspect that a new case of H5N1, or bird flu, has emerged in Mondulkiri province after more than 60 villagers’ chickens fell ill.Sok Kheang, chief of the provincial agriculture and fisheries department, said more than 60 chickens in Keo Seima district had fallen ill ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday took a swipe at a recent democracy report that labelled his regime “authoritarian”, before declaring no one is capable of “toppling Hun Sen besides Hun Sen”. ...

The state of democracy in Cambodia has declined to the point where it is now led by an outright “authoritarian” regime, according to the latest Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit. The Democracy Index 2017, released yesterday, ranked Cambodia 124th out of 167 countries, ...

More than 1,000 people flocked to Oudong Mountain in Kandal province yesterday to observe Meak Bochea Day, which marks the day the Buddha prophesied his own death.Nguon Nhel, second vice president of the National Assembly, presided over the ceremony accompanied by many lawmakers and government ...

A proposed access-to-information law more than a decade in the making was unveiled to the public yesterday, with just one item left to finalise – punishments for officials who refuse to disclose public information. ...