Social development

 Prime Minister Hun Sen has called for legal action against those who “twist” the truth to malign the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, taking aim at the nation’s political analysts and commentators, with one of its most prominent, Ou Virak, the first in the crosshairs.  ...

Cambodian NGOs and journalists were invited to China last week by the China Foundation for Peace and Development (CFPD) for a discussion on sustainable development in the Kingdom.   ...

I am a massage worker, I am not a sex worker,” Seth Sreylorn, 33, an employee at Alaska massage center in Siem Reap province, said to more than 100 entertainment workers who participated yesterday in the National Conference on Occupational Safety and Health for Entertainment ...

Police will investigate a number of NGO workers who government officials say were involved in the false testimony of Khom Chandaraty, the alleged mistress of opposition acting president Khem Sokha, after Ms. Chandaraty published an open letter accusing the officials of encouraging her to lie ...

No one knows exactly why resistance to malaria drugs always emerges first in this remote western province of Cambodia, nestled in the Cardamom Mountains. “The reasons are as much social as biological,” says malariologist Tom Peto, who is here in this dusty, unremarkable-looking town battling ...

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.   ...

Hundreds of dead bats were found inside Siem Reap’s Phnom Bouk temple in Banteay Srey district after district police and environmental officers were notified by local residents on Tuesday. ...

Cambodia ranked 128th in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) 2015 ranking of press freedom in countries across the world, the watchdog said yesterday on its website. ...

The rate of HIV infection among Cambodia’s transgender women is nearly six times higher than the national average, according to the results of a 2012 survey published in the online journal PLOS ONE this month. ...

Soeung Hai, a dissident former monk wanted for arrest by the government, said on Tuesday that he had been living in Sweden since February after the U.N.’s refugee agency helped him secure political asylum there. ...

The founding director of Meta House, Nicolaus Mesterharm, responded yesterday after the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts called off tonight’s screening of I am Chut Wutty, which was set to be publicly screened for the first time in the Kingdom. ...

Preah Vihear’s deputy governor has vowed not to let protesters near Prime Minister Hun Sen as he cuts the ribbon on a $360 million sugar mill in Tbeng Meanchey district today. ...

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has banned a screening of a documentary film about murdered environmentalist Chut Wutty and threatened “strong action” against the venue if films continue to be shown without first being cleared by the government.   ...

As the opposition marked the 41st anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge, one of its senior officials yesterday lashed out at the imprisonment of a CNRP lawmaker for criticising the government’s handling of the Vietnamese border issue. ...

Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, the outspoken director of the environmental group Mother Nature, has written to the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to request that he pressure the government to release three Mother Nature activists imprisoned on charges stemming from an anti-sand ...

The U.S. State Department’s annual Human Rights Report, released on Wednesday, highlights poor treatment of Cambodia’s political opposition in 2015, and raises concerns about the judiciary’s “broad interpretation” of the crime of incitement.   ...

Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia, is the President of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the country’s ruling party since 1979. In recent years, when an opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), started gaining momentum and making their voices heard, Sen’s government found ...

More than 60 percent of mothers and young children in Cambodia are suffering from dangerously low levels of iodine in what a new study describes as a “serious public health problem.”   ...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ordered immigration officials to ban Mother Nature activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson from entering the country, saying that the E-visa granted to him was merely a technical error. ...

Dozens of Cambodian-American Long Beach residents protested in front of a restaurant over the weekend against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son, Hun Manet, on the first day of his trip to North America. ...

A new mobile phone application launched yesterday aims to collect data on flooding, blackouts, traffic jams and other problems that plague Phnom Penh, then map its findings for use by citizens and City Hall.   ...

Houses will be built for school teachers from illegally-felled timber seized by authorities, the Ministry of Education has announced, but before work can start on the new structures officials from the ministry have been asked to gather information on which schools need the houses the ...

The Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospitals have sold a royal residence in Koh Kong province to the government for about $6.5 million after it was donated to them in October by the king and queen mother.   ...

Environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, who was deported in February last year, has been granted a one-month tourist visa through the Foreign Ministry’s online “e-visa” service, but an immigration official said yesterday that it was unlikely he would be allowed to use it. ...