Social development

Roughly 100 Phnom Penh residents who believe they will be affected by a planned expressway leading from the airport to the city centre protested again at the Ministry of Public Works yesterday, demanding that community representatives be included on the committee that settles such matters ...

Ahead of International Women’s Day, the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) issued a statement highlighting the important roles rural women and girls play in society while stressing the need to protect and promote their rights. ...

Health officials say they now doubt there is a new outbreak of HIV in Kandal province, following an investigation. ...

The Cambodian government on Friday approved a new regulation that will impose fines for public smoking. ...

With the draft union law due to be debated during a public forum on Wednesday, a group of 21 unions and NGOs released a statement yesterday calling on the National Assembly to allow more time to discuss the legislation before it is passed.  ...

Police burned nearly 45,000 marijuana plants growing on public forest land in Takeo province on Tuesday and Wednesday after they were tipped off by local villagers, police said Thursday. ...

The Ministry of Health issued a warning to the public to be wary of two common medications for the treatment of Hepatitis C, counterfeit versions of which have been found circulating in Myanmar. ...

The World’s Children’s Prize (WCP) ceremony, to be held on Sunday at the Artscape Theatre, will tell the story of the 2015 award ceremony in Sweden and South Africa’s participation. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son Hun Manet inaugurated four primary schools in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley on Monday, along with the head of a group known as the Cambodia Youth Movement 157, which donated the schools, a local official said on Tuesday. ...

The government launched a national plan for multilingual education in primary schools on Tuesday in an attempt to better integrate ethnic minorities into the public education system, taking over a program started by two children’s organizations. ...

Cambodia’s ambassador to Asean on Friday rebuked his U.S. counterpart for comments she made on the country’s human rights situation, asking her to refrain from “criticizing Cambodia inappropriately.” ...

While the Kingdom’s frequently criticized hospitals and doctors need to upgrade their services and skills, it is incorrect to label most Cambodian doctors “bad,” Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. ...

The Ministry of Agriculture has played down the results of a study that found high levels of arsenic in some samples of locally grown rice. ...

The courses are free of charge for at-risk youth between the ages of 17 and 23, who also receive a $25 monthly stipend. ...

A team of researchers, led by scientists in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, will launch a project designed to improve nutrition and empower women in Cambodia by promoting their production and marketing of horticultural crops and rice produced via sustainable intensification practices. ...

Following consternation this week over the government’s decision to cease HIV testing in Peam village, health authorities released a statement yesterday seeking to ally any fears of an outbreak. ...

Election watchdog Comfrel criticised National Assembly President Heng Samrin for a lack of commitment to creating a quota for female parliamentarians in a report presented yesterday. ...

Cambodians were optimistic about the economic and political future of the Kingdom, according to a national survey on citizen’s perceptions released on Wednesday by the Asia Foundation, although observers yesterday questioned whether that optimism remains in light of the government’s recent crackdown on the opposition. ...

Bolstered by a massive construction boom over the last few years, Cambodia now boasts one of the world’s fastest growing economies and was one of the few countries able to meet its Millennium Development Goals. In fact, Cambodia, which has halved its poverty rate in ...

Cambodia has been taken to task in Amnesty International’s latest global report, which said the Southeast Asian country continued to abuse human rights while allowing impunity to continue unchecked. ...

Two Cambodian women will return home tomorrow after spending almost two years each living in China with abusive husbands, officials said yesterday.. ...

The top U.S. envoy to ASEAN said on Wednesday that despite trade and security issues being at the cen­ter of last week’s U.S.-ASEAN Sum­mit, U.S. President Barack Obama also used the setting to address the region’s human rights problems. ...

Amid mounting international concern over the emergence of drug-resistant malaria in the Kingdom’s western provinces, a drug cocktail discontinued in 2008 has been reintroduced to stunning success – though how long that success can be sustained is uncertain. ...

In August last year, The Asia Foun­dation launched three new smart­phone apps designed to end violence against women and girls in Cambodia. ...