Social development

The Lao government has agreed to a lengthy public consultation process with its neighbors before building a controversial hydropower dam on the Mekong River, within 2 km of the Cambodian border, according to the environmental group WWF. Laos announced the 256-MW Don Sahong dam last year ...

About 100 plainclothes men, some wielding sticks, tried to block a group of opposition activists and youth supporters in Svay Rieng province yesterday from reaching a disputed section of the Cambodia-Vietnam border. Clashes broke out at about 10am between the group of Cambodia National Rescue Party ...

In a bid to highlight abuses in the workplace, an NGO today will officially launch a website and hotline, allowing people to post stories as citizen journalists. The Community Legal Education Center (CLEC) will hold a ceremony this morning promoting their new project, Voice of the ...

The once unified fight of the Boeng Kak lake community against their forced eviction visibly fractured over the weekend, as factions within the community accused each other of literally casting the first stone in a brawl that broke out Saturday over a new military police ...

Looking out from his house, held up by three-meter stilts on a peninsula that juts into Boeng Tompun lake, Chan Sokhom can see the sand inching closer to him every day. Within a few years, the sand will likely reach his doorstep. By then, Mr. Sokhom ...

The Union Media of Asean, an association of Thai and Cambodian journalists based in Sa Kaew, has agreed to set the record straight about the policy of Thailand’s ruling junta towards migrant workers, particularly those from Cambodia. Reporters affiliated with UMA would pass on the truth ...

Representatives of fishing communities say illegal operations are critically threatening the nation’s fisheries. Corruption and collusion between authorities and illegal fishermen are at the root of the problem, they say. More than 100 representatives from these communities met in Phnom Penh Friday, in an effort to find ...

National Assembly spokesman Chheang Vun on Friday defended Cambodia’s decision to reject four human rights proposals and merely take note of another 38 during the adoption of its second universal periodic review report in Geneva on Thursday. In all, Cambodia accepted 163 of the 205 recommendations ...

Residents of three displaced communities in Phnom Penh on Friday submitted a petition to the office of the European Union delegation, urging it to monitor funds it gives to the government. More than 50 protesters from the Boeng Kak, Borei Keila and Thmor Kol neighborhoods were met ...

The International Labor Organisation launched Friday the fifth round of a radio competition to promote understanding of the Cambodian labor law among garment workers. ...

A packaging factory is back in business, opening its doors after about 200 former employees stopped blocking shipments, which they had been doing since Saturday. Factory management at Harta Packaging Industries acquiesced to a negotiation session with the group, which has been protesting against the company ...

About 60 residents from Phnom Penh and the provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey and Preah Sihanouk who lost land or are in danger of losing land due to a railroad development project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) protested outside its offices Thursday morning ...

Officials from the Ministry of Mines and Energy yesterday met with villagers in Ratanakkiri province’s Taveng district about a gold mine they allege violates the law and introduces toxic chemicals into the nearby Sesan River. ...

Cambodia on Thursday rejected four recommendations for improving its human rights situation that it initially accepted earlier this year during its second universal periodic review at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. It also “noted” 38 recommendations—meaning it has not committed to implementing them—some relating ...

More than 250,000 Cambodian migrant workers, mostly undocumented, have fled Thailand since early this month in fears of a military junta’s clampdown on illegal foreign workers, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday. “Up to now, over 250,000 Cambodians have crossed the border from Thailand back ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday called on Thailand’s ruling junta to ensure the safety of Cambodian migrant workers and to treat well those that are being deported. Up to 250,000 Cambodians have fled Thailand or been deported since the junta took control in a May ...

Cambodia’s human rights groups are continuing to seek ways to prevent three draft judicial reform bills from becoming law. The drafts have already passed the National Assembly, but they have not been signed by the king. ...

A Singapore-based firm whose subsidiary plans to buy land in Phnom Penh from which thousands of families have been forcibly evicted said Wednesday that the firm had no knowledge of the long-running land dispute. The firm, HLH Group, also denied any official or financial ties to ...

Makers of food- and beverage-related products are for the first time facing mandatory health regulations, with the unveiling of 10 national standards by the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft. The announcement comes after the National Standard Council, a government-run committee, finally approved the standards in May ...

Detainees and prisoners continue to be administered electric shocks, beaten unconscious and even smothered by plastic bags, with 49 new allegations of torture or abuse at the hands of authorities this year, according to rights group Licadho, which says in a report released Wednesday that ...

About half the Koh Kong province villagers relocated to make way for a Union Development Group resort project have abandoned the new homes provided for them, citing poor conditions and an inconvenient location, a village representative said yesterday. More than 1,000 families living in the province’s ...

The UN human rights envoy to Cambodia says the space for democracy has shrunk following a bloody crackdown on protesters earlier this year. Months of anti-government protests boiled over in January this year, when police open fired on striking workers and opposition supporters. The next day, as ...

A top court in Thailand agreed on Tuesday to hear a lawsuit brought by villagers against the country’s decision to purchase power from the planned Xayaburi mega dam in neighboring Laos, which green groups say could threaten the region’s environment and food security. Overruling a lower ...

More than 100 families living in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district have filed a complaint with authorities, claiming a rubber giant – already accused of illegal logging – filled in two natural lakes, provincial officials said yesterday. Villagers, along with government officials, say Vietnamese company Hong Anh Gai ...