Social development

About 50 Cambodian youths were prevented by city security personnel from performing a peace march in the capital on Tuesday. The youth, from the Working Group for Peace, had hoped to hold a non-violent march near Wat Phnom, a city landmark, to the Royal Palace, ...

The residents of Por Sen Chey district’s Prey Chisak village could do nothing but stand and stare. Early yesterday, representatives of Green Goal, a private company tasked with measuring and marking sought-after property for Phnom Penh’s airport expansion, arrived in the village and started to measure ...

Labour union leaders denounced the government yesterday, alleging unfair treatment in the wake of nine union worker arrests last week and a hefty bail payment by a union president yesterday. Ath Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU), yesterday paid $25,000 ...

A journalist with Voice of Democracy (VOD) who was badly beaten by security forces at the site of a planned demonstration in the capital earlier this month left for Thailand yesterday for an operation, and plans to file suit against his attackers next week, he ...

With the help of a Federation of Canadian Municipalities partnership with the County of Kings, Battambang has won a clean city award from the Government of Cambodia. Battambang was ranked number-one in this year’s Clean City Award Competition. Federation of Canadian Municipalities program manager Pascal Lavoie ...

A forestry official with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) who is usually tight-lipped acknowledged last week that his agency has struggled to combat illegal logging, blaming a shortage of manpower and entrenched opportunistic logging by villagers – explanations that were laughed off ...

After being presented with statistics showing a more than 100 per cent rise in petty crime against foreigners, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng yesterday called on police officials to look into what’s causing the problem. Nicolas Baudouin, a spokesman for the French Embassy, confirmed that a ...

Workers from Caltex stations in Phnom Penh  strike on Monday to demand wage hike an other demands. The workers are demanding that the Caltex, a petroleum brand name of US-based Chevron Corporation, increase their wage to US$160 per month, and provide one-month bonus for them. ...

A worker with the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) has been intimidated and received death threats while trying to document the plight of three families involved in a bitter land dispute with a developer in the country’s capital, according to the center. The worker, Vann ...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has labeled the trial of two teenagers arrested during the lethal suppression of a garment sector strike in November 12 as “deeply flawed” and said that the pair should be spared prison sentences. In a statement Sunday, the rights organization claims that ...

Cambodia’s economic productivity is in trouble, struggling with an inability to turn a youthful population into a skilled workforce and stunted by an over-reliance on agriculture, according to a new World Bank report. In Cambodia and Vietnam, diversification of labour from the farming sector contributed to ...

The government has issued a total of 3.4 million land titles across the country, 500,000 of them since a renewed push personally orchestrated by Prime Minister Hun Sen, according to new figures released by the Land Management Ministry. In a notice posted to its website Friday, ...

More than 200 striking workers at Cambodia’s largest brewer, Cambrew Ltd., resumed work on Saturday after the company agreed to lift their monthly salary from $120 to $150 as they had been demanding. The workers at the company, which produces Angkor beer and Black Panther stout, ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday passed a sub-decree on the management of adult entertainment clubs and a draft of a new national housing policy to promote home ownership, a cabinet official said. The new Sub-Decree on Management of Adult Entertainment Places, consisting of 25 articles, ...

A land dispute in the capital’s Tuol Kork district escalated further on Friday when a group of “gangsters” allegedly threatened the life of a human rights worker taking video footage for a documentary on the conflict. “Six men pushed me off the site. One screamed: ‘I ...

Customs officials over the weekend said they will shed no further light on Friday’s massive haul of three tons of illegal elephant ivory at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port—Cambodia’s biggest-ever ivory seizure—until investigations are complete and a case can be sent to court. A scan on containers that ...

More than 200 villagers from three communes in Svay Rieng province on Saturday protested against a proposal to build a huge irrigation canal through their land, a local official said Sunday. The planned canal would stretch across Kraol Kor, Svay Yea and Chhoeuteal communes in Svay ...

Police arrested another three union representatives on Friday for allegedly inciting garment workers to strike and protest in front of their factory over the past few weeks, this time in Kandal province. It follows the arrest last week of six representatives of another union ahead of ...

Tax revenue increased 9.5 percent to $353.46 million in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period last year, according to a statement released Friday by the Ministry of Finance’s general department of taxation. Kong Vibol, general director of the taxation department, said ...

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan has summoned a student from the country’s top state journalism school for a meeting at his office after she used a post on her Facebook page to question the sense of a guest lecture he delivered last week. Mr. Siphan ...

The National Assembly has scheduled a plenary session on May 20 to discuss three controversial draft laws on judicial reform, a senior ruling party lawmaker confirmed Sunday. The parliamentary meeting will be the third plenary session since last year’s disputed national election, each of which have ...

A trial for two teens charged with intentional violence from a Stung Meanchey riot in November was unfair to the defendants, a statement released yesterday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. Calling the trial “deeply flawed”, HRW said the judge in the case showed open hostility ...

Independent union leader Ath Thorn said Sunday he had collected enough money from supporters to pay most of his $25,000 bail to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, and would deliver it to the court Monday. The court has charged Mr. Thorn, president of the Coalition of ...

A rowdy 8-year-old boy has accused his teacher of hitting him over the head with a small whiteboard during class on Thursday, leaving him with a bloody head wound. Sok Kim Heng said yesterday that he spat on another student and, in return, his teacher whacked ...