Social development

The United States government on Tuesday organized an intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement workshop for some 50 Cambodian and Lao law enforcement officials. ...

Moments after Prak Sovannary heard the Court of Appeal denied her husband’s request for bail, she sobbed over a speaker affixed to the top of a tuk-tuk, condemning the decision to about 150 supporters. “Release him! Release him!” said Sovannary, the wife of Independent Democracy of ...

Police and human rights workers are investigating claims that a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation in Preah Vihear province has been employing child workers since December. Oeu Bunthany said the Y Heng Company fired her on Saturday after she complained to local police that up to 20 children ...

Drug seizures jumped last year, while drug arrests remained relatively steady, according to the annual report from the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD) released Monday. As in 2012, methamphetamine retained its position as the most commonly seized type of drug. Police confiscated 17.3 kg of methamphetamine ...

The Education Ministry will reconfigure how it ranks high school graduates seeking placement at state universities as part of its campaign to promote accountability in the school system, Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron announced on Friday. Delivering closing remarks at the Education Ministry’s annual meeting, Mr. ...

Phnom Penh residents should experience blackouts less frequently this dry season, as state-run Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) now has enough power to avoid a repeat of last year’s rolling blackouts, a senior company official said yesterday. The amount of electricity Cambodia will receive from several hydropower ...

Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando yesterday promised to once again defy Phnom Penh Municipal Hall and go ahead with an unsanctioned March 31 protest against the Ministry of Information’s refusal to give him a television licence and more relay frequencies to extend the reach of ...

A new outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza has been reported in a village poultry flock. The veterinary authority sent Follow Up Report No.3 dated 21 March to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). ...

Cambodia on Monday called on all religious leaders to help stop violence against children by making their followers fully aware of children’s rights, officials said. “We urge all religious leaders to use their religious texts and teachings to stop parents from using violence against children and ...

Health officials from Cambodia and Vietnam met on Monday in an effort to cooperate on avian influenza. ...

A group of 54 local and international non-government groups said Sunday that the state may be behind the disappearance of a 16-year-old boy last seen bleeding from a bullet wound at a garment worker protest in January, and urged the government to investigate. Five garment workers ...

Cambodia continues to shoulder a disproportionate percentage of the world’s tuberculosis victims, with a higher prevalence rate of the extremely contagious respiratory disease than anywhere outside of South Africa, according to the World Health Organization. With the assistance of free screenings and free treatment, the Kingdom ...

Employees at the Kampong Speu shoe factory where a ceiling collapse killed two workers last May are headed back to work today after more than a week on strike, but will take their demands to the Arbitration Council. ...

Cheating on national grade nine and 12 exams – which has been rampant in the past – just got harder. The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) announced yesterday that it will enlist the services of independent NGOs, civil society groups and private companies to monitor the more than ...

On the shore of Koh Kong province’s Kiri Sakor district overlooking a cluster of islands, a flourishing new golf course lies vacant but for a handful of workers tending its empty greens. The Romanesque hotel behind it, replete with a bold central dome, luxury VIP suites ...

Fifty families who have lived in squalid conditions at Borei Keila in the capital’s Prampi Makara district since they were evicted and their homes destroyed have accepted City Hall’s offer of temporary shelter at the site, their representatives said yesterday. Evictee Sar Son said the 50 ...

More than 600 of the Kingdom’s inmates could be released or see their sentences reduced this Khmer New Year if the King responds favourably to a request made yesterday by the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Prisons, officials said. Kuy Bunsorn, director general of the ...

Cambodian experts on Thursday expressed concerns over the Laos Don Sahong dam development project, saying the proposed hydroelectric dam would pose a serious threat to the existence of the biodiversity on the Mekong River in Cambodia. Some 90 conservationists, environmentalists, development partners, academia, fishery scientists, and ...

Reducing absenteeism in schools in developing countries may be as simple as providing students with safe drinking water. A new study indicates that, but researchers are not sure why. The study was done at eight schools in Cambodia where the attendance records of more than 3,500 ...

Soft-drinks giant PepsiCo has pledged to take a “zero-tolerance” approach to land grabs by its sugar suppliers. In a statement posted on the company’s website on Tuesday, it said the move came in response to a campaign by Oxfam, which targeted Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. ...

A majority government-owned life insurance company has stopped paying out benefits to policy holders who die while taking part in protests and demonstrations, the company confirmed yesterday. The Cambodian Life Insurance Company – 51 per cent owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and 49 ...

Housing rights activists from the Borei Keila and Boeng Kak communities protested in front of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday to urge authorities to speed up proceedings in an assault case they brought against Prampi Makara district authorities last month. ...

Thousands of workers at the Wing Star Shoes Co. Ltd. on Wednesday blocked the road to the factory in Kompong Speu province for two hours. They demanded the company raise their bonuses by $5 and properly enforce labor laws after arbitration talks failed Tuesday. It was ...

Rights group Adhoc on Wednesday helped 105 communities locked in long-running land disputes across the country refile their complaints with local courts and other state agencies in a concerted effort to push the government to finally resolve their cases. Covering a broad cross-section of the country’s ...