Social development

The custodians of a community forest in Ratanakkiri have accused a company of illegally bulldozing their protected jungle. Sen Youn, a representative of the Jarai ethnic minority in O’Yadav district’s Lumchor commune, said yesterday an investigation with rights groups had uncovered that the Chea Chanrith Development ...

Cambodia planned to allocate 3. 1 billion U.S. dollars, in equivalent to 19.8 percent of the country’s GDP, for national expenses in 2013, a 12.9 percent rise year-on-year, finance minister Keat Chhon said Friday. Speaking to reporters after a meeting at the National Assembly, the minister ...

Human rights groups in Cambodia fear a new south-east Asian declaration of human rights could conversely offer the government in Phnom Penh a figleaf to clamp down on dissent. Cambodia signed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) human rights declaration on Sunday, two days ...

They’re known as the BK13 and they’re not prepared to let greedy developers take the very, very little they have. They’re 13 women – mothers, grandmothers – who live around what used to be Boeung Kak Lake – not far from the centre of Cambodia’s ...

Factory workers should get a reduction or exemption from paying income tax as the deductions are forcing them into poverty, the Free Trade Union (FTU) wrote in a letter to Finance Minister Keat Chon. ...

He came, he said nothing, he left. Publicly at least, President Barack Obama, the first US head of state to visit the Kingdom, uttered not a single word to the Cambodian people, although many have noted that he was extremely pressed for time. Cambodians, from the ...

Further comprehensive economic co-operation and expansion among ASEAN’s member states, East Asia and its development partners was imperative for managing risks and impacts from the fragile global economy, Prime Minister and ASEAN chairman Hun Sen said during the ASEAN Global Dialogue yesterday. The dialogue brought together ...

Two polarizing narratives emerged after the Monday night discussion between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Hun Sen, with the U.S. claiming it had been “tense,” while Cambodia insisted the talks were cordial. When it came to agenda, Mr. Obama put human rights, electoral and ...

Criticism continued yesterday of the Asean Human Rights Declaration, which was signed in Phnom Penh on Saturday after regional leaders decided to make last-minute revisions that were widely deemed as inadequate. U.N. experts ans civil society groups criticized the lack of consultation in drawing up the ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and visiting U.S. President Barack Obama met here on Monday to discuss a number of issues including old debt, human rights, democracy and forced evictions in Cambodia, a senior Cambodian official said. Hun Sen also raised the issue of old ...

U.S. President Barack Obama pressed Prime Minister Hun Sen on the government’s human rights record during a closed-door meeting between the two leaders in Phnom Penh yesterday, calling for fair elections and the release of all political prisoners. In the first visit to Cambodia by a ...

Herewith the full text of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration adopted by Southeast Asian leaders Sunday: WE, the Heads of State/Government of the Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (hereinafter referred to as “ASEAN”), namely Brunei Darussalam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Republic of ...

President Barack Obama arrives in Cambodia on Monday having just won four more years in office, but that is nothing compared to his host, Hun Sen. The 60-year-old Cambodian prime minister has held power since Ronald Reagan was in the White House, and says he’s ...

Capitalising on recent worldwide attention to their plight, some 200 villagers who say they’ve been robbed of their homes and land staged a vivid and stylised protest yesterday aimed at President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling for intervention in Phnom Penh’s land-titling ...

A NEW report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says GDP growth in Cambodia over the next five years is likely to hit 6.9 per cent, the highest of any ASEAN country apart from Laos. However, the report warns that Cambodia needs to ...

Additional investments in family planning yields economic benefits and would save developing countries more than US$11 billion annually, according to a UN report. Better access to family planning in developing countries would reduce costs for maternal and newborn health care by $11.3 billion per year, according ...

THE ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is used to fending off “interference” by the West in the internal affairs of some of its members. In recent years the human-rights record of the regime in Myanmar has been the tenderest of these sore spots. ...

The U.S. will address human rights abuses in Cambodia and urge Prime Minister Hun Sen to conduct free and fair elections and end a culture of land grabbing during President Barack Obama’s visit to Phnom Penh next week. Samantha Power, senior director for Multilateral Affairs and ...

Despite a moratorium on the granting of new economic land concessions (ELCs), the government has approved at least 32 ELCs since Prime Minister Hun Sen announced their suspension in May. According to sub-decrees dated from May onward and provided by local human rights group Adhoc, Mr. ...

The cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal allowing the Commerce Ministry to form a rice trade partnership with Asean’s four other rice-producing countries, namely Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, to stabilise rice prices in the global market and to promote food security in the region. The ...

A Radio Free Asia (RFA) reporter in Ratanakkiri province will be questioned at the provincial court today in relation to claims that he incited villagers to commit crimes against a rubber company that they have been locked in a land dispute with since 2004. Lim Chanlyda, ...

Human Rights investigator Chan Soveth has returned to Cambodia more than two-and-a-half months after leaving in the face of a criminal charge that is thought to be linked to an alleged insurrection that took place in Kratie province in May. On August 14, the court charge ...

Newly re-elected US President Barack Obama will attend a series of top-level Asian meetings next week, with Cambodia hosting an Asean summit, and China in attendance with new leadership. The high-profile meetings will present challenges for the US president, whose administration has become more deeply ...

Kratie province – Cambodia’s transformation from war-torn basket-case to one of Asia’s most promising emerging economies is being overshadowed by a backwards lurch in human rights and land policies that critics say are entrenching poverty. Next week’s visit by Barack Obama, the fist by a U.S. ...