Aid and development

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 ...

Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training ordered all recruitment agencies to charge only US$49 for each worker who wants to work legally in Thailand. The fee of US$49 included US$10 for worker card, US$4 for passport, US$15 for transportation, and food, and US$20 for labor ...

With the Indian government set to inject five million tonnes of rice in to its domestic market, Cambodia’s rice producers fear that any spillover into the global rice trade may impact local exports. David Van, acting secretary-general of a newly established Cambodia Rice Federation, said ...

Cambodian women continue to be poorly represented in government following commune elections in May, the Committee to Promote Women in Politics said yesterday. This reality, the committee said, is endangering the Kingdom’s chances of meeting its UN Millennium Development Goals. ...

The Japanese government will offer more than $21 million in grant aid and loans to Cambodia when Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida visits later this month, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the statement, Kishida will ink a number of ...

The Arbitration Council Foundation, credited with helping resolve about 1,700 industrial disputes, has reached verbal agreement with a Swedish aid agency to receive funding until the end of 2016, a spokesman said yesterday. But members of the labour-dispute resolution body desire a more permanent solution that ...

About 50 families gathered under a timber roof here Sunday among muddy fields granted to them as compensation after China’s Union Development Group (UDG) began to turn their coastal homeland into a $3.8-billion tourist mecca. The families, who now live in timber houses dotting the barren ...

The Arbitration Council says the Ministry of Labor has knighted an Australian industrial commissioner for his long period of work as an honorary advisor to the council. In a statement posted on its website Friday, the council said Labour and Vocational Training Minister Ith Samheng awarded ...

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced Thursday its Integrated Nutrition, Hygiene, and Sanitation Program that will improve the lives of mothers and young children by teaching better nutrition and hygiene practices and increasing the use of latrines.The five-year, $16 million project will benefit ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi met with representatives of the country’s businesses and employers Thursday for talks that focused on the protection of workers’ rights and measures that can be taken to ensure that strained industrial relations do not once again erupt into violence. In ...

The Chinese government signed to provide 300 biodigesters to Cambodian households on Monday, officials said. Sar Chetra, deputy secretary general of the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, signed to receive the donation from Song Xiaoguo, economic councilor at the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia. ...

Cambodia boasts one of the youngest populations in Southeast Asia, with youth under 30 making up nearly 68 percent of the total number of people in the country, according to the United Nations. And its young demographics and relatively cheap labor are just a few of ...

Italy plans to lobby the European Union to halt duty-free imports of rice from Cambodia to protect local rice growers and millers, an industry source says. In a report Thursday, oryza.com said Italy was preparing to submit a report to Brussels saying that Cambodian rice was ...

A solution may be at hand for Phnom Penh’s degenerating traffic congestion problem as Japan’s International Cooperation Agency is readying a project aimed at completely overhauling the city’s non-intuitive traffic light system, City Hall announced Tuesday. The study, which will begin within the next month and ...

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi, will visit the country next week to assess the government’s progress in improving human rights and democratic and land reforms, his office said Wednesday. During the 10-day fact-finding mission, beginning June ...

A Battambang bridge project isn’t to blame for blocking a river and preventing water from reaching parched rice fields, an Asian Development Bank investigation concluded yesterday. Bavel district farmers accused the bank-funded construction project of choking the river since construction began in December, leaving their recently ...

U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. Jeff Daigle visited In Komar Primary School in Kampong Thom province today to highlight a $20 million U.S. government school feeding program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and implemented by the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP), ...

Tuesday morning, not long after dawn, a line of students formed outside En Komar Primary School, in Kampong Thom province. Students were waiting to receive breakfast from their teachers. The breakfasts are part of a World Food Program initiative that aims to feed 3.5 million students ...

The Cambodian Ministry of Environment and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Monday signed a five-year cooperation agreement with an aim to reduce climate impacts on agriculture, according to a joint statement. The agreement was inked jointly by Cambodian Minister of Environment Say ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Government on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Inter Far East Engineering Public Company Limited of Thailand to study the feasibility of turning the city’s waste into energy, according to a notice posted on the municipality’s website. ...

Work on the 6th Cambodia-China Friendship Mekong-Stung Treng Bridge here in northern Cambodia is nearing completion after a 25-month construction, officials said Sunday. Tram Iv Tek, Cambodian Minister of Public Works and Transport, said the 1,731-meter bridge, being built by the Shanghai Construction (Group) General Company, ...

Cambodia on Friday reported 71 landmine casualties in the first four months of 2014, an increase of 61 percent from 44 casualties for the same period last year. The report by the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority showed that during the January-April period, 10 ...

A draft law on e-commerce that would regulate electronic trade in Cambodia will arrive at the Council of Ministers in August, following revision by two other state institutions, officials at the Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday. Orm Dararith, director of the Ministry of Commerce’s legal department, ...

The NGO Results International has been studying nutrition in Cambodia, and found that despite Cambodia’s good economic growth, 40 per cent of children under five there, have stunted growth. Cambodia may produce plenty of food, but its people are not eating a balanced diet. ...