Social development

Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia, is the President of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the country’s ruling party since 1979. In recent years, when an opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), started gaining momentum and making their voices heard, Sen’s government found ...

More than 60 percent of mothers and young children in Cambodia are suffering from dangerously low levels of iodine in what a new study describes as a “serious public health problem.”   ...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ordered immigration officials to ban Mother Nature activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson from entering the country, saying that the E-visa granted to him was merely a technical error. ...

Dozens of Cambodian-American Long Beach residents protested in front of a restaurant over the weekend against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son, Hun Manet, on the first day of his trip to North America. ...

A new mobile phone application launched yesterday aims to collect data on flooding, blackouts, traffic jams and other problems that plague Phnom Penh, then map its findings for use by citizens and City Hall.   ...

Houses will be built for school teachers from illegally-felled timber seized by authorities, the Ministry of Education has announced, but before work can start on the new structures officials from the ministry have been asked to gather information on which schools need the houses the ...

The Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospitals have sold a royal residence in Koh Kong province to the government for about $6.5 million after it was donated to them in October by the king and queen mother.   ...

Environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, who was deported in February last year, has been granted a one-month tourist visa through the Foreign Ministry’s online “e-visa” service, but an immigration official said yesterday that it was unlikely he would be allowed to use it. ...

The Ministry of Health has ordered provincial health department directors to organize officials and doctors to work during the four days of Khmer New Year so hospitals and health centers are able to respond to traffic accidents and other issues. ...

The government has broadly adopted a policy to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) teaching in a bid to turn around the Kingdom’s dismal pass rates for the subjects in the 12th grade national examinations, according to a government official.   ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen urged the Kingdom’s athletes to be well prepared for the 2023 SEA Games, which will be hosted by Cambodia, and to look for opportunities to promote the reputation of the country and its people. ...

Demand for seafood throughout the Kingdom has slowed as a result of warnings issued by Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Ministry of Environment to avoid coastal seafood consumption this past weekend, due to a massive algal bloom off the coast of Kep province. ...

Three cousins between the ages of one and eight years old were hospitalized on Sunday after eating expired packaged noodles in Siem Reap’s Chi Kreng district, according to police. ...

Nearly half of Cambodian women of reproductive age suffer from at least mild anemia, however iron and other nutrient deficiencies may not be to blame, a study published on Friday suggests.   ...

The government’s suppression of human rights poses a serious threat to Cambodia’s democratic progress, visiting members of the European Parliament’s human rights subcommittee warned on Friday.   ...

Cambodia’s schoolchildren could soon attend class in unusually luxurious buildings if Prime Minister Hun Sen has his way. Yesterday the premier granted the government’s entire stockpile of illegally-felled timber – some of which is highly sought after rosewood – to the Ministry of Education to ...

The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia said the political climate had clearly deteriorated in the six months since her first fact-finding mission and that the country remained at a “dangerous tipping point” ahead of commune and national elections. ...

Security forces on Thursday blocked two mothers and a wife of jailed activists from the environmental group Mother Nature from walking to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house to protest their family members’ imprisonment, before a representative of the premier’s cabinet chastised them for using the ...

The United Nations Human Rights Commission in Cambodia (OHCHR) yesterday released an analysis of the contentious draft trade union law finding key clauses to be in violation of existing Cambodian law, human rights norms and the ILO’s conventions.   ...

In a ceremony on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health appointed a new advisor – the Swiss Dr. Beat Richner, founder of the Kantha Bopha Hospital and Foundation. His hospitals have treated more than 15 million children since the first one opened in 1991 and Minister ...

After police in Preah Vihear province blocked the U.N.’s human rights envoy from meeting with indigenous villagers earlier this week, Rhona Smith sat down with Interior Minister Sar Kheng in Phnom Penh on Wednesday and called for better communication between national and local government officials. ...

Women’s Affairs Minister Dr. Ung Kanthaphavy addressed multiple points regarding the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in the Kingdom during a two-day meeting reviewing the ministry’s work in 2015 and planning its goals for 2016 yesterday.​ ...

The UN special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia met with Stung Treng Governor Mom Saroen yesterday to discuss the plight of ethnic minorities in the province affected by the Lower Sesan 2 dam project. ...

For generations, the indigenous Bunong were famous as the great elephant keepers and masters of the forests in eastern Cambodia. They called the fertile, rolling hills of their ancestral homeland “meh ne,” or mother – a source of food, livelihoods and self-identity. ...