Social development

Motorcycle fatalities are claiming the lives of a third of people in Asia–but governments don’t seem to notice. In Cambodia, HIV/AIDS-related deaths equate to 2,300 per year, and the government allocates $58 million to combat the disease—but 2,000 deaths are caused by highway fatalities, with ...

Phnom Penh’s Wat Samakki Raingsey, under scrutiny by City Hall for alleged “anti-government acts,” on Friday requested three commissions of the National Assembly to accompany municipal officials to a planned inspection of the pagoda on Tuesday afternoon. “I sent the letters to request the first commission ...

Phat Sreytouch, a former beer promoter, recalls being the constant subject of harassment from the men she served in beer gardens, many who felt they were within their rights to touch her and her colleagues. In a new initiative aimed at ending such attitudes and ...

The Kampot Museum opened on January 28 at 8​ a.m. with a ribbon cutting and Buddhist blessing for the new venture. It was a hastily planned inauguration – the entrance fee was yet to be decided, and several guests misinterpreted the email invitation and turned ...

In Cambodia, three women have been recognized for work that combines technology with efforts to combat violence against women, a major problem in the Southeast Asian country. Winning the inaugural VXW Award means the women will get assistance to further promote their efforts on smartphones ...

Cambodia has improved overall in protecting children from abuse and exploitation, the United Nations’ first Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) found in a report released yesterday, but the Kingdom has to take greater strides to further safeguard children’s rights. ...

Members of Cambodia’s Muslim community say they fear increased animosity across the Middle East, with the recent murder of a Jordanian pilot by militants and Jordan’s announcement it will execute two members of the group currently in prison. ...

Cambodia’s Supreme Court has upheld eight-year prison sentences for three foreigners convicted more than four years ago of threatening to bomb the US, UK and Australian embassies. ...

Representatives of communities across the country who have had their lives upturned by development projects yesterday called on the government to rescind the economic land concessions at the centre of their disputes. ...

The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the eight-year prison sentences of three foreign men convicted in 2011 on tenuous evidence of threatening to bomb the US, UK and Australian embassies. ...

A family of Montagnard asylum seekers, including two young children and a 9-month-old baby, has been deported to Vietnam, where the father was reportedly beaten by authorities for attempting to escape. But Moeng Sineath, spokesman for Ratanakkiri Provincial Hall, confirmed for the first time yesterday ...

Representatives of communities across the country who have had their lives upturned by development projects yesterday called on the government to rescind the economic land concessions at the centre of their disputes. ...

Villagers in remote western Cambodia who were infected with HIV/AIDS by an unauthorized medical worker have been hit by a wave of thefts of cows and other property, and some local residents say they police have been indifferent to their plight. ...

Government spokesman and four-star General Khieu Sopheak has threatened to sue an NGO worker over his “false allegations” about Montagnard asylum seekers. Sopheak said authorities had only arrested “illegal Vietnamese immigrants”, and called on Chhay Thy, provincial coordinator for local rights group Adhoc and the ...

A draft telecommunications law is causing concern from rights groups, who say it threatens freedom of speech online, one of the few spaces open to political discussion. ...

A district education official in Preah Vihear may be hoarding state textbooks to sell at the market rather than distributing them to perennially book-strapped schools, according to the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA). ...

The ministries of health and interior introduced a joint strategy yesterday to curb illegal medical practices and the use of fraudulent health products. ...

The electoral reform working groups from the ruling CPP and opposition CNRP resumed talks Monday after canceling their meetings last week, with officials from both parties again defending their controversial push to ban NGOs from “insulting” parties during election campaigns. ...

A rights group has asked the Cambodian government to stop harassing Christian Montagnards from Vietnam who are seeking refugee status in the country following the arrest of a family of five Montagnards in a northeastern province. ...

About 100 villagers prevented a company from clearing part of its land concession in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district on Saturday in the latest confrontation in a long-running dispute in the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, according to a villager and a local official. ...

Cambodia’s Grade 12 students took their final test in August 2014. Only 26% of them passed. The new Minister of Education had ordered extra security around the testing places. Students taking the test in 2015 know they will have to study hard in order to ...

Cambodia’s Grade 12 students took their final test in August 2014. Only 26% of them passed. The new Minister of Education had ordered extra security around the testing places. Students taking the test in 2015 know they will have to study hard in order to ...

A seven-month-old girl is the latest victim of Cambodia’s mass HIV infections in a remote western commune where an unauthorized medical worker reused syringes. The infant was the first to die of 16 members from an extended family of 50 who contracted the deadly virus that ...

Human Rights Watch says that 2014 was one of Cambodia’s worst years in recent history in terms of human rights violations, citing “killings by security forces, arrests of activists and opposition politicians, summary trials and crackdowns on peaceful protest”. The Cambodia section of its World Report ...