Social development

Transparency watchdogs have warned that $1.5 billion of unallocated funds in next year’s budget will only encourage nepotism and embezzlement. The Draft Budget Law was approved at the National Assembly on Tuesday in a unanimous vote of 66 ruling Cambodian People’s Party MPs. The $3.4 billion ...

The younger sister of Prime Minister Hun Sen is the owner of a private security firm that has been hired to protect the SL Garment Factory from its workers, who have been on strike for more than three months, officials at the firm said Wednesday. Hun ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Police on Wednesday sent two suspects to court with the charges of ” vandalism and causing injuries on police” in a Tuesday’s clash between the police and protesting garment workers, which resulted in the death of a woman and several injuries. Eang ...

In the past two years, the French embassy in Phnom Penh has been drawn into at least two high-profile cases in which their nationals have died in suspicious circumstances in Cambodia. In an attempt to improve forensic investigations in the Kingdom, the French embassy announced ...

A woman was killed and at least six others shot yesterday morning when police fired live ammunition into a crowd of hundreds of rioting garment workers in the capital’s Stung Meanchey district. UN reports said police also arrested 37 people, including seven monks, as a result ...

UK retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) is trialling a new campaign aimed at helping 14,000 garment workers in Cambodia deal with common health issues, as part of its Plan A ethical programme. The company, which aims to become the world’s most sustainable major retailer by 2015, ...

Cambodia’s insurance industry recorded a total premium of 31 million U.S. dollars in the first nine months of the year, up 20 percent compared with the same period last year, figures showed Tuesday. It said during January-September period this year, the total amount of claims paid ...

Laos is pushing ahead with construction of a second dam on the Mekong River despite objections from environmental and civil society groups. Work on the main part of the Don Sahong hydropower dam near the Cambodian border in southern Laos will begin by the end of ...

The government will spend a total of $13.7 million in the next three years to build new appeal courts outside of Phnom Penh along with free accommodation for judges and prosecutors across the country, according to the draft budget law for 2014, which is scheduled ...

The government affirmed its commitment to bilingual education for ethnic minority children in Cambodia’s northern provinces at a UNESCO conference in Bangkok last week. Speaking at the fourth International Conference on Language and Education: Multilingual Education for all in Asia and the Pacific, Ton Sa Im, ...

Fifty people have died from dengue fever in the first 10 months of this year, a decrease of 72 percent on the same period last year when 176 deaths were recorded, the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control said Monday. Continuing a month-on-month trend, ...

Koh Kong Sugar has offered to settle its yearslong dispute with Cambodian families who accuse its plantations of stealing their land, but the farmers remain wary of being able to secure a fair deal. The firm, a subsidiary of Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Limited (KSL), ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called on the Ministry of Information to accelerate the drafting of a long-awaited freedom of information law that could see more transparency in the Kingdom’s government. According to a press release issued by the Council of Ministers after a cabinet meeting ...

Some 1,000 employees from one of Cambodia’s largest microfinance institutions gathered in the Koh Pich exhibition hall yesterday to watch A River Changes Course, the award-winning documentary about three Cambodians from different backgrounds all struggling to eke out a living in fast-changing times. Why Angkor Mikroheranhvatho (Kampuchea) ...

Declaring that it has “zero tolerance” towards land grabbing, Coca-Cola has agreed to investigate a long running case in Cambodia where villagers are seeking court action against a company accused of seizing their land to make way for plantations linked to the supply of sugar ...

A ten-year-old boy died of bird flu on Saturday, bringing the death toll of the fatal disease to 13 in Cambodia so far this year, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said. “We regret to announce that the boy passed away in Kantha Bopha Hospital this ...

About 20 leprosy patients have been treated at a rehabilitated and expanded wing of the Battambang Provincial Referral Hospital, the second hospital to offer professional treatment for leprosy patients in Cambodia. “We have two doctors and one nurse who specialize in leprosy treatment, and in the ...

US Ambassador William Todd on Thursday urged the Cambodian government to strengthen the skills of its laborers, in order to meet the needs of an integrated Asean in 2015. The 10 Southeast Asian countries that comprise Asean are all moving toward an integrated economic block, which ...

Teachers across Cambodia are insisting pay raises aren’t just an election year issue. More than 30 representative teachers gathered for the start of a three-day seminar in Phnom Penh yesterday to continue demanding living wages. The teacher are asking for 250$ per month, according to seminar ...

The country’s draft $3.4 billion national budget for 2014 proposes yet another $920 million in new debt to make ends meet, the same amount taken on this year, according to a copy of the spending bill obtained Thursday. The draft budget calls for nearly $400 million—or ...

Environmentalists and NGOs are threatening to sue developers of a controversial hydropower dam, claiming the project would cause irreversible damage to the Mekong River. The Don Sahong dam, a 260-megawatt project proposed on a site less than two kilometres north of the Cambodian-Lao border, is expected ...

CPP lawmaker Chheang Vun on Wednesday lauded the economic and social benefits of the widespread clearing of Cambodia’s forests for development projects. Speaking to reporters at the National Assembly after a meeting with the Vietnamese Ambassador Ngo Anh Dzung, Mr. Vun, who is also the spokesman ...

The opposition party has called on microfinance institutions to renegotiate payment terms with flood-affected loan holders. This year’s floods have affected 20 provinces and more than 1.7 million people, with 31,314 households evacuated, according to the Humanitarian Response Forum. The Cambodia National Rescue Party has asked that ...

After repeatedly equivocating about whether it has lifted a 2011 freeze on new lending to Cambodia in response to the government’s forced evictions of families in Phnom Penh, the World Bank has said that the suspension is still firmly in place. “The World Bank has not ...