News

Cambodia’s poverty rate fell dramatically between 2004 and 2011 – from more than 50 per cent to roughly 20 – but those gains are so precarious that a slight economic shock could send millions plunging back below the poverty line, according to a World Bank ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday praised the country’s armed forces for their handling of last year’s election and its deadly aftermath, saying problems they met in 2013 were solved “successfully”. Speaking at the Ministry of Interior’s annual meeting, Hun Sen avoided mentioning the fatal shooting of ...

Through a canopy of palm leaves, sunlight falls onto 1,000 four-month-old pepper plants, each one climbing about two feet up a wooden pole in the ground. “We will be ready to harvest pepper from here in about 18 to 20 months,” says one of Kep ...

Axiata, the Malaysia-based parent company of Cambodia’s second-largest telecommunications provider, Smart, posted a rise in total revenues for 2013 to $5.5 billion. The boost represents a 4.1 per cent increase from the fourth quarter of the previous year. Driven by its Malaysian, Bangladeshi and Cambodian operations, ...

In anticipation of today’s scheduled Municipal Court verdict for six men facing charges of violence and property damage in connection with a September clash on Phnom Penh’s Kbal Thnal overpass, rights groups yesterday called for their acquittal. A statement from Human Rights Watch (HRW) released yesterday ...

Borei Keila residents on Thursday cast a symbolic curse on the people they say are responsible for making their lives a misery since violently evicting them from their homes two years ago. In the latest development in the long-running dispute, security guards and riot police last ...

A man who intended to release birds at Freedom Park yesterday as a way of calling for those wrongfully imprisoned to be freed was himself detained on the way to the ceremony, rights group Adhoc said. The man, identified as Pheakdey, 35, was among nine people ...

Cambodia saw a dramatic increase in the number of tourist deaths in the past year, an annual report released by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has revealed. Twenty-one foreign visitors died in 2013, up from 14 deaths the year prior to that, a 50 per cent ...

The bodies of a 39-year-old woman and her 18-month-old nephew were recovered Thursday two days after a riverbank collapse caused their home in Kandal Province’s Khsach Kandal district to plunge into the Mekong River while they slept, but the woman’s 3-year-old son has not yet ...

Just over a month after a brutal police crackdown on striking Cambodian garment workers left at least five people dead, the country’s unions are calling for another strike in March, increasing the likelihood of further violence. At issue is the still-unresolved question of the workers’ minimum monthly wage. Roughly 700,000 ...

Cambodia said Thursday that Thai soldiers shot and killed 69 Cambodians who were claimed to illegally cross the border between the two countries last year, up from 45 a year earlier. ...

Malaysian entrepreneurs operating their businesses in Cambodia have been urged to work closely with the Cambodian government, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said. The deputy prime minister said like Malaysia, the Cambodian government has rolled out a plan to turn Cambodia into a developed country. “Apart from generating ...

Protests and strikes led by opposition party, associations and labor unionists negatively affected security and public orders, and livelihoods of residents as well as the Nation’s economy, according to brief report of Ministry of Interior. The 83-page report said 842 protests and strikes took place in ...

During the 10th annual Japan-Cambodia Kizuna Festival, the focus will be on the “kizuna,” or bond in Japanese, between the two countries. The opening ceremony begins at 6 p.m. tonight, and the festival runs until Sunday evening. Admission is free, and more than 10,000 people are ...

Construction of the Don Sahong hydropower project in southern Laos is likely to decimate an already dwindling population of critically endangered Mekong dolphins, according to a World Wildlife Fund science brief published today. About 85 dolphins inhabit a deep-water pool restricted to a stretch of the ...

The ruling CPP will pay a bonus of 500,000 riel (about $125) to each of its commune councilors just weeks before they go to the polls to vote in the next elections for district, city and provincial councilors in May. According to a copy of a ...

Infrastructure development and new condominium and apartment construction growth are boosting land prices in Toul Tompong and Deoum Thkov communes, and in Chamkarmon district by as much as 30 per cent. Kuy Vat, president and CEO of Vtrust Group, said that increased land prices in Boeung ...

Although human-trafficking cases dealt with by the Ministry of Interior decreased significantly in 2013, suggesting progress was being made in tackling the crime, trafficking in persons continues to be a major challenge for the government, the ministry said in its annual report on Tuesday. According to ...

Sixty-nine Cambodians were shot dead by Thai soldiers while crossing the border illegally last year, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said on Tuesday at the launch of its annual report. “Cambodians were shot dead by Thai soldiers in 55 [incidents] last year in which ...

The total number of serious and minor crimes in Cambodia increased by 1 percent, or 27 cases, in 2013 compared to the previous year, while Phnom Penh’s crime rate rose by 62 percent, a report released by the Interior Ministry on Tuesday says—laying the blame ...

While last year was full of good news for Cambodian rice exports, which hit a record-breaking 378,800 tons, 2014 is getting off to a much slower start. Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s controversial pledge to pay farmers above market rates for their rice is coming ...

A 41-year-old prisoner died of a heart attack in Prey Sar prison’s Correctional Center 1 on February 15, but only after he spent more than two hours stuck in his overcrowded cell waiting for medical treatment, his fellow prisoners allege. CC1 administrator Khuth Vuthy, who confirmed ...

A coalition of labor unions will today begin distributing leaflets calling on supporters to attend a nationwide strike in March, two days after the planned distribution date due to the fact the majority of printing houses in the city refused to print the flyers. Union representatives ...

Construction of the luxury Diamond Island Riviera residential project on Koh Pich is under way after a groundbreaking ceremony last month. The Western-themed, all-modern residential project – a $700 million joint-venture between the Overseas Chinese Investment Company (OCIC) and Chinese Jixiang Investment – is just one ...