Radio Free Asia

Corrupt local officials who patrol the area around Cambodia’s Tonle Sap are encouraging illegal fishing in Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, according to a nongovernmental organization worker. ...

Around 200 activists from northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province led by opposition lawmakers confronted dozens of soldiers and villagers from Vietnam Monday in a standoff over the digging of irrigation ponds in a non-demarcated area along the border shared by the two nations. ...

Chea Sim, president of Cambodia’s ruling party and president of the Senate, died at his home in Phnom Penh on Monday after years of deteriorating health, an official said. He was 82. ...

Rights groups want Cambodia’s parliament to hold a consultation with civil society about a controversial draft law on nongovernmental organizations approved Friday by the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, which has long demonstrated animosity toward organizations outside of state control. ...

A group of opposition officials and indigenous villagers from northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province claimed Thursday that guards from Vietnam threatened to shoot and kill them as they inspected disputed border territory, in the latest land squabble between the two neighboring nations. ...

A clash between Cambodians and Vietnamese soldiers over a swath of disputed land in a border district separating the two countries in southern Cambodia has become the latest tussle in a string of such territorial conflicts. ...

A group of activists and villagers from southwestern Cambodia’s Koh Kong province petitioned outside the country’s parliament Thursday, calling on lawmakers to intervene against a sand dredging company they say is operating in the area without a license. ...

Officials in a northeast Cambodian province on Wednesday rescued a family accused of being sorcerers by villagers who sought to take revenge on the father they blamed killing 10 people, local authorities said. ...

An environmental nongovernmental organization and young Cambodians opposed to sand dredging will petition the country’s parliament and relevant ministries to stop companies from digging up sand in a southwestern province, activists said. ...

An 89-year-old woman infected with HIV/AIDS has become the eighth person to die of the deadly virus in a village in remote western Cambodia, after being infected by an unauthorized medical worker who reused syringes. ...

Government authorities in a southwest Cambodian province are planning a coordinated campaign to round up residents suffering from mental illness and take them to Buddhist temples where they will be cared for by monks, a provincial official said. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that Cambodia is at a new political stage in its history and called for the continuation of the “culture of dialogue” and putting “an end to the culture of revenge” between politicians from the ruling and opposition parties. ...

Armed guards evicted residents from their homes from a village in Cambodia’s Kratie province on Thursday as rival villagers burned their houses down when local authorities tried to hand over their land to the first group, local witnesses said. ...

Authorities will not renew operating licenses for sand-dredging companies in Cambodia if impact studies on the industry are not completed by the time the licenses expire at year-end, a ministry official said Friday. ...

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday threatened to overturn reforms to the country’s National Election Committee (NEC) if the opposition refuses to accept his nomination of the head of a local election watchdog as a ninth, “neutral” member to the electoral body, based on ...

Cambodia has ordered a temporary halt to all sand dredging operations in the country’s rivers and lakes in order to study the environment and social impact of a practice that has caused deadly river bank collapse incidents. ...

Villagers in a remote district of northeast Cambodia’s Kratie province say obtaining medical treatment has become extremely difficult since the government reinforced a ban on unlicensed health workers and clinics earlier this month in the wake of a mass HIV infection last year. ...

The development of two dams on the Lower Mekong River in Laos may have potentially devastating impact on the food security and livelihoods of 60 million people in the area, an international environmental group said. ...

Two soldiers in northwest Cambodia’s Battambang province fired assault rifles at two local forestry officials on Friday after the officials reported them to a local opposition party lawmaker for illegal fishing. ...

Forest and community activists in a northwestern province in Cambodia have expressed concerns about illegal loggers who have started producing charcoal for export to Thailand,destroying protected areas of community forests in the process. ...

A United Nations human rights expert has called for a speedy solution to the situation of the Montagnards from Vietnam still hiding in the forests of northeastern Cambodia, after crossing the border to escape alleged persecution. About 13 of the 50 Montagnards—Christian indigenous people from ...

Representatives of more than 60 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and an electoral reform group on Monday boycotted a national workshop held Cambodia’s ruling and opposition parties on the electoral reform draft law, saying they did not have enough time to review the documents. ...

Cambodian political commentators and a civil society group have criticized a deal between the ruling and opposition parties which finalized a draft national electoral reform law, as being nontransparent and only serving the two parties themselves. ...

Hundreds of indigenous villagers on Monday threatened to continue protests against the developer of a controversial hydropower dam in Cambodia if it does not halt construction of the project, which they say will negatively affect their cultural traditions and livelihoods. ...