Radio Free Asia

Conservation groups have called on Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to press Lao President Choummaly Sayasone to postpone the construction of the much-criticized Don Sahong dam project on the Mekong River in Laos. ...

Garment workers in Myanmar protesting over pay and factory conditions threatened to continue strikes Tuesday unless their demands are met and authorities release two of their representatives detained earlier this month. As many as 200,000 people work in garment factories in Myanmar, according to the ...

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday that his government will seek the pardon and release of female convicts who are pregnant or have children living with them inside prisons, following a report by a human rights group which took authorities to task for neglecting ...

A surge in land disputes in Cambodia affected more than three times as many families last year as in 2013, a local rights group said Thursday, urging Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government to address the issue with “long-term lasting solutions” instead of making empty promises. Rights ...

A new group of six Montagnards from Vietnam have arrived in northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province to seek political refuge, as a United Nations team tries to locate and assist other refugees in hiding, a villager who provided shelter to the Montagnards said. The villager, who declined ...

Nine nongovernmental organizations on Wednesday slammed Cambodia’s ruling and opposition parties for considering measures that would ban them from giving interviews or making statements deemed “insulting” to political parties during election periods, saying the restrictions would violate free speech. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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 ...

Cambodia’s Minister of Health on Tuesday vowed to eliminate the country’s unlicensed medical clinics and hire more health care providers, after an unauthorized medical worker who admitted to reusing syringes was linked to a mass HIV infection in a remote western village. ...

In a rare intervention, Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihamoni has demanded an investigation over a Phnom Penh judge who interviewed an opposition party activist without his attorney being present. A lawmaker had complained to the King that Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge Keo Mony had questioned Ouch ...

A team from the United Nations refugee agency traveled to northeast Cambodia Wednesday to meet with 13 ethnic Montagnards seeking asylum in the country after fleeing alleged persecution in Vietnam, according to an agency spokesperson and a member of a local rights group. United Nations High ...

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts will investigate on a scene where religious rituals have held by the Vietnamese on the Bokor Mountain, in Kampot province. This measure happened simultaneously after the Seventh Commission of the National Assembly summoned the minister to clarify on ...

The Cambodian government has given the final nod to the main opposition party to operate a radio station and broadcast throughout the country as part of a deal reached in July, opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Wednesday. Sam Rainsy said that the party will begin ...

Lawmakers from the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) would consider boycotting parliament again if Prime Minister Hun Sen’s party continues to delay an agreement on electoral reform, according to CNRP deputy leader Kem Sokha. The two parties have reached a deadlock in talks on forging ...

More than a dozen ethnic Montagnards are hiding in the jungles of northeastern Cambodia after fleeing alleged religious persecution across the border in Vietnam, a member of a hill tribe living in the area said Monday. The 13 Christian Montagnards, who crossed into Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province ...

A parliamentary commission leader wants Cambodia’s tourism ministry to manage revenue generated by the country’s iconic Angkor Wat temple complex, amid concerns that the government is losing money by retaining a private company to oversee ticket sales. A quasi-government group, Apsara Authority, which is responsible ...

The director of Cambodia’s election reform movement asked the U.S. government on Wednesday to make any financial aid to the country conditional on the implementation of planned electoral reforms. The request by Koul Panha, director of the Committee on Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) ...

Two outspoken critics of Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen are to be dragged to court this month on vague charges of “incitement to commit a crime,” but the defendants say they have done nothing illegal. Prominent activist monk Luon Sovath received a summons dated Oct. 22 ...

The head of a key election reform group in Cambodia said Tuesday that he would consider applying for a position on the country’s new election body if membership selection is open to the public and transparent. Koul Panha, director of the Committee on Free and Fair ...

Cambodian unions have warned of possible strikes after a tripartite working group voted down their demand for a U.S. $40 increase in the monthly minimum wage for garment factory workers. Twenty-seven representatives of unions, factory owners and the government decided in a secret vote in Phnom ...

A senior Cambodian opposition lawmaker has lodged a complaint against a high-ranking, ruling-party official in parliament, accusing him of corruption and nepotism, but is frustrated by the lack of response. Son Chhay, from the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), charged that Mith Karen, parliament’s deputy ...

Cambodia’s opposition and ruling parties have completed 90 percent of a draft law to reform the country’s electoral body, officials said Monday following talks. Revamping the National Election Committee (NEC), which oversees the country’s elections, was a key component of a deal struck in July between ...

The World Bank has not yet reached a decision on whether to lift a ban on loans to Cambodia, a Bank official has said, contradicting local media reports that the international financing institution would resume loans suspended three years ago over allegations of violent land ...