Voice of America (VOA)

KEAN SVAY, KANDAL PROVINCE, CAMBODIA — Five years ago, Lun Sam Ath took out a $12,000 loan to build a new wooden house and repay a previous loan that she had used to buy a motorbike. ...

The 20 or so very fit men gathered deep in the forests of northeast Cambodia at the Tropaing Tear Base in the Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary. ...

WWF Cambodia released a report on January 15 saying the ungulate populations in two sanctuaries – Srepok and the neighboring Phnom Prich – had seen a drastic 10-year decline. ...

The Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh on Thursday lauded law enforcement cooperation efforts between the two countries that have seen around 1,000 Chinese nationals, accused of varying crimes, deported in the last 12 months. To mark the occasion, the Chinese Embassy posted on Facebook that at least 1,000 ...

Cambodia has launched a campaign to end child labor in the brick industry by 2020, a move industry observers cautiously welcome while expressing doubts the goal will be achieved, and calling for more structural changes. ...

The German government announced on Tuesday that following negotiations with Cambodian officials it has decided to approve a package of $34 million in loans and $32 million in grants to develop rural infrastructure and reduce poverty. A press release by the German Embassy urged Cambodia, ...

Cambodia and Nepal are discussing joint steps to promote direct flights between the countries and to open the embassies in their capitals in order to strengthen bilateral cooperation, a government spokesperson said. Nepal’s Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli is on an official three-day visit ...

King Norodom Sihamoni told Chinese President Xi Jinping that Cambodia would further support his overseas investment strategy, which has been criticized by the U.S. King Norodom Sihamoni said during a visit to Beijing that Cambodia is prepared to further support China’s overseas investment strategy, known as ...

Cambodia’s ruling party is preparing for local elections to be held in May, but few Cambodians appear to be paying much attention to what has become largely a sideshow after the Cambodian People’s Party banned the main opposition two years ago and handed their jobs ...

A Cambodian official reported last week that about 23 percent of children in three provinces along the border with Thailand have stopped attending school. Cambodian Education Minister Hangchuon Naron spoke at a conference about the student dropout rate. He said that the rate in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey ...

Cambodia’s first ever computing camp is due to be held in Siem Reap this month to promote literacy on cyber security, open-source software, social innovation and the benefits of open data, according to its organizers.The five-day ICT Camp 2018, organized by Open Development Cambodia (ODC), ...

Cambodia imported about $15 billion worth of gold during five years from Singapore, according to government statistics compiled by nongovernmental organization Mother Nature Cambodia — a figure so large, corruption monitor groups say it raises alarms about potential financial crimes, particularly smuggling. ...

Cambodia has asked Interpol to investigate its allegations that Vietnam has repeatedly and knowingly accepted fraudulent permits for endangered luxury timber that is illegally logged across the border. ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has updated its forecast for Cambodia, revising down its estimate of the country’s inflation rate to 2.6 percent from 3.2 percent. Economic growth is expected to remain steady at about 7 percent, according to the ADB. ...

Parts of an environmental impact assessment for the controversial Pak Lay dam in Laos was copied word for word from an assessment of the equally contentious Pak Beng dam, an advocacy group has claimed. A statement from Save the Mekong, released last week during a meeting ...

For a more than 25 years, the West has helped rebuild Cambodia as it recovered from the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. The United States and Europe sent billions of dollars in aid to help transform Cambodia into a liberal democracy, an effort that has largely failed. ...

China’s Ambassador in Phnom Penh says the European Union should not mix politics with trade as it mulls withdrawing Cambodia’s vital preferential single market access in response to the country’s autocratic backslide. ...

“My regret is the lateness of land reform. And solving land disputes. [W]e should have given land titles to the people more speedily, but we delayed for 10 years giving land titles to the people,” he told Lieberman, who conducted the interview for a 2016 ...

​China’s environment deputy minister, Zhao Yingmin, is due to pay a visit to Cambodia to sign a number of agreements focusing on clean water production, according to the Ministry of Environment. ...

Enhancing cross-border security topped the agenda at a meeting between high ranking military officials from Cambodia and Thailand last week. Gen. Pol Saroeun, the Cambodian commander-in-chief, met with Gen. Thanchaiyan Srisuwan, head of the Thai military, on Friday at the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces headquarters in ...

The Laos government has announced plans for a fourth major dam on the Mekong mainstream just months after the feasibility of another of its hydroelectric projects was thrown into question by a delayed power deal. ...

The MPs from the group Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) said in a statement this week that the now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party should be allowed to contest the vote and that all political prisoners in the country should be freed. ...

The rights group, HRW, had called for the release of Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, two Radio Free Asia reporters who were jailed on treason charges for allegedly continuing to work for RFA after it had left the country under government pressure. ...

The lawmakers were set to discuss the Cambodia Democracy Act and an amendment that could see Phnom Penh handed further sanctions over its crackdown on the opposition, civil society, and independent media. ...