News

Members of the government, military and civil society met on Monday to form a working group to undertake security reform and reporting. The working group will have 26 members from a wide spectrum of government and nongovernment agencies to produce policy recommendations to Cambodia’s leaders. The formation ...

A 2-year-old girl from southwestern Kampot province died of H5N1 human avian influenza on Friday, bringing the number of cases to nine so far this year, said a joint statement from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Cambodian Health Ministry on Monday. ...

A Cambodian human rights group today asked the caretaker government of Thailand to end executions of Cambodia civilians after 15 Cambodians were shot dead this month. In its statement released today, The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (“CCHR”) expresses its deep concern regarding the continued arbitrary ...

A small set of Cambodian factories being monitored by the International Labor Organization have showed some signs of improvement, according to a recent report. The ILO’s Better Factories initiative monitors 51 facilities. In a new report, the ILO says 30 of those factories showed signs of ...

Cambodian and Chinese senior military officials on Monday vowed to deepen bilateral ties and cooperation for mutual benefits. The commitment was made during a meeting between Gen. Pol Saroeun, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces ( RCAF), and Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of general staff ...

Joint Committee of CPP and CNRP has agreed to include 14 points into framework of election reforms after a meeting today at the Senate. Among the 14 points, they agreed on the election of village chiefs in the future. ...

Keeping students in school may not be as straightforward as providing them with clean water, but a filtered drinking supply makes them less likely to take sick days, research published on Friday shows. The study, conducted by a UK-based medical school, compared drinking water access in ...

The Belgian demining NGO APOPO, which is pioneering the use of mine-detecting rats in the former battlefields of Cambodia, has received funding from the German government to expand its mine-clearance work in the country. In November, the government gave the green light for APOPO to begin ...

Opposition lawmakers-elect yesterday lambasted reports that Cambodia has asked Iran for a $54.45 million loan. Following an official visit to Tehran last week by a delegation from the National Assembly led by First Vice Chairman Nguon Nhel, Cambodia’s official news agency, Agence Kampuchea Press, reported that ...

Desperate ethnic minority villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley have blocked a road that was to be used to transport heavy machinery onto their lands to start construction of the highly controversial Stung Cheay Areng dam, according to villagers and officials. Three Chinese employees of ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht will visit Cambodia this week, the European Commission announced, with rights groups hoping that land grabbing related to sugar plantations will be high on the agenda. Following bilateral meetings in Brussels last week between Cambodia and the EU during ...

The Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) installed a solar power generation system last week in an effort to reduce electricity bills by about $200,000 a year. The solar power system, which was funded by the Japanese government, was installed at the PPWSA’s water treatment facility ...

Unionists and labour rights officials are applauding a website scheduled to go live today that will hold to account garment factories that flout Cambodia’s labour law. The site, created and maintained by the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) program, will publicly name factories ...

Food vendors at Phnom Penh’s O’Russey Market have fought and won a battle against eviction. On Friday, about 80 vendors, including some who have sold food at the market since 1997, were told to clear out of what has become a heavily congested parking lot outside ...

A representative for villagers living in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district who say that buyers from a local company failed to uphold a 2007 land deal has been charged and temporarily detained by local authorities for allegedly destroying private property. Haing Noeur, 50, was detained on Saturday after ...

The ruling party wants “biased” election watchdogs to be on a tight leash by the next election and wants the opposition to agree to it, senior Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker Cheam Yeap said yesterday ahead of the third meeting of a bipartisan election reform committee ...

Two union organizers have filed a complaint with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court claiming that the senior leaders of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU) have embezzled money that was meant to be paid to workers in compensation following a dispute with ...

Negotiators for Cambodia’s ruling and opposition parties say they have reached agreements on key points of election reform, moving past a potential breakdown in talks last week. But they did not agree on an overhaul of the National Election Committee, widely seen as biased toward ...

The European Union has called on Cambodia to release 21 jailed activists and protesters and told the government during high level talks held here this week that a failure to reform the judiciary and electoral process could have severe consequences for the ruling party by ...

Local entrepreneur Ki Chong Tran believes he has the solution to many of Cambodia’s problems. On March 1, Tran submitted what he described as a “long-held weight off his chest” – a six-page proposal to the New York-based Bitcoin Foundation outlining all the ways the ...

Members of six ethnic communities in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom town yesterday accused local authorities of blocking their efforts to protect community and wildlife sanctuary forests, where they say luxury timbers are logged by Villas Development, a company co-owned by the wife of Mondulkiri Deputy Governor ...

Alleged victims in seven separate land disputes in Kampong Cham province yesterday agreed to file a petition to the provincial governor, following a meeting with rights group Adhoc. ...

The World Bank on Thursday asked Phnom Penh municipal officials to do more to help the thousands of families the city evicted from the Boeng Kak neighborhood to make way for a CPP senator’s private real estate project, and is now waiting for a reply, ...

Twelve Cambodians were shot dead by Thai security forces on March 5 after illegally crossing the border from Choam Ksan district in Preah Vihear province to log timber, Cambodian officials said yesterday. Another three illegal loggers were killed on Wednesday and two others are still missing, ...