Social development

A Ministry of Social Affairs official yesterday announced that, starting next year, the government would offer regular payments of 20,000 riel (about $5) to all disabled Cambodians, a benefit that so far has only been available to retired disabled soldiers. In an announcement that coincided with ...

Cambodian authorities are hunting more than a dozen ethnic minority hill people from Vietnam, drawing international criticism and raising further doubts about Australia’s controversial agreement to send refugees to Phnom Penh. Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), warned ...

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 ...

Cambodia has performed better than last year in its effort to fight corruption, but it is still slow, an international anti-corruption watchdog said Wednesday.   The index ranks Cambodia 156 out of 175 countries this year, up from a 160 ranking last year. ...

Four more goods made in Cambodia have been linked to exploitative child labour, adding to a mounting list of items the United States considers to be produced in violation of international rights laws. The mounting number of Cambodian goods found to use child labour runs ...

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights said that it would deliver Tuesday a giant photo petition to the Ministry of Justice as part of its annual Campaign to End Impunity. A statement on Monday said that CCHR has collected 263 photos of people holding signs that ...

As Cambodia braces for a cold snap expected to last through early January, the Ministry of Health on Sunday evening urged citizens to take precautions against common winter maladies. In a joint statement with the World Health Organization (WHO), the ministry warned that the Kingdom is ...

A UN special rapporteur will take the cause of Cambodia’s land-eviction battles and the abuses faced by those waging them to the UN Human Rights Council, according to a report released today. Michel Forst, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, will file ...

Eight land activists put in prison last month after a swift trial say they will hold a hunger strike if they are not released. The eight activists were part of a roundup in November for street protests against city officials and a development project at ...

Two ethnic Jarai Montagnards claiming to have fled religious persecution in Vietnam may have been arrested by local police in Ratanakkiri province, a rights worker has said. The UN is seeking to intervene in the case and has requested government cooperation while several more Christian Montagnards ...

The 3rd edition of the National Book Fair kicked off here on Friday with an aim of encouraging the habit of book reading, officials said. The 3-day event, held at the National Library of Cambodia, exhibited tens of thousands of books from about 30 libraries, ...

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday lashed out at critics who claimed that the recent arrests of four opposition officials for their alleged roles in a violent protest were politically motivated, saying they had committed criminal acts and must be tried according to law. The ...

Following a huge outcry from medical students, the University of Health Sciences agreed yesterday to lower a planned rise in annual tuition for those hoping to pursue a medical specialty beyond their general degree. The students then agreed to accept the rector’s offer of $2,250, ...

After facing heavy criticism for the conditions inside its drug-rehabilitation centres, the Ministry of Health has said it will begin offering an alternative community-based approach at health centres nationwide by 2015. According to Chhum Vanarith, a secretary of state in the Health Ministry, the alternative ...

Cambodia’s Labor Ministry on Thursday awarded some of the best performing companies in the country for their work on HIV and AIDS education and prevention at workplaces. Labor Minister Ith Samheng handed over 124 awards to enterprises in a range of sectors, including the garment industry, ...

More than 100 soldiers in Pursat province have threatened to resign en masse after being ordered to bulldoze their own lands, which are claimed by tycoon Try Pheap’s MDS Import Export Company. The threat of mass resignations came two days after a soldier, Seng Pov, took ...

Cambodia has drastically reduced the amount of human rights recommendations it will implement as part of the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review, saying they were overly repetitive. While Cambodia was criticised for deferring recommendations, which dealt with issues such as freedom of expression and the ...

The risk of Ebola coming into Cambodia remains low despite a recent Ebola scare in Thailand, officials from the Ministry of Health’s Communicable Diseases Control said at a conference yesterday, while still noting that the Kingdom remains vulnerable to other, lesser-known diseases. CDC head Ly ...

Medical students are up in arms about a tuition hike that would double costs and prevent some from gaining their degree, they told the Post yesterday. The University of Health Sciences announced Friday that students wishing to pursue a specialty beyond the general medical degree would ...

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said Tuesday that the Southeast Asian nation is willing to create relations with the 57-country Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said he was unsure if Cambodia eyed a status of an observer state or ...

The International Republican Institute is urging the ruling party and opposition work toward political reform. Jessica Keegan, the group’s Cambodia country director, told VOA Khmer in an interview in Washington that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and the Cambodia National Rescue Party should seek common ground ...

An activist monk set to face trial today on widely disputed charges of incitement alongside a so-called “terrorist” leader vowed yesterday to use the hearing to preach to the judiciary. In a statement released Sunday, 16 NGOs called for authorities to drop the charges against ...

Six people died last week in Cambodia’s eastern Kratie province after they drank locally made rice wine, which is suspected of being contaminated with poisonous substance, a senior police officer said on Monday. ...

Street vendor-turned-rights activist Nget Khun, known locally as “Mommy”, is a leading figure in Cambodians’ fight against forced evictions. And at 75, she’s just been jailed for a year. Other activists say the sentencing of Mommy and other women from her Boeung Kak Lake community ...