Climate change posed a major threat to Cambodia because of its extreme poverty and predominantly rural population, development experts told a conference yesterday. “This is an agrarian economy that depends very much on weather.  And we are among the poorest countries in the world,” Dr ...

Cambodia may raise fees for planes moving through the Kingdom’s airspace after granting Cambodia Air Traffic Services Company permission to increase the fees by 5.5 percent. Cambodia’s overflight fees are low, and will remain low, compared to other countries in the region, Soy Sokhan, undersecretary ...

About 170 garment workers fainted at a factory in Kampong Speu yesterday, the first day Anful Garments Manufacturing reopened after being hit by a mass fainting incident on Monday, workers and government officials said yesterday. The second mass fainting at the Hong Kong-owned factory, which supplies ...

A Chinese railway company may conduct a feasibility study on a 700-kilometre rail line in northern Cambodia, officials and local media reported yesterday. Officials from Nanning Survey and Design Institute Co Ltd, a subsidiary of China Railway Siyuan Group, discussed the study with the Ministry of ...

Another family has been asked to come and retrieve the remains of their dead daughter from a recruitment firm after she passed away in Malaysia, and they claim the agency that sent her threatened not to return her ashes if the family pursued legal action. The ...

A PROTEST on the fifth storey of a residential high-rise in Borei Keila ended with authorities fleeing the scene and incensed villagers breaking down a door yesterday. About 50 villagers converged on the site to protest against Phan Imex and authorities evicting a man from his ...

The National Assembly yesterday passed Cambodia’s first law on pesticide and chemical fertiliser control, which the government hopes will regulate the use and sale of dangerous chemicals on agricultural products. Currently, hazardous pesticides are sold with little regulation and often without proper labeling that instructs farmers ...

The government has granted China’s Xinwei Telecom a license to become the country’s tenth mobile phone operator and the second firm to roll out so-called 4G technology, the fastest and most advanced network currently available on the market. Those in the telecommunications industry said that the ...

More than 1500 factory workers yesterday marched from the Manhattan Quing Dao Textiles Corp in Kompong Cham province to the provincial headquarters to ask authorities to force the factory owner to abide by two arbitration council rulings, a union representative and a factory worker said ...

The number of foreign tourists visiting Cambodia through July climbed 14 per cent year-on-year, with the most arrivals coming from Vietnam, South Korea and China, according to the latest Ministry of Tourism figures. Improved transportation, greater promotion of the Kingdom to world markets and widely ...

A draft sub-decree sent to the Council of Ministers last week aims to strengthen the protection of the critically endangered Mekong dolphin population by designating key protection zones in the 180km stretch of Mekong River where the dolphins live. Touch Seang Tana, chairman of the Commission ...

A new US commitment to oil and mining transparency may push the Kingdom closer to a similar agreement, Cambodian experts have said. US President Barack Obama announced earlier this week that the US would join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative as an implementing country, according to ...

Cambodian officials yesterday welcomed statements from Thailand’s foreign minister that an all-important 2001 memorandum of understanding on the Overlapping Claims Area would most likely be renewed. Foreign Minister Surapong Towichukchaikul said the MoU would be sent to Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s cabinet on October 18 ...

Hours after downgrading Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said it had also decided to lower the credit rating for Acleda Bank to B from B+, though it maintained its outlook for the bank as stable. The decision follows a similar decision ...

The World Trade Organisation today will conclude its first-ever review of Cambodia’s trade policies and practices and issue its concluding remarks. The trade review, which began on November 1, is the first time the Kingdom, which was the first least-developed country to fully accede to the ...

The government failed to evaluate social and environmental impacts before granting economic land concessions to private companies, while officials and company staff used the courts to intimidate residents during land disputes, representatives of NGOs said at a conference in the capital yesterday. “The courts are not ...

After discovering that government officials had fixed a bidding process for companies interested in operating fishing lots on the Mekong River, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday annulled the results of the bidding and rescheduled it for next year. Speaking at a plenary session at the ...

Government officials sent conflicting messages yesterday over how they would handle the complaints of about 50 businessmen from Kompong Cham province who continued to protest at the Fisheries Administration over Prime Minister Hun Sen’s decision to cancel their bids to operate fishing lots. Por Try, secretary ...

Thailand will not object to the proposed Xayaburi hydropower dam in Laos, but Vientiane must shoulder responsibility for potential environmental damage caused by the US$3.8 billion project, the Bangkok Post reported yesterday. “Laos has the right to construct the dam as it is located inside Lao ...

Low wages and a lack of occupational health and safety measures led to a mass fainting on Tuesday at a Phnom Penh garment factory that produces clothes for well-known brands Wal-Mart, Target and Reebok, according to a statement released by the Community Legal Education Center ...