Social development

The Ministry of Agriculture has played down the results of a study that found high levels of arsenic in some samples of locally grown rice. ...

While the Kingdom’s frequently criticized hospitals and doctors need to upgrade their services and skills, it is incorrect to label most Cambodian doctors “bad,” Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. ...

The courses are free of charge for at-risk youth between the ages of 17 and 23, who also receive a $25 monthly stipend. ...

A team of researchers, led by scientists in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, will launch a project designed to improve nutrition and empower women in Cambodia by promoting their production and marketing of horticultural crops and rice produced via sustainable intensification practices. ...

Following consternation this week over the government’s decision to cease HIV testing in Peam village, health authorities released a statement yesterday seeking to ally any fears of an outbreak. ...

Election watchdog Comfrel criticised National Assembly President Heng Samrin for a lack of commitment to creating a quota for female parliamentarians in a report presented yesterday. ...

Cambodians were optimistic about the economic and political future of the Kingdom, according to a national survey on citizen’s perceptions released on Wednesday by the Asia Foundation, although observers yesterday questioned whether that optimism remains in light of the government’s recent crackdown on the opposition. ...

Bolstered by a massive construction boom over the last few years, Cambodia now boasts one of the world’s fastest growing economies and was one of the few countries able to meet its Millennium Development Goals. In fact, Cambodia, which has halved its poverty rate in ...

Cambodia has been taken to task in Amnesty International’s latest global report, which said the Southeast Asian country continued to abuse human rights while allowing impunity to continue unchecked. ...

Two Cambodian women will return home tomorrow after spending almost two years each living in China with abusive husbands, officials said yesterday.. ...

The top U.S. envoy to ASEAN said on Wednesday that despite trade and security issues being at the cen­ter of last week’s U.S.-ASEAN Sum­mit, U.S. President Barack Obama also used the setting to address the region’s human rights problems. ...

Amid mounting international concern over the emergence of drug-resistant malaria in the Kingdom’s western provinces, a drug cocktail discontinued in 2008 has been reintroduced to stunning success – though how long that success can be sustained is uncertain. ...

In August last year, The Asia Foun­dation launched three new smart­phone apps designed to end violence against women and girls in Cambodia. ...

The Interior Ministry yesterday called for Beijing’s cooperation in tackling a ring of Chinese methamphetamine traffickers operating in Cambodia, one day after an annual Interior Ministry report announced that the number of drug busts in 2015 had more than doubled compared to 2014. ...

Multiple Cambodian HIV NGOs yesterday questioned the wisdom of discontinuing mass HIV testing at Kandal province’s Peam village, where a disproportionate cluster of infections has been discovered in recent weeks. ...

It’s been a busy morning for Cletus, Meynard, Victoria and others of their furry band. Tiny noses and long whiskers twitching, they’ve scurried and sniffed their way across 775 square meters (8,300 square feet) of fields to eliminate a scourge that has killed thousands of ...

The Health Ministry is planning no further HIV tests in Kandal province’s Peam village, where a disproportionate cluster of infections has been discovered, despite two-thirds of the village still remaining untested. ...

The Ministry of Health has appealed to the public to protect itself from the H1N1 swine flu virus in a video posted on Facebook yesterday. ...

Cambodians continue to suffer from a raft of human rights abuses in­cluding “arbitrary restrictions” on freedoms of assembly and ex­pression, according to Amnesty In­ternational’s latest global report re­leased this morning. ...

Testing on anxious villagers began in earnest yesterday as Health Ministry officials arrived in Peam, the Kandal province village recently discovered to have 14 confirmed HIV diagnoses. ...

The number of fires in Cambodia increased by 14.7 per cent in 2015 compared to the previous year, killing 35 people and consuming almost 600 homes. ...

Despite their overwhelmingly female workforce, garment factories in Kompong Speu province fail to adequately address the maternal health and child-care needs of their staff, according to new study set to be released by the French NGO Enfants and Developpment. ...

A 60-year-old Mexican national working at a school in Sihanoukville was convicted of sexually abusing two young girls yesterday and sentenced to two years in prison, with one year of the sentence suspended, according to APLE Cambodia, a child rights NGO. ...

A Social Affairs Ministry report published yesterday showed that provincial departments of social affairs, veterans and rehabilitation assisted 2,437 homeless children in 2015, 715 of whom were girls. ...