Social development

The Koh Kong Provincial Court questioned four villager representatives Tuesday over alleged violence and property damage in an ongoing land dispute with CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat’s Koh Kong Special Economic Zone company. ...

Resolution continued to elude 17 former bus drivers for the Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation Company yesterday when a demonstration at the company’s headquarters was roughly dispersed by company security after the ex-staffers tried to block buses from leaving. Sambath Vorn, president of the union whose founding ...

Sok Hieng* is concerned about a government census of foreigners that some observers believe will focus primarily on those of Vietnamese descent. “I am afraid that I will be forced to leave Cambodia because I do not have ID yet,” said Hieng, a 33-year-old construction worker ...

An international agriculture NGO is preparing to roll out a nationwide project in partnership with computer-chip maker Intel whereby more than 25,000 farmers will be able to receive real-time advice on farming methods via a smartphone app. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) piloted the ...

A group of Kompong Chhnang villagers in a fight for land with the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem delivered petitions to the Ministry of Justice and National Assembly on Monday, one of five communities from across the country that have recently traveled ...

Even within the country’s notoriously overcrowded prison system, inmates in this northern province live in particularly harsh conditions. Approximately 120 prisoners, including 16 women and three children, are held in four cells in the Oddar Meanchey provincial police headquarters. “In one cell we keep 20 or more ...

After the development company 7NG completed the violent eviction of more than 1,400 families from Phnom Penh’s Dey Krahorm community in 2009, it set its sights on the adjacent White Building. The historic apartment block, which was built as a low-cost housing project under then Prince ...

Two NGOs on Monday launched an online campaign to galvanize public support for providing students with free textbooks after a survey found that 85 percent of high-school pupils lack the necessary books for their studies. The Khmer Institute for National Development (KIND) and the Affiliated Network ...

The facilities at O’Chrey Primary School in Battambang province are allegedly so basic that it’s difficult to conceive of it as an actual school. The 219 grade one to four students get their lessons crowded in a wall-less storage hut at the edge of a cornfield, ...

A group of families involved in a land dispute with a businessman in Battambang province will today submit petitions to the National Assembly and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet to plead for intervention. The more than 300 families, from Bavel district’s Boeng Bram commune, maintain that ...

Hundreds of garment workers traveled from a Kompong Chhnang factory to Phnom Penh on Monday to petition the Ministry of Labor to intervene in their dispute with factory management. About 3,000 workers from the Chinese-owned Jiun Ye Garment factory have been striking since August 18, accusing ...

Experts say that Cambodia’s economic growth remains fragile and unsustainable, bringing environmental degradation, social inequality and, at times, unrest to the country. Cambodia has maintained a high economic growth rate in recent years, up to 8 percent, “but that high growth comes with high costs,” said ...

A national seminar on youth and cultural development was held here Monday with an aim to encourage young people to help safeguard, preserve and develop national culture, officials said. The two-day event brought together 700 participants, including culture officials, artists, archeologists, historians, and youths, said Culture ...

The Committee to Promote Women in Politics (CPWP), and civil society groups in Cambodia have asked the National Assembly and ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) to keep Mrs. Khuon Sodary as second vice president of the National Assembly. In a statement issued on Monday, the groups ...

About 70 residents from Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district were blocked on Saturday from marching to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh villa, where they planned to appeal for support in a long-running land dispute. The residents were representing 134 families from four villages in Chhvang ...

More than 15 months after a Global Witness report revealed that Vietnam’s state-owned rubber giant had illegally cleared land and displaced communities in Cambodia, the company has announced that it will accept and respond to complaints from those whose lives it has damaged. Vietnam Rubber Group, ...

The Ministry of Labour plans to delay signing off on a controversial agreement to reopen a pipeline of Cambodian maids to Malaysia until a deal is reached on a second agreement regarding other migrant workers, a ministry official said yesterday. Labour Ministry spokesman Heng Sour told ...

To get his teenage daughter and niece on a plane yesterday after 10 months of alleged abuse and forced marriages in China, Kim Vicheat* said he had to bury his family in debt because the Cambodian consulate refused to fund their repatriation. The two 19-year-olds told The ...

On Thailand’s border with Myanmar, also known as Burma, a malaria research and treatment clinic is stepping up efforts to eliminate a drug-resistant form of the parasite before it spreads abroad. Artemisinin medicines have been highly effective against malaria when used in combination with other drugs. ...

Australia has considered sending up to 1000 refugees to live on a remote island off the coast of impoverished Cambodia under a controversial resettlement agreement,, according to an opposition leader in Phnom Penh. Australian officials have visited several sites to accommodate the refugees now on Nauru, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday announced a three-stage plan to raise the salaries of civil servants working under the Education and Health ministries, with the first increase to come in September. Speaking to graduating students at Beltei University in Phnom Penh, Mr. Hun Sen said that ...

Police in Kompong Chhnang province on Thursday were prevented from arresting workers and union officials outside a Samakki Meanchey district garment factory by a mob of irate protesters who pulled two of their colleagues out of a police car to thwart their arrests. About 3,000 employees ...

At least 2,800 bears in Asia were traded for their parts over the past decade, according to a report issued Thursday by an anti-wildlife trafficking group. The figure was arrived at after analysing nearly 700 bear-related seizures, and it likely represents a fraction of the overall ...

The Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation, supported by The UPS Foundation, has launched a global internet campaign to collect ten thousand pledges in support of the motorcycle passenger, including child helmet law in Cambodia, according to its statement obtained Thursday by The Cambodia Herald. The campaign ...