Social development

Kratie province – Cambodia’s transformation from war-torn basket-case to one of Asia’s most promising emerging economies is being overshadowed by a backwards lurch in human rights and land policies that critics say are entrenching poverty. Next week’s visit by Barack Obama, the fist by a U.S. ...

A top UN diplomat has encouraged Cambodia to ratify a convention that would protect its migrant workers abroad. James Heenan, from the office of human rights at the UN, said in a forum in Phnom Penh that Cambodian workers abroad often see their rights violated. .. ...

Some of the U.S.’ most senior lawmakers are urging Barack Obama to speak out on what they called Cambodia’s deteriorating human rights situation when the U.S. president makes what will be the first visit to the country by a sitting American leader later this month. ...

Insisting on a response from American authorities, more than 100 eviction protestors from Phnom Penh continued to rally outside the U.S. Embassy yesterday and resubmitted a petition asking for President Barack Obama to address their land rights when he visits the country next week. Since confirmation ...

The abuse of Cambodian maids overseas has become one of the most documented human rights violation here. But as the Government, media, NGOs and aid agencies focus their energies on domestic laborer living abroad, advocates have begun to urge that closer attention be paid to ...

As more than 100 protesters continued to spend their days camped outside the US embassy appealing for the release of two land activists, a delegation from Amnesty International visited the Boeung Kak Community yesterday to offer support for their fight Amnesty International would continue to monitor ...

Villagers in Ratanakirri province filed complaints to the provincial court and rights group Adhoc yesterday, claiming three security guards patrolling former state forest in O’Chum district threatened them and fired an AK-47 to scare them away. Kreung ethnic villager Travh Khambon, 37 of La’ak commune Kam ...

Cambodia’s transformation from war-torn basket-case to one of Asia’s most promising emerging economies is being overshadowed by a backwards lurch in human rights and land policies that critics say are entrenching poverty. ...

Hang Serei Oudom told his 7-month pregnant wife that he was going out to meet a source. A journalist for Vorakchun Khmer Daily, he was investigating illegal logging for luxury woods in the jungles of Cambodia’s northeastern Ratanakkiri province. Three days later, on Sept. 11, he ...

Activist groups are planning to hold two separate forums this week in Phnom Penh to call attention to human rights issues and other problems in Asean countries as a meeting of regional and world leaders begin in the city. The assembly will meet ahead of ...

If Cambodia’s oil and gas sector is well managed, and transparent, it could provide the country a golden opportunity for investment, development and poverty reduction, said independent economist Chan Sophal, who spoke at a recent gathering looking at the economies of oil-producing countries. Chan Sophal said ...

Anti-eviction protesters set up camp in front of the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh for a second day yesterday, but ended their protest in the early evening when a petition to U.S. President Barack Obama was taken into the diplomatic mission by an embassy guard. “The ...

A company owned by a board member of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce has been accused of illegally destroying more than 80 houses in Kampot province’s Chhouk district, a claim vigorously denied by the firm and local authorities. Chan Pheng, a villager from Chi Bak village ...

As Barack Obama was declared president of the United States for a second term yesterday, about 50 anti-eviction protesters for the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities camped out in front of the U.S. Embassy and appealed for the president’s help in addressing land rights ...

Two land activists from forced evictions in Phnom Penh will not be released on bail as they await trial on incitement charges widely seen as an attack on free speech. The two women, Yorm Bopha and Tim Sak Mony, were arrested in early September and accused ...

The Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), a coalition of the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party, stands to gain about 30 percent of the vote if it decides to stand against the ruling CPP in next year’s national elections, the Committee for Free ...

As Asian and European leaders gather for high level meetings this month in Cambodia and Laos, the luxury living quarters and extensive security arrangements made for their arrivals have come at considerable human and environmental expense. Government authorities went on a building spree ahead of this ...

In a single factory that supplies some of the biggest international brands, faintings occurred every day for five years, a new investigation by the Cambodian Legal Education Centre has found. Until just weeks ago, when the management installed new fans, three to four garments workers were ...

Twelve families from Koh Kong province on Nov. 6  filed a complaint with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s youth volunteers and the Department of Land Management, requesting assistance in a land dispute with businessman, Heng Huy. Pok Yon, the families’ representative, said that earlier this year, Heng ...

More than 100 moto-taxi and tuk tuk drivers who are part of a little-known workers union submitted a letter to the U.S. Embassy and the European Union Delegation yesterday, asking them not to intervene in the case of Boeng Kak activist Yorm Bopha. It is not ...

The US yesterday criticised Laos for announcing it will begin building the 1,285-megawatt Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River today without studying its potential effects on Cambodia and Vietnam. A spokesperson from the US State Department in Washington said the government was concerned construction of the ...

With less than two weeks until Asean leaders meet in Phnom Penh to consider approval of the region’s first human rights declaration, international NGOs yesterday urged them to postpone passing what they are calling a “deeply flawed” document.  “In the current form, the [Asean Human Rights] ...

At the ceremony yesterday making the official start of the National Election Committee’s new mandate, NEC chairman Im Suosdey criticized the U.N. human rights envoy to Cambodia for taking an exceedingly harsh view of the country’s much derided electoral system. In a July report to the ...

Food production accounts for almost one third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to a study published last week by the agricultural research organisation CGIAR. Food systems, from growing crops and raising livestock to storage and transportation, contribute 19 to 29 per cent of global ...