News

A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said a US State Department human rights award should be given to a person who advocates for peace, national harmony and reconciliation, not a lawbreaker. ...

Cambodia received some $124 million between 1993 and 2016, second only to Laos in the region. Mines and unexploded ordnance kill and injure some 100 people annually in Cambodia, keeping poor communities impoverished by limiting access to farmland, the report states. ...

Visiting US State Department official W Patrick Murphy yesterday warned that further punitive action could be forthcoming in response to the government’s recent crackdown on the main opposition, while repeatedly pointing to the US’s warm relationship with the people of Cambodia – if not their ...

The US State Department will issue visa restrictions on individuals “involved in undermining democracy in Cambodia”, the Trump administration announced overnight yesterday, following the dissolution of the main opposition party last month and the arrest in September of former opposition leader Kem Sokha. ...

The US State Department has expressed deep concern over Cambodia’s spiralling democratic climate following the government’s diktat to shutter the USAID-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI), ostensibly for violating the highly contentious NGO Law. ...

One year strong and more than 900 jobs later, the US State Department-supported start-up center WECREATE, which invests in the economic empowerment of women, is beginning its expansion throughout the Lower Mekong Region. ...

Cham Muslims are not fully integrated into Cambodian society and many Cambodian people continue to think Chams are practitioners of “black magic,” according to a report on religious freedom released last week by the US State Department. ...

Cambodia remains on a watch list at the US State Department, for failing to do enough to combat human trafficking. In its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the State Department kept Cambodia a “tier 2” country. ...

For the third straight year in a row, Cambodia has found itself on the Tier 2 Watch List of the US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report, a ranking reflective of a seeming inability to fully implement the country’s own anti-trafficking plan. ...

A sex-trafficking network that included “high-ranking” government officials and had infiltrated Cambodian law enforcement agencies and NGOs for years worked to cover up Vietnamese sex rings and collect payoffs from illegal prostitution establishments in Phnom Penh. However, four years after a court finally convicted the police ...

Less than a week after Laos declared its “sovereign right” to develop hydropower regardless of neighbouring countries’ objections, the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) gathered an “extraordinary meeting” to stress the importance of sustainable waterways. During the two-day discussions in Pakse, Laos which concluded yesterday, the US ...

A deal to end the political deadlock may reduce demonstrations in the streets, but the authorities are leaving nothing to chance – Daun Penh’s notorious district security guards are finally receiving proper government training. City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche, who has previously said the baton-wielding district ...

Human rights workers say the US and other countries should censure Thailand over fisheries practices that mean near-slavery for many Cambodians and others. An investigative report by the UK-based Guardian newspaper exposed serious abuses in the Thai fishing trade, where workers are cheated of pay, kept ...

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed Australia is working on an agreement with Cambodia that would see refugees currently on Nauru resettled there. But Human rights lawyer David Manne, who launched a successful High Court challenge to the former government’s proposal to resettle refugees in ...

Rong Chhun, head of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, is making a trip through the US, seeking support to help free 21 labor activists who have been in jail since deadly crackdowns on demonstrations in January. His visit comes as another labor leader, Ath Thun, was ...

Cambodia rejected a report of the US State Department, which attacked the government of Prime Minister Hen Sen for widespread abuse against human rights. The 31-page report highlighted a flawed and poorly managed electoral process in July’s general election process. The report raised a number of ...

The U.S. State Department on Friday released a damning assessment of the conduct of Cambodia’s elections and also took note of the “arbitrary and possibly unlawful” killing of a bystander by government forces and other human rights concerns in a report on human rights around ...

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said Wednesday that a senior U.S. diplomat had congratulated the government for its patience in dealing with recent protests, which were brought to a bloody end early last month when military police opened fire, killing five and wounding more ...

The United States on Friday appealed for peaceful dialogue and denounced violence in Cambodia after police opened fire on protesting garment workers, killing three people. “The United States deeply regrets the recent loss of life in Cambodia during violent clashes between protesters and government security forces,” ...

Lawmakers in the U.S. and human rights activists are pushing for cuts of more than $70 million in aid to Cambodia if Prime Minister Hun Sen wins the July 28 elections. Many factors have pushed the U.S. to this point be it unfair and unjust, such ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday rebuked the opposition for urging foreign donors to refrain from signing any new agreements with the government until after the election and boasted of a new $26 million handed over last week by the European Union (E.U.) E.U. Ambassador ...

Lawmakers from the opposition SRP and Human Rights Party who were expelled from Parliament earlier this month have called on the foreign diplomatic corps and international donors to stop signing agreements and conducting other business with the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. In a letter ...

Corruption remains a major impediment to Cambodia’s development, but the systemic practices associated with it can be curbed if the government takes serious action, a transparency advocate says. Preap Kol, executive director of Transparency International Cambodia, told VOA Khmer in a studio interview recently that Cambodia ...

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 ...