Prime Minister Hun Sen on December 22 inaugurated two roads in Preah Sihanouk province, while also calling on transport businesses to use the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville expressway as it benefits fuel consumption and supply chains and can reduce accidents on National Road 4. According to the premier, the two roads – 146B and 148 – total more than 43km and were built by China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) at a cost of $76 million. Road 146B, also known as Samdech Preah Sangharajadhipati Tep Vong Safety Road, connects to Road 148 and stretches from Prey Nop district to Otres commune in…
Author: Raksmey Hong
More than 50 Cambodian and foreign artists are coming together to hold an overnight rooftop exhibition on December 30. The Phnom Penh event will celebrate the post-Covid-19 resurgence of the Cambodian art scene. Highrise Arts: The Night of the Stars will be open to the public from dusk till dawn, free of charge. Guests can expect a supersized video installation, visual art displays, photo slideshows, live painting, music performances, ambient sound art, top DJ sets and vintage turntablism. “It also features a telescope so attendees can get a closer look at the celestial stars, as well as the human ones,”…
The number of young children, adolescents and young adults complaining to Child Helpline Cambodia about online harassment had jumped from just a few cases last year to 15 for the year until December 20. The cases included five of sexual exploitation or abuse and ten of cyber-bullying. Child Helpline Cambodia, which provides consulting, educational and referral services via the toll free hotline 1280 was established in 2007 by 11 major international organisations including UNICEF, PLAN, and Save the Children. “The perpetrators of online sexual abuse try to establish online relationships with children by giving them gifts, including phone cards and…
As the new school year will begin on January 2, local authorities and education officials in remote rural areas have launched a campaign to promote the enrolment of younger children. Six year olds should begin primary school, and younger children should be attending kindergarten. This school calendar has changed due to Covid-19, so there are challenges, authorities admitted. “As in previous years, before starting new school year, the management of each school have prepared maps showing where students should gather,” said Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports spokesman Ros Soveacha. “The next academic year will follow the instructions numbered 45…
The Siem Reap-based NGO REACH will hold its second “Side by Side!” charity cycling challenge in early 2023 with the theme “Empowering Youth, and Connecting Globally”. The event aims to empower youths by helping them to understand that they have the means to build their own futures. The challenge will give them a sense of purpose, and a goal to strive towards. The Side by Side challenge features two events – a local student-led event, which covers 200kms in two days, on January 14 and 15, and the international event, which is 200km in two weeks from January 1-15. “The…
Buddhist monks at Khmer temples in the Kampuchea Krom area, a portion of southern Vietnam that once belonged to the Khmer Empire, are finding that they need to invite skilled sculptors from Cambodia to help complete their temples, dining halls, gates and pagoda fences with detailed sculptures. Due to the shortage of sculptors, Venerable Chao Chim at Wat Kiri Rainsy, Moat Chrouk province, also known as An Giang, collaborates with sculptor Matt Phearun to bring traditional Khmer designs to temples in Kampuchea Krom. “I plan all construction, from the monk’s accommodation to the temples, gates and fences, to replicate what…
Prime Minister Hun Sen hit back at critics who he said mocked Yang Saing Koma, former chair of the board of the Grassroots Democratic Party (GDP), for joining the government to share his agricultural expertise in the field of rice production. Saing Koma left the GDP last month and has since been appointed as Minister Delegate Attached to the Prime Minister and secretary of state for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. While addressing about 2,000 Cambodians in Brussels, Belgium, on December 12, Hun Sen stressed the importance of teamwork, regardless of their political affiliations and backgrounds. “Saing Koma…
Ministry of Environment spokesman Neth Pheaktra recently brought attention to the Mekong giant catfish and the giant Mekong barb, noting that regulations prohibiting fishing, trading or transporting the species have been in place since the Sangkum Reastr Niyum era of the 1950s. “The Mekong giant catfish is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Critical Endangered Species. It is also listed in Annex 1 of the CITES Convention, which strictly prohibits fishing, trading and other transportation,” he wrote in a social media post. One of the three giant freshwater species present in the Kingdom –…
Fast food, salty processed foods and sugary soft drinks are enormously popular in Cambodia today, a far cry from the locally produced vegetables and fish which sustained revious generations. Changing lifestyles, and especially the way people eat in modern times, have led to an increase in chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Dr. Sum Satha, a specialist in diabetes, endocrine and endocrinology at Calmette Hospital and a Fellow of the American College of Endocrinology, said that people had changed the way they live and eat, in line with the rapid economic development of the Kingdom. High-calorie western…
The “Cambodian Digital Government Policy 2022-2035” was approved earlier this year, and is expected to link the Kingdom under the three foundations of Digital Citizens, Digital Government and Digital Businesses. In a December 9 meeting with Rho Hyunjun, country director of the South Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Chea Vandeth, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, outlined plans to implement the policy, and asked the agency to support a web portal project designed to provide public services. Vandeth spoke about decentralisation work at the sub-national level, and how it will require extensive preparations. An extensive fibre-optic infrastructure will need to be…