A group of independent trade unions yesterday put forth a list of demands for changes to Cambodia’s first trade union law, which will be finalised by the government in the coming months. Unionists said the revisions were necessary, as the current draft law would undermine unions ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday rebuked the World Bank for revising downward its outlook for gross domestic product growth in the Kingdom, claiming the bank’s projections could cause market panic. The premier also announced a new government projection of 6.4 per cent GDP growth this year, ...

Just over a year since the World Bank froze its funds to the government, the bank yesterday reiterated that a decision on whether or not it would start providing loans again remains nowhere in sight. In August, the World Bank announced that it would not provide ...

An 11-year-old HIV-positive girl evicted from Borei Keila moved back to Phnom Penh to live with her aunt because she had no access to medication at her relocation site in Kandal province, she said yesterday. During another day of protests outside the National Assembly, schoolgirl Theng ...

Tired of the rampant destruction of their forests by loggers, villagers in Kratie province on Tuesday took matters into their own hands by briefly detaining loggers and confiscating six chainsaws and a tractor, a forestry official and villagers said yesterday. San Sihan, one of the ...

More than 500 ethnic minority residents of riparian communities in northeastern Cambodia held a peaceful protest Tuesday against the construction of a Vietnamese-led hydroelectric dam that will relocate them from their ancestral land. The villagers, who live along the Se San River in Stung Treng and ...

The governor of a city in southeastern Cambodia was arrested Friday in connection with a shooting that left three workers hospitalized as they took part in protests for better labor conditions at a sportswear factory that supplies goods to German sportswear giant PUMA. Moeun Tola, head ...

The Royal Government of Cambodia and private land developers were exploiting indigenous communities in Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri provinces by signing concession deals for the communities’ land without prior consultation, advocates said yesterday. “We urge the government as well as the private sector to respect [indigenous peoples’] ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and Hong Kong rose more than 22 per cent year-on-year in 2011, according to data from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, whose regional base is in Hanoi. Total trade was US$741 million, compared with $607 million in 2010. Cambodia’s exports to Hong ...

The Appeal Court on Tuesday upheld its own previous guilty verdict against a farmer from Kompong Chhnang province for defaming KDC, the agri-business firm owned by Chea Kheng, the wife of Industry, Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem. Pheng Rom is a member of one ...

The PetroVietnam Fertilizer and Chemicals Joint Stock Company (PVFCCo) officially inaugurated its branch in Cambodia on July 29 with an aim to sell products directly to local farmers. Since the establishment of its representative office in Phnom Penh in May 2010, PVFCCo, an affiliate of ...

As the creation of Cambodia’s first law on trade unions enters a final phase this week, labor activists and unions said the draft law as it stands is in urgent need of revision, as it would cripple unions and severely undermine collective bargaining rights. They ...

The postponed 2nd Thailand Trade Exhibition 2011 will not be reorganised this year due to budget restrictions, according to Jiranan Wongmongkol, commercial counsellor based at the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh. The trade fair was originally scheduled for May 19 to 22 at Phnom Penh’s ...

The Cambodian National Petroleum Authority restricted vital information and failed to cooperate with consultants working for the Asian Development Bank who were deployed to the authority between 2007 and 2010 as part of a $1 million project to strengthen governance at the body, a new ...

Members of 34 families facing eviction from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community yesterday called on five foreign embassies and the European Union to pressure the government into granting them land titles. They are among the 46 poor and untitled families living in Boeng Kak who have ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen received a proposal from Finance Minister Keat Chhon in June seeking to bar “foreign NGOs” from advocacy work in Cambodia, as well as preventing foreigners from working with local advocacy groups because of activism around the rehabilitation of the nation’s railway, ...

Officials said yesterday that the government had suspended a recruitment agency in Kompong Chhnang province suspected of forcibly confining 45 women and that plans were underway to shut it down permanently. Police rescued the women, including 26 girls under the age of 18, who were training ...

Workers at a garment factory that was temporarily shut after more than 200 women collapsed in two mass fainting incidents last week gathered yesterday at the facility in Kampong Speu province for a Buddhist ceremony intended to rid the factory of evil spirits. Pheng Songoun, a ...

Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment told a Japanese oil company yesterday to better define the location of its initial onshore operations given the potential impact on the local population and environment. The Ministry of Environment has required Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation to specify where ...

Forestry officials and police in Siem Reap province’s Banteay Srei district seized a car transporting more than 100 pieces of illegally logged rosewood on Wednesday night, the 10th haul of the luxury wood in the province since January, according to a court official. Despite the efforts ...