Cambodia tests 'super rice' to fortify its children
For breakfast, it’s rice. For lunch, it’s rice again, and for dinner – rice. Sometimes, Cambodian Un Koy says, her mother will prepare some beans or carrots, and on very special days even fish or pork. Across Asia, rice is the most widely consumed staple. That’s ...
The rector versus the tycoon
The morning before the verdict was handed down at the Appeals Court on March 12, the mood among those working on the defence team for Heng Chheang and his wife Tep Kolap was almost optimistic. They, along with relatives of the couple and academics from Phnom ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032355213/National-news/the-rector-versus-the-tycoon.html
Sihanoukville Runs Dry During Water Crisis
A water shortage in the tourist town of Sihanoukville has led authorities to advise scores of businesses to dig their own wells as only 50 percent of local demand is currently being met after high temperatures dried up the water supplier’s only reservoir. On March ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sihanoukville-runs-dry-during-water-crisis-16609/
In Contrasting Styles, Police, Opposition Prepare for Protests
With planned protests against last month’s contested national election results fast approaching, the opposition CNRP and police each held separate training events in Phnom Penh on Sunday, aimed at staving off the violence many fear may erupt. The CNRP says it will start mass protests beginning ...
Phorn Bopha and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/in-contrasting-styles-police-opposition-prepare-for-protests-41545/
Report calls out Pheap
Logging tycoon Try Pheap’s rapidly expanding land empire, criticised by rights groups for displacing families and encroaching on protected forest areas, has grown to almost 70,000 hectares in size and is helping to facilitate a cross-border illegal logging operation, a report released today alleges. The Cambodian ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/report-calls-out-pheap
Harsh restrictions imposed on union leader
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday ordered embattled union leader Ath Thorn to stay away from the SL garment factory and its workers and to avoid any public gatherings that could “damage public order,” drawing a tight circle around one of the country’s most ...
Mech Dara and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/harsh-restrictions-imposed-on-union-leader-57067/
As Phnom Penh Grows, So Does Its Sewage Problem
Since 1998, Phnom Penh’s population has doubled to more than 2 million. High-rise buildings have popped up in the city’s center and housing developments have been hastily erected. Yet the city’s antiquated, decades-old drainage system has undergone little improvement in that time and experts say the ...
Vietnam Doubts Sustainability of Second Lao Dam Project on Mekong
Vietnam has joined Cambodia in questioning the sustainability of the planned Don Sahong dam project on the Mekong River in southern Laos, saying more environmental impact studies are needed before the scheme moves forward. Le Duc Trung, director general of the Vietnam National Mekong Committee under ...
Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/dam-11152013181814.html
Phnom Penh Trash Collectors Dance for Demands
Piles of garbage festered on the streets of Phnom Penh on Tuesday as hundreds of workers employed by the city’s refuse collection company, Cintri, continued to strike for higher wages and better working conditions. At the company’s truck depot in Dangkao district Tuesday morning, more than ...
Ben Sokhean and Alice Cuddy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/phnom-penh-trash-collectors-dance-for-demands-51432/
Evicted railway families await ADB’s help
In 2011, Oeun Phirun took out a $450 loan from the Asian Development Bank, using half to buy a used motorbike and spending the rest on a small flock of ducks and chickens he hoped to raise. His family and about 1,000 others have been evicted ...
Zsombor Peter and Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/evicted-railway-families-await-adbs-help-56128/
Contractor Says Senior Official Approved Siem Reap Land Swap
The head of a construction firm that was involved in a massive land swap with Siem Reap’s provincial government in 2010 defended the deal on Friday saying orders for the move of government offices and civil servants—which is now being reversed—came directly from the national ...
Dene-Hern Chen and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/contractor-says-senior-official-approved-siem-reap-land-swap-41909/
Four Dead in Cambodia Garment Strike
A weeklong strike by Cambodian garment workers turned deadly Friday as police shot and killed at least four people and wounded several others in an attempt to break up a protest for higher wages. The violence came after weeks of escalating political and labor unrest marked ...
Chun Han Wong and Sun Narin
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304325004579297511167310046
After Land Swap, Siem Reap Government Moves Again
Siem Reap’s provincial government apparatus, which in 2010 was relocated to a remote site 16 km outside of the city as part of an extensive and hugely controversial swap of government land and buildings, is moving back to its old home in the tourist city’s ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/top/after-land-swap-siem-reap-government-moves-again-41819/
Chaotic Scene as Gun Seized During Teachers’ Rally
A small gathering to mark World Teachers’ Day at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park briefly descended into chaos Sunday when a crowd of rally-goers wrested a concealed gun from a man working for the Ministry of Information after he forced his way to the front of ...
Mech Dara and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/chaotic-scene-as-gun%E2%80%88seized-during-teachers-rally-44997/
Investment Or Imperialism? Tracking China's Big Ambitions In Cambodia
A few years ago this scene would have played out in China. More specifically, it would have played out in a Chinese coastal region to which millions of rural folks had arrived looking for work. A huge hangar, piles of fabrics of all colors at both ...
Factory Orders Staff Back to Work Amid Safety Concerns
Employees at a Taiwanese-owned shoe factory in Kompong Speu province where two workers were killed when one of the building’s floors collapsed on Thursday have been ordered back to work today, despite ongoing concerns from labor activists about the building’s safety. While conceding that some parts ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/factory-orders-staff-back-to-work-amid-safety-concerns-25192/
After Park Cleared, CNRP Leaders Called to Court
At 11:30 a.m. Saturday, municipal security guards and men in plainclothes, wielding steel bars, metal pipes, batons, sticks and axes, forcibly cleared hundreds of demonstrators from Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park, where the opposition CNRP has been protesting against the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen ...
Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/security-guards-police-clear-freedom-park-50086/
Four Arrested In Attempt to Inspire ‘Rose Revolution’
Police said Sunday they have arrested four people believed to be involved in a conspiracy hatched by a dissident Khmer-American group plotting to topple the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Two men and two women were arrested on Thursday suspected of attempting to hand out ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/four-arrested-in-attempt-to-inspire-rose-revolution-39976/
Government Blames Child Flood Deaths on ‘Careless’ Mothers
The first vice president of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) on Monday blamed some of the deaths in this year’s floods on “careless” mothers. “Maybe the mothers are careless, maybe they don’t pay much attention to their children, so they drown,” NCDM First Vice ...
Zsombor Peter and Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-blames-child-flood-deaths-on-careless-mothers-45666/
Ratanakkiri Temple Now in Land Concession
Like most millennium-old structures discovered in the forests of Cambodia, the locals had known all along about this one. Jarai minority villagers in this remote spot in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district not only knew about it, but they revered the red-brick temple, using it as a ...
Kuch Naren and Michelle Vachon
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ratanakkiri-temple-now-in-land-concession-47779/