Mostly failed promises mark Phnom Penh governor’s 1st year
When he assumed leadership of Phnom Penh municipality in May 2013, Pa Socheatvong vowed to be a governor who would get things done. His predecessor, Kep Chuktema, oversaw the filling in of Boeng Kak lake and the mass eviction of its residents. A similar scenario unfolded ...
Lauren Crothers and Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/mostly-failed-promises-mark-phnom-penh-governors-1st-year-54423/
Dam critics outline litany of risks
As villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley continue to block Sinohydro Corp employees from entering the area where the Stung Cheay Areng dam is planned, conservationists and rights workers have spoken of the havoc it will wreak if it goes ahead. In terms of the ...
Daniel Pye and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/dam-critics-outline-litany-risks
Schools take funding plan to the bank
Like mob deals and black market trades, the Cambodian school budget is dealt in suitcases of cash. Four times a year, the school operating budget is dispersed in stacks of cash transferred from the central bank to the Ministry of Education, eventually ending up with the ...
Laignee Barron and Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/schools-take-funding-plan-bank
Cybercrime law may silence critics, NGOs say
Cambodia’s cybercrime law, a draft of which was made available online Wednesday, could be used to arbitrarily punish people who share controversial opinions online or air complaints about the CPP government, rights groups said Wednesday. According to the law, people who publish content online that slanders ...
Joshua Wilwohl and Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cybercrime-law-may-silence-critics-ngos-say-56288/
Garment protest trial defendants deny charges
Defendants in a mass trial of 25 men and teenagers accused of joining a string of violent garment worker protests continued to profess their innocence during the second day of hearings at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday. Twenty-three of the men were arrested in ...
Khy Sovuthy and Eang Mengleng
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/garment-protest-trial-defendants-deny-charges-58166/
Xu Qiliang visits Chinese doctors working in Cambodian military hospital
Xu Qiliang, visiting vice- chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, on Thursday visited a group of 10 Chinese doctors working at the Preah Ketomelea Hospital, known as the Military Hospital, in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Xu was accompanied by Chay Saing Yun, secretary ...
Asean-China-Center News Staff
http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2014-05/09/c_133322029.htm
Cambodian rights worker faces death threats over land dispute
A worker with the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) has been intimidated and received death threats while trying to document the plight of three families involved in a bitter land dispute with a developer in the country’s capital, according to the center. The worker, Vann ...
Radio Free Asia Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/threats-05122014162650.html
ADB plan falls short: families
Families forced to leave their homes to make way for a railway rehabilitation project funded by the Asian development Bank and the Australian government have told the bank that a draft compensation plan it has drawn up to remedy their situation is inadequate. On Monday, Inclusive ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/adb-plan-falls-short-families
Ten commandments: Gov’t lays out food standards
Makers of food- and beverage-related products are for the first time facing mandatory health regulations, with the unveiling of 10 national standards by the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft. The announcement comes after the National Standard Council, a government-run committee, finally approved the standards in May ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/ten-commandments-gov%E2%80%99t-lays-out-food-standards
Un envoy visits Boeng Kak, condemns killings
The U.N.’s special rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association, Maina Kiai, on Friday wrapped up a three-day unofficial visit to Cambodia by paying a visit to the Boeng Kak community, the site of the country’s longest-running land dispute. Inside the home of high-profile Boeng ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/un-envoy-visits-boeng-kak-condemns-killings-51726/
World Bank meets Phnom Penh Governor, Boeng Kak evictees
The World Bank on Thursday asked Phnom Penh municipal officials to do more to help the thousands of families the city evicted from the Boeng Kak neighborhood to make way for a CPP senator’s private real estate project, and is now waiting for a reply, ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-meets-phnom-penh-governor-boeng-kak-evictees-54189/
Cambodia needs more actions to curb bird flu: PM
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Friday that the country needed to prepare more measures to curb the spread of H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which broke out the worst last year and this year. “We have done a lot to control the spread of the ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-03/28/c_133220954.htm
Cambodian PM flies to Vietnam for Mekong River Commission Summit
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen flew Friday to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to attend the second Summit of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), which will be held on Saturday. The premier was accompanied by Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology Lim Kean Hor, Environment Minister ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-04/04/c_133238058.htm
Gov’t unlikely to meet target to reduce road deaths
Without more efforts to punish traffic violators, the government is all but certain to miss its 2020 goal of cutting traffic deaths by 20 percent and drunk driving deaths by 50 percent, road safety experts said at a forum Tuesday. There were 1,910 deaths due to ...
Simon Henderson and Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/govt-unlikely-to-meet-target-to-reduce-road-deaths-56156/
A logging free-for-all
The scale of mass logging in once-dense woodlands in Cambodia’s north now more closely resembles the free-for-all of a gold rush than the sustainable forestry more often associated with these communities. With the financial backing of powerful businessmen, villagers in three districts of Preah Vihear are ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/logging-free-all
Military cop investigated for alleged forest clearing
A deputy district military police chief in Kampong Thom’s Santuk district is under scrutiny for allegedly clearing up to seven hectares of community forest land for personal gain, and district officials are investigating the case with the aim of presenting it at the provincial court ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/military-cop-investigated-alleged-forest-clearing
Cambodia bans trade unions from marking May Day at capital's Freedom Park
Cambodian authorities on Wednesday refused permission for the 18 opposition-aligned trade unions and associations to celebrate an International Labor Day event on May 1 at the capital’s Freedom Park. “The Phnom Penh Municipality does not allow the trade unions and associations to organize this event at ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-04/30/c_133301779.htm
Thais detain ‘large number’
A large group of Cambodian migrants were rounded up and detained in a Bangkok prison at the end of May, where many still remain, Thai officials told the Post yesterday. Separate unconfirmed reports that at least 130 Cambodians had been in detention for more than a month emerged ...
Alice Cuddy and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/thais-detain-%E2%80%98large-number%E2%80%99
Workers’ strike delayed, rescheduled for post-Khmer New Year
Labor unions and associations have suspended their strike plan scheduled for March 12 following the request by garment workers, according to a union leader. The suspension came after the meeting between the union leaders from a coalition of 18 labor unions and associations today. The unionists ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=NmU5MTVjY2ExZTQ
Kreung protest for release of charged arsonist
Dozens of ethnic minority Kreung villagers protested outside the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Monday, demanding the release of a fellow Kreung man presently in pretrial detention for setting fire to a pile of wood on land the community sold in 2007 but claims it was ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/kreung-protest-for-release-of-charged-arsonist-54429/