Standards Building Up Safety Fears
When a 100-metre-long section of a Phnom Penh garment factory crumpled in on itself like a cheap pup tent, Sen Sok district officials promised an investigation. The results of that investigation, which was to have taken place more than a year ago, in March 2012, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052265780/National/standards-building-up-safety-fears.html
Despite Popularity, Rainsy’s Role Remains Uncertain
When opposition leader Sam Rainsy last touched down at Phnom Penh International Airport, he was greeted by some 100,000 supporters in what was the largest opposition rally in Cambodia’s 20 years of democracy. When he returns on Friday from the U.S., where he has been attending ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/despite-popularity-rainsys-role-remains-uncertain-39565/
Illegal Construction Rampant in Angkor Heritage Site
In the months leading up to Cambodia’s national election on July 28, authorities in the Angkor Archaeological Park allowed dozens of land owners to build new houses and develop plots of land inside highly protected areas of the world heritage site. Villagers interviewed last week said ...
Phorn Bopha and Simon Marks
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/illegal-construction-rampant-in-angkor-heritage-site-42860/
National Assembly Claims CNRP Acting Unconstitutionally
The National Assembly said in a statement on Friday that the opposition CNRP is in contempt of both the Constitution and the King by claiming that the new government is illegitimate. The CNRP had accused the ruling CPP of behaving unconstitutionally by convening parliament last week ...
Hul Reaksmey and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/national-assembly-claims-cnrp-acting-unconstitutionally-43861/
Ex-Finance Minister’s Sister Buys Up More Ethnic Jarai Lands
About 50 ethnic Jarai families in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district have sold their farmland and part of the forests their culture depends on to the sister of former Finance Minister Keat Chhon, rights group Adhoc said Monday. Last year, the ethnic minority Jarai in the district ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ex-finance-ministers-sister-buys-up-more-ethnic-jarai-lands-45093/
CPP Rallies to Hun Sen; NEC Says Early Poll Not Possible
CPP lawmakers have lined up behind their prime minister, Hun Sen, insisting in recent statements that a new election the opposition is demanding will never happen, and would not even be legally possible. Experts familiar with the law, however, said legislation does allow for fresh elections, ...
Kuch Naren and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cpp-rallies-to-hun-sen-nec-says-early-poll-not-possible-49602/
GMAC Defends Use of Force Against Striking Workers
A senior member of the Garment Manufacturer’s Association in Cambodia (GMAC) on Sunday endorsed the use of deadly force by military police against striking garment workers, which left five dead and more than 20 with gunshot wounds. “GMAC condemns the use of violence, period,” he ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/gmac-defends-use-of-force-against-striking-workers-50136/
Unions Tell Garment Workers to Suspend Strike
Unions behind last week’s garment factory strikes said their members had largely gone back to work this week, although they have not ruled out resuming protests for a higher minimum wage later this month. Tens of thousands of workers went on strike starting on December 24 ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/unions-tell-garment-workers-to-suspend-strike-50299/
Rainsy Evokes Gandhi as Example for Opposition
CNRP leader Sam Rainsy on Thursday publicly announced the opposition’s intention to conduct a campaign of civil disobedience in line with peaceful demonstrations organized by the charismatic leader of Indian nationalism Mahatma Gandhi, who helped win independence from Great Britain. Mr. Rainsy made the remarks at ...
Colin Meyn and Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/rainsy-evokes-gandhi-as-example-for-opposition-41429/
UN Envoy Subedi Shares Concerns Over Post-Vote Violence
The U.N. human rights envoy to Cambodia, Surya Subedi, on Tuesday presented a report to the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva and expressed his grave concern about post-election violence and the failure of the government and National Election Committee to properly investigate widespread electoral ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/un-envoy-subedi-shares-concerns-over-post-vote-violence-43145/
CMAC Closes Probe Into Fire Amid Allegations of Corruption
The Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) said Wednesday that it has closed its investigation into a fire at an equipment repair workshop in Battambang City on January 24 that destroyed equipment and vehicles worth an estimated $400,000. Heng Ratana, CMAC’s director-general, said that the fire had ...
Kuch Naren and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cmac-closes-probe-into-fire-amid-allegations-of-corruption-51543/
2,500 workers in Bavet SEZ go on strike
More than 2,000 workers at three factories in Svay Rieng’s Bavet City went on strike Saturday, claiming their bosses owed them money. About 500 workers at the You Li factory, which makes baby clothes, went on strike Saturday because management refused to pay them for Thursday ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/2500-workers-in-bavet-sez-go-on-strike-56762/
Factory owners boycott wage talks for Cambodian garment workers
Garment factory owners failed to turn up for what was supposed to have been a tripartite meeting with the government and worker unions on Thursday to help break an impasse in negotiations to increase the minimum wage for workers, officials said. The International Labor Organization (ILO) ...
Radio Free Asia News Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/talks-04242014182701.html
Lawmaker blasts illegal logging in Stung Treng
Two draft laws on judicial reform were easily passed by the single-party National Assembly on Friday but the session was overshadowed by a rookie lawmaker’s attack on lax enforcement of forestry laws in Stung Treng province. On the fourth day of the third plenary session of ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/lawmaker-blasts-illegal-logging-in-s-treng-59494/
A year after law, acid easily available on streets
“What law? No one has ever come to speak to me about that,” said 33-year-old Lim Vannak, scanning the large plastic buckets of corrosive acids she had lined up on the pavement of Phnom Penh’s Street 144 on a recent morning. Acid in the wrong hands ...
Sek Odom and Alice Cuddy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/a-year-after-law-acid-easily-available-on-streets-51663/
Not going without a fight
Teng Khorn’s living room is under a tree, his bedroom in a boat hauled up on a slipway for caulking beside the mangroves that lead to his source of income: the sea. His choice of abode is also his act of defiance against the monolithic Chinese ...
May Titthara and David Boyle
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/not-going-without-fight
Locals bypass road projects
As much as local people are benefiting from the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) recovery project following last year’s record floods, they aren’t receiving all the benefits they could, according to some accounts. Operating in five provinces of Cambodia to restore road access to those affected by the floods, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090658527/Business/locals-bypass-adb-road-projects.html
Laos hydro dam upsets Mekong River neighbors
Laos began construction last week on a multi-billion dollar hydro dam project that is opposed by other countries along the Mekong River, and activists who say the project will significantly impact the environment and the economies of four countries that rely on the river for ...
Revision for Reuters
Yesterday a Reuters news story, “Insight: China gambles on Cambodia’s shrinking forests,” which also ran in today’s Phnom Penh Post and Cambodia Daily, mentioned Open Development Cambodia, and suggested that we are partnering with a local advocacy group to track concessions. This is not accurate. Like ...
Lakeside Deal Skips Village 1
Hundreds of families at Boeung Kak lake would receive land titles next week, Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema announced yesterday, but one village has been excluded from the deal that all but ends Phnom Penh’s highest-profile land dispute. At a meeting with about 500 villagers ...