Judicial Reform Drafts Still Need Work, Experts Say
Cambodia is preparing three long-awaited laws aimed at restoring its widely criticized judicial system. However, two of the three draft laws obtained by VOA Khmer still need a lot more improvement, according to legal experts. The laws focus on codifying court jurisdiction, laying out guidelines for ...
Men Kimseng
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/judicial-reforms-drafts-still-need-work-experts-say/1840254.html
Groups tell ILO to retract ‘right to strike’ claim
An employers and businesses federation that took out paid newspaper advertisements claiming Cambodia’s workers have no fundamental right to strike has hit back at the International Labour Organization (ILO), asking it to retract comments it made in response to the ads. Last week, the Cambodian Federation ...
Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/groups-tell-ilo-retract-%E2%80%98right-strike%E2%80%99-claim
Cambodia's micro-lenders see 44 pct lending growth last year
Cambodia’s 38 microfinance institutions reported a 44 percent increase in loan disbursements in 2013, according to a report of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), the regulator of banking and finance institutions in the country. The microfinance institutions had lent a total 1.17 billion U.S. dollars ...
Shanghai Daily News Staff
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=199165
Hundreds of students join Valentine’s day blood drive
The National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC) on Friday took Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to call on students to “show love” by donating blood, a drive that collected 400 units of blood. “On [Valentine’s Day] we are all willing to show our love by donating blood ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hundreds-of-students-join-valentines-day-blood-drive-52320/
Alarm over workers to Emirates
Cambodian labourers may soon be recruited to construction sites in the United Arab Emirates, where conditions are described as “tragic” by human rights groups. The Lebanon-based company that would hire the workers under the prospective scheme, Agostine & Raphael Group, is run by Middle Eastern tycoon ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/alarm-over-workers-emirates
Poverty gains ‘precarious’
Cambodia’s poverty rate fell dramatically between 2004 and 2011 – from more than 50 per cent to roughly 20 – but those gains are so precarious that a slight economic shock could send millions plunging back below the poverty line, according to a World Bank ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/poverty-gains-%E2%80%98precarious%E2%80%99
Cambodia fights to balance Vietnam, China
When an ethnic Vietnamese crashed his motorcycle into an ethnic Khmer’s car in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district last Saturday night, he was attacked by Khmers shouting the racially charged term for Vietnamese — “yuon” — and beaten to death. That an ordinary traffic accident turned into ...
The China Post News Staff
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/the-china-post/special-to-the-china-post/2014/02/24/401368/Cambodia-fights.htm
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/
Injured to file complaints over crackdown
A monk, an opposition lawmaker-elect and a journalist, all assaulted by Daun Penh district security guards near Freedom Park on Friday, said they are in the process of filing legal complaints against the district forces as they recover from their injuries. “I am planning on filing ...
George Wright
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/injured-to-file-complaints-over-crackdown-58025/
Groups want US help in improving transparency in extractive industries
Anti-corruption advocates say they want the US government to help them push for transparency in the extractive industries, as ongoing mining continues to disrupt the lives of many Cambodians. at least 120 companies, most of them Chinese, have obtained mining licenses in the last decade, as ...
Bag snatchings jump: EU
After being presented with statistics showing a more than 100 per cent rise in petty crime against foreigners, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng yesterday called on police officials to look into what’s causing the problem. Nicolas Baudouin, a spokesman for the French Embassy, confirmed that a ...
Vong Sokheng and Joe Freeman
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/bag-snatchings-jump-eu
As fish stocks vanish, locals flout law to survive
Khan Thea, a subsistence fisherman who lives and works along this sprawling, 7,000-hectare lake fed by the Mekong River, was not having a good day on the water. Struggling to net even a single fish, he finally resorted to a dangerous—and illegal—technique: fishing with electric current. ...
Phorn Bopha and Alex Consiglio
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/as-fish-stocks%E2%80%88vanish-locals-flout-law-to-survive-63567/
Fake Orphanage Ordered Closed After Alleged Migrant Scam
The Ministry of Interior has suspended the operation of an orphanage after it found that its director had colluded with a recruitment agency to cheat migrant workers out of an alleged $600,000, officials said Tuesday. “The Ministry of Interior temporarily suspends all activities of Our Friends ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/fake-orphanage-ordered-closed-after-alleged-migrant-scam-51114/
New Futuristic Tuk-Tuks Arrive on the Streets of Phnom Penh
Most tuk-tuk drivers have to continuously vie with each other to attract tourists’ attention, but Oung Hour gets it without even trying. As he stands on the sidewalk near the riverside, groups of tourists point at his bright mustard-yellow tuk-tuk, its smooth fiberglass body shaped like ...
Emily Wilkins and Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/new-futuristic-tuk-tuks-arrive-on-the-streets-of-phnom-penh-52616/
Five months on, witnesses recall Muon Sokmean’s beating
Muon Sokmean, a 29-year-old garment worker, scrambled off Veng Sreng Street on January 3 with military police in violent pursuit, brandishing their batons. What had been a militant protest for a $160 minimum wage in the garment sector—with many protesters lobbing rocks and crude Molotov cocktails ...
Mech Dara and Alex Consiglio
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/five-months-on-witnesses-recall-muon-sokmeans-beating-59115/
Cambodia is perfectly positioned to become a solar powerhouse
Phnom Penh’s first solar-powered building looks for all the world like a cube of colored Lego blocks dropped in a factory lot on the city’s industrial outskirts. Covered in some 1,350 solar panels — including large panes of multi-colored solar glass — the three-story building ...
Sarah Goodyear
http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/water-war-weapon-syria-cities
SBC to Rebrand Following Taiwan Acquisition
Locally owned Singapore Banking Corp. (SBC) will rebrand itself Thursday as Cathay United Bank (Cambodia) Corp. Ltd., or CUBC, as part of a deal that finalizes the acquisition of SBC by Taiwanese financial corporation Cathay United Bank, according to a copy of a speech that ...
Joshua Wilwohl
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/sbc-to-rebrand-following-taiwan-acquisition-50684/
The Assassination of Union Leader Chea Vichea—A Decade On
Ten years after his assassination, friends and associates remember Chea Vichea, the founding president of the Free Trade Union, as a quiet man but a charismatic leader, passionate about labor issues and the right for workers to collectively bargain for higher wages and better conditions. ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/the-assassination-of-union-leader-chea-vichea-a-decade-on-50951/
CNRP Distances Itself From Threatened Social Media Activist
The opposition CNRP’s deputy public affairs director, Kem Monovithya, posted a statement to her official Facebook account on Saturday distancing the party from Thy Sovantha, a 19-year-old opposition activist with a large social media following, announcing that Ms. Sovantha was “not involved” with the CNRP. Last ...
Hul Reaksmey and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cnrp-distances-itself-from-threatened-social-media-activist-51218/
Unions argue over wage committee reforms
Meeting for a minimum wage workshop on Tuesday, the country’s independent and government-aligned unions argued over reforms to the Labor Advisory Committee (LAC), the body in charge of setting the minimum wage in the garment sector, which employs some 600,000 workers. The LAC, which is composed ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/unions-argue-over-wage-committee-reforms-51452/