Petition Rally for Prisoners’ Release Ends Peacefully
A week after they began their campaign, activists and rights groups handed out the last of their petitions to embassies across Phnom Penh on Wednesday, hoping to solicit the help of foreign governments in securing the release of 23 men arrested earlier this month at ...
Mech Dara and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/petition-rally-for-prisoners-release-ends-peacefully-51135/
ADB waters down plans to amend mistakes in Cambodia
Newly approved plans by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to fix mistakes it made on a $143 million railway project appear to water down recommendations proposed by the Bank’s own review panel, and could impose the costs of the plan on the very families who ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/adb-waters-down-plans-to-amend-mistakes-in-cambodia-51763/
Unions set to begin first phase of nationwide strike
A coalition of 18 labor unions and associations is today set to begin the first phase of a nationwide labor strike in the garment sector by calling on workers in about 100 factories to boycott working overtime, according to union leaders. Despite efforts by the government ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/unions-set-to-begin-first-phase-of-nationwide-strike-52989/
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
After strong start, city bus’ future unclear
After a monthlong test run saw 10 buses often filled with passengers, a Chinese-owned company promised in early March to inject millions into the project and add hundreds of new buses. But Global Trade Development left the project last month after the municipality refused to grant ...
Hul Reaksmey and Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/after-strong-start-city-bus-future-unclear-58640/
Journalists in CPP firing line over ‘1-party’ tag
The single-party National Assembly sat for the third day of its third plenary session Thursday, with a senior ruling party lawmaker calling on Information Minister Khieu Kanharith to examine whether journalists who call the Assembly “single party” can be punished under law. Sixty-four of the 68 ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/journalists-in-cpp-firing-line-over-1-party-tag-59430/
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/
Labor Leaders Say Negotiations Should Continue
International trade leaders say Cambodia’s workers and managers should continue to negotiate for an increase in wages, despite a deadly crackdown on worker protests earlier this month. Workers want a raise in the minimum wage to $160 per month to keep up with the rising cost ...
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/labor-leaders-say-negotiations-should-continue/1837064.html
Compensation for culled poultry is a catch-22
Since its emergence in the region more than a decade ago, the governments of Southeast Asia have been fighting to contain the human avian influenza virus through surveillance programs, rigorous inspections and widespread culling of infected birds. In Cambodia last year, 13 people died of ...
Simon Henderson and Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/compensation-for-culled-poultry-is-a-catch-22-52485/
In Preliminary Results, Ruling Party Seats Diminished in Election Win
Cambodia’s ruling party has reportedly won in national elections Sunday, but it appears to have lost a significant number of seats in parliament. According to preliminary election figures released by Information Minister Khieu Kanharith, the Cambodian People’s Party won 68 of 123 National Assembly seats. That’s a ...
Mekong villagers wary of Xayaburi dam
Fishermen bring their boats to shore, pack away their traps and hand over the day’s catch to their awaiting families on the banks of the Mekong River in Kratie province’s Chitra Borei district. “When my husband arrives home each day, we eat some of what he ...
Cambodia: The Rural Poor are Receiving Free Heath Care in Preah Vihear
Siv Mao, 25, just had a caesarian operation. She feels some discomfort but is smiling. Her newborn baby is sleeping fitfully beside her and she says: “They saved our lives and I’m happy.” Ms. Mao encountered complications in her pregnancy and doctors knew she could not ...
Like father like son, Hun Manet appears to model Hun Sen’s political rhetoric
Since being endorsed by the Cambodian People’s Party in December as the ruling party’s only prime minister candidate, Hun Manet is increasingly appearing in public, taking his father’s place at events ranging from the inauguration of military buildings to road openings. ...
Sorn Sarath
https://cambojanews.com/like-father-like-son-hun-manet-appears-to-model-hun-sens-political-rhetoric/
Monitoring for Nothing: Is the ILO’s ‘Better Factories’ programme failing the Kingdom’s garment workers?
The United Nations in Cambodia has taken a beating in recent months. The UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal has been plagued by high-profile resignations and accusations of political interference. Elsewhere human rights activists have criticised the UN’s failure to take a firm stance against an increasingly ...
Frédéric Janssens
http://sea-globe.com/monitoring-for-nothing/
Mekong Dams Threaten Extinction of Giant Catfish
The elusive Mekong giant catfish, which the U.S.-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) called “one of the world’s largest and rarest freshwater fish,” can reach up to three meters (10 feet) and weigh up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds). The Xayaburi dam would prove an “impassable barrier” ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/dams-06192013184629.html
Monitors Say Ink Test Was for Transparency, Not Turmoil
Election monitors say a test of election ink that found it easily washable, and therefore a concern for fraudulent voting, was made in the spirit of transparency, and not to create “turmoil” ahead of Sunday’s polls. The election watchdog Comfrel on Friday tested the ink, provided ...
Cambodia’s Excess Baggage
“I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t going expecting to look out the bus window and see all the blue bags along the roads and in the fields,” said 27-year-old Christopher Convery, who is currently backpacking for the first time in Cambodia. ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/selected-features/cambodias-excess-baggage-22003/
NGOs Say ‘Rose Revolution’ Case Is Baseless
Rights groups on Monday urged the government to drop its incitement charges against four people arrested last week and accused of plotting to topple the government by handing out yellow roses to security forces and urging them to turn their guns against Prime Minister Hun ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ngos-say-rose-revolution-case-is-baseless-40188/
NGOs Raise Concern Over Freedom of Expression to UN
Seven NGOs have raised their concerns that the government is using the law, media and Internet to further stifle freedom of expression, ahead of Cambodia submitting its first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of human rights to the U.N. The UPR is the process through which Geneva’s ...
Lauren Crothers and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ngos-raise-concern-over-freedom-of-expression-to-un-40748/
NGOs Raise Concern Over Freedom of Expression to UN
Seven NGOs have raised their concerns that the government is using the law, media and Internet to further stifle freedom of expression, ahead of Cambodia submitting its first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of human rights to the U.N. The UPR is the process through which Geneva’s ...
Lauren Crothers and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ngos-raise-concern-over-freedom-of-expression-to-un-40748/