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/
Rainsy’s reasoning questioned
While the opposition party steps up its efforts to persuade the international community to cut ties with a government it says was formed by a “constitutional coup”, lawyers and analysts yesterday questioned whether the party’s reasoning has any legal basis. In a letter sent to the ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rainsy%E2%80%99s-reasoning-questioned
Logging mogul blasted
Logging tycoon Try Pheap has come under fire from two separate reports alleging that he is using his vast network of concessions and licences to decimate protected forests across Cambodia. One of the reports, an exhaustive four-month investigation by a local NGO, also looked at the ...
Phak Seangly and May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/logging-mogul-blasted
Negotiations Falter After Election Results Released
Negotiations between the ruling CPP and opposition CNRP over an investigation into election irregularities stalled Monday after the National Election Committee (NEC) released official preliminary election results that supported the ruling party’s claim of victory in the July 28 election. In an initial round of talks ...
Neou Vannarin and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/negotiations-falter-after-election-results-released-39264/
Neutrality of Red Cross in Question After Bun Rany’s Speech
It was the bloodiest battle since Waterloo. Yet the carnage wrought 150 years ago by the Italian and French troops, fighting under Napoleon III, and the forces of the Austrian Hungarian Empire, was overshadowed by its aftermath. While 30,000 had died on the battlefield, more than 40,000 ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/neutrality-of-red-cross-in-question-after-bun-ranys-speech-46497/
VN Rubber Company Says It Improves Forest
The Vietnamese Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) company, the majority shareholder of several economic land concessions in Ratanakkiri province, on Friday rebuffed accusations that it had logged forests and forced evictions, claiming that its activities improved the environment and the livelihoods of locals. Through several companies, ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/vn-rubber-company-says-it-improves-forest-47771/
Anti-Eviction Protesters Clash With Security Forces
Protesters, including a band of angry monks, clashed with military and riot police on Thursday in Phnom Penh as authorities tried to prevent a local housing rights group from carrying out a rally against forced evictions. Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a coalition of five local ...
Alex Willemyns and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/anti-eviction-protesters-clash-with-security-forces-44882/
Government Suspends Logging in Stung Treng Dam Concession
The government has ordered Ang & Associates Lawyer Co. Ltd., a company headed by well-known businessman Kith Meng, to cease logging in an area of Stung Treng province where a hydropower dam will be built. Sesan district governor Yeang Srey Sary said Thursday that a delegation ...
Kuch Naren and Dene-Hern Chen
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-suspends-logging-in-stung-treng-dam-concession-45878/
Cambodian ruling party faces test over next 5 years
Cambodian political analysts said Prime Minister Hun Sen needs to make “serious and deep reforms” over the next five years to restore his popularity after his party survived with a slim majority in July’s disputed general election. Sok Touch, deputy director of the Royal Academy ...
Global Times
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/829846.shtml#.Up_bWNIW2ls
Investors Play Down Impact of Labor Strikes
Economists and analysts on Thursday shrugged off the opposition CNRP’s threat to stage nationwide labor strikes, arguing that while such a move could lower profits for companies in the short term, it would not significantly deter foreign investors. Mr. Rainsy, who mentioned the possibility of strikes ...
Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/investors-play-down-impact-of-labor-strikes-43694/
Cambodia Garment Wages Set to Rise as H&M Pushes New Approach
Swedish clothing giant H&M recently announced a program to boost wages for garment workers in its sub-contractor factories around the world, including in Cambodia, where the company is a leading buyer. H&M’s announcement comes at the end of a turbulent year in the garment sector ...
Robert Carmichael
http://www.voanews.com/content/cambodian-garment-wages-set-rise-hm-pushes-new-approach/1803179.html
After Arrests, NGOs Continue Petitioning to ‘Free the 23′
Following the arrest of 11 activists on Tuesday as they attempted to deliver a petition to the U.S. and French embassies seeking the release of 23 jailed protesters, NGO representatives quietly delivered similar petitions to the Japanese Embassy and European Union headquarters Wednesday. The petitioners, representing ...
Aun Pheap and Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/after-arrests-ngos-continue-petitioning-to-free-the-23-50966/
Life as Living Nightmare Along National Route 6a
Two years after Prime Minister Hun Sen broke ground on a Chinese-funded project to widen National Road 6a in order to expand its capacity as a major trade and tourism thoroughfare, life for the tens of thousands of families living along the 50-km stretch of ...
Hul Reaksmey and Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/life-as-living-nightmare-along-national-route-6a-51156/
Reforestry Claim ‘A Stretch’
The government reforested 80,693 hectares of land between 2008 and 2012 as part of its efforts to combat deforestation, a recent agriculture ministry report says, but these seemingly impressive statistics were reached by counting rubber trees and other agricultural crops as adequate replacements for forests. The ...
May Titthara and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/reforestry-claim-%E2%80%98-stretch%E2%80%99
Lead-up to poll saw SLCs spike
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 ban on the allocation of economic land concessions was supposed to halt the unpopular practice of turning over large swaths of property to developers. And going by the numbers last year, it worked. But in the vacuum, according to local rights ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/lead-poll-saw-slcs-spike
Maids set to work abroad, but safety fears linger
After a three-year moratorium on sending maids overseas—sparked by a spate of serious abuses by recruiters and employers—momentum is building to once again send hundreds of thousands of Cambodian women to work overseas as domestic servants. Since Prime Minister Hun Sen shut down the industry in ...
Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/maids-set-to-work-abroad-but-safety-fears-linger-58853/
Gov’t criticizes media coverage of strike violence
The high-ranking government officials and global clothing brand representatives who took part in a meeting in Phnom Penh on Wednesday both raised concerns about the media coverage of last month’s lethal repression of a nationwide strike by garment workers and its aftermath. The meeting was called ...
Alex Willemyns And Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/govt-criticizes-media-coverage-of-strike-violence-52979/