Japan gives money for demining
The Japanese government agreed yesterday to provide more than $830,000 to the Japan Mine Action Service (JMAS) to assist the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) with demining operations in the northwestern part of Battambang province. The deal was signed by Japan’s Ambassador to Cambodia Yuji Kumamaru ...
Ros Chanveasna
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/30052/japan-gives-money-for-demining/
Young voters face disenfranchisement
Young potential voters who have migrated abroad in search of work are facing the loss of their voting rights due to a lack of information and documents required to register to vote from a location different to their registered address, civil society groups said yesterday. ...
Pech Sotheary
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/30819/young-voters-face-disenfranchisement/
Emerging Mining Sector to Be Subject to Grassroots Scrutiny
As mining companies continue to scour Cambodia for minerals, work is also under way to build a network of local monitors and activists to shed light on the country’s often-opaque mining sector and its practices. {T]he Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy has granted an unknown ...
CEDAC pools capital to produce organic rice
Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), a Cambodian agricultural organisation, will collect US$20 million from the Kingdom’s farmers through 2022 in an attempt to accumulate capital for organic rice production. Oun Sophal, president of CEDAC’s Farmer Network from Kampot province’s Dang Tong ...
Thai Insurgency Claims Outrage Cham Muslims
Cambodia’s Muslim community hit back on Friday at claims made in the media this week by Thailand’s army chief Prayuth Chanocha that members of the Cham minority group were joining the insurgency that has raged in Thailand’s southern provinces since 2004. Speaking at a press conference ...
Buyers Laud Renewal of Industrial Relations Agreement
As buyers for international clothing brands yesterday praised the renewal of an agreement aimed at reducing strikes in the garment sector, labor unions and factory owners said that only proper implementation would determine the agreement’s effectiveness. Modeled after an earlier pact from 2010 to prevent work ...
High school meth use up: UN
High school students are increasingly using methamphetamines and other stimulants to relax or help them study, according to the UN. A spike in trafficking of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) across the borders with Thailand and Laos over the past two years has gone hand-in-hand with a rise ...
Daniel Pye and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/high-school-meth-use-un
Unionists' jailing compared with Bandith
Since her husband was arrested in June and thrown in provincial prison to await trial, Soam Chantha, 32, has given birth to a baby boy. At the same time the men have been locked up, police have failed to arrest former Bavet governor Chhouk Bandith, ...
Shane Worrell and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/unionists-jailing-compared-bandith
Orix Investment in Acleda Seen as Exploratory
Orix, a Japanese financial conglomerate, will acquire about $11 million shares in Acleda Bank PLC, Cambodia’s largest bank, by the year’s end, officials announced Wednesday, although industry executives said the investment appears only exploratory and likely won’t make more than a ripple in the banking ...
Joshua Wilwohl
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/orix-investment-in-acleda-seen-as-exploratory-46968/
Government Urged to Ease Pressure on Unions
Visiting representatives from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) on Monday urged the Labor Ministry to withdraw its threat to revoke the licenses of six unions behind recent strikes, and to drop legal proceedings against union leader Rong Chhun. His visit follows garment worker protests ...
Mech Dara and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-urged-to-ease-pressure-on-unions-50492/
Workers ‘locked inside’ during overtime strike
Workers at two different garment factories say that managers locked them inside their workplaces last week when they tried to participate in a boycott of overtime. Union representatives and rank-and-file employees at Kampong Speu province’s Complete Honour Footwear Industrial Cambodia Co, Ltd and Dai Yi Fashion ...
Mom Kunthear and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/workers-%E2%80%98locked-inside%E2%80%99-during-overtime-strike
Another three textile union reps arrested
Police arrested another three union representatives on Friday for allegedly inciting garment workers to strike and protest in front of their factory over the past few weeks, this time in Kandal province. It follows the arrest last week of six representatives of another union ahead of ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/another-three-textile-union-reps-arrested-58456/
Chinese president meets Cambodian PM on ties
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with visiting Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in Shanghai on Sunday. Hun Sen is here to attend the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) to be held in the eastern Chinese metropolis on ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-05/18/c_133342841.htm
Electoral reform talks stuck on issue of Assembly seats
The CPP and CNRP again returned to the issue of the number of National Assembly seats in their twice-weekly reform talks on Friday, but appeared to be further apart than ever, with the ruling party demanding that parliament continue to have 123 seats “forever.” ...
Kuch Naren
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/electoral-reform-talks-stuck-on-issue-of-assembly-seats-77550/
Mortgage Lending Rises for New Home-Buyers
Cambodians, particularly young adults, are more often turning to banks to help them buy their homes, according to figures obtained from the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) yesterday. From $179 million in 2008, the total sum lent out to those buyers fell to $94.5 million ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/mortgage-lending-rises-for-new-home-buyers-20083/
Teenage Pregnancy Rate Stays Constant Over Past Decade
Teenage pregnancies are hindering Cambodia’s development as young mothers are unlikely to finish school and therefore lack job opportunities, government and U.N. officials said at the launch of a global report on adolescent pregnancies on Wednesday. “The Ministry of Women’s Affairs acknowledges that adolescent pregnancies have ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/teenage-pregnancy-rate-stays-constant-over-past-decade-46402/
Impact Analysis Urged for Massive Trade in Macaques
32,000 macaques primates have been exported from Cambodia over a 4 year period according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The Species Survival Network has said that there is a significant trade in the animal and that it is most commonly used ...
Election Body Urged to Keep Gov’t Out of Politics
Nine non-governmental groups issued a statement late last week urging the country’s National Election Committee (NEC) to enforce laws that bar political parties from using state resources. “The NEC has to punish the politicians and parties who use the state resources,” said Yong Kim Eng, ...
Garment factories to buy into automation
Investors in Cambodia’s garment industry are increasingly purchasing modern equipment as they look to produce higher value-added products to compete in the international market and counter rising labour costs, an industry insider said yesterday. ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/garment-factories-buy-automation
Negotiations Planned to Improve Relations in Garment Sector
Negotiations between the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) and unions over a landmark agreement aimed at reducing strike action will be held on October 3, representatives said yesterday. The original agreement on improving industrial relations in the garment sector was signed in October 2010 by ...