Laos aims to build Mekong dam this year, testing neighbours
Laos wants to start construction this year on the $3.8 billion (Bt115 billion) Thai-financed Xayaburi hydropower plant on the Mekong River after changing the design of the dam to placate neighbouring countries opposed to the project. Laos completed a review of the dam recently to ease ...
Grand Plans for $80-Billion Capital City Fit for a Techo
If Phoeung Sophoan has his way, Phnom Penh’s days as Cambodia’s capital city are numbered. A secretary of state at the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, Mr. Sophoan has big plans for a new 35,000-hectare capital city north of Phnom Penh called “Samdech ...
UK to Request Extradition of Biofuel Company’s Chairman
The U.K.’s fraud office plans to request the extradition of a British national currently detained in Cambodia, after it brought charges against four people for their part in a $36 million Ponzi scheme involving a biofuel plantation. Gregg Fryett was arrested in Phnom Penh in March ...
Simon Lewis
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/uk-to-request-extradition-of-biofuel-companys-chairman-40796/
UK to Request Extradition of Biofuel Company’s Chairman
The U.K.’s fraud office plans to request the extradition of a British national currently detained in Cambodia, after it brought charges against four people for their part in a $36 million Ponzi scheme involving a biofuel plantation. Gregg Fryett was arrested in Phnom Penh in March ...
Simon Lewis
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/uk-to-request-extradition-of-biofuel-companys-chairman-40796/
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/
Tep Vanny—From Boeng Kak Protester to Globe-Trotting Advocate
On the morning of September 23, anti-eviction champion Tep Vanny was grappling with a legion of security guards blocking the entrance of the Daun Penh district offices while fellow protesters dismantled a razor-wire barricade nearby. The next day, she was on a plane to Washington ...
Mech Dara and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/tep-vanny-from-boeng-kak-protests-to-globe-trotting-advocate-44583/
Government Reverses Ban, Agrees to CNRP March
The Ministry of Interior announced Tuesday in a last minute meeting that it would allow the opposition CNRP to take 1,000 people through the streets of Phnom Penh to deliver a petition to the U.N. and eight foreign embassies during its three-day mass demonstration that ...
Mech Dara and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/government-reverses-ban-agrees-to-cnrp-march-45694/
Punished At the Polls, Cambodia’s Long-Serving PM Is Smiling Again
His party is reeling from its worst-ever election result. His political opponents have grown bold and vocal. His people are protesting on the streets. So why is Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen smiling? The long-ruling autocrat emerged beaming from lengthy closed-door meetings this week with his ...
The Irrawaddy News Staff
http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/44319
Linking the worst factories with the labels
The building that housed USA Fully Field Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district stands empty now. The grounds are littered with garbage and boxes full of dusty brand labels that were stitched onto clothes by almost 400 workers before the factory owner fled in ...
Simon Henderson and Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/linking-the-worst-factories-with-the-labels-55839/
Kratie Village Sealed After Girl’s Killing
Kratie city – Soldiers and military police yesterday blocked all access to a village where a 14-year-old girl was shot dead by security forces on Wednesday while the authorities launched a massive operation to evict hundreds of families from the area under a cloak of ...
In Contrasting Styles, Police, Opposition Prepare for Protests
With planned protests against last month’s contested national election results fast approaching, the opposition CNRP and police each held separate training events in Phnom Penh on Sunday, aimed at staving off the violence many fear may erupt. The CNRP says it will start mass protests beginning ...
Phorn Bopha and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/in-contrasting-styles-police-opposition-prepare-for-protests-41545/
Cambodia's Hun Sen, Sam Rainsy 'Narrow Differences' in Election Stalemate
Cambodia’s ruling and opposition parties are “narrowing their differences” in talks aimed at ending a standoff over recent elections, officials said Tuesday, as protesters ended three straight days of mass demonstrations against poll results. Both the leaders led their parties in the discussions, which were ...
Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/talks-09172013181436.html
Grenade Attack Remembered Amid Promised Reform
Opposition leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha joined dozens of monks and hundreds of supporters on Monday for a Pchum Ben ceremony at the memorial stupa in Phnom Penh honoring the 16 people who were killed by a grenade attack on an opposition rally in ...
Aun Pheap and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/grenade-attack-remembered-amid-promised-reform-43996/
Myanmar’s siren song
Unions and labour rights groups have spent recent months unashamedly drilling home a stark reminder: Cambodia’s minimum garment wage, at $61 per month, compares poorly with those in Thailand – where workers earn more than $200 a month – and Vietnam, which has a base ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013031861998/National/myanmar-s-siren-song.html
EU Fish Ban Blamed on Cambodian-Flagged Vessels
A ban on imports of Cambodian seafood proposed by the European Commission (E.C.) is in direct response to Cambodian-flagged vessels complicit in illegal fishing in international waters, Jean-Francois Cautain, European Union (E.U.) ambassador to Cambodia, said Wednesday. The E.C. on Tuesday announced that Cambodia was “non-cooperating ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/eu-fish-ban-blamed-on-cambodian-flagged-vessels-48065/
Government Ties CNRP to Bombings, ‘Terrorist’ Group
A package of documents and DVDs sent from the Ministry of Interior to foreign embassies and NGOs this week uses speeches made by opposition leaders Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy, criminal acts that have occurred since the election and a letter from an alleged terrorist ...
Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/government-ties-cnrp-to-bombings-terrorist-group-41431/
CNRP’s Next Challenge—How to Compromise
Over the past three days, the CNRP conducted one of the most significant campaigns of mass demonstrations against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government in years. For three days, more than 20,000 people packed into Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park for daily appearances from opposition leaders Sam Rainsy ...
Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/cnrps-next-challenge-how-to-compromise-42580/
Phnom Penh Trash Collectors Dance for Demands
Piles of garbage festered on the streets of Phnom Penh on Tuesday as hundreds of workers employed by the city’s refuse collection company, Cintri, continued to strike for higher wages and better working conditions. At the company’s truck depot in Dangkao district Tuesday morning, more than ...
Ben Sokhean and Alice Cuddy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/phnom-penh-trash-collectors-dance-for-demands-51432/
City Defends Boeng Kak Project, Attacks Critics
The filling of Boeng Kak lake and the eviction of thousands of residents was necessary to root out the “prostitutes and terrorists” that were drawn to the area’s once-popular tourist zone, the Phnom Penh Municipality said in a statement yesterday. In a statement posted to its ...
Jubilation as Pair Acquitted of Union Leader’s Assassination
Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, the men wrongfully sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 2004 murder of Free Trade Union (FTU) leader Chea Vichea, were exonerated Wednesday by the Supreme Court of the crime. Responding to the acquittal, Chea Vichea’s brother, Chea Mony, ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/jubilation-as-pair-acquitted-of-union-leaders-assassination-43396/