Hun Sen’s 6-Hour Reform Promise Met With Yawns
Residents of Phnom Penh on Wednesday expressed boredom and disbelief as Prime Minister Hun Sen passed his previous record-breaking five-hour speech on border demarcation last year with a more than six-hour-long monologue on government reforms he says are planned. Evoking images of elaborate self-criticism sessions the ...
Mech Dara and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sens-6-hour-reform-promise-met-with-yawns-43401/
CPP Blames Stalled Talks on CNRP Divisions
The cabinet chief of CPP Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng has blamed internal strife within the opposition CNRP for stalled negotiations that might break the present political impasse that has led the CNRP’s 55 lawmakers-elect to boycott parliament. In a statement issued ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/cpp-blames-stalled-talks-on-cnrp-divisions-44999/
Protesters Move Largely Unhindered by Police Checkpoints
Despite the return of police checkpoints around Phnom Penh on Wednesday morning ahead of the opposition CNRP’s latest protest against July’s still-disputed national election, most demonstrators coming in from the provinces were let through. Typifying what turned out to be a lighter security touch compared to ...
Khuon Narim and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/protesters-move-largely-unhindered-by-police-checkpoints-45741/
Increasingly, Cambodians Say They are ‘Suffering’: Poll
An increasing number of Cambodians see themselves faring worse, a Gallup polls suggests. In a global survey released earlier this month, the US-based firm ranked Cambodia near the very bottom in terms of life satisfaction, and it found that 34 percent of surveyed Cambodians consider themselves ...
Vannarin Neou
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/increasingly-cambodians-say-they-are-suffering/1819008.html
Rainsy tells supporters to heed fall of Yanukovich
SA’ANG DISTRICT, Kandal province – A little over a month after supporters of Prime Minister Hun Sen forced the cancellation of an opposition party rally here, CNRP leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha returned to address followers and promise that the change that swept away ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rainsy-tells-supporters-to-heed-fall-of-yanukovich-53273/
Three convicted over clash with police on Monivong Bridge
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday sentenced three men of six suspects to prison terms for their role in the September 15 clashes on Monivong Bridge between police and stone throwing youths, during which a man was killed and several were wounded by police ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/three-convicted-over-clash-with-police-on-monivong-bridge-53388/
Gov’t pins $275,000 in protest damage on CNRP
A government committee charged with assessing damage from the garment worker protests in December and January has put the value of the destruction at over $250,000. It places blame squarely on the opposition CNRP and a trio of union leaders. That committee’s report, released Thursday, ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/govt-pins-275000-in-protest-damage-on-cnrp-55123/
Deal would send workers to Saudi Arabia
Cambodia is nearing a deal that would open a pipeline of workers to Saudi Arabia, a country where Southeast Asian migrants have in the past been abused and even executed for crimes that include “Sorcery”. Following a meeting in Hanoi last week with Saudi Ambassador Salah ...
Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/deal-would-send-workers-saudi-arabia
City on a hill sparks little talk
A casino complex on top of Kampot province’s Bokor Mountain will open in less than two weeks – but environmental groups are strangely quiet about the effects the development, the size of a small city, could have on Cambodia’s natural heritage. The complex, in the Preah ...
Zoo fighting back from brink
A leopard appears healthy and strong as it paces the walls of its cage with a confident swagger and muffled growl that hints at its ferocity. It’s a welcome sight at Kampot province’s much-maligned Teuk Chhou zoo, which less than one year ago was struggling to ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012031355003/National-news/zoo-fighting-back-from-brink.html
Standards Building Up Safety Fears
When a 100-metre-long section of a Phnom Penh garment factory crumpled in on itself like a cheap pup tent, Sen Sok district officials promised an investigation. The results of that investigation, which was to have taken place more than a year ago, in March 2012, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052265780/National/standards-building-up-safety-fears.html
Cambodia Falls Short as Garment-Industry Model
This small Southeast Asian country was supposed to become a model for the world apparel industry, with tough factory monitoring and strong worker protections. But a dozen years after the United Nations’ International Labour Organization launched a program to manage Cambodia’s booming garment trade—the first of ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324423904578521240151597504.html
Illegal Construction Rampant in Angkor Heritage Site
In the months leading up to Cambodia’s national election on July 28, authorities in the Angkor Archaeological Park allowed dozens of land owners to build new houses and develop plots of land inside highly protected areas of the world heritage site. Villagers interviewed last week said ...
Phorn Bopha and Simon Marks
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/illegal-construction-rampant-in-angkor-heritage-site-42860/
Opposition Party Threatens Nationwide Labor Strikes
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy on Wednesday announced that his party could stage nationwide labor strikes in protest of disputed election results, and said the CNRP would begin an international campaign to make the CPP government a pariah state. “In the air is an idea of ...
Phorn Bopha and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/opposition-party-threatens-nationwide-labor-strikes-43403/
ELC in Nature Preserve Is Illegal, Government Spokesman Says
An “unofficial” land concession granted earlier this year to an agro-industry firm that has logged luxury hardwood in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary is in violation of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 moratorium on new economic land concessions (ELCs), a government spokesman said Tuesday. Phay Siphan, ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/elc-in-nature-preserve-is-illegal-government-spokesman-says-47379/
Ex-Finance Minister’s Sister Buys Up More Ethnic Jarai Lands
About 50 ethnic Jarai families in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district have sold their farmland and part of the forests their culture depends on to the sister of former Finance Minister Keat Chhon, rights group Adhoc said Monday. Last year, the ethnic minority Jarai in the district ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ex-finance-ministers-sister-buys-up-more-ethnic-jarai-lands-45093/
Social Media Challenges ‘Official’ Version of Events
Seeing is believing—particularly in a country where the government controls the broadcast media and current affairs news, aired on pro-ruling party TV and radio, is often at odds with the country’s few independent media outlets. But in the aftermath of a violent clash between striking garment ...
Kuch Naren and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/social-media-challenges-official-version-of-events-47012/
Floods a Yearly Trial for Those Living Along Mekong
TBONG KHUM DISTRICT, Kompong Cham province – From November to May, the Mekong River is quiet. So is life for the hundreds of thousands of people who live along its banks, which in Cambodia forms a 155,000 square km basin covering six provinces and Phnom ...
Aun Pheap and Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/floods-a-yearly-trial-for-those-living-along-mekong-44143/
We’ll always have Paris
It may not be a milestone anniversary, but the significance of this day 22 years ago is something the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party wants everyone to remember when it begins its latest mass protest this morning, a spokesman said yesterday. From today until Friday, ...
Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/we%E2%80%99ll-always-have-paris
Rainsy Evokes Gandhi as Example for Opposition
CNRP leader Sam Rainsy on Thursday publicly announced the opposition’s intention to conduct a campaign of civil disobedience in line with peaceful demonstrations organized by the charismatic leader of Indian nationalism Mahatma Gandhi, who helped win independence from Great Britain. Mr. Rainsy made the remarks at ...
Colin Meyn and Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/rainsy-evokes-gandhi-as-example-for-opposition-41429/