Government
SL Workers Demand Representatives Reinstated
About 200 workers protested outside SL Garment Factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district Wednesday demanding that managers reinstate 19 union representatives before a 15-day deadline set by the government elapses. The Council of Ministers has ordered the factory to rehire the fired unionists or face punitive ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sl-workers-demand-representatives-reinstated-47539/
Opposition Senators To Boycott Budget Debate
Eleven senators supporting the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party say they will not take part in a Senate session on Thursday scheduled to debate the 2014 budget. Opposition senators say they will not endorse a budget that did not go through proper parliamentary procedure and ...
Heng Reaksmey
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/opposition-senators-to-boycott-budget-debate/1794206.html
Hun Sen’s Student Volunteers to Resume Land-Titling Program
The government is set to start re-deploying student volunteers to measure and demarcate plots of land across the country as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s land-titling scheme, which was briefly suspended ahead of July’s national election. The program was announced by the prime minister in ...
Kuch Naren and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sens-student-volunteers-to-resume-land-titling-program-47528/
Official Says Legality of Sanctuary Logging Unknown
A district-level Environment Ministry official in Ratanakkiri province on Wednesday claimed that he had no way to determine the legality of logging operations by firms with private land concessions inside the province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. The claim by Chou Sopheak, director of Lumphat district’s environment department, ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/official-says-legality-of-sanctuary-logging-unknown-47518/
Finance Ministry Defends Ambiguity in 2014 Budget Bill
The Finance Ministry on Wednesday defended itself against recent reports that some 45 percent of the government’s $3.4 billion draft budget for 2014 remains unallocated, issuing a statement explaining that the money will pay for loans, subsidies and other vital expenses. According to the statement, ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/finance-ministry-defends-ambiguity-in-2014-budget-bill-47530/
Chinatown location still unknown
Historic O’Russey Market will not be the location of a planned Chinatown development, according to Cambodia’s Tourism Minister. Tourism Minister Thong Khon said the government was looking for another site for the tourism-focused development and that O’Russey Market was not under consideration, as had recently been ...
Post Staff
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/real-estate/chinatown-location-still-unknown
Cambodia hosts int'l vaccine, immunization meeting
The Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI) Board meeting was held here on Thursday to decide which new vaccines will be added to the organization’s portfolio. The two-day meeting brought together 160 people who are representatives of donors and developing countries, civil society organizations, vaccine ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-11/21/c_132906783.htm
Rainsy slams informal EU monitors
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has rebuked the European Union over two low-profile election experts it sent to monitor July’s elections, claiming their presence had undermined Cambodian democracy. In a letter sent on Tuesday to Ugu Astuto, the EU’s top diplomat for South and Southeast Asia, Rainsy ...
Meas Sokchea and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rainsy-slams-informal-eu-monitors
Numbers don’t add up
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has released a nine-month status report on 2013’s illegal timber seizures, saying it had confiscated, among other things, more than 2,000 kilograms of rosewood – a figure that represents only a tiny fraction of seizures reported by the Post this ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/numbers-don%E2%80%99t-add
Strike reaches City Hall
More than 100 workers from the Alim garment factory in Phnom Penh marched on City Hall yesterday, demanding the dismissal of four managers. Yam Thaisan, a legal officer from a union representing the workers at the Por Sen Chey district factory, said strikers had called on ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/strike-reaches-city-hall
Police Have Not Enforced Traffic Laws for Four Months
Traffic police across the country have still not resumed enforcing traffic laws after a pre-election enforcement moratorium that was meant to last just a few weeks ahead of the July 28 poll, according to government and U.N. officials. “The superiors ordered [police] to stop, for a ...
Khuon Narim and Joshua Wilwohl
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/police-have-not-enforced-traffic-laws-for-four-months-47521/
Three Cambodians Killed Illegally Logging Across Thai Border
Thai forestry officials killed three Cambodians who were illegally logging on Tuesday, in what they said was a shootout in Thailand’s Sisaket province, a border official said Wednesday. The latest deaths bring the number of Cambodians who have been shot while logging across the border this ...
Saing Soenthrith
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/three-cambodians-killed-illegally-logging-across-thai-border-47532/
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/
CNRP Says No Further Negotiations Without Investigation
CNRP leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha said Tuesday that the opposition party will no longer negotiate over the political deadlock with the CPP until the ruling party agrees to a transparent election investigation. The CNRP’s 55 lawmakers-elect have been boycotting the National Assembly since it ...
Mech Dara and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cnrp-says-no-further-negotiations-without-investigation-47383/
Rights Group Slams ‘Rampant Impunity’ in Cambodia
A Cambodian rights group said Wednesday that impunity is on the rise in Cambodia, hitting out at the authorities for failing to resolve a number of high-profile killings and bring the perpetrators to justice. Ahead of International Day to End Impunity on Saturday, the Cambodian ...
Radio Free Asia Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/impunity-11202013182832.html
Court Charges Official With Corruption Over Pension Scandal
The Kompong Cham Provincial Court on Saturday charged the chief of Srei Santhor district’s social affairs office with corruption following his arrest by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Friday for withholding pensions and other bonuses from retired teachers, a court official said Tuesday. Provincial court deputy ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/court-charges-official-with-corruption-over-pension-scandal-47381/
Report calls out Pheap
Logging tycoon Try Pheap’s rapidly expanding land empire, criticised by rights groups for displacing families and encroaching on protected forest areas, has grown to almost 70,000 hectares in size and is helping to facilitate a cross-border illegal logging operation, a report released today alleges. The Cambodian ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/report-calls-out-pheap
ACU Arrests Customs Officer, Two EdC Staff
The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) arrested a senior customs official in Preah Sihanouk province and two Electricte du Cambodge (EdC) officials in Mondolkiri province in separate corruption cases this week, ACU and court officials said Friday. Mondolkiri Provincial Court prosecutor Khut Sopheang said two staff members of ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/acu-arrests-customs-officer-two-edc-staff-48225/
Foreign Minister’s Son to Step Down as UK Envoy
Hor Nambora, the son of Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, will step down as Cambodia’s ambassador to Britain, according to an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Cheung Buntheng, undersecretary of state at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, said Tuesday that Meas Kimheng, an adviser to Mr. ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/foreign-ministers-son-to-step-down-as-uk-envoy-47397/
Factory Ordered To Hire Back Union Leaders After Violent Protest
The government has ordered the SL Garment factory to rehire 19 worker representatives, following a brutal crackdown on demonstrators outside the home of Prime Minister Hun Sen last week. In a letter to the company, Khun Chinken, undersecretary of state for the Ministry of Labor, said ...
Kong Sothanarith
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/factory-ordered-to-hire-back-union-leaders-after-violent-protest/1792644.html
Phnom Penh’s 5 New Districts Create Fears of Gerrymandering
Phnom Penh City Hall’s plans to undertake the largest redrawing of the city’s administrative boundaries in decades, by creating five new districts before May’s district and city-level council elections, is likely an effort to gerrymander voting constituencies, a senior opposition party member said Monday. Municipal government ...
Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/phnom-penhs-5-new-districts-create-fears-of-gerrymandering-47269/
Japan to Assist Cambodia With Election Reform
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to help Cambodia with electoral reforms, following a request by Prime Minister Hun Sen to send experts to the country ahead of future polls and amid an ongoing dispute over national elections held more than three months ago. The ...
Radio Free Asia News Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/japan-11182013183828.html
Vietnam Doubts Sustainability of Second Lao Dam Project on Mekong
Vietnam has joined Cambodia in questioning the sustainability of the planned Don Sahong dam project on the Mekong River in southern Laos, saying more environmental impact studies are needed before the scheme moves forward. Le Duc Trung, director general of the Vietnam National Mekong Committee under ...
Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/dam-11152013181814.html
Cambodia's trade with China up 31 pct in 9 months
The bilateral trade volume between Cambodia and China rose by 31 percent in the first nine months of the year thanks to closer ties between the two governments, Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo said Thursday. From January to September this year, the two-way trade volume ...
ECNS News Staff
http://www.ecns.cn/business/2013/11-15/88574.shtml