Social development
200 workers protest against forced overtime
About 200 workers from the Chinese-owned Pollysa (Cambodia) Home Textile factory in Sihanoukville protested Wednesday against the overtime they were being forced to work and the firing of 20 employees earlier this week who refused the extra hours, workers and a union representative said. Starting at ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/200-factory-workers-protest-against-forced-overtime-63085/
Developer ordered to halt work on disputed land
The governor of Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district Wednesday ordered the private firm heading a $3-billion real estate project on the peninsula to temporarily stop pumping sand onto land being contested by about 40 local families, but urged the families to reconsider the compensation on ...
Sek Odom and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/developer-ordered-to-halt-work-on-disputed-land-63087/
‘Chemical’ barrels to be tested
Experts will begin tests today on two barrels discovered in Mondulkiri province earlier this week, which are suspected to contain chemicals used by the US in the 1970s in its war against the Viet Cong, officials said yesterday. Heng Ratana, director general of the Cambodian Mine ...
Sen David and Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98chemical%E2%80%99-barrels-be-tested
Cambodia’s Defense of Rights Record at UN Review Slammed
Foreign donors should push Cambodia’s government to end its human rights abuses as part of its bid to maintain political control of the nation, a rights group said Wednesday, after Phnom Penh allegedly snubbed recommendations by foreign governments to improve the country’s rights record. Representatives of ...
Joshua Lipes
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/review-07022014161641.html
Villagers find chemicals dropped by us in 1970s
Villagers in Mondolkiri province have found a pair of rusty barrels believed to date back to the early 1970s and which officials suspect hold chemicals the U.S. used in its war against the Viet Cong to defoliate trees and eliminate cover. The officials said they did ...
Saing Soenthrith and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-find-chemicals-dropped-by-us-in-1970s-62934/
Borei Keila solution talks set
A public forum will be held next month to find a solution to the Borei Keila housing crisis, city officials said yesterday. During a meeting with about 50 representatives of the community, Nhem Chanthary, deputy director of City Hall’s poor community development office, said Governor Pa ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/borei-keila-solution-talks-set
Ethnic activists targets of arrest, threats: NGO
More than 100 ethnic minority activists trying to protect community forests have been arrested, jailed, threatened and subjected to violence so far this year, a major local rights group has said. In a statement released yesterday, Adhoc condemned the “discriminatory” treatment of indigenous people who have ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ethnic-activists-targets-arrest-threats-ngo
Bunong vow to act against Mondolkiri loggers
Ethnic Bunong in Mondolkiri province’s Sen Monorom City said Tuesday that they would no longer cooperate with local officials in fighting illegal logging and that they would begin to confiscate loggers’ equipment and burn illicit timber themselves. At a press conference in Phnom Penh, representatives of ...
Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/bunong-vow-to-act-against-mondolkiri-loggers-62960/
Chroy Changva locals threaten ocic pipeline
District security guards were deployed to Chroy Changva peninsula Tuesday to intercept villagers who were ready to smash a pipe that has been pumping sand onto their land for the past year. The roughly 40 families occupy the northeastern corner of a 387-hectare swathe of wetlands ...
Sek Odom and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/chroy-changva-locals-threaten-ocic-pipeline-62950/
Delay Sesan dam: villagers
Villagers who will be displaced if the controversial Lower Sesan II dam is built called on the developers yesterday to postpone construction for five years, allowing time for a comprehensive resettlement scheme to be devised. But a government official dismissed their request as “beyond the pale”, ...
Phak Seangly and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/delay-sesan-dam-villagers
Security guards accused of beating
Security guards working for a firm building a resort in Koh Kong province beat a woman who was trying to farm the land from which she had been evicted, she has told police. Khun Phall, 40, said that on Monday evening, she and family members returned ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/security-guards-accused-beating
SMF defends funding cuts to partner NGO
The Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) has said its decision to cut off funding to Agir Pour Les Femmes en Situation Precaire (Afesip) came partly because of the continued involvement of embattled anti-human-trafficking activist Somaly Mam in the local NGO. In a statement on Monday, the SMF ...
Chhay Channyda and Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/smf-defends-funding-cuts-partner-ngo
Student teachers are put back on the exam list
The Siem Reap provincial department of education, youth and sports overruled a decision by the director of the provincial teachers training center to ban two outspoken teachers-in-training from their upcoming final exam after a successful protest by about 250 of their peers Tuesday. Vin Savy, 21, ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/student-teachers-are-put-back-on-the-exam-list-62962/
Cambodia, China drafting agreement to curb bride trafficking
Cambodia and China are drafting a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to stamp out the exploitative trade of Cambodian women to China, where there have been increasing reports of women being abused by their Chinese husbands and sold into the sex trade. The diplomatic push comes in ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-china-drafting-agreement-to-curb-bride-trafficking-62940/
Villagers accuse Mondolkiri company of major deforestation
Mondolkiri provincial villagers on Tuesday accused authorities there of colluding with a development company involved in serious deforestation. The Phnong minority villagers say the wife of the deputy provincial governor owns the company, Villas Development, which is allegedly involved in illegal logging. The activists spoke Tuesday ...
Suy Heimkhemra
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/villagers-accuse-mondolkiri-company-of-major-deforestation/1948555.html
Land issues creating mistrust of local officials, observers say
Despite a number of agencies dispatched to solve land dispute, rights workers say people continue to face forced evictions and rights abuses by land developments. These problems are not being handled at the local level, fueling mistrust in local government, rights workers say. Rights workers from myriad ...
Suy Heimkhemra
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/land-issues-creating-mistrust-of-local-officials-observers-say/1947717.html
Life as a brokered wife
Barely able to make enough money to survive in her hometown, Sok Chenda* picked up her passport and a few belongings last year and headed to the provincial capital of Kampong Cham. It was a journey she would regret. The eldest daughter among five siblings, Chenda, 28, ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/life-brokered-wife
Workers win seniority pay
A six-month standoff that eventually halted a box factory’s production ended on Friday, when managers of the factory in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district paid seniority bonuses to almost 150 former employees. Harta Packaging Industries paid bonuses of between $500 and $4,000 to a total ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/workers-win-seniority-pay
Laos will consult with neighbors over dam
The Lao government has agreed to a lengthy public consultation process with its neighbors before building a controversial hydropower dam on the Mekong River, within 2 km of the Cambodian border, according to the environmental group WWF. Laos announced the 256-MW Don Sahong dam last year ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/laos-will-consult-with-neighbors-over-dam-62740/
Parties face off at VN border
About 100 plainclothes men, some wielding sticks, tried to block a group of opposition activists and youth supporters in Svay Rieng province yesterday from reaching a disputed section of the Cambodia-Vietnam border. Clashes broke out at about 10am between the group of Cambodia National Rescue Party ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/parties-face-vn-border
Citizen-led media gets new blog
In a bid to highlight abuses in the workplace, an NGO today will officially launch a website and hotline, allowing people to post stories as citizen journalists. The Community Legal Education Center (CLEC) will hold a ceremony this morning promoting their new project, Voice of the ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/citizen-led-media-gets-new-blog
Boeng Kak factions brawl over police base
The once unified fight of the Boeng Kak lake community against their forced eviction visibly fractured over the weekend, as factions within the community accused each other of literally casting the first stone in a brawl that broke out Saturday over a new military police ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/boeng-kak-factions-brawl-over-police-base-62731/
As lake disappears, a development dilemma
Looking out from his house, held up by three-meter stilts on a peninsula that juts into Boeng Tompun lake, Chan Sokhom can see the sand inching closer to him every day. Within a few years, the sand will likely reach his doorstep. By then, Mr. Sokhom ...
Cameron Rhoads and Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/as-lake-disappears-a-development-dilemma-62718/
Media union to set record straight on big exodus of Cambodians
The Union Media of Asean, an association of Thai and Cambodian journalists based in Sa Kaew, has agreed to set the record straight about the policy of Thailand’s ruling junta towards migrant workers, particularly those from Cambodia. Reporters affiliated with UMA would pass on the truth ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=NDI1ZTI5OGJmZjg