Social development
Authorities halt march against Lao dam, citing Khmer New Year
Kompong Cham authorities blocked several hundred activists from marching Monday to raise awareness about the environmental dangers raised by Don Sahong dam, officials and activists said. Kompong Cham provincial governor Lun Limthai confirmed that he banned the campaign. “We did not allow them to hold this ...
Khuon Narim and Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/authorities-halt-march-against-lao-dam-citing-khmer-new-year-55385/
Social Security Fund starts new insurance scheme
The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) on Monday launched an initiative to provide health insurance to the nation’s workforce, a plan that the country’s largest employers’ associations said was premature. NSSF director Ouk Samvithya said that by the middle of this year, enterprises in the country ...
Aun Pheap and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/social-security-fund-starts-new-insurance-scheme-55375/
Compensation plan agreed to, says ADB
Following a scathing report from its internal watchdog about the resettlement of thousands of Cambodian families affected by a national railway rehabilitation project that it is funding, the Asian Development Bank has agreed with the government on an action plan for further compensation, it said ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/compensation-plan-agreed-says-adb
Report claims $75 Million in damages from January demonstrations
The Cambodian government says it has no plans so far to carry out a lawsuit against the opposition for damages from violent demonstrations in January. The Ministry of Interior has released a report, claiming $72 million in public and private damages, including to 95 different factories, ...
Khoun Theara
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/report-claims-75-million-in-damages-from-january-demonstrations/1883036.html
Cambodia Police Beat Protesters for TV License Bid
Police in Cambodia on Monday beat anti-government demonstrators who tried to defy a ban on public demonstrations to demand a license for what would be the Southeast Asian nation’s first opposition television channel. Several hundred supporters of Mam Sonando, a fierce government critic, came out to ...
Sopheng Cheang
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/cambodia-police-beat-protesters-tv-license-bid-23123156
NGOs issue one more plea to stop Xayaburi
With time running short before Laos’s Xayaburi hydropower dam enters its final, potentially irreversible stages of construction, a group of NGOs has made another call for its suspension. In a joint declaration released today, 39 organisations based in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Australia set a one-year ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ngos-issue-one-more-plea-stop-xayaburi
Union bosses called in
Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday summonsed three senior leaders of Cambodia’s largest independent garment union for questioning over claims they embezzled money meant to be paid to workers in compensation following an industrial dispute, a court official has said. ...
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/union-bosses-called
Two killed in mine, mortar shell blasts in Battambang, Pailin
A man and a teenage boy were killed by an anti-tank mine and a mortar shell in separate incidents on Friday and Saturday, according to police. In Battambang province, Chea Toum, 37, was seriously injured when the tractor he was walking behind set off a buried ...
Hay Pisey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/two-killed-in-mine-mortar-shell-blasts-in-battambang-pailin-55263/
Mam Sonando says protest will proceed, but he won’t lead
Independent radio station owner Mam Sonando said he would not lead a banned protest he had planned for today outside Information Ministry headquarters in Phnom Penh, but would attend if his supporters went ahead with the demonstration on their own. “I will not lead [the protest] ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/mam-sonando-says-protest-will-proceed-but-he-wont-lead-55252/
Lawyer has hopes Veng Sreng clients will be freed
A lawyer representing three of the 23 people arrested during garment strike clashes on January 2 and 3 hopes the capital’s court will drop charges against her clients when it hears their case on April 18, she said yesterday. ...
Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/lawyer-has-hopes-veng-sreng-clients-will-be-freed
Official says Cambodia not ready for ASEAN Free Trade
Cambodia is not prepared to join Asean’s single regional market and production base next year, a Labor Ministry official said Friday. Next year, the 10 nations of Asean are to create the Asean Economic Community (AEC). Within this community, labor is to flow freely and import ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/official-says-cambodia-not-ready-for-asean-free-trade-55203/
Workers to file stories from the factory floor
The Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) is hoping to turn a select group of garment workers into muckrakers by offering a journalism program through the Voice of Democracy news outlet. Free of charge, the course will last until October and have a firm focus on ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/workers-file-stories-factory-floor
Hundreds protest Laos dam
Yin Vuth, one of hundreds of Cambodians who protested against the Don Sahong dam over the weekend, said that if construction on the project in Laos goes ahead, the fish will disappear, and once the fish disappear, the dolphins will be next. “All we will have ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/hundreds-protest-laos-dam
New Clinic Marks Turning Point for Correcting Cleft Surgeries
In a bustling room at Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital in Phnom Penh, doctors from the Philippines, the U.S. and Nigeria gathered Sunday around a young boy, sitting in a plastic chair, and asked him to open his mouth wide. The boy is one of more than 100 ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/new-clinic-marks-turning-point-for-correcting-cleft-surgeries-55256/
Cambodia needs more actions to curb bird flu: PM
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Friday that the country needed to prepare more measures to curb the spread of H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which broke out the worst last year and this year. “We have done a lot to control the spread of the ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-03/28/c_133220954.htm
In effeminate tones, Hun Sen lampoons opposition politicians
Prime Minister Hun Sen used the opening ceremony of a dam in Pursat province Thursday to act out a scene of biting political satire by pouring scorn on promises from the opposition CNRP to simultaneously reduce food prices in markets, while increasing prices paid to ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/in-effeminate-tones-hun-sen-lampoons-opposition-politicians-55131/
Boxes for donations, not bribes: minister
The minister of education proposed yesterday that donation boxes for teachers be installed in schools across the country, but stressed their aim would be to diminish rather than grow a culture of bribery in the system. Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron presented the idea for the ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/boxes-donations-not-bribes-minister
A recipe for disaster
Small plastic packets filled with a mix of pills of various sizes, shapes and colours sit piled on the counter of a pharmacy in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, home to several large garment factories. At 2,000 riel a pop, about 50 cents, these packs are sold ...
Kevin Ponniah and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/recipe-disaster
Relocated ‘need more’
Minister of Environment Say Sam El urged economic land concessionaire Union Development Group (UDG) – the mega-resort developer at the centre of a long-running Koh Kong province land dispute – to provide sufficient infrastructure in the relocation areas provided for residents it displaced, a ministry ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/relocated-%E2%80%98need-more%E2%80%99
Education official says don’t jail exam cheats
A senior Education Ministry official on Thursday said that jailing students caught cheating, as threatened by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Tuesday, was the wrong approach to cleaning up the national high school exam. Instead, he called for a budget increase to offset losses that teachers ...
Matt Blomberg and Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/education-official-says-dont-jail-exam-cheats-55135/
Cambodian shot, killed in Thailand
A Cambodian national was fatally shot near the Thailand-Cambodia border on Wednesday in the latest of a string of deadly incidents along the border this month, officials said yesterday. Theng Sokla, 27, a native of Pailin province’s Sala Krao district, was hunting for animals on a ...
Cheang Sokha
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cambodian-shot-killed-thailand
Grappling with avian flu, Cambodians wait for compensation
In little more than a year, 16 Cambodians are known to have died from the human form of avian influenza H5N1, the highest number of fatalities in the world. Experts have met in Phnom Penh to try to work out why. The latest victim of ...
Global Times News Staff
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/851455.shtml#.Uzd_zKiSyls
Sub-Decree aims to better regulate pharmacies
Prime Minister Hun Sen has signed a sub-decree to better regulate pharmacies, a business fraught with fake drugs and fake diplomas. The new sub-decree of the Pharmacists’ Code of Ethics contains 71 articles. They ban distribution of fake drugs and the use of titles not ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sub-decree-aims-to-better-regulate-pharmacies-55138/
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/