Civil society

The government has seized back more than 12,000 hectares of land previously awarded to seven companies as economic land concessions (ELCs), according to a letter from the Council of Ministers. It explains that licences awarded from 2006 to 2011 for eight ELCs in the provinces ...

Cambodian authorities have held two rounds of talks with garment factory owners and unions under a new mechanism to help break a deadlock over increasing the workers’ monthly minimum wage but to no avail. But Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said that he expected the Garment ...

A French non-governmental organization (NGO) director had been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing seven boys, police and anti-pedophilia agent said on Thursday. Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), a child protection NGO, assisted the police in an investigation that led to the arrest, the police ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen is set for a monthly salary hike of more than $900 as part of sweeping changes to senior government and high-ranking civil servant bonuses, according to a new sub-decree. The document, dated October 13 and obtained by the Post yesterday, states that ...

The wife of slain journalist Taing Try filed a complaint with the Kratie Provincial Court on Tuesday urging judicial officials to bring charges against two more men, including a local military police chief, for her husband’s murder on Sunday. ...

Activists from two local rights groups yesterday accused soldiers in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district of seizing their cameras and stopping them from investigating a land dispute. ...

Following a meeting with parliamentarians at the National Assembly yesterday, Minister of Labour Ith Sam Heng announced the ministry would form a 27-member committee to study technical aspects of raising the minimum wage in Cambodia’s garment sector. The new committee will comprise nine representatives each from ...

The three men arrested for the murder of 49-year-old journalist Taing Try in Kratie province on Sunday morning confessed to murdering the reporter after he threatened to tell authorities about their illegal logging activities, a police official said. ...

Very quietly, with no official public announcement, the intergovernmental assessment process for Laos’s contentious Don Sahong dam is almost over before anyone knew it began. ...

A 49-year-old journalist reportedly investigating illegal logging in Kratie province was shot dead early Sunday morning. Within hours, police arrested three men—a commune police chief, a military police officer and a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldier—for the murder, officials said. Taing Try, who contributed to ...

Luxury cars and fancy homes are among the lavish gifts Cambodia’s political and business elite shower each other with on special occasions but there are hints the government is moving to curb such excesses. Patronage has long been a problem in impoverished Cambodia, with bribery ...

NGOs have filed a new complaint against Australia’s ANZ Bank claiming it owes compensation to 681 Cambodian families who say their farms were illegally grabbed by a sugarcane plantation the bank helped to finance. ...

City Hall has banned street marches for World Teachers’ Day and World Housing Rights Day, ordering participants to confine their activities to Freedom Park instead. World Teachers’ Day and World Housing Rights Day occur on October 5 and 6, respectively. Planners for both expressed disappointment ...

Over 85 per cent of child domestic workers in Phnom Penh are injured in the course of their employment, research into child labour released yesterday revealed. The Cambodian Development Research Institute and World Vision International are jointly examining child labour practices in the Kingdom, and the ...

Cambodia on Tuesday defended its plan to build the 108-megawatt Chhay Areng River hydropower plant in a jungle in southwestern Koh Kong province, saying the project would greatly contribute to developing the energy sector. “An initial study found that the project has a capacity of 108 ...

The construction of Koh Kong’s Cheay Areng hydrowpower dam will cost USD 400 million and be completed by 2020, said Energy Secretary of State Ith Prang Tuesday. Speaking at a press conference, he said the study of the dam and its impact on environment has been ...

With the spectre of potential garment-sector unrest on the horizon and emboldened communities protesting land disputes, the National Police is buying what appear to be the authorities’ first water-cannon trucks designed specifically to control demonstrations. In advertisements in yesterday’s Post and Post Khmer newspapers, the ...

A new study indicated that 43. 2 percent of Cambodian garment workers suffered from anemia and 15. 7 percent of workers are underweight, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said Monday. The study also found that garment workers spent approximately 1. 3 U.S. dollars per day on ...

Minister of Mines and Energy Suy Sem has issued a letter to the National Assembly commission on the environment, offering assurances that the planned Stung Cheay Areng Hydropower Dam will meet high environmental and social standards. Opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party member Te Chanmony on September ...

Villagers whose homes will be destroyed if the controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam is built are to deliver today a letter to provincial authorities announcing that they refuse to be resettled. Meach Mean, coordinator of the 3S Rivers Protection Network, said the villagers, who hail from ...

About 2,000 workers from the Chinese-owned Juhui Footwear factory in Kompong Cham province began a fresh round of protests on Friday and Saturday over claims that the factory is refusing to rehire unionists who were fired during a strike earlier this month, a provincial official ...

The Cambodia’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) had received 728 corruption-related complaints in the first nine months of this year, down 16 percent from the same period last year, the agency said in a statement on Sunday. “From January to September 2014, the ACU had received a total ...

Negotiations held on Friday between garment factory owners, union leaders and government officials failed to set a new industry minimum wage for next year, but a final decision will be reached by October 10, according to Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng. The tripartite Labor Advisory Council ...

Transparency International Cambodia yesterday presented findings of a recent scathing report on corruption to the newly formed parliamentary anti-corruption commission. ...