Government
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
Nation’s youngest lack teachers
Fewer and fewer primary schoolteachers are willing to cope with poor pay and the worst student-to-teacher ratio outside of Africa, government data shows. Annual reports released by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport reveal that despite fervent recruitment efforts, every year since 2005 – when ...
Laignee Barron and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/nation%E2%80%99s-youngest-lack-teachers
Update says rubber company up to old tricks
Vietnamese rubber firm Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) has failed to keep its commitments to address human rights and environmental abuses at its plantations in Cambodia, Global Witness said in a statement yesterday. In May, the London-based NGO published an investigation into two Vietnamese rubber companies ...
Phak Seangly and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/update-says-rubber-company-old-tricks
Anniversary marked by inaction
Six months after two of her co-workers were crushed to death when a storage level collapsed at the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kampong Speu, employee Yu Manith is noticing the cracks in a factory wall beginning to expand. Shortly after police rummaged through the ...
Shane Worrell and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/anniversary-marked-inaction
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/
Global Fund axes suppliers over Cambodia malaria graft
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced Thursday it had suspended contracts with two international suppliers of mosquito nets after uncovering serious financial wrongdoing in Cambodia. The move followed a probe by Global Fund inspectors into claims of corruption at the suppliers, ...
Rights Group Wants Abe to Press Cambodia on Poll Probe
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who makes a visit to Phnom Penh this weekend, should leverage his country’s aid to pressure the Cambodian government to launch an independent probe into fraud and other irregularities in disputed elections, a rights group said Thursday. As head of the ...
Radio Free Asia News Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/investigation-11142013171238.html
Cambodia Health Ministry Reports Two More Human H5N1 Cases, Brings Total To 26 This Year
The Cambodian Ministry of Heath (MOH) reported today the confirmation of two additional of human H5N1 avian influenza cases, the 25th and 26th cases of 2013, according to a Joint Press Release from the MOH and the World Health Organization (WHO) dated Nov. 14. According to ...
Robert Herriman
http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/cambodia-health-ministry-reports-two-more-human-h5n1-cases-brings-total-to-26-this-year-13599/
Cambodia's trade with Vietnam reaches 2.7 bln USD in 9 months
Bilateral trade volume between Cambodia and its neighboring Vietnam has hit 2.7 billion U.S. dollars in the first nine months of the year, up 10 percent compared with the 2.45 billion U.S. dollars over the same period last year, a Cambodian trade official said Thursday. Kem ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2013-11/14/c_132887645.htm
Insurance claims through the roof
Partly triggered by recent flood damage and an increase in road accidents, claims filed with the six general insurance companies in Cambodia spiked more than 160 per cent in the nine months through to September compared with the same time last year, the latest data ...
Chan Muy Hong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/insurance-claims-through-roof
Cambodia's construction industry looks ahead
Cambodia’s construction industry took a major step forward in its development on Tuesday with the second summit of the Cambodia Constructors Association at DARA Airport Hotel. The summit occurred alongside an exhibition of construction products, materials and services. Association chairman Pung Kheav Se said that was ...
Hin Pisei
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/real-estate/cambodias-construction-industry-looks-ahead
City faces gigantic 45-storey change
Phnom Penh will be a changed city and more attractive when twin 45-storey condominium towers are completed in the coming three or four years, developers say. Sung Bonna, director of Bonna Realty Group, said Singaporean outfit The Bridge Company, would start constructing the twin skyscraper buildings ...
Siv Meng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/real-estate/city-faces-gigantic-45-storey-change
Hun Sen Set to Weigh In on SL Garment Factory Dispute
Officials at the Ministry of Labor who mediated talks Wednesday between the management of SL Garment Factory and union leaders who have led a three-month-long strike at the factory said that they would send the results of the meeting to Prime Minister Hun Sen to ...
Khuon Narim and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-set-to-weigh-in-on%E2%80%88sl%E2%80%88garment%E2%80%88factory-dispute-46952/
China provides 33 mln USD in free-interest loan to Cambodia for development projects
The Chinese government on Thursday signed up to provide a free-interest loan of 200 million Renminbi (33 million U.S. dollars) to Cambodia for social and economic development projects. The agreement was inked between Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo and Cambodian Finance Minister Aun Porn Moniroth ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-11/14/c_132888622.htm
CPP Parliament Approves Ministry Split, Ministers Unclear
The CPP-dominated National Assembly on Wednesday approved a law that will see the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy split into two separate ministries, but has yet to decide who will head the new bodies. The CPP’s 68 lawmakers unanimously passed a measure that will see ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cpp-parliament-approves-ministry-split-ministers-unclear-46944/
Police in strike shootings to be investigated
Police officers who defied orders not to open fire on rioting garment workers on Tuesday – an act that resulted in the fatal shooting of 49-year-old rice vendor Eng Sokhom – could lose their jobs, a National Police spokesman said yesterday. Kirt Chantarith told the Post that a ...
Shane Worrell and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/police-strike-shootings-be-investigated
Governor Seeks Curb in Rubber Resin Smuggling
Kompong Cham provincial governor Lun Lim Thai on Tuesday ordered authorities to step up long-running efforts to reduce the smuggling of unprocessed rubber resin from the province into Vietnam. Those smuggling resin to processors across the border should be more actively pursued and instead forced to ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/governor-seeks-curb-in-rubber-resin-smuggling-46966/
Budget leaves $1.5b unassigned
Transparency watchdogs have warned that $1.5 billion of unallocated funds in next year’s budget will only encourage nepotism and embezzlement. The Draft Budget Law was approved at the National Assembly on Tuesday in a unanimous vote of 66 ruling Cambodian People’s Party MPs. The $3.4 billion ...
Daniel Pye and Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/budget-leaves-15b-unassigned
Cambodia's customs officials urge importers to pay "tax fees, not pay bribe"
Cambodia’s customs officials on Wednesday called on all importers to pay”tax fees as stated by law, not pay bribe”to customs officers. The appeal came after some Chinese importers have complained that Cambodian customs officers have increased tariffs for their imported products, or not allowed their ...
Asean-China-Center News Staff
http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2013-11/14/c_132886796.htm
French offer forensics 101
In the past two years, the French embassy in Phnom Penh has been drawn into at least two high-profile cases in which their nationals have died in suspicious circumstances in Cambodia. In an attempt to improve forensic investigations in the Kingdom, the French embassy announced ...
Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/french-offer-forensics-101
Strikers, police clash
A woman was killed and at least six others shot yesterday morning when police fired live ammunition into a crowd of hundreds of rioting garment workers in the capital’s Stung Meanchey district. UN reports said police also arrested 37 people, including seven monks, as a result ...
Sean Teehan, Mom Kunthear and Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/strikers-police-clash