News

Forestry Administration officials reportedly blocked vehicles in three provinces from travelling to Koh Kong town yesterday on their way to the site where prominent environmental activist Chut Wutty was shot last month. But hundreds of others from six provinces in a convoy of 27 vans made it ...

Hotel and guesthouse operators have pushed back against government calls to avoid price increases during holidays, claiming group booking, as well as supply and demand, dictated the price of accommodation. Government officials, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, have recently tried to dissuade operators from raising the ...

Laos has postponed construction of the controversial Xayaburi dam project on the Lower Mekong River, a spokesman for its Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quoted saying on Wednesday. “No construction is going on. It’s discontinued, postponed,” Sithong Chitgnothin told Radio Free Asia in Laos. ...

More than 600 people, including 50 Buddhist monks, who have been affected by illegal logging across the country arrived in Koh Kong province yesterday ahead of a memorial service to be held today at the site where well-known forestry activist Chut Wutty was shot dead ...

The general manager of Cambodian mobile operator Beeline has left the company, following brand-owner Vimpelcom’s selloff of Vietnamese assets and a more than US$500 million over-valuation of its Cambodia and Vietnam markets. General manager Gael Campan’s departure raised questions about Amsterdam-based Vimpelcom’s future in the Kingdom, ...

The vast majority of Cambodians – 81 per cent – believe the Kingdom is headed in the right direction, according to an International Republican Institute survey on democratic governance released yesterday. Key reasons respondents gave for their upbeat assessment included the building of more roads, bridges, health clinics ...

Informal workers, a class that includes beer promoters, tuk tuk drivers and farmers, are among those who stand to benefit most from the upcoming trade-union law, observers say – and workers say it can’t come soon enough. Dave Welsh, country director of the American Center for ...

Hundreds of would-be illegal loggers have been stopped this year by provincial authorities in Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey and Banteay Meanchey who have stopped them from crossing the border into Thailand, where Thai soldiers have killed 17 Cambodians so far this year. In Preah Vihear alone, ...

As the rainy season approaches, Cedac, a Cambodian agricultural organisation, is appealing to farmers this week to increase their rice yields, according to a Cedac report directed toward growers. The report established a six-step order of operations that would ensure increased output during the most intense growing ...

Mega U.S. retailer Walmart has denied allegations that it buys food products from a Thai seafood factory accused of trafficking and mistreating Cambodian workers. In a report released on Tuesday, the Cambodian Legal Education Center (CLEC), which has sent staff to investigate the Phatthana Seafood Co. ...

Claims on Cambodia’s six biggest insurance companies declined year on year by more than 90 per cent in the first quarter of 2012, data from the General Insurance Association of Cambodia (GIAC) shows. The value of claims in 2011 was raised by fires that gutted two ...

Surya Subedi, the UN’s human rights envoy to Cambodia, expressed concern Friday over land concessions provided to private companies that are forcing people from their land in the provinces. “the royal government has the primary responsibility for respecting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of its ...

Frontier and emerging economies such as Cambodia present companies with a specific set of challenges and risk, both real and perceived, beyond those found in more developed markets. A risk category getting ever- increasing attention is that of “social risk”, roughly defined as the risk of ...

Prisoners still face being exploited for labour, despite the government’s March prakas banning goods made behind bars from being exported, rights group Licadho has said. Although Licadho believes the prakas will help protect the image of Cambodia’s garment industry, it says inmates still face exploitation under ...

A rights group has raised concerns that up to 100 Cambodian migrant workers at a Thai seafood processing factory will be stranded abroad in less than a week without any income because they cannot afford to pay a passport fee demanded by their employer. Of the ...

A Thai seafood factory supplying retail giant Walmart is continuing to violate its labor arrangements with hundreds of Cambodian workers there and could leave up to 100 of them stranded and jobless by next week, the Cambodian Legal Education Center (CLEC) said in a new ...

Revenues in the insurance industry increased to $9.4 million in the first three months of the year compared with $6.7 million during the same period last year, figures from the General Insurance Association of Cambodia show. Ty Atith, a senior underwriter at Cambodian Reinsurance Company, said ...

Cambodia’s first-quarter exports to South Korea soared nearly 80 per cent year-on-year, driven mostly by garments and agriculture products, but imports still accounted for most of the trade between the two countries. Total exports to South Korea jumped to US$30 million for the first three months of ...

Despite major foreign aid budget cuts at home, Australia had upped its assistance to Cambodia by about US$17.4 million for 2012-2013, the embassy here said yesterday. Australia would provide a total of $95.3 million in “official development assistance to Cambodia”, the embassy said in a statement. ...

Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema denied a report that appeared Tuesday on the government-run news website Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP), which claimed that the municipality has plans to build a subway beneath the Tonle Sap River. According to the AKP report, the Phnom Penh municipality will ...

Cambodia is ripe for money-laundering and terrorist financing activities due to rampant corruption, banking-sector secrecy and an overall lack of financial transparency, a governance institute says in a report released this week. The Switzerland-based Basel Institute on Governance has ranked Cambodia the third “highest-risk” country out of 144 ...

Champagne greeted the movers and shakers at the highest level of Cambodia’s tallest building yesterday in a ceremony that marked substantial completion of the structure of Vattanac Capital Tower. Designed in the shape of a dragon with particular attention to the Chinese art of placement for ...

A French doctor established International SOS between Jakarta and Singapore 27 years ago. The company conducted emergency airlifts for patients to Singapore due to the lack of quality health services available in Indonesia at the time. The French-owned company now has a presence in 74 countries ...

Two months after it was unveiled and released in the U.S., Apple Inc.’s newest version of the iPad will be released Friday in Cambodia, according to the website of the California-based technology giant. Though suppliers of the iPad in Cambodia were tightlipped yesterday on the number ...