News

VimpelCom, the Netherlands-based parent company of Cambodian mobile operator Beeline, booked an impairment charge of US$527 million on its operations in Cambodia and Vietnam, according to a 2011 company report. The impairment, or revaluation of VimpelCom’s assets in the two Southeast Asian countries, highlighted the company’s ...

Asia-Info, an online French news site with journalists based in Cambodia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia focusing on travel and regional issues, launched on Saturday. The website is the brainchild of Jerome Moriniere and Frederic Amat, two former editors of Cambodge Soir—the weekly French-language newspaper that ...

Four former workers at the Angkor Villa Hotel and Resort appeared in the Appeal Court yesterday for questioning in relation to allegations that they ransacked the hotel during a strike last year. Korng Kimlean, union president of the Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers’ Federation and the ...

More than 100 high-ranking Cambodian People’s Party and Royal Cambodian Armed Forces officials were named and shamed by a Cambodian election monitoring organisation yesterday at a workshop on misuse of state property. The Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) distributed a detailed list ...

Faced with the rapid loss of vast tracts of forest across Cambodia, local communities have begun to fight back, and a growing number of villagers are now organizing their own aggressive forest patrols in order to save the forests on which they have relied for ...

Cambodia Advance Communications Ltd, operating under the brand qb, is in talks to either merge with or acquire Thai majority-owned Mfone, a senior government official said yesterday. The talks come amid recent speculation that operators in Cambodia’s oversaturated telecommunications market would have to consolidate in order ...

The Court of Appeal yesterday upheld a verdict sentencing the former Pursat Provincial Court prosecutor, Tob Chan Sereivuth, and two of his bodyguards to between 15 and 19 years in prison for bribery, illegal detention and extortion. Mr. Chan Sereivuth and bodyguards Ros Samnang and Chhit ...

Cambodia has a total of 505,134 businesses supported by a workforce of 1,676,263, just 11.56 percent of the total population, according to a nationwide economic census released yesterday by the Ministry of Planning. Of the total number of people employed in the country, 1,026,084, or 61.2 ...

Australian logistics company Toll Group is allegedly pulling out of its 30-year concession to operate the Kingdom’s national railway, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Citing “reliable sources”, an SMH report said Toll would leave its US$145 million Toll Royal Railway joint venture with Cambodia’s Royal ...

A South Korean government agency and Korean investors in CamKo City are locked in an ownership dispute at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over the half-built residential development project in Russei Keo district, according to court documents obtained yesterday. Following the collapse of the Busan Savings ...

The value of approved agricultural projects in 2011 increased by more than 30 per cent compared to the year before, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia. The CDC approved 24 projects worth US$724.9 million last year, $674 million of which was ...

The Kingdom’s first initial public offering is fast approaching, and demand is expected to be robust. Book-building, the process during which bids for the IPO are taken and a price is set for shares, ended yesterday. The final offering price is expected before the subscription for ...

When Reaksmey (not his real name) was in high school two years ago, he and his classmates were urged to attend the supplementary classes taught by their teachers before and after regular school hours. For an hour before school and two to three hours after each ...

In a rare siding with villagers, government officials earlier this week rejected a proposal by tycoon Kith Meng to develop the area surrounding Boeung Prek Tub lake in Preah Sihanouk town and instead vowed to issue proper land titles to residents. ...

A Thai military official said yesterday 38 Cambodians arrested in Thailand on Monday were among a group of about 70 allegedly attempting to smuggle luxury rosewood out of Sisaket province. A source close to Thai defence spokesman Col Thanatip Sawangsaeng, who spoke on condition of anonymity, ...

Two female garment workers who were shot last month during a protest at a Svay Rieng province special economic zone (SEZ) filed a complaint with the provincial court yesterday accusing former deputy Bavet City Governor Chhuk Bundith of attempted murder. Bun Chenda, 21, and Nuth Sokhorn, ...

The negotiations between Cambodia and Malaysia over a bilateral agreement on improved working conditions for Cambodian migrant maids are slowly progressing as both governments are exchanging draft agreements, according to officials from both countries. Ministry of Labor Secretary of State Othsman Hassan said that Cambodia recently ...

About 400 villagers in Kratie province’s Chhlong district protested yesterday in an effort to stop Kasten agro-industrial company from building houses on contested farmland, the protesters said. The company used red paint to demarcate its boundary and started building houses on the farmland in January, said ...

A Macau-backed firm plans to grow its involvement in Cambodia’s casino sector as it targets the local gambling market with gaming machines and two new casinos, the company said in a financial statement filed in the US. Entertainment Gaming Asia Inc, which currently provides gaming machines ...

The ruling CPP is misusing state properties to further its political agenda, said the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (Comfrel) in a report that will be released today. The report said Comfrel monitors had documented 200 instances in which state properties and resources had been ...

Free Trade Union (FTU) President Chea Mony yesterday wrote to Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema, reiterating a request to set a date for talks over the construction of a statue honoring his assassinated brother, the late FTU leader Chea Vichea. Permission to build the statue was ...

More than a year after the people they believe attacked them with acid walked free, the Court of Appeal yesterday declined to hear an appeal filed by two victims of a 2010 acid attack against their alleged assailants. The Appeal Court said the postponement was due ...

Following a three-hour debate at the National Assembly, lawmakers passed a draft law approving the $2.5 billion the government spent in 2010. During the debate, CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap presented a 10-page document that he said justified the $2.5 billion in spending, which was 25 percent ...

Economy and Finance Minister Keat Chhon yesterday urged consumers to limit their gasoline consumption in the face of rising prices, saying the Cambodian government would not boost the hundreds of millions of dollars he claimed it already offered in fuel subsidies. Speaking at the Ministry of ...