News

Eight fishermen who escaped after more than a year of forced labour aboard a Thai fishing boat recounted tales of abuse and miserable working conditions upon their repatriation to the Kingdom yesterday. The men said that brokers had promised them salaried jobs in Thai factories, but ...

Ethnic minority Tumpoun villagers yesterday delivered a thumb-printed petition to commune, district and provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri demanding intervention in a Lumphat district land dispute after villagers held five rubber plantation company employees hostage on Tuesday. Five employees of Jing Zhong Ri Cambodia Co Ltd were ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen heralded an overall 8 percent drop in the national crime rate during the Interior Ministry’s annual conference yesterday and an even more dramatic 13 percent drop in felonies. For the second straight year, though, the ministry did not provide complete figures or ...

The government has agreed to create a regulatory body to ensure that companies operating in Cambodia’s telecommunications sector follow regulations and that companies that do not comply are held to account. According to a statement from the Council of Ministers, Prime Minister Hun Sen approved ...

NagaCorp, which owns Phnom Penh’s only licensed casino, announced on Wednesday that net profits at the company had more than doubled in 2011 and that plans are in store to expand its operations in the country. Financial Results filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ...

Garment-making has been a mainstay of Cambodia’s fledgling economy, chalking up between 6 and 7 percent annually for the past four years. But, the country is turning its focus back to the land in the hope that rice growing and other farming produce, will lift growth ...

The US Embassy and the Ministry of Health will launch a national public awareness campaign Monday highlighting the dangers of counterfeit drugs, embassy and ministry officials said yesterday. “We want to focus on being able to raise awareness because it is known that using counterfeit ...

Thousands of children are toiling in the country’s fisheries sector, living in conditions that are often hazardous to their health and depriving them of an education, government officials and UN representatives said yesterday at a workshop in Phnom Penh. Seventy-five percent of the 1.5 million ...

More than 1500 factory workers yesterday marched from the Manhattan Quing Dao Textiles Corp in Kompong Cham province to the provincial headquarters to ask authorities to force the factory owner to abide by two arbitration council rulings, a union representative and a factory worker said ...

Police in Kompong Chhnang Province arrested four men and confiscated two bulldozers Tuesday for illegally clearing more than 10 hectares of national forest in the Toek Phos district, officials said yesterday. District Police Chief Kim Sareth said that police apprehended the four laborers in Chorng ...

The price of gasoline rose to a 5800 riel ($1.44) per liter Monday, a 14 percent rise since the beginning of the year. Economists and businesses yesterday said the high prices are having a negative impact on the economy, as everything from transportation companies to ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called on microfinance institutions to reduce interest rates and expand repayment periods for the tens of thousands of families affected by last year’s devastating floods. Addressing microfinance institutions (MFIs) on Tuesday during a conference at the Ministry of Rural Development, ...

The clearing of land for a Ratanakkiri rubber plantation had been frozen after more than 300 Tumpoun ethnic minority villagers captured a quartet of company security guards and another staffer, tied them up and held them hostage on Tuesday, company officials said yesterday. Jing Zhong Ri ...

German sportwear maker Puma sent officials to investigate working conditions in Cambodia after a local woman working for one of its suppliers was shot during a labour protest on Monday. The woman, who was employed by Kaoway Sports, was shot during a protest by employees of ...

A day after Interior Minister Sar Kheng revealed that authorities had identified a suspect in the shooting of three female factory workers at a special economic zone (SEZ) in Svay Rieng province, officials yesterday refused to reveal the identity of the gunman, who had still ...

“I think when you have an economy that depends on the agricultural sector, there is a need to ensure that we strengthen the linkages between rural and urban areas. Our work also focuses on promoting education so that we can provide better employment opportunities for ...

The Asian Development Bank has provided $69 million for Cambodia to make major upgrades of provincial roads in some of the country’s poorest provinces, according to an ADB statement Wednesday. The Provincial Roads Improvement Project, financed by a $52 million loan from ADB Special Funds and ...

The dispute that grounded a Tonlesap Airlines plane on Tuesday and stranded more than 200 passengers in Siem Reap and Taipei, Taiwain, continued yesterday, as plane owner Far Eastern Transport upped the sum it claimed Tonlesap owed for fuel. Far Eastern grounded a plane it had ...

Speculation is bubbling in Bavet town over the identity of the man who shot three people protesting outside a shoe factory on Monday, with eyewitnesses, police and villagers suggesting blame lies with town officials. The shooting, which took place outside the Kaoway Sports Ltd factory ...

For 53-year-old farmer Ros Mao, it’s not just the early bird that catches the worm. The Takeo province farmer has raised millions of earthworms for eight years in Tram Trak district, selling the slimy red creatures and using the manure they create to grow his ...

Child labour was draining the Kingdom’s brainpower and adversely affecting 750,000 of its children, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said yesterday. Speaking at a three-day conference on child agricultural labour, Kaing Khim, deputy director-general of fisheries administration at the MAFF, said ...

The Arbitration Council yesterday ordered protesting workers in Kampong Cham province to return to their factory today, as a union official reported that their numbers had swelled to nearly 3,000 outside the provincial hall in their third demonstration this week over an ongoing labour dispute. Free ...

Monday’s shooting of protesting factory workers by security guards at a Svay Rieng special economic zone could damage Cambodia’s international reputation and potentially impact the country’s bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Interior Minister Sar Kheng said yesterday. Speaking at the opening ...

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia has approved in principle the listing of Phnom Penh Water Supply on the Cambodian Securities Exchange, according to the SECC’s website. The announcement fell a step short from listing approval for PPWS, with the SECC requiring additional paperwork, including ...