The Phnom Penh Post
Explosion injures one
An anti-tank mine exploded in Battambang province’s Bavel district on Saturday, injuring an agricultural worker and damaging machinery, an official said, marking the latest in an upswing of explosions this year. The victim, identified only as Sok, 46, of Bavel’s Kdol Tahen commune, and was hired ...
Kim Sarom
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/explosion-injures-one
At border, authorities get in way of activists
Soldiers and police blocked a group of activists and monks in Kandal province’s Koh Thom district from visiting a section of the Cambodia-Vietnam border on Friday, activists said yesterday. Oeu Narith, president of the Peace Youth Group, said armed forces stopped a group of about 200 ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/border-authorities-get-way-activists
Getting on the same page
In what is shaping up to be the first of several pivotal garment wage talks, unions are to meet for the first time today to discuss the amount they should request for next year’s minimum wage – but labour leaders and observers say coming to ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/getting-same-page
Arbitrator ready to hear cases
More than a year after it was established, the National Commercial Arbitration Centre (NCAC), Cambodia’s first third-party dispute resolution body, is finally ready to take on its first case. During its first annual assembly in Phnom Penh on Friday, the NCAC confirmed that it had finalised ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/arbitrator-ready-hear-cases
Make park free again, urges CNRP
Elected opposition lawmakers will today call on Interior Minister Sar Kheng to lift the ban on gatherings at Freedom Park and release the results of a government investigation into deadly violence at a garment protest in early January. ...
Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/make-park-free-again-urges-cnrp
Smartphone sales slowing
After years of ever-brisker sales, the smartphone market may be plateauing. Cambodians spent more than $300 million on smartphones last year, a 38 per cent increase from 2012’s figure of about $220 million, according to data from Singapore-based research firm GfK. Some 907,000 smartphones were sold in ...
May Kunmakara and Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/smartphone-sales-slowing
End deadlock: Sokha
Cambodia National Rescue Party deputy president Kem Sokha used the opposition’s attendance at a memorial service for the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk yesterday to call for an end to the country’s political deadlock by July 28. ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/end-deadlock-sokha
Envoy calls out KDC firm
United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights Surya Subedi has called on politically connected development company KDC International to halt its project in Kampong Chhnang province. Following violent clashes between KDC security guards and protesters on Monday, Subedi released a statement yesterday that calls on all ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/envoy-calls-out-kdc-firm
Thais detain ‘large number’
A large group of Cambodian migrants were rounded up and detained in a Bangkok prison at the end of May, where many still remain, Thai officials told the Post yesterday. Separate unconfirmed reports that at least 130 Cambodians had been in detention for more than a month emerged ...
Alice Cuddy and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/thais-detain-%E2%80%98large-number%E2%80%99
Military police officer accused
A military police officer has been arrested and will be sent to court, while two others remain under questioning, after an unarmed man was shot dead on Wednesday night while travelling in a car through protected forest in Mondulkiri’s O’Raing district, officials said. Two military police ...
Sen David and Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/military-police-officer-accused
Casualties from UXO accelerate
Casualties from mines and unexploded ordnance are on track to outpace last year’s count, according to new government data. In the first five months of this year, 89 people were either killed or injured by the deadly remnants of war, Cambodian Mine Action Centre director-general ...
Pech Sotheary
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/casualties-uxo-accelerate
Land concession woes aired
Village representatives in Ratanakkiri yesterday shared their land grievances with the European Union ambassador, requesting he relay to the government their appeal that no further 99-year land concessions be granted to private companies. Although the Post was not permitted to attend the full two-hour meeting, NGOs present at ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-concession-woes-aired
Protest leads to second chance on nat’l exams
Amid strict reforms to guard against rampant cheating on the high-stakes national exam, education officials yesterday showed surprising leniency towards underperforming grade 12 students. In a notice released yesterday, the Ministry of Education instructed upper secondary schools to hold re-examinations for grade 12 students who failed ...
Chhay Channyda and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/protest-leads-second-chance-nat%E2%80%99l-exams
Factory wage rallies heat up
More than 1,000 workers held a demonstration in front of Ocean Garment factory in the capital yesterday, burning tyres and blocking the road in protest against the management’s refusal to abide by a ruling that workers be paid in full for a one-month closure. On May ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/factory-wage-rallies-heat
Gov’t says it’s ready for floods
The National Committee for Disaster Management said yesterday that the government has made provisions for this year’s rainy season. More than 10,000 tonnes of rice, emergency supplies and rescue vehicles have been prepared ahead of predicted flooding, committee deputy director Nhim Vanda said yesterday at a ...
Pech Sotheary
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/gov%E2%80%99t-says-it%E2%80%99s-ready-floods
Companies regrow ‘forests’
More than 100,000 hectares of forest have been replanted across the country since 2008, according to a government report – but about 90 per cent of that amount can be chalked up to private plantations. Produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the report, ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/companies-regrow-%E2%80%98forests%E2%80%99
EU gives park protection
A huge area of Ratanakkiri province’s Virachey National Park has been declared a protected area under a European Union-funded plan that government officials say will shift forest communities away from dependence on depleted forest byproducts. Chhay Samith, head of protected natural areas at the Ministry of ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/eu-gives-park-protection
Ocean loses case: Bosses told to pay out lost wages
The Arbitration Council Foundation yesterday ruled that a Phnom Penh garment factory that announced it was closing for a month must pay employees 100 per cent of the wages they would have earned during that period. ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ocean-loses-case-bosses-told-pay-out-lost-wages
Raid on house finds 84 workers
Before dawn yesterday, Thai military officials raided a house not far from the border, finding dozens of undocumented Cambodian workers crammed into a room awaiting transportation deeper into the country. The 84 workers were woken, taken into military custody and deported, but the brokers who had ...
Cheang Sokha and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/raid-house-finds-84-workers
Activist takes KDC buyout
A community representative who has played an active role in the long-running land dispute between residents of Kampong Chhnang province’s Lorpeang village and a politically connected company has agreed to back down after accepting compensation. In a deal reached with KDC Company on Monday, Reach Seyma ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activist-takes-kdc-buyout
Barred from exam, grade 12s protest
Fifty-two students in Kampong Thom are blaming teacher favouritism and an inherently unequal system for preventing them from sitting the national exam and graduating this year. The students, from Hun Sen Taing Kork High School in Baray district, filed a petition to the provincial department of ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/barred-exam-grade-12s-protest
PPWSA profit for Q1 down 60 pct over previous year
Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) – the first listed company on the Cambodian stock exchange – has recorded a profit of $1.33 million for the first quarter, a decrease of 60 per cent from the same period last year, according to audited financial statements ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/ppwsa-profit-q1-down-60-pct-over-previous-year
Italy millers slam ‘unfair’ EBA
Cambodia duty-free rice exports to the European Union have this week come under fresh attack from producers in Italy, who say the beneficial treatment is restricting the potential of Italian rice exports. An Italian agriculture collective of farmers, which includes representatives from the Italian Association of ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/italy-millers-slam-%E2%80%98unfair%E2%80%99-eba
Strike divides Cintri workers
While Phnom Penh’s garbage truck drivers returned to work yesterday following a brief strike, piles of refuse continued to mount in parts of the city, as trash collectors who had joined the drivers’ cause were continuing the strike alone as of 7pm. On Monday, drivers of ...
Pech Sotheary and Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/strike-divides-cintri-workers