The Phnom Penh Post
Dam developers hit back
Hydropower developers in southern Laos have fired back at the World Wildlife Fund after the conservation group issued two disparaging reports in as many weeks on the Don Sahong dam project. WWF released a brief on February 19 alleging that construction of the 260-megawatt damcould result ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/dam-developers-hit-back
Solar power for communes
The offices of commune officials along the Tonle Sap basin will soon be solar-powered as part of a poverty-reduction project backed by the Asian Development Bank. Some 123 off-the-grid commune council offices in Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham provinces will be fitted ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/solar-power-communes
Siem Reap sees property gains fuelled by tourism, economic integration
Siem Reap city land prices have continued to increase year-on-year since 2008, despite the impact of the global economic crisis elsewhere. Sorn Seap, general manager of KEY Real Estate, said that land prices in Siem Reap city in early 2014 saw an increase of 15 per ...
Insurance investment in construction and property see year-on-year increases
Cambodia’s insurance business is continuing to make strides, with the total value of engineering insurance reaching approximately $4 million in 2013, a significant increase compared to 2012. According to data recently released by the Insurance Association of Cambodia, the value of engineering insurance purchased in 2013 ...
New rules for taxmen
Following an order from Prime Minister Hun Sen last month to crack down on intimidation and harassment by tax collectors in local markets, City Hall pledged to take legal action yesterday. Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong told municipal and provincial governors that fines for rogue collectors ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/new-rules-taxmen
For Yunus, charity is not the only way
Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate who is considered the founding father of microfinance, urged an assembled crowd at the Royal University of Phnom Penh yesterday to start thinking about creating so-called social businesses. “Charity money goes, and does wonderful work, but it doesn’t come back,” ...
Joe Freeman
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/yunus-charity-not-only-way
Low ranking for rule of law
The World Justice Project yesterday ranked Cambodia 91st out of 99 nations and at the bottom of the barrel regionally in terms of its devotion to the rule of law, despite its midlevel performance in terms of providing order and security. In its annual Rule of ...
Stuart White and May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/low-ranking-rule-law
New owners, old story
An existing moratorium on economic land concessions should be no impediment to pouring more cash into the Kingdom’s booming, and highly criticised, rubber trade, industry executives in the capital heard yesterday, as many current ELCs can simply be recycled to a new crop of investors. Ly ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/new-owners-old-story
Comprehensive survey maps the lay of land prices in Phnom Penh
A report on land prices in Phnom Penh that claims to be the first of its kind has canvassed a large number of correspondents to comprehensively gauge property values in the city’s various districts and communes. Released on March 3, Land Price 2014, which was produced ...
Sum Manet
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/real-estate/comprehensive-survey-maps-lay-land-prices-phnom-penh
Meeting on bitter sugar issues
An ad hoc committee comprised of representatives from the European Union, the Ministry of Commerce, provincial administrations and the sugar industry met again yesterday at the ministry’s headquarters to continue its discussion of issues faced by those displaced by sugar plantations. The committee touched upon topics ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/meeting-bitter-sugar-issues
Boeung Kak protester trio detained, released
In yet another case of district security guards assuming the role of police officers, three evictees of the capital’s Boeung Kak lake area were detained in the capital yesterday morning and taken to a police station. Daun Penh district security guards seized Em Srey Touch, 41, ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/boeung-kak-protester-trio-detained-released
Unions expect violence, but forum to go on
Despite anticipating violence between unionists and authorities, labour union heads yesterday said they will go ahead with a public forum at Freedom Park on Saturday morning. Phnom Penh City Hall on Tuesday denied a request by 18 union federations to hold a public forum at ...
Sean Teehan and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/unions-expect-violence-forum-go
LGBT rights battle ongoing
Cambodia’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens have seen significant progress in securing legal protections in recent years, activists said yesterday, though the fight for full equality remains an ongoing battle. During a forum in the capital yesterday, participants said that codifying equality under the law ...
Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/lgbt-rights-battle-ongoing
‘Like animals in a cage’
A day after union leader Vorn Pov was violently arrested during garment strikes in early January, he was driven to an unknown location and told by armed officers to get out of the vehicle. The union leader said his group of co-accused share a cell ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98-animals-cage%E2%80%99
PM slams CNRP ‘incitement’
Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday that the government would not allow the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party to use garment workers as “political hostages” in a strongly worded rebuke of what he painted as a conspiratorial relationship between the CNRP and a number of ...
Vong Sokheng and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/pm-slams-cnrp-%E2%80%98incitement%E2%80%99
Voter list overhaul eyed
More than five months after the Cambodian People’s Party and the Cambodia National Rescue Party first announced a joint commitment to electoral reform following a September 16 meeting, specific measures have finally been agreed upon. The first official meeting yesterday of a bipartisan committee tasked with ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/voter-list-overhaul-eyed
Group of B Kak villagers get long-awaited land titles
Years of fighting for their land came to an end for 17 families at Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak community yesterday when City Hall delivered them long-awaited land titles. The handover was part of a vow to resolve the capital’s main land disputes made by Phnom Penh ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/group-b-kak-villagers-get-long-awaited-land-titles
Spirited protest at Riverside
Land activists said it was a spiritual ceremony; authorities described it as the latest attention-grabbing from “professional protesters”. Whatever the case, once the familiar scuffling between menacing security guards and civilians had passed yesterday, a demonstration calling for the release of 21 workers and activists arrested ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/spirited-protest-riverside
Areng project changes hands again
Sinohydro Corporation has taken over the concession to build the Stung Cheay Areng dam in Koh Kong province and is preparing for the early stages of construction, according to a company representative and government officials. Ith Prang, secretary of state at the Ministry of Mines and ...
Chhay Channyda and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/areng-project-changes-hands-again
Cellcard advert questioned
The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) is calling out telecommunications firm Mobitel over a TV ad that shows a young Cambodian man who is shocked and dismayed when he meets, on a blind date, what appears to be a transgender woman. Lasting about 60 seconds, ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/cellcard-advert-questioned
PM decries copyright theft
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called on government bodies, local authorities, international organisations and the private sector to dial back Cambodia’s widespread theft of copyrighted works, like film and music, and encouraged the creation of more original, home-grown cultural works. Copying other countries’ cultural output – ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/pm-decries-copyright-theft
Impact study on dam problem-ridden: WWF
The conservation NGO WWF today slammed developers of the Don Sahong Hydropower project for providing “flawed” and scientifically unsound impact assessments. In an analysis released today, WWF criticised the hydropower project’s Environmental Impact Assessment and Social Impact Assessment, finding both “riddled with problems such as inappropriate ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/impact-study-dam-problem-ridden-wwf
Workers ‘locked inside’ during overtime strike
Workers at two different garment factories say that managers locked them inside their workplaces last week when they tried to participate in a boycott of overtime. Union representatives and rank-and-file employees at Kampong Speu province’s Complete Honour Footwear Industrial Cambodia Co, Ltd and Dai Yi Fashion ...
Mom Kunthear and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/workers-%E2%80%98locked-inside%E2%80%99-during-overtime-strike
Political Parties Registered for Upcoming Elections
Five political parties have registered to take part in provincial and district elections in May, officials said Tuesday. The elections are approaching despite a deadlock in national politics between the ruling party and the opposition—which wants election reform and a recall national vote. Only members of local ...
Kong Sothanarith
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/political-parties-registered-for-upcoming-elections/1863897.html