The Phnom Penh Post
Chinese telco gears up for an August 4G launch
Xinwei Cambodia, China’s first step into the Kingdom’s telecoms market, planned to launch fourth-generation mobile services in August, according to officials and a company statement. The Beijing-based firm will deploy its homegrown network technology, McWiLL, and was expected to launch top-to-bottom operations that, according to the ...
Mu Sochua decries intimidation tactics
Opposition Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Mu Sochua yesterday condemned the “system” that has left civil-servant husbands of Boeung Kak lake protesters believing they must decide between their marriages and their jobs. Activists Tep Vanny and Tol Srey Pov told the Post last week that their husbands, ...
General concern over settlement
A nearly year-long land dispute in Oddar Meanchey has been resolved for most parties involved by the intervention of two RCAF generals, but critics contend the more than 2,400 hectare-giveaway is a ploy to influence upcoming elections. Generals Kun Kim and Chea Tara yesterday granted 1.5 ...
Transparency key to ASEAN Human Rights Declaration
Transparency and consultation with civil society will give the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration the status and respect it needs to make a difference in the region, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Friday. The AHRD will be presented to foreign ministers in ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051556165/National-news/transparency-key-to-change.html
Bavet town shooting victims summonsed again
For the second time, court officials want to question three female workers who say they were shot and wounded by former Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith at a labour protest earlier this year. The second summons, which has outraged the women, stems from a complaint that ...
PM pushes edible exports
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday urged Cambodian food and beverage companies to look to export markets. The call, made at the opening ceremony of the Khmer Brewery, came in the wake of similar exhortations from international organisations for Cambodia to diversify its exports. “Now, we are not ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051556160/Business/pm-pushes-edible-exports.html
Stung Treng looks to revamp jungle airport
Officials in the northeastern province of Stung Treng hope future travellers will trade their bus seats for plane tickets. No fuctional airport exists in the province, but local officials are demarcating, and looking to revamp, a landing strip that was installed when Cambodia was a protectorate ...
CEDAC sours on honey prices
CEDAC, a domestic agriculture development organisation and the Kingdom’s largest distributor of natural honey, will shrink its purchases of the commodity in the face of rising prices, the company’s president says. Yang Saing Koma said the group would not reach its goal of buying 7,000 ...
Sieam Bunthy, P. 8
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/cedac-sours-honey-prices
Cambodia prepares for G20
If it were a Group of 180 nations meeting, Cambodia would be invited. But the Kingdom’s chances of attending the so-called G20 summit, which brings together the world’s largest economies, are unlikely, says Mey Kalyan, a government adviser who last week became the first Cambodian to ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051456136/Business/cambodia-prepares-for-g20.html
Beeline parent names new country head as firm’s future unclear
Cambodian mobile operator Beeline has made an official announcement of the replacement of its general director, who the Post confirmed left the job on May 4, according to a company statement from the brand’s owner, Vimpelcom. ...
Chut Wutty slaying puts Timbergreen logging in spotlight
Community activists and conservationists commemorating slain environment activist Chut Wutty on the weekend used the occasion to shed light on what they allege are the shadowy practices of a logging company in the southwestern Cardamom forests. Activists amongst the hundreds of people who travelled to Koh ...
Garment workers will return, still seek resolution
More than 800 workers from Su Tong Fang factory in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district will end their two-week protest and return to work on Thursday after reaching an agreement with their bosses, their union representative said yesterday. ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051456148/National-news/mixed-fortunes-for-strikers.html
Roadblock ends as protesters succumb to drivers' demands
It took angry motorists rather than government officials or police officers to persuade more than 200 protesting villagers to clear road 48 in Koh Kong province yesterday morning after they blocked it for almost 24 hours, a human rights group representative said. The villagers, involved in ...
Solving problems brings in wealth
One of Cambodia’s true rags-to-riches success stories is that of Din Somethearith, co-founder and executive director of Frangipani Villa Hotels. Frangipani, named for the blossoming tree, is a chain of boutique hotels, one of which is located just off Street 178 at number 43, down a ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051456140/Business/solving-problems-brings-in-wealth.html
TTY tycoon owes potato debt, villagers say
TTY director-general Na Marady, a well-known Cambodian tycoon, has been accused of owing money to farmers from whom he bought potatoes on credit more than a year ago in Memot district’s Koki and Kompoan communes in Kampong Cham province. The villagers complained on Friday that Na ...
Subedi ‘shocked’ by evictions
One of the first things UN Special Rapporteur Surya Subedi did on his week-long fact-finding mission in Cambodia was visit the grave of slain environmentalist Chut Wutty. It wasn’t on the itinerary, but Subedi, rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, said he wanted ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051156113/National-news/subedi-shocked-by-evictions.html
Anti-loggers held back by FA officials
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 ...
Guesthouses rebut calls for fair prices
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 postpones construction on Xayaburi Dam
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. ...
Beeline manager exits
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, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051156103/Business/beeline-manager-exits.html
IRI survey finds Cambodian majority optimistic over future
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 ...
Workers waiting for a bargain
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 ...
Cedac report to help farmers
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 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051156101/Business/report-to-help-farmers.html
Insurance claims drop in Q1
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 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051156100/Business/insurance-claims-drop-in-q1.html