Government
Cambodia's micro-lenders see 44 pct lending growth last year
Cambodia’s 38 microfinance institutions reported a 44 percent increase in loan disbursements in 2013, according to a report of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), the regulator of banking and finance institutions in the country. The microfinance institutions had lent a total 1.17 billion U.S. dollars ...
Shanghai Daily News Staff
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=199165
Chinese-built dam in Cambodia starts testing operation
The Lower Russei Chrum River hydroelectric dam, which is the Cambodia’s largest hydropower plant, has begun testing operation after it has been constructed for three and a half years, a company’s official said on Saturday. The 338-megawatt hydropower dam, situated in the jungle in Mondol Sima ...
Want China Times News Staff
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140209000067&cid=1102
Police arrest 11 Cambodians for illegally crossing the border to Thailand
Police arrested 11 Cambodian people while they were trying to illegally cross the border to work in Thailand. Thousands of Cambodian people reportedly crossed the border illegally to find jobs and cut down trees in Thailand every year, prompting the Thai soldiers to open fire ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=NjA3NDQ4ZjhlOGE
Two of 23 jailed protesters granted bail; release date unknown
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday morning granted bail to two of the 23 union activists and protesters jailed following the lethal suppression of garment worker strikes by military police on January 3. Municipal court presiding Judge Leang Samnatt held an unscheduled hearing on Friday ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/two-of-23-jailed-protesters-granted-bail-release-date-unknown-51734/
Threat to unleash ‘paratroopers’ in land dispute
About 200 villagers locked in a land dispute with the Chinese-owned Union Development Group (UDG) in Koh Kong province said they were warned on Friday that “paratroopers” would be brought in if they continued to block a road to the company’s headquarters in Botum Sakor ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/threat-to-unleash-paratroopers-in-land-dispute-51740/
Government acknowledges critical IRI public opinion poll
The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has accepted the results of a recent public opinion poll carried out by the International Republican Institute (IRI), which found that fewer people support the direction the country is headed, the organization said Thursday. The annual survey found that ...
LAUREN CROTHERS
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-acknowledges-critical-iri-public-opinion-poll-51639/
Garment workers to receive USD 100 per month from February
The Government already issued a Decision to require the employers to increase the minimum wage for the factory workers to USD 100 per month, starting from February 2014, said a government official. Vong Savann, a senior official of the Labor Ministry added that the Decision was ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=NmY5MTVmYTZhMzE
China provides military trucks and uniforms to Cambodia
China on Friday delivered 26 military trucks and 30,000 sets of military uniforms to Cambodia in order to help relieve the difficulties of the Cambodian army. At a handover ceremony held at the Trucking Battalion No. 99 on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh, Chinese ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-02/07/c_133097174.htm
A year after law, acid easily available on streets
“What law? No one has ever come to speak to me about that,” said 33-year-old Lim Vannak, scanning the large plastic buckets of corrosive acids she had lined up on the pavement of Phnom Penh’s Street 144 on a recent morning. Acid in the wrong hands ...
Sek Odom and Alice Cuddy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/a-year-after-law-acid-easily-available-on-streets-51663/
Demining Mali goal for troops
The Ministry of Defence will dispatch more than 300 members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) to Mali as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, a senior government official said yesterday. ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/demining-mali-goal-troops
Military police asked to answer for protest deaths
Richard Rogers, the lawyer retained by the opposition CNRP to potentially submit a case against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government with the International Criminal Court at The Hague, said Thursday that letters were hand-delivered to two military police chiefs requesting information about the fatal shooting ...
Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/military-police-asked-to-answer-for-protest-deaths-51633/
Man acquitted of 2007 murder of union leader Hy Vuthy
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday acquitted Chan Sophon of the 2007 murder of union leader Hy Vuthy, overturning a 2012 conviction and an 18-year jail sentence that rights groups and Mr. Vuthy’s own union believe was cover for the real perpetrators. The judge ...
Eang Mengleng
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/man-acquitted-of-2007-murder-of-union-leader-hy-vuthy-51637/
Suppliers to Global Fund back in biz
Two suppliers of mosquito nets to Cambodia found to have bribed officials to gain contracts under the Global Fund’s health grant scheme have had their contracts renewed. The two firms, Sumitomo Chemical and Vestergaard Frandsen, were found by the fund’s Office of the Inspector General in ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/suppliers-global-fund-back-biz
Trash collectors battling with mounds of garbage
Trash collectors were working overtime Thursday to clean the vast piles of garbage that had accumulated in Phnom Penh this week after their four-day strike for higher wages. Although workers returned to their duties after agreeing to a pay rise of between $20 and $25 per ...
Ben Sokhean and Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/trash-collectors-battling-with-mounds-of-garbage-51646/
Worse off than before
In May of 2010, just four days after their family was resettled in Battambang province, two children, accompanied by their sister-in-law, walked to a pond. Stories differ as to why they were there. Rights groups say they went to bathe and collect water. Police claim ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/worse
Phnom Penh warms to new buses on second day of service
On the second day of Phnom Penh’s monthlong public bus experiment, there was a visible uptick in passengers Thursday traveling the single route along Monivong Boulevard. About a dozen passengers interviewed, who included civil servants, NGO staff and a large number of uniformed students, were ...
Hul Reaksmey and Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/phnom-penh-warms-to-new-buses-on-second-day-of-service-51641/
Stolen Buddha urn reclaimed
Authorities say they have recovered a priceless gold urn believed to contain the ashes of the Buddha from a house in Takeo province’s Traing district. Kandal provincial police chief Eav Chamroeun said officers arrested two suspects yesterday, in the process seizing back the urn, along with ...
Chhay Channyda, Shane Worrell and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/buddha-urn-found-police
Guards tell vendors it’s time to go
More than 100 vendors from Phe Leu market in Kratie town protested yesterday after they arrived at work to find security guards refusing to let them sell at their usual spots, vendors said. More than 20 unarmed guards blocked the protesters, forcing them to set up ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/guards-tell-vendors-it%E2%80%99s-time-go
Villagers block road, demand compensation
About 140 villagers in Koh Kong province set up a roadblock for the second consecutive day Thursday, demanding compensation from a Chinese company they say burned down their homes to make way for part of a multibillion-dollar tourist resort, according to a rights worker and ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-block-road-demand-compensation-51643/
UN envoy raises assembly ban concerns
Maina Kiai, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the freedom of assembly and association, met with a Foreign Affairs Ministry official Thursday and raised concerns about the government’s blanket ban on gatherings in Phnom Penh. His visit wraps up today, and a thematic report he will issue ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/un-envoy-raises-assembly-ban-concerns-51652/
US willing to further strengthen relations with Cambodia
Scot Marciel, visiting Principal Deputy Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs met with Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cambodia yesterday with an aim to further strengthen relations between the two countries, Koy Kuong, ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=11&token=MDkxYjZjMmJiMjh
Cambodia's trade with Thailand hits 4.5 bln USD last year: minister
Trade between Cambodia and neighboring Thailand reached 4.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2013, up 12 percent from 4 billion U.S. dollars a year earlier, Cambodian Minister of Commerce Sun Chanthol said Thursday. Of the amount, Cambodia’s export to Thailand was equivalent to 351 million U.S. dollars, ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2014-02/06/c_133095545.htm
Hun Sen leaves for Laos
Prime Minister Hun Sen left on Thursday for two-day visit to Laos. The delegation accompanying Hun Sen included Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, Cabinet Minister Sok An and other members of the Royal Government. A number of agreements will be signed during his visit. The Ministry of Foreign ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=11&token=OTNkNGI3NTlhNmY
Unions want wage negotiations, arrest of shooters from January violence
Representatives of nine unions met together have made seven resolutions to seek better conditions and wages for workers in Cambodia’s factories. The unions are calling for the release of those workers, the restart of wage negotiations and the “unmasking” of police personnel who did the ...
Kong Sothanarith
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/unions-want-wage-negotiations-arrest-of-shooters-from-january-violence/1845791.html