Rice Farmers Struggle Despite Production Growth
High production costs and a lack of government assistance is keeping rice farmers near the poverty line despite unprecedented growth in the sector, according to a new study released by local microfinance institution Intean Poalroath Rongroeurng (IPR). The independent study, conducted by two Cambodian researchers ...
Hundreds of Preah Sihanouk Families Forced From Homes
More than 100 families in Preah Sihanouk province were forcefully removed from their homes yesterday morning by at least 100 armed police officers who dispersed the crowd by firing shots into the air from AK-47 rifles and spraying villagers with water cannons, accoring to provincial ...
Bank Would Back Firm to Take Over Rail Project
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), which has so far contributed $84 million toward the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s dilapidated railway network, said yesterday it would support a deal to drop the current railway operator if it means the new concessionaire would foot the $60 to $100 million needed ...
Hun Sen Adds Voice to Reactions Against UN Envoy's Report
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday appeared to add his voice to the strong government reaction against criticism from U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi. Mr. Subedi last month delivered reports on human rights and economic land concessions in Cambodia to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. His ...
Chorus of complaints greet Xayaburi plans
The US yesterday criticised Laos for announcing it will begin building the 1,285-megawatt Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River today without studying its potential effects on Cambodia and Vietnam. A spokesperson from the US State Department in Washington said the government was concerned construction of the ...
Ministry Lists Fees to Help Firms Avoid Graft Claims
The government has publicly issued lists showing the costs of fees that businesses must pay to authorities for various services, in an effort to help companies avoid making informal payments made illegal by the anticorruption law. The lists were drafted during the past year after Cambodia ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ministry-lists-fees-to-help-firms-avoid-graft-claims-8434/
Laos taps on single visa door
Lao PDR says it will consider joining Thailand and Cambodia’s single visa scheme launched late last year saying it will help to boost Mekong region tourism. A senior official at the consular department in Vientiane told the Vientiane Times, last week, that the government would hold ...
http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2013/03/laos-keen-to-join-single-visa/
Stronger ties with Cambodia sought ahead of rice-trading zone
Thailand will forge closer ties with Cambodia and other neighbouring countries to increase competency in rice trading and boost the bargaining power of Asean countries by setting up a rice-trading zone soon. Also, Thailand will expand crop cooperation to cassava to raise farm incomes in the ...
Farmers Suffer From Illegal Pig Imports
Small pig farmers are struggling to stay in business as illegal imports of pigs from neighbouring countries rise, squeezing them out of the market, industry insiders say. Srun Peu, deputy director of the Cambodia Pig Farmers Association, an organisation with 4,000 members, said the increase in ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042565222/Business/farmers-suffer-from-illegal-pig-imports.html
Playing with a bad hand
It’s been more than a year since union leader Sat Sep was fired from the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Poipet town, a dismissal that sparked strikes and ended in senior members of the Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers Federation being driven from the casino’s ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013070166584/National/playing-with-a-bad-hand.html
Cambodia's state-Owned telecom firm gets new chief, vowing to improve business operations, revenues
Newly-Appointed Director General of the state-owned Telecom Cambodia (TC) Kim Vikra vowed Monday to enhance the enterprise’s governance in order to improve business operations and revenues. “I am committed to working with all colleagues in order to lead the enterprise to progress,”he said at his official ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-03/18/c_132243178.htm
Cambodian Land Rights Activist's Bail Plea Rejected
The Cambodian Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a jailed land rights activist’s appeal to be released on bail, drawing criticism from rights groups who said the whole case smacked of political interference and should be thrown out. “I am having heart, respiratory, and stomach ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/land-03272013191716.html
Firms’ Timber Trade Decried
Two firms holding concessions in rapidly disappearing northern forests are amassing stockpiles of tens of thousands of luxury logs cut both within and outside their leases and trucking them on to Vietnam, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights has alleged. CCHR investigators that tracked logging operations ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052865880/National/firms-timber-trade-decried.html
China to help conserve Cambodia's Angkor World Heritage Site
Cambodia’s Apsara Authority and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the project of sustainable management of the existing resources for conservation and sustainable development in Angkor World Heritage Site and Siem Reap region. The deal was inked between ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-06/27/c_132492881.htm
Workers paid out on doorstop of election
A month-long battle to secure back pay waged by 750 garment workers has ended only days before the national election – with the government footing the bill. The $450,000 payout to the Pine Great (Cambodia) factory workers – whose factory owner skipped town in April – ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/workers-paid-out-doorstop-election
Ministry Cancels Telco Limits
An often flouted and publicly unpopular restriction forbidding Cambodia’s telecoms from offering lucrative mobile phone promotions was scrapped on Sunday, just two weeks after it was introduced. In a letter from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPTC), signed by Minister So Khun, it announced a ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050765438/Business/ministry-cancels-telco-limits.html
Residents Call for Foul-Smelling Factory to Move
About 100 people protested Wednesday evening outside a Phnom Penh ice-making factory owned by the daughter of deputy Kompong Spue governor Tong Seng, complaining that the factory causes a bad smell and that the health of residents in Russei Keo district’s Kilometer 6 commune was ...
Group Considers Complaint Against Sugar Giant
A London-based sugar trade association aiming to promote a more ethical and sustainable industry will meet early next month to consider a request from Cambodian farmers that it eject U.K.-based sugar firm Tate & Lyle from the group unless it gives them back their land. Some ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/group-considers-complaint-against-sugar-giant-32001/
Phnom Penh Governor Expresses Disapproval of CNRP Rally
Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong on Thursday rebuked opposition CNRP president Sam Rainsy for allegedly breaking his promise to keep Monday’s CNRP rally at Freedom Park to 6,000 people and bar the participation of supporters from outside of the city. Well over 10,000 CNRP supporters attended ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/phnom-penh-governor-expresses-disapproval-of-cnrp-rally-41439/
Six Sent to Court Following Clashes With Police
Officials at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday questioned six men accused of using violence against authorities when protesters clashed with security forces near Phnom Penh’s Monivong Bridge in fighting that saw a 29-year-old man shot dead. The men were arrested Sunday night, at the ...
Eang Mengleng and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/42515-42515/