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Mining Firm Hit With Fines for Illegal Exports
A mining company owned by the wife of RCAF Major General Nim Meng has been ordered by the government to pay fines and unpaid taxes after the firm was found to have illegally exported minerals from Cambodia, a report released yesterday by the Cambodian Investment ...
Labour draft law revamped
The government has dropped controversial criminal penalties targeting unionists in its latest draft of the union law, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said yesterday. Addressing a meeting of representatives of international apparel brands, including Nike, Adidas and PUMA, unions, government officials and the International Labour Organisation, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011090751499/National-news/labour-draft-law-revamped.html
Land-grabbing letter hits nerve
The government yesterday lashed out at a letter sent by opposition lawmakers to the World Bank that urged the bank to increase pressure on the government to end forced evictions, land grabbing and threats against community members involved in land disputes with well-connected companies. Council ...
Business boom depletes forests
During the past four years, Cambodia has seen drastic decreases in rare species of trees due to illegal logging, community research from the National Resource Protection Group indicates. If continued unabated, illegal logging threatens to wholly deplete Cambodia’s rare tree species, Chut Wutty said. Cambodia’s ...
Big brands talk labour rights
The biggest names in the apparel industry, including Nike, Puma and Gap, would meet today with officials from the Ministry of Labour to discuss issues plaguing the Cambodian garment manufacturing industry, such as mass fainting and contractual disputes, labour activists said yesterday. Dave Welsh, country ...
Rail project in ADB sights
The Asian Development Bank said yesterday problems with a railway rehabilitation project – funded by the bank and AusAID – identified by a local NGO that was suspended by the government last month “may require further investigation or analysis”. In July, STT released a report ...
Activists, Journalist Summoned Over Incitement
Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has summoned for questioning two rights group activists and a journalist over charges that they incited ethnic minority villagers in Lumphat district to violence in 2009, a court official said yesterday. The case against the three men – Adhoc provincial coordinator Pen ...
Police Warn NGOs Over Workshops
Kompong Thom provincial authorities have threatened to shut down two NGOs who have been providing free legal education to poor villagers in the province, accusing the groups of fomenting rural unrest against private investors. The NGOs, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights and the Natural ...
Climate Change Affects on Livelihoods for Rural People
The Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) collaborated to launch the 2011 Cambodia Human Development Report (CHDR) on August 30th which identifies climate change as a threat to human development gains and a source of increasing ...
Time right for talks on sea boundary
In 2009, the Democrat-led government and the People’s Alliance for Democracy accused ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra of holding secret talks with Cambodia about exploiting oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Thailand. The government threatened to revoke a memorandum of understanding on overlapping ...
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/255142/time-right-for-talks-on-sea-boundary
Land rights acrimony in AusAID Asian project
A TAXPAYER-FUNDED development project is mired in controversy after the Cambodian government launched a crackdown against land rights organisations critical of the compulsory resettlement of families. The Cambodian government has cautioned a small group of foreign organisations against stirring up unrest among those being forced off ...
Garment Factory Lease Issues Cause Protests Over Severance
Afraid that the Dai Young Cambodia Co garment factory in Phnom Penh would not be renewing its land lease, more than 800 workers protested on Saturday at the factory in Russei Keo district demanding that the owner sign a guarantee of severance pay, labor unions ...
USAID Report Offers New Way to Protect Prey Long Forest
The government should abandon its current management of Prey Long forest and shift to a plan that conserves the forst while also optimizing its economic uses, such as agriculture, carbon credits and controlled timber exploitation, according to a recent report by the US Agency for ...
Thailand’s Former Official Denies Secret Oil Talks
Thailand’s former Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban has denied Cambodia’s recent claim that he initiated secret bilateral talks over coveted oil reserves in disputed Gulf of Thailand waters, Thai news service MCOT reported Saturday. In a statement last week, the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority said ...
Land Grabs Mar Cambodia’s Investment Boom
The evictions and so-called “land grabs” have angered aid donors, putting at stake hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid as well as a trade scheme that gives Cambodian produce tariff-free access to the EU. International donors and lenders such as the World Bank ...
US firms eye new markets in the Kingdom
VISA, Mastercard, Dell and Cisco Systems have been added to a growing list of US companies looking to enter the Cambodian market, according to Frances Zwenig, counsellor of the US-ASEAN Business Council. The financial services and information technology companies joined GE, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson ...
Land disputes in Siem Reap
More than 1,000 families from four districts in Siem Reap province involved in ongoing land disputes released a joint statement on Friday asking for intervention from government officials. Villagers involved in six separate land disputes with various private companies in four districts claim a total ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011090551447/National-news/land-disputes-in-siem-reap.html
Most U.S. Firms Plan to Expand Business in SE Asia: Amcham
Eighty-five percent of U.S. companies in Southeast Asia plan to expand their business as the region will become more important in the next two years, the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Singapore said on Monday. “ASEAN continues to grow in importance for businesses in the ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/05/us-firms-asia-idUSTRE78411L20110905
Natural Resources
Lists and describes protected areas and community forests in Cambodia, which may also be viewed on an interactive map. ...
Cambodia, Thailand Will Likely Resume Talks on Offshore Oil and Gas
Cambodia’s and Thailand’s governments will likely resume negotiations on offshore drilling for oil and gas which will bring mutual benefits of the area of overlapping maritime claims after Cambodia gave the green light for issues before the visit of new Thai foreign minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul ...
24 More Faint at Dangkao District Garment Factory
Continuing the spate of mass fainting at Phnom Penh garment factories, 24 workers fainted at the Heart Enterprise factory on Friday, prompting the factory to shut down for the second time in a week, officials said. The Dangkao district garment factory had reopened on Friday ...
Report Says Reforms Were Hard to Drill Home at Petrol Authority
The Cambodian National Petroleum Authority restricted vital information and failed to cooperate with consultants working for the Asian Development Bank who were deployed to the authority between 2007 and 2010 as part of a $1 million project to strengthen governance at the body, a new ...
Digging deep outside the law
Weak enforcement of mining laws excludes local communities from the decision-making process and smudges the revenue transparency, said George Boden, a campaigner at watchdog group Global Witness. Weak enforcement of mining laws excludes local communities from the decision-making process and smudges the revenue transparency, said ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011090251412/Business/digging-deep-outside-the-law.html
Capital’s growth pushes housing demand
Phnom Penh’s growing population is driving demand for residential property, with approvals soaring in the first seven months of this year, according to Lao Tip Seiha, director of the construction department at the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction. A total of 227 ...