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Heavy flooding during the rainy season, affecting 10 out of 17 provinces in Laos, has underlined the need for stronger disaster-management efforts, experts say. Tropical storm Haima struck central and northern parts of the country on June 24, with Nock-10 hitting central and southern areas on ...

Members of 34 families facing eviction from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community yesterday called on five foreign embassies and the European Union to pressure the government into granting them land titles. They are among the 46 poor and untitled families living in Boeng Kak who have ...

National carrier Myanmar Airways International plans to launch flights to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh by October, an airline spokesperson said. Flights will operate on Wednesdays and Saturdays, via Siem Reap, using a new Airbus A-321 that can accommodate 220 passengers. “We will add one Airbus A-321 ...

The government has given a Chinese mining company the right to extract gold from 28 square km of land in Kratie province’s Sambor district, a provincial official said yesterday. On July 5, the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy granted Hing Yuan Hanng Yeak Co Ltd ...

The Xayaburi dam project in Northern Laos might increase the probability of earthquakes in a region already prone to seismic activity, according to a recently translated report from Vietnam. The 1260-megawatt project sits about 100 kilometres south of the Lai Chau-Dien fault line. Construction activity on the ...

Construction of a US$1.6 billion satellite city on Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changvar peninsula will begin this year after officials inked a contract yesterday with local firm Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC). Dubbed “City of the Future”, the project would include a national stadium, a 60-hectare park, ...

Kuwait’s Pima International Co and D&D Pattnaik Group of India have jointly established Pima D&D International Co to explore for gold and iron in Cambodia The firm plans to invest between US$10 million and $15 million in gold and iron exploration in Kampong Chhnang, Kratie and ...

A rice-husk powered power plant will officially open in Kampong Speu at the end of the year, set to provide electricity to the district’s rice millers, according to officials from operator Golden Rice Cambodia. The US$2 million generator is set to supply power to all of ...

Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Cambodian National Petroleum Association Sok An has called for the resumption of talks with Thailand over the disputed overlapping claims area in the Gulf of Thailand, believed to be rich in oil and natural-gas reserves. The oil industry had ...

The Arbitration Council has ordered more than 700 workers at the Wei Xin garment factory to end a week-long strike they have staged in protest against a spate of issues they have with the company over contracts and payment. A decision handed down on Saturday by ...

Laos wants to start construction this year on the $3.8 billion (Bt115 billion) Thai-financed Xayaburi hydropower plant on the Mekong River after changing the design of the dam to placate neighbouring countries opposed to the project. Laos completed a review of the dam recently to ease ...

Figures released by the Ministry of Labor on Friday showed that 1,578 garment factory workers have fainted in workplace incidents since the beginning of this year. Pok Vanthat, deputy director of the Labor Ministry’s Medical Unit and chief of its research committee, said that his committee ...

Sixty villagers from Kratie province staged a protest Friday in Phnom Penh’s Wat Botum Park, claiming that their land had been grabbed by three private companies, and appealed to Prime Minister Hun Sen to intervene in their case. Slesh Vansoekrya, a representative of the villages, said ...

Opposition party lawmaker Son Chhay has sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Sok An asking for the immediate suspension of a Vietnamese rubber plantation in the endangered Prey Long forest, accusing the firm of illegal deforestation. In the letter dated Wednesday, Mr Chhay also asked ...

A group of independent trade unions yesterday put forth a list of demands for changes to Cambodia’s first trade union law, which will be finalised by the government in the coming months. Unionists said the revisions were necessary, as the current draft law would undermine unions ...

Cambodia was ranked the ninth most at risk country of being exposed to natural disasters out of 173 countries surveyed in a new report by the UN University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security A UNDP report released in August supported the World Risk report’s findings ...

At least 24 international apparel brands have pledged to immediately investigate the mass fainting “phenomenon” that has hit the Cambodian garment factories that supply them, the International Labour Organisation says. Executives of global brands had pledged to work together “to determine the precise causes of incidences ...

Mount Borkor Resort, the highest location in Cambodia, located near the coastline, will be inaugurated to welcome tourists from all destinations by the end of 2011, while the road climbing to the plateau’s peak and other tourism structures are about to be completed So far, the ...

Cambodia expects to almost double the amount of land used to cultivate rubber between now and 2020, a move that rights groups say could result in more evictions across Cambodia. Ly Phalla, director general of General Directorate of Rubber Plantations, said yesterday that there are ...

Multiple government ministries and the International Labor organization will form a group to investigate the mass fainting that have plagued Cambodia’s garment industry over the past several months, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said yesterday. There have been at least 15 mass fainting since the beginning ...

Authorities in Kompong Thom province yesterday forced a pagoda to withdraw its invitation to host a workshop about forest protection, continuing their pressure on two NGOs that provide community legal education in the province, a monk and NGO worker said. Chin Neth, chief monk at ...

Citing a government investigation that revealed factories colluding with unlicensed subcontractors to use unethical labor sources including prisoners, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh has asked the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia to urge adherence to labor law. Rehabilitation programs meant to teach vocational skills such ...

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 ...

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, ...