ភ្នំពេញប៉ុស្តិ៍
Villagers accuse NGO of extortion
Three staff members of a local NGO that campaigns against resource exploitation were charged yesterday with extorting money from loggers in Stung Treng province. The three staffers from the Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) stand accused of extorting groups of loggers out of at ...
Kim Sarom
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-accuse-ngo-extortion
Challenging business for startups
The World Bank recently ranked Cambodia 184th out of 189 countries for ease of starting a business, but you wouldn’t have known it at Phnom Penh’s recent Startup Weekend. Pitches for Cambodia’s first commercial organic chicken farm and for an app to connect tuk-tuk drivers to ...
Justine Drennan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/challenging-business-startups
S&P reaffirms rating despite political worry
Cambodia has retained its B credit rating despite ratings company Standard & Poor’s citing the country’s ongoing political standoff as a “major” constraint. S&P affirmed Cambodia’s B/B credit rating last week, labeling the country as having a strong and stable long-term and short-term outlook. Engagement of international ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/sp-reaffirms-rating-despite-political-worry
Thais return jailed loggers
Dozens of Cambodian prisoners were released by Thai authorities yesterday after serving 20-month prison sentences in Thailand for crossing the border illegally to log rosewood. The group of 37, all arrested within Thai territory on March 12 last year, were released through the Chaom Sangman checkpoint ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/thais-return-jailed-loggers
Expired meds missing: officials
Officials from Svay Rieng’s provincial health department are rounding up expired medications that medical staff and villagers are believed to have pocketed while clearing a stockpile near the provincial hospital on Wednesday, local health officials said yesterday. Provincial medical staff alerted the provincial health department after ...
Khoun Leakhana
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/expired-meds-missing-officials
Putting parking reform in gear
With civil society, the opposition and even the ruling party talking more and more about the subject of electoral and judicial reforms in the wake of July’s contested national elections, some groups yesterday gathered to call for reforms in a more modest sector – parking ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/putting-parking-reform-gear
ILO: women still lag behind in education
Despite making some gains, Cambodian women continue to fall well short of their male counterparts when it comes to education and position in the labour market, a study released yesterday by the International Labor Organization reports. Men account for just five per cent more of Cambodia’s ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ilo-women-still-lag-behind-education
Schoolkids find mine under tree
Primary school students playing outside their school in Oddar Meanchey province discovered an exposed landmine in the school yard on Wednesday. Students at Hun Sen Anlong Veng Primary School found the mine poking out of the ground “like a custard apple” while they were playing near ...
Kim Sarom
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/schoolkids-find-mine-under-tree
Investment law change-up
Following the announcement of recent reforms to Cambodia’s customs department and Commerce Ministry, a revision of the country’s investment law is planned for next year, according to the secretary-general of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). Speaking to reporters at a workshop at the ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/investment-law-change
Summonsed seek delay
Scores of people in Preah Sihanouk province’s Kompong Seila district have asked the provincial court to delay proceedings in a case filed against them by three local businesspeople in September. The 88 people received summonses in September, but yesterday asked the court to postpone a hearing ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/summonsed-seek-delay
SL to reinstate fired unionists
The chief executive of SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) yesterday said the factory has agreed to reinstate 19 dismissed union leaders and activists, a sticking point which could end a strike that has lasted more than three months. Hours after the Ministry of Labour announced the garment ...
Sean Teehan and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/sl-reinstate-fired-unionists
Regional peers urge gov’t to probe deaths
An organisation made up of current and former elected representatives from across Southeast Asia has called on the United Nations to investigate the deaths of two people shot by police during protests over the past three months. In a statement released yesterday, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/regional-peers-urge-gov%E2%80%99t-probe-deaths
Fears for tourism during rally
The opposition’s planned demonstration in Siem Reap next month could affect the tourism industry in Cambodia’s most important visitor destination, the government and industry representatives said yesterday. Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon told the Post that the Cambodia National Rescue Party’s (CNRP) December 10 rally could ...
Chan Muy Hong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/fears-tourism-during-rally
Collusion alleged in logging
Ethnic Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district have accused border officials of not only allowing illegal Vietnamese loggers to cross the border unimpeded, but also of taking their side in negotiations with a community forest patrol. Members of the patrol in Paknhai commune’s Lam village said ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/collusion-alleged-logging
No consensus on next move in SL drama
After the management of an embattled garment factory this week refused to follow a government order to reinstate 19 dismissed union leaders and activists, unionists and observers are at a divergence of opinion over how the state should respond. “It’s fairly unprecedented,” Dave Welsh, country director ...
Sean Teehan and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/no-consensus-next-move-sl-drama
Felling illegal: villagers
A private agro-industrial company has come under fire from villagers in Ratanakkiri province who say it has illegally felled resin-producing trees that are their main source of income. More than 1,000 trees in the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district are under threat, the villagers ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/felling-illegal-villagers
Speech therapists to help fill void
Forty-eight Cambodians will graduate today from what is being heralded as the Kingdom’s first speech-therapy training program. The graduates have been trained to fill a void in speech- and language-therapy services for an estimated 536,000 people in Cambodia affected by communication and swallowing disorders, according to ...
Amelia Woodside and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/speech-therapists-help-fill-void
Villagers say petition is a ‘trick’
Villagers in Kandal province alleged yesterday that officials had “tricked” them into thumb-printing a petition supporting tycoon Try Pheap’s claim that he is not involved in illegal logging and endorsing his defamation suit against two villagers. In a scathing report released last Wednesday, the Cambodian Human ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-say-petition-%E2%80%98trick%E2%80%99
Higher tax, healthier kids: study
A World Bank report highlighting the rate of Cambodian children exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke has bolstered calls to increase tobacco taxes threefold. The World Bank report, which was released on November 20 and titled Risking Your Health, claims nearly 50 per cent of all Cambodians under ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/higher-tax-healthier-kids-study
Gov’t to push rural sanitation
With the vast majority of rural Cambodians still lacking access to a toilet, and suffering the incumbent health risks, Ministry of Rural Development officials on Monday renewed long-standing intentions to improve the country’s sanitation infrastructure. Just days after World Toilet Day, the officials surveyed villages ...
Sen David and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/gov%E2%80%99t-push-rural-sanitation
‘Millions’ to be made off energy efficiency
Against the backdrop of high electricity costs and energy imports, Cambodian businesses could save millions of dollars annually by implementing energy-efficient business practices, insiders said yesterday. “It is clear that energy efficiency has multiple benefits, not only to the tourism sector but also other economic sectors ...
Anne Renzenbrink
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/%E2%80%98millions%E2%80%99-be-made-energy-efficiency
Gov’t pledges to cut red tape
In a bid to make Cambodia more business-friendly, the government will cut back on red tape and reduce industry membership costs, Sun Chanthol, the new minister of commerce, said yesterday. Speaking to representatives from the private sector at a conference at the InterContinental Hotel in Phnom ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/gov%E2%80%99t-pledges-cut-red-tape
Where truth often gets ignored
On Friday morning, two sources quoted in a report on illegal logging will face questioning at the hands of a Kandal province prosecutor over allegations that they defamed Cambodian tycoon Try Pheap. Under the Cambodian penal code, the legal definition of defamation is much like that ...
Stuart White and Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/where-truth-often-gets-ignored
Factory rejects order to rehire 19 workers
Flouting a government order, representatives of SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd yesterday refused to rehire 19 union representatives and activists during a meeting with the Ministry of Labour. Rehiring the 19 has been the key sticking point in ending the three-month-old strike, which erupted into violence ...
Mom Kunthear and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/factory-rejects-order-rehire-19-workers