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Hello staff contracts 'breached'
Almost 100 members of the sales and service staff of mobile phone provider Hellopoint are awaiting a meeting with the Ministry of Labour after submitting a complaint last month claiming that a policy introduced in July amounted to a breach of their employment contracts. According to ...
Bulldozing of crops reignites dispute
Contractors hired by Cambodian land brokers bulldozed through four hectares of villagers’ crops in Poipet town on Monday, breaching a truce contract that protected the villagers’ land until January 1 next year. According to the contract, the families residing on land claimed by 11 independent Cambodian ...
PM will hand-deliver titles
Prime Minister Hun Sen will personally deliver land titles to residents in Kratie province’s Snuol district on September 21 following the completion of the land measuring mission by volunteer youth there. According to the premier’s order, land titles have been granted in three forms of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090558506/National-news/pm-will-hand-deliver-titles.html
Dredging licenses up for grabs
The government has granted contracts to three unnamed private companies to invest in dredging operations along parts of the , but is withholding the companies’ names and information on the specific areas for the large-scale projects. Lim Kean Hor, the Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology, told ...
Questions over bonuses
Unions and labour groups fear a solitary sick day could cost garment workers their entire month’s attendance bonuses – about 15 per cent of their base wage – under a new scheme meant to make life easier. The Kingdom’s 600,000 garment and footwear workers will receive ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090558510/National-news/questions-over-bonuses.html
B Kak Woman Arrested
Prominent Boeung Kak villager and protester Yorm Bopha was yesterday jailed in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, after she and her husband – en route to check for their names on a voting register – were pounced on by police in plain clothes in what ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090558509/National-news/b-kak-woman-arrested.html
Police: farmers intended to log
Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers arrested 18 Cambodian farmers trying to cross the border in Oddar Meanchey province to illegally log in Thailand on Saturday. The farmers, between 20 and 40 years old, were travelling in a rented van equipped with axes, saws and other tools, ...
Officials cheated me: farmer
A cassava grower in Siem Reap’s Srei Snom district has accused a district police chief and a deputy commune chief of cheating him out of his land after they doctored the grower’s testimony in a court case. Em Socheat, a lawyer for land owner Yem Savuth, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090458481/National-news/officials-cheated-me-farmer.html
Gov't Reports $25M From Rents in Six Months
The government earned just over $25 million in rental fees from state land leased to private companies in the first six months of the year, according to new figures from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. While the data shows that earning have risen, critics say ...
Emerging Mining Sector to Be Subject to Grassroots Scrutiny
As mining companies continue to scour Cambodia for minerals, work is also under way to build a network of local monitors and activists to shed light on the country’s often-opaque mining sector and its practices. {T]he Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy has granted an unknown ...
Fisheries Official Questioned Over Clearing Flooded Forest
A fisheries official accused of involvement in the clearing of an area of protected flooded forest in Kampong Thom province in July was questioned at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday. Korn Chanseiha, chief of the Fisheries Administration’s Stong district office, is one of about 20 officials ...
Needs compared with the UK
Cambodia’s needs and how they overlap with the UK’s strengths are an important issue in trade and investment relations between the two countries, according to British Ambassador Mark Gooding during a presentation to the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) yesterday. Bilateral trade is mainly driven by ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090458466/Business/uk-to-diversify-trade-ambassador.html
Villagers Told Eviction Is for Obama's Safety
More than 180 families living adjacent to the Phnom Penh International Airport were told yesterday that they must vacate their homes to make was for a security road to ensure the safety of U.S. President Barack Obama, who is expected to visit in November. Var Sarang, deputy ...
Japanesee NGO Admonishes Forced Evictions
A okyo-based human rights group has called on the government to cease forced evictions and branded the use of armed forces against ordinary citizens defending their land as an :unforgivable human rights violation.” Human Rights Now (HRN), which in June sent a team of Japanese investigators ...
Still no motion on union law
As the latest draft of Cambodia’s long-awaited trade-union law sits idly at the Council of Ministers, Ministry of Labour officials have turned to outsiders to help hasten its enactment, a union advocate said yesterday. Dave Welsh, country director of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, said ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090458479/National-news/still-no-motion-on-union-law.html
Water sector in need of investment
Despite the establishment of the Cambodian Clean Water Supplier Association last week, the clean water sector still lacks sufficient investment to connect rural Cambodia. There is very little clean water in Cambodia and accelerating its supply requires the government, private sector and other development partners ...
Chinese Credit Cache
Prime Minister Hun Sen has returned home from his trip to China a wealthier leader having secured upwards of US$2.5 billion in Chinese investment and loans over the next year alone, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The package includes a $2 billion ...
Lao Dam Breaks Ground
A waterfall has been blasted less than two kilometres from the Cambodian-Lao border, beginning work on another unapproved hydroelectric dam on the Mekong river, environmental group International Rivers claimed yesterday. Pianporn Deetes, the Thailand campaign coordinator for International Rivers, said she had learned of the excavation work, near ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090458484/National-news/lao-dam-breaks-ground.html
Gulf talks with Cambodia and oil-concession bids pushed back
Two items on the government’s energy agenda – preparations for talks with Cambodia on a solution to the countries’ overlapping claims in the Gulf of Thailand and the plan to open a 21st round of bidding for petroleum exploration and production concessions – are likely ...
Garment Factory Monitoring Needs to Improve
The International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) program must overhaul its monitoring practices before it can meaningfully improve working conditions in the garment sector, accoring to the authors of a new report. the new report by Community Legal Education Center and the Netherlands-based ...
$70 from India for power
India is financing the construction of a US$70 million transmission line to bring electricity from hydroelectric projects in Laos to Cambodia, according to Indian Chamber of Commerce President Debasish Pattnaik. Speaking yesterday after the official launch of the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia (ICC), Pattnaik ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090358436/Business/70m-from-india-for-power.html
Human Trafficking Rise Prompts Action
Human and sex trafficking complaints had increased markedly this year, with police vowing to redouble their resources to fight the rampant crimes, officials said at a summit on Friday. Mok Chito, head of the General Secretariat of the National Police Commissioner’s central judicial department, said 113 ...
District Police Chief Removed Over Link to Sale of State Land
A district police chief in Kampong Chhnang province has been removed from his post over his alleged involvement in the sale of almost 130 hectares of state land to private buyers, provincial officials said yesterday. Kim Sareth, the chief of police in Toek Phos district, was ...
Investment treaty with US discussed
The United States and Cambodia have agreed to begin discussions on a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) in a bid to spur trade and investment between the two countries, officials said on Friday following the end of the ASEAN-US Business Summit in Siem Reap. “A bilateral investment ...