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Ratanakiri Court Questions Rights Workers
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned the first of two human rights workers who are suing local officials for allegedly disrupting a July meeting they were hosting for villagers in Lumphat district. Deputy court prosecutor Ros Saram said he questioned Chhim Savuth, program officer for the ...
Chinese Factory Manager Deported, Another Stands Trial
A Chinese garment factory manager was deported yesterday after she was given a one year suspended sentence for destroying a picture of the late King Norodom Sihanouk, officials said. The deportation took place as another Chinese factory manager, Liv Kuy Chheang, was charged by the ...
Advocacy Group Slams Murder Case 'Hush Up'
Reporters Without Borders has joined mounting criticism of the government’s handling of the April 26 murder of environmental activist Chut Wutty. On Monday, a security guard was convicted of accidentally killing the officer officially blamed for the activist’s death. “How convenient,” the Paris-based advocacy group said in a ...
Fight to Save Mekong Dolphin Makes Enemies
Sitting at his outpost overlooking the Mekong River, Deab Kuy remembers an incident some years ago when fishermen threatened to attack him if they were stopped from casting their nets around the river’s sandy islets here in Sambok commune. The outpost, little more than a wooden house on ...
Airport Operator to Go Ahead With Expansion
Cambodia Airports said yesterday that it planned to move forward with plans to build a new security fence at Phnom Penh International Airport ahead of next month’s Asean and East Asia summits, even though its construction will result in more than 180 families being evicted. Speaking ...
Index Shows Little Progress in Gender Equity
Cambodia has made almost no progress over the past six years when it comes to gender equality, and is still the lowest-ranked country in the region, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2012 Gender Gap Index. Ranked 103 out of 135 countries surveyed, Cambodia placed last ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/index-shows-little-progress-in-gender-equality-4777/
Kratie meet pushes dolphin protection
Residents of Kratie province had an education in conservation yesterday as the government and outside partners reiterated a September sub-decree banning gill nets on a sizable stretch of the Mekong in a bid to protect the badly endangered Mekong River dolphin. Touch Seang Tana, head of the Commission ...
More Lao land deals inked
Laos has contracted firms to build and operate another significant hydro-power plant on the Mekong River system, adding to the existing furor over potential effects on downstream countries such as Cambodia from the controversial Xayaburi dam. The contracts, reportedly worth $1 billion, are for a series of three dams making ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012102559403/National-news/more-lao-dam-deals-inked.html
Cambodia issues licenses to 2,606 new firms in 9 months, up 11 percent
Cambodia had granted operating licenses to 2,606 new companies in the first nine months of this year, a 11 percent rise from 2,336 new firms at the same period a year ago, the report of the Commerce Ministry showed Wednesday. Those companies are dealing in the ...
Fish output likely to drop
Fishery resources could fall this year because of a lack of flooding along rivers and waterways impeding fish from travelling freely or finding food to encourage their growth, a fishery official says. Sam Nov, deputy general director of Fishery Administration at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012102459389/Business/fish-output-likely-to-drop.html
Kompong Thom Prepares to Halt 100 Illegal Miners
Kompong Thom provincial officials will stop illegal gold mining in seven locations in Sandan district’s Meanrith commune come November, provincial and district officials said. About 100 residents of Meanrith have been illegally digging for gold in the district for several years, provincial deputy governor King Vimean ...
Global Witness Adds to Criticism of Chut Wutty Murder Case
Environment rights group Global Witness yesterday joined the call for an independent investigation into the April 26 murder of conservation activist Chut Wutty following the conviction of a security guard in the case. On Monday the Koh Rong Provincial Court sentenced Rann Boroth, a security guard ...
Families Evicted From Canal as Part of Clean-Up
Three families were evicted and their houses torn down by authorities in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district yesterday after officials claimed that residents there were polluting a canal with rubbish. The authorities last week warned that families living inside 38 houses in Niroth commune were illegally occupying ...
Sentencing swift in pic ripping case
Less than 36 hours after Wang Zia Chao provoked a strike by destroying two photos of the late King Father in front of hundreds of Cambodian garment workers, the Chinese factory manager was booked, charged and convicted by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, which last ...
Residents not budging
About 40 families in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district are disputing local authorities’ demand that they abandon their homes without compensation so the government can increase a nearby canal’s capacity. The residents, who were asked on September 28 to vacate their homes within a week by Meanchey ...
Record dogs new ACRA chief
The owner of a labor firm repeatedly accused of human trafficking, who is also the sister of one of the country’s top police officials, has been appointed head of the Association of Cambodian Recruitment Agencies (ACRA). Grave concerns have been expressed by rights groups over the appointment of Ung Seang ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012102459382/National-news/record-dogs-new-acra-chief.html
Study Finds Land Concessions of No Benefit
Government-issued economic land concessions are making the country’s indigenous communities in the northeast provinces worse off, according to a study by the Mekong Institute of Cambodia. Presented yesterday at the 2012 Development Research Forum in Phnom Penh, the study comes on top of mounting criticism of ...
Cambodian migrant workers send US$360 million home a year
Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand, Japan, Malaysia and Korea have sent home an average of US$360 million a year in remittances, according to Seng Sakada, general director of Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training. Overseas Cambodian migrants mainly work in the fields of housework, construction, factories ...
Questions over China dams
Some questions remain about whether hydro dams on the upper Mekong River in China exacerbated conditions during Cambodia’s devastating drought of 2010, environmental groups say, as China’s dam program powers ahead. When the first power-generating unit was switched on last month at China’s giant 262-metre tall ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012102359350/National-news/questions-over-china-dams.html
First & Main gear goes cheap
Workers from bankrupt plush-toy factory First & Main are still owed money after the Ministry of Social Affairs auctioned $200,000 worth of factory equipment for just $21,000, a labor rights advocate said Sunday. More than 350 workers were left stranded when the US-owned teddy bear factory closed in ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012102359360/National-news/first-a-main-gear-goes-cheap.html
Thailand cracks down on exploitative factory
In a rare intervention, the Thai Labor Ministry has stepped in to stop the exploitation of migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar at a seafood factory in the country’s south, correspondence obtained by the Post reveals. The ministry found the Phatthana Seafood factory, in Songkhla province, which employs ...
Killer in Chut Wutty Case Could Be Free Within Days
The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday convicted a private security guard of accidentally killing the military police officer who allegedly shot dead the country’s most prominent environmental activist, Chut Wutty, and sentenced him to two years in prison. The presiding judge, Kham Sophary, then immediately suspended ...
Wutty Case wraps with sentencing
At the close of a case that remained shrouded in controversy until the end, Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday found former security guard Ran Boroth guilty of the unintentional killing of military police officer In Rattana, the man on whom authorities pinned the murder of ...
Six Brokers Arrested for Trying To Send Workers to Thailand
Six people were arrested in three separate incidents for trying to send 236 Cambodians into Thailand where they were to work illegally, police said yesterday. Prak Saony, Kompong Chhnang provincial anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection bureau police chief, said that police arrested five people in a ...