News

The government wants to beautify Cambodian cities and has launched a competition to encourage the country’s urban centres to clean up their act. Speaking in front of a crowd of roughly 700 at the Peace Palace yesterday, Minister of Tourism Thong Khon said that the “Clean ...

Several RCAF soldiers sent by Banteay Meanchey provincial authorities to defuse a protest against an agro-industrial company Friday allegedly shot their weapons into the ground near a group of protesters, a villager and a rights worker said yesterday. The approximately 200 villagers were attempting to ...

Echoing remarks made by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier last week, economic experts agreed that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita would reach US$ 1,000 ( Bt30,377) this year, up from the estimated $900 at the end of 2011. Managing director of Acleda ...

The deaths of four more Cambodian over the past two weeks brings to 11 the number of people killed by Thai soldiers so far this year while illegally logging across the border. The death toll is fast approaching the 15 Cambodians killed in the entirety ...

A senior official at the state-owned Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) said yesterday that blackouts in Phnom Penh could persist until the onset of the rainy season in June. EdC last week began rationing power citywide, as Phnom Penh is currently short about 100 megawatts of ...

Government officials remained tight-lipped yesterday about progress in their investigation of the Feb. 20 shooting of three female garment workers during a strike and demonstration in Svay Rieng province’s Bavet city. On Feb 20, three women were wounded when a uniformed gunman opened fire at ...

Inflation in Cambodia rose 5.8 per cent year-on-year in January, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics. Rising fuel costs had spurred the inflation, which was felt largely in the price of food, officials said. Data showed food and non-alcoholic beverage prices in January increased ...

Rocks were hurled, fires lit, hostages taken and the message delivered in no uncertain terms last week: Cambodians are increasingly willing to use violence against companies that intimidate them or ignore their demands. Twice – in Svay Rieng and Kampong Cham provinces – garment workers pelted ...

A Forestry Administration official has agreed to drop his complaint against three RACF soldiers he accused of shooting at him and fellow forestry officials in 2010 in exchange for $15,000, his lawyer said yesterday. However, officials for the Siem Reap Provincial Court and the Military ...

Two partners and about 20 employees at DFDL, a regional law firm that has consulted on some of Cambodia’s biggest investment projects over the past 16 years, stunned the company last weekend with an announcement of their departure to start a new tax advisory outfit. The ...

The government of China on Monday delivered office supplies and equipment worth $403,000 to Cambodia in order to ease the country’s burden when it hosts the ASEAN summit and related Summits this year. The office supplies and equipment included 200 sets of desktops, 60 sets of ...

Pailin’s juicy longans, a small beige-colored fruit renowned for its sweet taste, is on the way to becoming Cambodia’s third food product to attain Geographic Indicator (GI) status. The longan will join Cambodia’s only other GI-recognized food products: Kompong Speu palm sugar and Kampot ...

Over three years after Shukaku Inc started filling Boeung Kak lake with sand to make way for a CPP Senator’s massive real estate project, Google Maps has now completely erased the image of the lake, which the municipality’s year-end report says is now 95 percent ...

Villagers being questioned in relation to a land dispute with a powerful company said on Friday that a Ratanakiri court official had intimidated them by urging them to accept an out-of-court settlement with the firm or face a countersuit. Court officials denied the claims and said ...

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have decided not to investigate the Australian mining company OZ Minerals, saying information that the firm paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to family members of officials in the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (Mime) when buying out its ...

Rolling blackouts that plagued Phnom Penh this week were the result of the city’s power supply being unable to meet demand as the country moves into the hot season, officials at state-owned Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) said on Friday. Power Outages rolled over the city this ...

After four days of protests, which at times grew violent, striking garment workers at the Manhattan Qing Dao Textile Corp in Kompong Cham province said they would be resuming work Monday after reaching a tentative agreement with the company. On Thursday, more than 1000 workers ...

Seng Takakneary started her business in a one-room shop with two sewing machines in 2004. Today, Ms. Takakneary’s Sentosa Silk employs about 100 staff in Phnom Penh who produce a range of fine Cambodian silk items, including pillows, curtains, bedspreads, dresses, shirts and bags. Since ...

A fourth day of protests by garment workers in Kampong Cham turned unruly yesterday, as nearly 2,000 workers shattered the windows of their factory with stones after briefly blocking National Road 7. The workers blocked the road for about 10 minutes at 9am, before returning to ...

A Thai Company is conducting a feasibility study to build a coal-fired power plant in Koh Kong province and has already invested in a local firm with permission to develop the plant, according to officials and the company. In an announcement to the Thai Stock ...

A meeting between microfinance organizations and the finance minister yesterday resulted in no agreements or special measures for debtors affected by last year’s floods, a microfinance representative said, adding that the sector had done enough already to address concerns over debt among flooded communities. On ...

Two days after Ratanakiri province villagers took hostage a group of local officials who were clearing land for a rubber plantation, authorities downplayed the incident, saying they had no plans to press charges and that “the problem has been settled.” A representative of the rubber company, ...

Tired of the rampant destruction of their forests by loggers, villagers in Kratie province on Tuesday took matters into their own hands by briefly detaining loggers and confiscating six chainsaws and a tractor, a forestry official and villagers said yesterday. San Sihan, one of the ...

Security footage of a shooting outside a shoe factory on Monday that left three protestors in hospital has been reviewed by police, the head of the special economic zone where the incident took place said yesterday. The three women were shot at a violent protest of ...