The Cambodia Daily
Direct Bangkok-Phnom Penh Bus Route Officially Opens Commences
Starting today, 22 Cambodian buses and a truck will be allowed to transport passengers and goods directly between Phnom Penh and Bangkok, an official said yesterday. “We will officially open the Poipet International Checkpoint [to buses and trucks] on the Thai border,” said Suon Vanhong, deputy ...
Cambodian-Americans Protest Minister’s US Visit
Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong’s visit to meet U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington was met with a small protest Tuesday from Cambodian-Americans voicing a number of grievances. Video footage posted online shows a cluster of protesters outside the State Department building in Washington ...
Court to Question SEZ Shooting Witnesses Today
The Svay Rieng Provincial Court is scheduled to question two witnesses today over the shooting of three workers at a special economic zone (SEZ) on Feb. 20, investigating Judge Pech Chhoeut said yesterday. “We will question two more witnesses on Thursday,” Judge Chhoeut said. ...
Final Witness Questioned Over Chut Wutty’s Death
The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday questioned the seventh and final witness to the April 26 shooting death of well-known environmental activist Chut Wutty by provincial military police officer In Ratana, court officials said. Srey Makny, the court’s deputy prosecutor, said witness Bou An was questioned ...
Bearing Gifts, Chinese Heads Visit Hun Sen
A delegation of Chinese officials yesterday donated two airplanes and signed an agreement to provide Cambodia with loans for a new hydropower dam in Battambang and the renovation of two national roads. The deals were made during a meeting in Phnom Penh between He Guoqiang, a ...
Cambodian Pawnshop Revenues Drop as Industry Expands
The number of licensed pawnshops in the country has surged since the government began registering them in 2010, leaving some pawnbrokers claiming revenue losses of 30 to 50 percent due to oversaturation in the market. Ly Seng Cheng, a pawnbroker at the Khlaing Rum Sev pawnshop ...
Justice Ministry Won’t Press Court Over Jailed 13
The Ministry of Justice will not press the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to review the case of 13 Boeng Kak residents sentenced to jail last month for demonstrating against a CPP senator’s real estate project, despite asking the court to consider releasing the women. Now that ...
Cheap Thai Green Beans Send Local Prices Downward
Large quantities of cheap green bean exports from Thailand are driving down prices of the product in Kompong Cham province by as much as 40 percent compared to the same period last year and forcing farmers to grow other crops, officials and farmers said yesterday. The ...
Gourmet Peanut Producer Brings Local Foods Into the Spotlight
Working out of the back of her home in Russei Keo district, Sothearith Neou and a half dozen of her friends and family roast, caramelize and add herbs to gourmet peanuts from 7 a.m. until late at night—trying to fill a seemingly endless number of ...
Virtual Sam Rainsy Slapped With Actual Fine
The Provincial Election Committee (PEC) on Monday fined opposition leader Sam Rainsy $2,500 for verbally attacking Prime Minister Hun Sen from afar during a video-link speech beamed to supporters in Phnom Penh, officials said yesterday. Mr. Rainsy, who currently lives in self-imposed exile in Paris, was ...
US Official Meets Asean Leaders Over Corruption
U.S. Ambassador to Asean David Carden met with judges and Justice Ministry representatives from all 10 Asean countries in Phnom Penh yesterday to discuss the importance of fighting against corruption and upholding the rule of law for foreign investors. “Cambodia will prosper if outside investment comes ...
Firm Says Logging Won’t Derail Carbon Credits
The U.S. firm selling credits for a carbon trading scheme that could earn Cambodia tens of millions of dollars said yesterday that sales could start in a matter of months, despite mounting claims of deforestation within the community forests set to anchor the project. ...
Zsombor Peter and Kuch Naren, P. 1
Justice Ministry Seeks Review Of Jailed 13
The Justice Ministry has written to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court requesting that it review the case of 13 Boeng Kak women recently jailed for demonstrations against a CPP senator’s real estate project, a ministry official said yesterday. Bunyai Narin, deputy Cabinet chief for the Justice ...
China Donates $110,000 in Office Equipment to CPP
He Guoqiang, a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, yesterday announced a donation of about $110,000 worth of office equipment to the CPP, National Assembly Cabinet Chief Koam Kosal said. The donation was made during the official visit to Cambodia of a ...
Staff to Come Home After Thai Factory Brawl
Half of the of the 600 Cambodian workers at Siam International Food Co. Ltd.’s factory in Thailand are planning to return home following a mass brawl in which two workers were killed last week, a factory employee said yesterday. A Cambodian and a Burmese worker died ...
Lawsuit Filed Against Banteay Meanchey Land Protesters
Banteay Meanchey’s provincial environment department, a local company and two bulldozer drivers, have sued four villagers in Banteay Meanchey province over their alleged role in a violent land protest in February. The villagers, who have been summoned for questioning this week, stand accused of intentional property ...
Commmander Files Complaint Against Forestry Chief
A military police commander has filed a complaint against a Forestry Administration chief whom he accuses of wrongly sending authorities to search a truck suspected of transporting illegally logged luxury wood, officials said yesterday. When Forestry Administration officials searched the truck at a military police base in Kompong Thom province on ...
UN Confirms Logging in Carbon Trading Zone
The U.N. has said it is concerned about deforestation in Oddar Meanchey province in an area where it has launched a carbon trading scheme and confirmed that it is working with the government in order to “rectify the situation.” In an email on Friday, the ...
Kuch Naren and Abby Seiff, P. 1
Revenue Growth in Advertising Sector Slows
Revenue growth in the advertising sector increased just 4 percent to $24.1 million during the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2011, as mobile phone operators struggling to make a profit in an oversaturated market were forced to cut their ...
Arbitrator Rules On Future of Gold Tower 42
Arbitrators in Seoul have ruled that the company contracted to build the $240 million Gold Tower 42 project in Phnom Penh was in breach of contract after failing to raise funds to finish the project, which resulted in work stopping almost two years ago, a ...
Gov’t Asks Global Fund to Unblock $20 Million Malaria Grant
A Health Ministry official said yesterday the government was still hoping to recoup the last $20 million of a Global Fund grant for fighting malaria that the international charity has held back because of Cambodia’s poor use of fund dollars. Last week, a spokesman for the ...
Neighbors Visit Boeng Kak Hunger Strikers at Prey Sar Prison
Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community yesterday said they visited four former neighbors now serving jail terms in Prey Sar prison for demonstrating against CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin’s real estate project and urged the women to end their reported hunger strike. A prison official, however, insisted there was ...
Lawyer Asks to Participate in Shooting Probe
A lawyer representing the three victims of the Feb. 20 shooting of workers at a special economic zone (SEZ) in Svay Rieng province has written to investigators asking to be allowed to participate in the case. Chin Lyda, a lawyer for human rights group Licadho who is representing the three ...
Villagers Claim Chief Signed Away Their Land
Sixteen ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province have claimed that they are being forced from their land after a commune chief signed it away, and that commune borders have been redrawn to dispossess them. On Friday, the families, who have been living on 30 hectares of ...