The Phnom Penh Post
Workers fired after strike
Two factories in the Manhattan Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Svay Rieng province’s Bavet town have fired more than 40 workers since thousands-strong strikes ended early this month, unions say. Terminations at Best Way and Fico garment factories were bosses’ way of exacting revenge for the ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/workers-fired-after-strike
Rainsy attack ‘shocks’ tycoon
Prominent businessman and Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat yesterday questioned what he had done to warrant a verbal attack from opposition party leader Sam Rainsy, who said on Wednesday that the tycoon had grabbed land from people in Koh Kong province and should ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rainsy-attack-%E2%80%98shocks%E2%80%99-tycoon
Cambodians drinking more
Cambodian men drink more than the global norm and their liquor habits are on the upswing, according to a recent report by the World Health Organization. People – especially men – throughout the Western Pacific and Southeast Asian regions are drinking more, according to the WHO’s ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cambodians-drinking-more
Aus called out on railway
Rights groups are calling out the Australian government for being “curiously absent” from discussions about further compensation for thousands of families affected by a railway rehabilitation project that it co-funded with the Asian Development Bank. The bank has borne the brunt of criticism over botched resettlement ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/aus-called-out-railway
Longans longing for storage
The amount of land used to grow longans has doubled in the past two years, but a lack of supply-chain infrastructure is hampering farmers’ ability to get top dollar for their product, the fruit’s body says. Sreng Sreang, deputy director of the Pailin Longan Farmers’ Community ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/longans-longing-storage
Wing Star victim’s kin not paid out
When an overloaded and illegally built storage level at the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kampong Speu province collapsed last May 16, officials went into damage control, promising to compensate victims using a relatively new state fund. But one year after teenager Kim Dany and co-worker ...
Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/wing-star-victim%E2%80%99s-kin-not-paid-out
Overtime at school goes unpaid
Six months after the government announced that bank accounts for all civil servants would put an end to late salaries and rampant graft, secondary school teachers in Prey Veng say they are owed long overdue payments. In addition to their regular salary, which they already received, ...
Laignee Barron and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/overtime-school-goes-unpaid
Nearly 850 protests this year: police
Almost 850 demonstrations or strikes have occurred nationwide since the year began – a seemingly anarchic average of more than six a day, the General Commissariat of National Police announced this week, blaming politicians, NGOs and trade unions for helping to incite demonstrators and “complicating ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/nearly-850-protests-year-police
Mining industry looks to Aus
A mining delegation from Cambodia has left for a fact-finding tour of Australia in a bid to glean knowledge from one of the world’s largest minerals exploration countries. The trip is being coordinated by the International Mining for Development Centre of the Western Australia state government. The ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/mining-industry-looks-aus
Cambodia exports to US rise by over 10 pct
Driven by a slowly recovering American economy, Cambodian exports to the US increased 11 per cent in the first quarter of 2014 compared with the same period last year, according to the latest US government data. Cambodian exports from January to March totalled $771 million, up ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/cambodia-exports-us-rise-over-10-pct
Sexual abuse among claims against HAGL
Sexual assault and the annihilation of sacred graveyards are among the many claims levelled at Vietnamese Rubber giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) by villagers in Ratanakkiri province, a report by the World Bank’s investment arm reveals. In February, 17 indigenous communities that accused HAGL of ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/sexual-abuse-among-claims-against-hagl
Standard forms aim for public bid transparency
The Ministry of Economy and Finance on Monday announced the release of standardised bidding forms for public contracts, a measure it said would increase transparency and accountability, though the opposition and Transparency International Cambodia offered more cautious assessments yesterday. According to a state media announcement, the ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/standard-forms-aim-public-bid-transparency
Election monitors say CPP stifling campaign
In a report released yesterday, local election-monitoring organisation Comfrel accuses the ruling Cambodian People’s Party of stifling the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party’s campaign for district, provincial and municipal council elections. Comfrel cited the closure of Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park to would-be campaigners, and the ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/election-monitors-say-cpp-stifling-campaign
Tea Banh denies supporting Russia
Minister of Defence Tea Banh yesterday denied allegations that Cambodia supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Local media reported yesterday that during a meeting with the defence minister on Monday, Russian Ambassador Dmitry Tsvetkov thanked the Kingdom for supporting Moscow in the recent secession crisis in Ukraine ...
Cheang Sokha
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tea-banh-denies-supporting-russia
Deal would send workers to Saudi Arabia
Cambodia is nearing a deal that would open a pipeline of workers to Saudi Arabia, a country where Southeast Asian migrants have in the past been abused and even executed for crimes that include “sorcery”. Following a meeting in Hanoi last week with Saudi Ambassador Salah ...
Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/deal-would-send-workers-saudi-arabia
Can’t fight, forced to take flight
The residents of Por Sen Chey district’s Prey Chisak village could do nothing but stand and stare. Early yesterday, representatives of Green Goal, a private company tasked with measuring and marking sought-after property for Phnom Penh’s airport expansion, arrived in the village and started to measure ...
Chhay Channyda and Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/can%E2%80%99t-fight-forced-take-flight
Court rules in tycoon’s favour
Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday ruled in favour of a mining tycoon and convicted a Chinese-Cambodian widow of defaming the oknha during an embittered land dispute. Sok Neang Gek, 46, an interpreter at a garment factory in the capital, was fined $1,000 and ordered to compensate ...
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/court-rules-tycoon%E2%80%99s-favour
In debt, out of work
They save for months, borrowing from family and friends, even taking out loans, to pour as much as a year’s worth of earnings into the hands of recruiters that may have no intention and certainly have no guarantee of procuring overseas employment. Recruitment agencies, several of ...
Laignee Barron and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/debt-out-work
Russey Keo governor summonsed to court
The governor of Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district has been summonsed to court for questioning on allegations that he and his wife cheated a former secretary of state at the Ministry of Rural Development out of $730,000 through a fraudulent sale of state land and ...
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/russey-keo-governor-summonsed-court
Labour leaders decry bail payment and nine arrests
Labour union leaders denounced the government yesterday, alleging unfair treatment in the wake of nine union worker arrests last week and a hefty bail payment by a union president yesterday. Ath Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU), yesterday paid $25,000 ...
Sean Teehan and Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/labour-leaders-decry-bail-payment-and-nine-arrests
Beaten journo preps lawsuit
A journalist with Voice of Democracy (VOD) who was badly beaten by security forces at the site of a planned demonstration in the capital earlier this month left for Thailand yesterday for an operation, and plans to file suit against his attackers next week, he ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/beaten-journo-preps-lawsuit
Logging a resource issue, says official
A forestry official with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) who is usually tight-lipped acknowledged last week that his agency has struggled to combat illegal logging, blaming a shortage of manpower and entrenched opportunistic logging by villagers – explanations that were laughed off ...
May Titthara and Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/logging-resource-issue-says-official
Bag snatchings jump: EU
After being presented with statistics showing a more than 100 per cent rise in petty crime against foreigners, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng yesterday called on police officials to look into what’s causing the problem. Nicolas Baudouin, a spokesman for the French Embassy, confirmed that a ...
Vong Sokheng and Joe Freeman
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/bag-snatchings-jump-eu
Weather damage: Storms ruin dozens of lives, homes
At least 31 people were killed and 64 injured by storms during the first four months of this year, according to figures from the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM). Keo Vy, cabinet director at the NCDM, said strong winds and rains led to three deaths ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/weather-damage-storms-ruin-dozens-lives-homes