The Phnom Penh Post
Motor insurance slows to a crawl
Insurance providers sold far fewer motor vehicle and personal accident policies in 2013 than in the previous year, sparking concern among some in the industry that the importance of being covered in case of a road accident isn’t getting through to drivers. According to the General ...
May Kunmakara and Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/motor-insurance-slows-crawl
Forums to help guide learning
Beginning this year, all public schools will be required to conduct regularly scheduled forums designed to function as a sounding board between teachers, parents and students, officials said yesterday. The meetings will encourage dialogue about what is and isn’t working in Cambodian schools, Education Minister Hang ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/forums-help-guide-learning
Khmer minority lack equal rights: report
Thach Ry, a 64-year-old Khmer Krom man, fled Vietnam in 2008 after authorities there tried to arrest him for protesting the government’s treatment of his community. Arriving in Cambodia with his wife and daughter, authorities here tried to arrest him, too, he said, so like many ...
Kevin Ponniah and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/khmer-minority-lack-equal-rights-report
Ministry to ‘examine’ probe results
Officials from the Ministry of Interior will meet tomorrow to review the results of an investigation into a crackdown that left four dead on Veng Sreng Boulevard in Phnom Penh last month, a police spokesman said. After saying on Tuesday that a report on the investigation’s ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ministry-%E2%80%98examine%E2%80%99-probe-results
Flood trouble spots mapped
Thanks to a crowd-sourcing campaign spearheaded by grassroots map developers Urban Voice Cambodia, residents of Phnom Penh can now access a map pinpointing flood-prone areas in the capital during rainy season. Updated online yesterday, the map was generated by citizens, who contributed 119 reports of flooding over a ...
Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/flood-trouble-spots-mapped
Deal scrapped; strike ends
Rubbish collectors went back to work in the capital yesterday after further concessions were made following the workers’ rejection of a deal struck on Tuesday evening between union representatives and waste disposal company Cintri. Union representatives had said they had reached a deal with the firm, ...
Mom Kunthear and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/deal-scrapped-strike-ends
Rip-offs strike wrong chord
Slapping Khmer song lyrics over international hits or ripping off the creative content of foreign-produced music videos is a practice in the Kingdom that must end within one year, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts officials said at a conference in the capital yesterday. A crackdown ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rip-offs-strike-wrong-chord
Postal service revenue up
Operating revenue at the partly state-owned mail service, Cambodia Post (CP), rose more than 10 per cent last year compared to 2012, according to a senior government official. Ork Bora, CP’s general director, said that revenue reached $4.56 million, an increase of 12.54 per cent from ...
May Kunmakara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/postal-service-revenue
All quiet as Veng Sreng probe ends
The government’s investigation into the bloody crackdown on unruly protesters on Veng Sreng Boulevard one month ago wrapped up yesterday, officials said, though those familiar with the investigation remained tight-lipped about its findings. National Police spokesman Kirth Chantharith said yesterday that the three-week investigation had cooperated ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/all-quiet-veng-sreng-probe-ends
New laws on judiciary due by ‘end of month’
The Ministry of Justice is kicking into overdrive its long-stagnated efforts to finish three fundamental laws on the function of the judiciary, saying it hopes to complete the laws – which it characterises as key judicial reforms – by the end of the month, the ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/new-laws-judiciary-due-%E2%80%98end-month%E2%80%99
Messy strike comes to an end
Phnom Penh’s sanitation workers are expected back on the job today after a two-day strike that saw garbage beginning to pile up in neighbourhoods across the city. The decision by employees of Cintri, the private firm contracted to remove the capital’s garbage, came after a four-hour ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/messy-strike-comes-end
Survey seeks info on Cambodian business health
Starting later this month, 10,000 small and medium-sized businesses will be queried as part of a Japanese government-backed economic census intended to take a snapshot of activity across the private sector. Beginning on February 23 and running through to March 31, Cambodia’s National Institute of Statistics ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/survey-seeks-info-cambodian-business-health
Villagers say community forest at risk
More than 100 families in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district are seeking government intervention against an economic land concessionaire they allege has razed over 1,000 hectares of community forest, village leaders said yesterday. Five representatives for the 144 families departed yesterday to file a complaint at the provincial ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-say-community-forest-risk
Migrant abuse down, not out
Fewer cases of abuse of migrants were recorded last year than in 2012, but that doesn’t mean the issue is any less serious, a forum held by rights group Adhoc was told yesterday. Torture, a lack of food, and physical and sexual abuse are just some ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/migrant-abuse-down-not-out
‘Workplace inequality pervasive’
Discussions about salaries on the factory floor led worker Channa, 22, to begin feeling jealous of her male counterparts. She learned, through talking with a number of co-workers, that the men working around her were doing the same amount of work as she was, but being ...
Shane Worrell and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98workplace-inequality-pervasive%E2%80%99
Reforestry Claim ‘A Stretch’
The government reforested 80,693 hectares of land between 2008 and 2012 as part of its efforts to combat deforestation, a recent agriculture ministry report says, but these seemingly impressive statistics were reached by counting rubber trees and other agricultural crops as adequate replacements for forests. The ...
May Titthara and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/reforestry-claim-%E2%80%98-stretch%E2%80%99
Cambodia’s rice under fire
Amid falling local production in Italy, officials there are calling on the European Union to scrap a preferential trade agreement that gives Cambodia’s rice exports duty-free advantages in the global market. According to a January 31 report from rice industry publication Oryza, members of the Italian ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/cambodia%E2%80%99s-rice-under-fire
Farmers seek court hearing delay
Twelve representatives of 50 families in Preah Vihear’s Kulen district filed an appeal yesterday after being summonsed to court over a land dispute with a Malaysian company. The villagers gathered in Adhoc’s office in Srayrong commune to draft and submit a letter requesting that their court ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/farmers-seek-court-hearing-delay
Raising a stink in Siem Reap
Piles of waste stinking up Siem Reap’s Chreav commune are causing serious health problems and making the area unlivable, according to local residents. The site in Knar village, which is run by refuse company Global Action for Environment Awareness (GAEA), is plagued with flies and a ...
Thik Kaliyann
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/raising-stink-siem-reap
Illegal factory floor removed
The illegally built second storey of the Siu Quinh garment factory in Phnom Penh has been destroyed, factory officials and workers said yesterday. Bun Leng, administrative manager at the factory in Dangkor district, said his company had demolished the floor after inspection from a private company ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/illegal-factory-floor-removed
Justice still elusive for acid victims
Two years after Cambodia’s Acid Law took effect, and one year after a subsequent sub-decree further regulated the dangerous substance, significant hurdles remain in securing justice for victims of acid attacks, according to a paper published in the Cambodian Law and Policy Journalon Sunday. In her paper, ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/justice-still-elusive-acid-victims
CNRP to try to visit jailed 23
Opposition party members will lead a delegation to the doors of Kampong Cham Correctional Centre 3 on Tuesday in the hope of visiting the 23 people imprisoned there following a violent crackdown on striking garment workers in early January. Despite having previously been denied access to ...
May Titthara and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cnrp-try-visit-jailed-23
Mixed message to UN
A call for the Cambodian government to lift its controversial ban on public assembly is among 34 such recommendations it has chosen to defer in the wake of last week’s second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of its human rights situation. The UN on Saturday released a ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/mixed-message-un
Village chief ‘threatens’ over logging complaint
Villagers in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc, claiming their village chief has threatened them with arrest over a petition accusing officials of illegally logging a community forest. Sven Vev, 40, said he and three other representatives of the ethnic Tumpoun ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/village-chief-%E2%80%98threatens%E2%80%99-over-logging-complaint