The Phnom Penh Post
Fund playing hardball
The Global Fund has threatened to suspend or reduce health grants to Cambodia totalling more than $100 million if the Ministry of Health, the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD (NCHADS) and NGO umbrella group MEDiCAM fail to meet a 30-day deadline to return ...
Kevin Ponniah and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/fund-playing-hardball
Dam may be behind mass fish deaths
More than 10 tonnes of fish have been collected from a canal in Banteay Meanchey where the dead catch has been washing up since Sunday. Heng Seng Krey, fishery administration chief of Banteay Meanchey’s Mongkol Borei district, said more than 200 people have come to collect ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/dam-may-be-behind-mass-fish-deaths
Economic zone may go public
The Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ) plans to raise money to fund an expansion through an initial public offering, a senior official from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC) said yesterday. If successful, PPSEZ could become one of the few companies to list on ...
May Kunmakara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/economic-zone-may-go-public
Garment workers told to go back to factories
About 30,000 garment workers from 40 factories in Svay Rieng province yesterday were told to return to their jobs after being sent home Monday amid fears a strike over the minimum wage would turn violent. Has Bunthy, a provincial department director at the Ministry of Labour, ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/garment-workers-told-go-back-factories
Prison oversight lags: UN
Five years after first ratifying the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), Cambodia remains delinquent in honouring some of its commitments under the treaty, UN representatives said yesterday. Under the OPCAT, Cambodia was obliged to create an independent National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) to ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/prison-oversight-lags-un
Boeung Kak awaits justice
More than 30 families in the capital’s Boeung Kak community are still waiting for official land titles six weeks after City Hall officials measured ground at the site of a years-long land dispute, villagers have said. The Phnom Penh Municipality began measuring land in villages 6, ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/boeung-kak-awaits-justice
Signed up for work, forced into marriage
An NGO is working to free two Cambodian women forced into marriage in China, a representative of the organisation said yesterday. Huy Pichsovann, program officer at the Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), said that the two women, aged 22 and 27, were enticed from their Kampong ...
James Hall and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/signed-work-forced-marriage
Putting hospitals on lockdown
The government plans to extend the country’s still-limited capacity to treat ailing prisoners by building more secure rooms inside provincial hospitals. As part of the General Department of Prisons’ 2014-2018 strategic plan, the Ministry of Interior hopes to have rooms specifically designated for prisoners in each ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/putting-hospitals-lockdown
Families say company duped them
Family members of a group of Cambodian workers arrested with fake passports in Thailand on Friday claimed yesterday they had got them through a recruitment agency in Cambodia – an allegation the company’s president denied. According to Hau, Anny Rita Best Manpower promised that the ...
James Hall and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/families-say-company-duped-them
Garment workers’ patience wearing thin
Taking part in daily demonstrations outside the shuttered factory where she once worked is beginning to weigh on Bou Narith and her co-workers. Government officials this morning will sit down with representatives of employees and a representative from USA Fully Field (Cambodia) Garment factory, which, ...
Mom Kunthear and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/garment-workers%E2%80%99-patience-wearing-thin
An unsettling prospect
Resettlement studies are being carried out at the site of the proposed Stung Cheay Areng hydropower dam in Koh Kong province, officials said yesterday, amid suggestions that yet another Chinese company is now involved in the controversial project.Tou Savuth, Thma Bang district governor, said staff ...
Shane Worrell and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/unsettling-prospect
NGO alleges bribery over titles
An environmental protection NGO is preparing to file a lawsuit with the Kampong Speu provincial court and a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Unit against an Agriculture Department official who was allegedly paid by a development firm to issue land titles to villagers squatting on state ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ngo-alleges-bribery-over-titles
Slipping through the cracks
US national Daniel Stephen Johnson was transferred to Prey Sar prison yesterday after being charged on Saturday over the alleged rape of five underage boys – residents of the orphanage he ran without interference from authorities for several months. According to Phnom Penh Municipal Court prosecutor ...
Stuart White and Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/slipping-through-cracks
High school meth use up: UN
High school students are increasingly using methamphetamines and other stimulants to relax or help them study, according to the UN. A spike in trafficking of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) across the borders with Thailand and Laos over the past two years has gone hand-in-hand with a rise ...
Daniel Pye and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/high-school-meth-use-un
For 2013, trade value to reach $16 billion
The value of Cambodia’s overall trade volume for 2013 is expected to reach $16 billion, according to the former Minister of Economy and Finance, Keat Chhon. The figure comes to a 14.4 per cent rise from last year. ...
Chan Muy Hong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/2013-trade-value-reach-16-billion
Gambit by CNRP an ‘all-in’ move
In its switch to a strategy of nonstop demonstrations calling for a new election, the opposition party has made a calculated decision to go “all-in” and toughen its stance in a bid to ramp up domestic pressure on the ruling party, political analysts said yesterday. Since ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/gambit-cnrp-%E2%80%98all-%E2%80%99-move
Luxury wood stash seized in R’kiri raid
A house in Ratanakkiri owned by a provincial deputy police chief was raided on Saturday, yielding seven cubic metres of luxury timber. Ratanakkiri Provincial Court and Forestry Administration officials carried out the raid on the property where the deputy police chief is the landlord, but he ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/luxury-wood-stash-seized-r%E2%80%99kiri-raid
New lottery bets on success
Malaysian-owned company VW Win Holdings Plc launched lottery operation Camloto in the Kingdom this week, making it the second to go live in as many months. Camloto CEO Jimmy Kong unveiled the new start-up, which will draw its first ball tonight on all major TV stations, ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/new-lottery-bets-success
Domestic workers seek cap on working hours
In a letter to three government ministries, a local domestic worker rights group last week demanded wage increases and limitations on work hours. Von Samphous, president of the fledgling Cambodian Domestic Worker Network (CDWN), sent the letter to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Ministry ...
Mom Kunthear, P.5
http://www.phnompenhpost.com
Justice Ministry to keep track of courts’ case lists
The Ministry of Justice yesterday held the first of what it said would be regular forums soliciting the input of civil society on judicial reforms, and promised a new measure that it maintained would streamline the courts’ workflow. Citing widespread frustration among citizens, Justice Minister Ang ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/justice-ministry-keep-track-courts%E2%80%99-case-lists
Land-title program ‘Ineffective’
Land certificates handed out by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s youth volunteers have been seized by local authorities in some parts of the country and sold on to companies, a forum on land rights was told yesterday, amid reports of rising numbers of land conflicts. Speaking at ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-title-program-%E2%80%98ineffective%E2%80%99
Rainsy ‘Twisting Facts’: Vietnamese embassy
The Vietnamese embassy fired back yesterday at opposition party leader Sam Rainsy’s claim that Vietnamese companies granted economic land concessions in Prey Lang forest are turning the area into a Vietnamese “colony”. On Wednesday, Rainsy visited the forest and claimed that CRCK, a Vietnamese firm granted ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rainsy-%E2%80%98twisting-facts%E2%80%99-vietnamese-embassy
Way of life vanishing: villagers
Since 2011, an estimated 3,000 resin trees have been illegally razed by rogue loggers and a land concessionaire operating in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district, villagers claimed yesterday. Resin trees are a vital source of income for the Phnong ethnic community in Sokdom commune, according to Thleuk ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/way-life-vanishing-villagers
School resources for disabled scarce
Kimseang spent much of his childhood enduring harassment and verbal abuse, with teachers and other children dismissing him because of a visual and physical impairment. While the kingdom has seen overall access to education improve from a 69 per cent net enrollment rate in 1991 ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/school-resources-disabled-scarce