The Phnom Penh Post
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
Credit Suisse’s HAGL holdings drawing fire
Credit Suisse, a financial services firm based in Switzerland, has been accused of aiding land grabbing in Cambodia by becoming a major shareholder in Vietnamese rubber giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) Group. In a statement released today, Global Witness (GW), an NGO based in England, ...
Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/credit-suisse%E2%80%99s-hagl-holdings-drawing-fire
Summonses for 30 in Ly Yong Phat spat
Thirty people locked in a land dispute with ruling party senator and sugar tycoon Ly Yong Phat received summonses yesterday to appear in Kampong Speu provincial court. Although the summonses don’t list a complainant, some of those called to appear in court next Tuesday said they ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/summonses-30-ly-yong-phat-spat
Sacred artefacts go missing
Kandal provincial authorities and officials from multiple ministries are investigating the apparent theft of historical artefacts from a stupa at Oudong Mountain said to contain some remains of Buddha himself. Relevant authorities were tight-lipped yesterday about which objects were missing, but a local news outlet reported ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/sacred-artefacts-go-missing
Small-scale protests continue
A day after authorities carted away 11 protesters intending to camp out in front of the United States embassy, a similarly ad hoc group of citizens struggled to deliver petitions to three embassies in the capital yesterday. The group of about 50 were blocked by police ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/small-scale-protests-continue
Rainsy’s speech under fire
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has landed in hot water with women’s rights activists after publicly questioning whether Prime Minister Hun Sen was being “weaker than a woman” by not calling for a new election like Thai leader Yingluck Shinawatra in the face of popular protests. Speaking ...
Kevin Ponniah and Thik Kaliyann
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rainsy%E2%80%99s-speech-under-fire
Russian Boulevard land prices rising
The west end of Street 110, also known as Russian Boulevard, is attracting increasing interest from investors and retailers because of its vital role connecting Phnom Penh International Airport with the city centre. Local real estate experts estimate that land prices along the thoroughfare have risen ...
Post Staff
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/real-estate/russian-boulevard-land-prices-rising
New election? No chance: CPP
Senior government ministers yesterday rejected the Cambodia National Rescue Party’s call for Cambodia to follow the lead of Thailand and take the country back to the polls. Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng said yesterday that there was no chance a new election would ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/new-election-no-chance-cpp
Undercover underused: NGO
Cambodia hopes to legalise undercover investigative techniques – like covert surveillance and officers posing as criminals, which until now have fallen into a murky legal grey area – by next year. At a workshop in the capital yesterday, law enforcement officials and representatives of human rights ...
Laignee Barron and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/undercover-underused-ngo
Man fronts court over Pheap row
A man facing defamation charges was questioned in Kandal Provincial Court yesterday following his comments in a report that alleged tycoon Try Pheap was illegally logging. San Sen was quoted in a Cambodian Human Rights Task Force (CHRTF) report last month that implicated the tycoon in ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/man-fronts-court-over-pheap-row
Vattanac Capital preparing for eventful 2014
Phnom Penh’s growing importance as a business destination has brought with it many opportunities and infused the market with a growing sense of ambition. Few developments embody this new ambition better than Vattanac Capital Tower, which will throw open its doors this spring. “Cambodia’s seen nothing ...
Nalin Viboonchart
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/real-estate/vattanac-capital-preparing-eventful-2014
Cambodia low on energy ranking
Low electrification rates and over-dependence on fossil fuel imports have contributed to Cambodia’s abysmally low ranking in the new World Economic Forum’s Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report for 2014. Cambodia ranked 120 out of 124 nations, with a so-called Energy Architecture Performance Index (EAPI) score ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/cambodia-low-energy-ranking
Can’t see the forest …
The percentage of Cambodia covered in forest has fallen from about 72 per cent in 1973 to only about 46 per cent in 2013, satellite image data released yesterday shows. A series of animated maps that Open Development Cambodia (ODC) produced from NASA satellite images detail ...
Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/can%E2%80%99t-see-forest-%E2%80%A6
A minor melee mars day’s events
A day of peaceful demonstrations gave way to an evening of unrest last night as a handful of protesters were removed from a small patch of land across from the United States embassy and a grup of uninvolved people threw Molotov cocktails towards riot police ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/minor-melee-mars-day%E2%80%99s-events
Groups insist on equal rights
Seila, a tall, heavily made-up woman with orange-blonde hair, said she was in a park in Siem Reap last year when policemen approached her, put a gun to her head and told her if she ran, they would shoot. Legally, the Kingdom’s Constitution protects the ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/groups-insist-equal-rights