The Phnom Penh Post
ASEAN aims to dodge crisis in West
ASEAN finance officials and the heads of regional central banks yesterday homed in on the possibility of economic crisis as well as potential means of averting contagion in fledgling Southeast Asian economies. The officials have also agreed “in principle” to doubling a regional currency fund to ...
No word on Philippines rice deal, exporter says
Green Trade, a state-owned, milled-rice exporter, had not been updated on a government-to-government rice deal with the Philippines despite recent media reports that claimed a deal was near. ...
PPWSA edges closer to IPO
As expected, the book-building phase for Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority’s initial public offering was significantly oversubscribed, the estimate being 17 times. Interested investors had the opportunity to bid at a price no lower than 4,050 riel a share, and at a maximum of 6,350 riel ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032855274/Business/ppwsa-edges-closer-to-ipo.html
Activists arm with fire, photos
Kampong Thom province Villagers patrolling Prey Lang forest on motorbikes yesterday defended their decision to burn more than 360 cubic metres of timber, tear down 10 huts used by “illegal loggers” and confiscate a chainsaw, a villager representative said. “All the villagers who provide evidence about ...
Banners versus batons
Police are accused of breaking a 21-year-old woman’s nose and injuring two other women as about 900 workers marched from the Win Shing-tex Cambodia garment factory in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district yesterday. San Sopha said, adding he would file a complaint against the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032855291/National-news/banners-versus-batons.html
A ‘good neighbour’ policy
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr chose Cambodia as his first official overseas trip since his March 2 appointment to the top foreign policy job. The Australian Labor Party politician, former journalist and longtime premier of New South Wales sat down on Monday evening with the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032855289/National-news/a-good-neighbour-policy.html
Thai agro-processing plant nears completion
BETAGRO Group, one of Thailand’s largest integrated agro-industry businesses, announced this week that its US$16.3 million animal feed plant in Cambodia is 95 percent complete. The plant, 12 kilometers from Phnom Penh, will initially produce 12,000 tonnes of animal feed per year, but that number ...
PPWSA settles on IPO price
A price has been set for Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority’s initial public offering, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia, after what was reported to be a significantly oversubscribed book-building process. PPWSA will sell for 6,300 riel, or US$1.57, a share, putting the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032755267/Business/ppwsa-settles-on-ipo-price.html
Drug connection denied
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nephew Hun To has emphatically denied all allegations published by Australian newspaper The Age about his involvement in a heroin-trafficking and money-laundering syndicate targeting Australia. Hun To, whose wife and children reside in Melbourne, Australia, told the Post yesterday that he plans ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032755268/National-news/drug-connection-denied.html
ASEAN’s finance ministers in capital
The 16th ASEAN Finance Ministers’ Meeting kicks off early today in Phnom Penh, where members of the 10-country association are expected to discuss strengthening regional financial ties and co-operation in the face of economic uncertainty in the West. ...
Police to ‘monitor’ activists
Kampong Thom province Police and soldiers have been deployed to Prey Lang forest to monitor the activities of about 500 villagers patrolling for illegal loggers, a police official said yesterday. The police and military officers gathered along a road leading to the CRCK rubber company, which has ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032755262/National-news/police-to-monitor-activists.html
Authorities nab loggers at border
Cambodia border police arrested 12 people last week who attempted to cross illegally from Preah Vihear province into Thailand to log rosewood, officials said yesterday. .. ...
River families’ time up
Nearly 400 families were told yesterday they had to move from their homes along the Siem Reap river within the week. Siem Reap district governor Tep Bun Chhay said 392 families had to relocate from Sala Kamroeuk commune before this Sunday. ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032755261/National-news/river-families-time-up.html
More maids missing in Malaysia: parents
Parents of four girls sent to work as maids in Malaysia filed a complaint with Adhoc yesterday in Preah Vihear province saying they had not heard from their daughters for anywhere from two to nearly five years. Prak Leat, 41, said her daughter had left for ...
Blind eye to forest's plight
Rangers paid by an internationally funded conservation organisation have been directly profiting for years from the very trade they are supposed to be preventing in southwest Cambodia, documents obtained by the Post allege. Former Conservation International (CI) staff members say when they spoke up about endemic ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032655247/National-news/blind-eye-to-forests-plight.html
EU assists land reform
The European Union had provided more than US$265,000 to a land reform project that aimed to shift political will and opinion towards land and human rights in Cambodia, development partners said yesterday. The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights will spearhead the Cambodian Land Law Reform Project, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032655241/National-news/land-reform-gets-eu-assist.html
Prey Lang villagers on patrol
Kampong Thom province About 500 frustrated villagers, citing the authorities’ inaction as their motivation, rode some 250 motorbikes into Prey Lang forest over the weekend in yet another effort to combat illegal logging they say is decimating the area. The villagers from four provinces surrounding Prey Lang ...
Laos logging incident sees man shot, injured
A Cambodian man was injured last week after Lao authorities shot him while he was illegally logging rosewood in Laos’ Champasak district, near Stung Treng province, authorities said yesterday. Siem Pang district police chief Var Sophan told the Post yesterday that 27-year-old Sarin Da was accompanied ...
Railway project suffers a blow
The contractor in charge of rebuilding Cambodia’s national railway has been cutting corners on the health and safety of its workers, according to a report published yesterday by the Asian Development Bank. TSO-AS & Nawarath, a French-Thai joint venture, was reportedly found to have grossly violated ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032355214/Business/railway-project-suffers-a-blow.html
The great land giveaway
More than 2 million of the Kingdom’s nearly 18 million hectares of land – roughly 12 per cent – was given out to 225 private companies in economic concessions last year, according to an annual report released by rights group Adhoc yesterday. The concessions put 606 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032355211/National-news/the-great-land-giveaway.html
The rector versus the tycoon
The morning before the verdict was handed down at the Appeals Court on March 12, the mood among those working on the defence team for Heng Chheang and his wife Tep Kolap was almost optimistic. They, along with relatives of the couple and academics from Phnom ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032355213/National-news/the-rector-versus-the-tycoon.html
Trafficking, migrant issues in spotlight
The Cambodian government was strengthening its capacity to combat human trafficking by focusing on poverty reduction and was eager to work with other groups tackling the crime, Interior Ministry Secretary of State Chou Bun Eng said yesterday. “The issues of human trafficking and migrating workers are ...
Strikers fed up with delays
Striking workers planned to set tyres aflame today outside a garment factory that supplies JC Penney in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district, union officials said yesterday on the sixth day of the strike at Hong Kong-owned Win Shing-tex Cambodia Co Ltd. Ath Thorn, head of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032355209/National-news/strikers-fed-up-with-delays.html
Capacity building: New schools pop up in rural areas
Children in rural areas are reaping the benefits of the government having completed 306 of the 580 schools it began constructing last year, senior ministers said yesterday. ...