News

Rocks were hurled, fires lit, hostages taken and the message delivered in no uncertain terms last week: Cambodians are increasingly willing to use violence against companies that intimidate them or ignore their demands. Twice – in Svay Rieng and Kampong Cham provinces – garment workers pelted ...

A Forestry Administration official has agreed to drop his complaint against three RACF soldiers he accused of shooting at him and fellow forestry officials in 2010 in exchange for $15,000, his lawyer said yesterday. However, officials for the Siem Reap Provincial Court and the Military ...

Two partners and about 20 employees at DFDL, a regional law firm that has consulted on some of Cambodia’s biggest investment projects over the past 16 years, stunned the company last weekend with an announcement of their departure to start a new tax advisory outfit. The ...

The government of China on Monday delivered office supplies and equipment worth $403,000 to Cambodia in order to ease the country’s burden when it hosts the ASEAN summit and related Summits this year. The office supplies and equipment included 200 sets of desktops, 60 sets of ...

Pailin’s juicy longans, a small beige-colored fruit renowned for its sweet taste, is on the way to becoming Cambodia’s third food product to attain Geographic Indicator (GI) status. The longan will join Cambodia’s only other GI-recognized food products: Kompong Speu palm sugar and Kampot ...

Over three years after Shukaku Inc started filling Boeung Kak lake with sand to make way for a CPP Senator’s massive real estate project, Google Maps has now completely erased the image of the lake, which the municipality’s year-end report says is now 95 percent ...

Villagers being questioned in relation to a land dispute with a powerful company said on Friday that a Ratanakiri court official had intimidated them by urging them to accept an out-of-court settlement with the firm or face a countersuit. Court officials denied the claims and said ...

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have decided not to investigate the Australian mining company OZ Minerals, saying information that the firm paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to family members of officials in the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (Mime) when buying out its ...

Rolling blackouts that plagued Phnom Penh this week were the result of the city’s power supply being unable to meet demand as the country moves into the hot season, officials at state-owned Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) said on Friday. Power Outages rolled over the city this ...

After four days of protests, which at times grew violent, striking garment workers at the Manhattan Qing Dao Textile Corp in Kompong Cham province said they would be resuming work Monday after reaching a tentative agreement with the company. On Thursday, more than 1000 workers ...

Seng Takakneary started her business in a one-room shop with two sewing machines in 2004. Today, Ms. Takakneary’s Sentosa Silk employs about 100 staff in Phnom Penh who produce a range of fine Cambodian silk items, including pillows, curtains, bedspreads, dresses, shirts and bags. Since ...

A fourth day of protests by garment workers in Kampong Cham turned unruly yesterday, as nearly 2,000 workers shattered the windows of their factory with stones after briefly blocking National Road 7. The workers blocked the road for about 10 minutes at 9am, before returning to ...

A Thai Company is conducting a feasibility study to build a coal-fired power plant in Koh Kong province and has already invested in a local firm with permission to develop the plant, according to officials and the company. In an announcement to the Thai Stock ...

A meeting between microfinance organizations and the finance minister yesterday resulted in no agreements or special measures for debtors affected by last year’s floods, a microfinance representative said, adding that the sector had done enough already to address concerns over debt among flooded communities. On ...

Two days after Ratanakiri province villagers took hostage a group of local officials who were clearing land for a rubber plantation, authorities downplayed the incident, saying they had no plans to press charges and that “the problem has been settled.” A representative of the rubber company, ...

Tired of the rampant destruction of their forests by loggers, villagers in Kratie province on Tuesday took matters into their own hands by briefly detaining loggers and confiscating six chainsaws and a tractor, a forestry official and villagers said yesterday. San Sihan, one of the ...

Security footage of a shooting outside a shoe factory on Monday that left three protestors in hospital has been reviewed by police, the head of the special economic zone where the incident took place said yesterday. The three women were shot at a violent protest of ...

Eight fishermen who escaped after more than a year of forced labour aboard a Thai fishing boat recounted tales of abuse and miserable working conditions upon their repatriation to the Kingdom yesterday. The men said that brokers had promised them salaried jobs in Thai factories, but ...

Ethnic minority Tumpoun villagers yesterday delivered a thumb-printed petition to commune, district and provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri demanding intervention in a Lumphat district land dispute after villagers held five rubber plantation company employees hostage on Tuesday. Five employees of Jing Zhong Ri Cambodia Co Ltd were ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen heralded an overall 8 percent drop in the national crime rate during the Interior Ministry’s annual conference yesterday and an even more dramatic 13 percent drop in felonies. For the second straight year, though, the ministry did not provide complete figures or ...

The government has agreed to create a regulatory body to ensure that companies operating in Cambodia’s telecommunications sector follow regulations and that companies that do not comply are held to account. According to a statement from the Council of Ministers, Prime Minister Hun Sen approved ...

NagaCorp, which owns Phnom Penh’s only licensed casino, announced on Wednesday that net profits at the company had more than doubled in 2011 and that plans are in store to expand its operations in the country. Financial Results filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ...

Garment-making has been a mainstay of Cambodia’s fledgling economy, chalking up between 6 and 7 percent annually for the past four years. But, the country is turning its focus back to the land in the hope that rice growing and other farming produce, will lift growth ...

The US Embassy and the Ministry of Health will launch a national public awareness campaign Monday highlighting the dangers of counterfeit drugs, embassy and ministry officials said yesterday. “We want to focus on being able to raise awareness because it is known that using counterfeit ...