News

European diplomats called on Interior Minister Sar Kheng yesterday to express their concerns about the recent spate of activists’ arrests, with the minister reportedly saying that he believed a one-year sentence speedily handed down to seven Boeung Kak lake protesters last week was rather “heavy”. ...

French textile and garment association Evalliance yesterday signed an agreement with the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) to provide training for middle-management workers in the industry. Speaking at the signing ceremony in Phnom Penh, Van Sou Ieng, chairman of GMAC said the agreement aims to ...

Some of the families in a protracted land dispute with a pair of Thai-owned sugar plantations in Koh Kong province say they were pressured over the weekend into signing compensation deals with the firms they could not read, because they were written in Thai, and ...

More than 100 human rights activists, youths and Buddhist monks marched on streets here on Friday in the latest round of protests against a refugee deal that Cambodia signed with Australia last month. Under the deal, Australia will send refugees, who intend to seek asylum in ...

Cambodian authorities have held two rounds of talks with garment factory owners and unions under a new mechanism to help break a deadlock over increasing the workers’ monthly minimum wage but to no avail. But Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said that he expected the Garment ...

Cambodian authorities are stepping up inspection efforts of vegetable imports along the border after Vietnamese produce shipped to the European Union was found to contain harmful bacteria, an official from the Kingdoms import inspection unit said yesterday. Vietnamese media reported last week said that the European ...

Six Cambodian trade unions led around 1,000 garment workers to march through streets here on Sunday to demand a higher minimum wage as annual talks on a wage hike are scheduled for next month. ...

The European Union will spend €3 million ($3.9 million) on a program to encourage small and medium enterprises to invest in Cambodia. Speaking at a conference yesterday in Phnom Penh, EU Ambassador to Cambodia Jean-Francois Cautain said the five-year grant – to be managed by EuroCham ...

One of five villagers arrested in a land dispute with politically connected company KDC International told the Post after their release on Friday that he would keep protesting “until our community obtains a resolution from the government”. ...

Workers at the center of a land dispute between villagers in Kompong Chhnang province and a company owned by the wife of the mines and energy minister on Thursday pressed forward with a campaign against the release of five villagers who were imprisoned over violence ...

China will work with Cambodian officials to broaden the range of agricultural products that the Asian economic giant allows to be imported from the Kingdom, government officials said yesterday. Ken Ratha, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, confirmed that China’s General Administration, Quality Supervision, Inspection and ...

A day after three of their community members were arrested following a violent encounter with police, about 50 villagers from Kompong Chhnang province forged ahead with a peaceful march toward Phnom Penh on Wednesday, but were temporarily blocked by police officials in Russei Keo district. The ...

A Thai sugar company with major shares in Cambodian sugar cane is being investigated for human rights violations in operations along the border between the two countries. The National Human Rights Commission of Thailand recently investigated allegations that villagers were forced from their homes to make ...

Thailand will lose its beneficial tax treatment on exports to the European Union next year, and Cambodia’s manufacturing sector could be set to capitalise. Following three consecutive years of upper-middle income status as defined by the World Bank, Thailand will on January 1 lose its Generalised ...

A group of unions in the U.K. is urging its government to make sure British brands sourcing clothes from Cambodian factories respect their workers’ rights, and to ask the European Union to negotiate a deal with the Cambodian government to improve factory conditions. In a July ...

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, must force British clothing companies to investigate whether garments sourced from Cambodia are made at factories with fair labour practices, the unions have warned. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress, has written to Mr Cable warning that ...

For as long as Cambodian rice farmers can remember, their product has had an unsavory reputation. Tough, dirty and unmilled, it was impossible to cook evenly, and even farmers traded it as pig feed in exchange for cash or better-quality rice from Vietnam or Thailand. Even ...

Villagers from Koh Kong province delivered petitions in Phnom Penh on Friday seeking international intervention in their land dispute with powerful businessman and CPP senator Ly Yong Phat, alleging that his Koh Kong Special Economic Zone (SEZ) was encroaching on their farmland. Five representatives of the ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al on Wednesday lauded the country’s controversial sugar industry and the jobs it has created, saying that companies operating in the sector need to be defended against the widespread criticism they have been receiving. Rights groups and the opposition CNRP have undertaken ...

The German ambassador, Joachim Baron von Marschall, signed an agreement with the permanent Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon yesterday for €47 million ($64 million) in aid. The grant will be used for developing projects within the ministries of health, rural development and women’s affairs. ...

The European Union (EU) welcomes the agreement reached on 22 July between the two main political parties in Cambodia, the spokesperson of the EU’s external actions said Wednesday in Brussels. ...

Italy has demanded that the European Union restrict Cambodia’s duty-free import status, as concerns over the survival of that country’s rice sector appear to be reaching a fever pitch. According to rice industry website Oryza, the Italian government has officially submitted a request to the EU ...

As scheduled, Khmer  Krom citizens gathered Monday in front of French embassy in order to present their petition which asks the VN embassy’s spokesman to apologize for his comment over Khmer Kampuchea Krom territory. Some 500 students, monks, and citizens were led by leaders of Federation ...

Rice farmers in Italy plan to block four major grain exchanges in the country this week over what they say is the European Union’s failure to keep Italian rice competitive against that of cheaper Asian rivals including Cambodia, which is given duty-free access to European ...