News

A fleet of five speedboats set off from Sisowath Quay on Tuesday afternoon carrying Phnom Penh’s governor, 19 local officials, several bodyguards and a press team, as the municipal authorities’ plan to deal with flooding in several districts of the city switched into first gear. Over ...

More than 200 former residents of the Boeng Kak community protested Thursday outside City Hall to demand more compensation to the original amount they received when forcibly evicted from around the lake in 2009. The protesters—who accepted payouts from the private developer Shukaku to make way ...

Unicef during a discussion yesterday pressured the Phnom Penh Municipality to develop a plan to eradicate slums in the capital, but government officials offered no quick fixes. According to the municipality, there are 281 slum communities in the capital, which 2,033 families call home. Earlier this month, ...

Security barricades and razor-wire installations set up around Phnom Penh yesterday were supposed to maintain order as the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party kicked off what it promised to be three days of mass protests. But the show of force and control had more of an ...

City Hall has ordered all tourist boats and ferries operating on the Mekong and Tonle Bassac rivers to stock up on life jackets and prevent overloading as water levels continue to rise. “All drivers must turn lights on at night and all ferries must prepare ...

Around 4000 Cambodian garment workers are protesting after a factory supplying global brands including Gap and H&M fired hundreds of their colleagues for striking over conditions. Union leaders said the Singapore-owned SL Garment Processing factory fired 720 workers on Wednesday while more than 5000 others were ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Hall yesterday defended the actions of police and security guards who blocked protesters as they tried to leave the capital’s Boeung Kak area before they stopped and searched an NGO’s vehicle. Dozens of Daun Penh district police, security guards and military police blockaded ...

Evictees of Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila community appealed yet again to municipal authorities for alternative housing yesterday, saying garbage and waste has inundated their current settlement and is making it increasingly difficult to enter and exit the area. Borei Keila residents were evicted from their land ...

The third phase of a project designed to revamp Phnom Penh’s drainage system, currently inundated by seasonal rains, began yesterday. Four areas of the city spanning a total of 369,445 metres will be witness to the next stage of the project’s implementation, part of an ongoing ...

Thousands of striking garment workers are set to return to work today, as more than two weeks of demonstrations at one of Asia’s largest garment factories come to a close. Meas Sotha, a shareholder at SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd, and Kong Athit, vice president of ...

Voters who travel to cast ballots in the upcoming poll Sunday could face higher transportation fees as drivers and companies try to capitalise on heavier passenger volume. Phan Na, general manager at Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation, which sells bus tickets to several provinces, said fees could ...

The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) plans to give its leader, Sam Rainsy, a hero’s welcome when he returns to the country on Friday after nearly four years in self-imposed exile. But unless action is taken quickly, Mr. Rainsy will be forced to deliver his first ...

At least two women were injured Monday as housing rights activists clashed with police in Phnom Penh. The activists had been demonstrating by sitting in a major street in front of City Hall to demand land titles in two ongoing land disputes in the capital, those ...

Three men locked in a land dispute with Phnom Penh authorities were questioned both by the police and the municipal court Wednesday after they were accused of destroying property on land the government has swapped with a private firm. Ly Bun Heang, said that he, his ...

Responding to a new plan put forward by members of the Bo­eung Kak community and NGOs last month, Phnom Penh Municipal Hall announced on Friday that it had drawn up a list of all families who remain excluded from the 12.44 hectares Prime Minister Hun ...

Local authorities met with Boeung Kak community members yesterday to register villagers left out of the oft-criticised resettlement scheme as a first step to providing them with titles and onsite housing. More than 10 officials including police, commune and village chief, as well as representatives of ...

Workers with heavy machinery began repairing Phnom Penh’s busy Street 63 on Thursday in order to get rid of the potholes and cracked concrete that has turned the street into a divot-ridden, water-logged throughway since new pipes were laid six months ago. The Japanese International Cooperation ...

The coming sprawls of Phnom Penh’s new satellite cities will bring about not only opportunities but also challenges for the population. “Any urban area has to sprawl outside the main city areas so that it can keep up with the increasing demand of commercial land,” said ...

Japan’s aid arm, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is funding a drainage project along Phnom Penh’s Street 63, said yesterday that while it was true sections of the busy road remained in a deplorable condition, responsibility lay with City Hall. “This is [a] ...

Skyscrapers, supermarkets and high-end clothing stores along Sihanouk Boulevard may reflect the increasingly affluent side of Phnom Penh, but turning down busy Street 63 toward Central Market the scene is more warzone than Asean capital, with air thick with dust and the road peppered with ...

Cambodian police used water cannons Wednesday to disperse around 200 women demanding a quick resolution to long-running land disputes, knocking at least three of the protesters, including a 72-year-old, unconscious. The move came two days after authorities used stun batons to disperse a protest over wages ...

More than 1,000 villagers in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district have signed a petition pro­testing the removal of a crematorium that is currently on land slated for a large development project. According to a letter from the Council of Ministers addressed to the Ministry of Cults ...

When a 100-metre-long section of a Phnom Penh garment factory crumpled in on itself like a cheap pup tent, Sen Sok district officials promised an investigation. The results of that investigation, which was to have taken place more than a year ago, in March 2012, ...

Since 1998, Phnom Penh’s population has doubled to more than 2 million. High-rise buildings have popped up in the city’s center and housing developments have been hastily erected. Yet the city’s antiquated, decades-old drainage system has undergone little improvement in that time and experts say the ...