News
Cambodian children more vulnerable under Asean integration, report warns
Rights workers fear for the safety of Cambodia’s vulnerable children once Asean joins in an economic community next year. Children could also face more risk from economic pulls, experts warn. That includes families sending their children to work in other countries, where they will be ...
Suy Heimkhemra
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/cambodian-children-more-vulnerable-under-asean-integration-report-warns/2489920.html
Abbott government beefs up staff for 'Cambodian solution'
The Abbott government has sent a senior official to Phnom Penh to take charge of a controversial scheme to resettle refugees from Australia, even before Cambodia signs an agreement to accept them. Australia has also boosted the staff of its embassy in the Cambodian capital by ...
Lindsay Murdoch
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-government-beefs-up-staff-for-cambodian-solution-20140816-104x0b.html
Thai Sugar Company Accused of Rights Abuse in Cambodia
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 ...
Suy Heimkhemra
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/thai-sugar-company-accused-of-rights-abuse-in-cambodia/2411955.html
Troops to join UN’s CAR effort
Cambodia will send a detachment of 216 peacekeepers to the United Nations stabilisation mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), the Information Ministry has said. The Kingdom already sent a delivery of tanks, trucks and other materiel there on Friday. ...
Charles Rollet
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/troops-join-un%E2%80%99s-car-effort
Scores of ethnic Khmer Krom hold fresh rally against Vietnamese diplomat
About 500 ethnic minority Khmer Krom monks and activists on Monday staged a fresh protest here to demand a Vietnamese diplomat to recognize the “true history” of the former Kampuchea Krom provinces. It was the third rally in the last two months after Trung Van Thong, ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-08/11/c_133547930.htm
Lawmaker defends rejection of human rights proposals
National Assembly spokesman Chheang Vun on Friday defended Cambodia’s decision to reject four human rights proposals and merely take note of another 38 during the adoption of its second universal periodic review report in Geneva on Thursday. In all, Cambodia accepted 163 of the 205 recommendations ...
Kang Sothear
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/lawmaker-defends-rejection-of-four-human-rights-proposals-62697/
UN visits evictees, site of $3.8B tourism project
About 50 families gathered under a timber roof here Sunday among muddy fields granted to them as compensation after China’s Union Development Group (UDG) began to turn their coastal homeland into a $3.8-billion tourist mecca. The families, who now live in timber houses dotting the barren ...
Mech Dara and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/un-visits-evictees-site-of-3-8b-tourism-project-62081/
Migrants flee Thai instability
Thousands of Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand are rushing back across the border, voluntarily repatriating themselves in the face of increasingly hostile rhetoric towards undocumented labourers. In the wake of Thailand’s coup d’état last month, army chief General Prayuth Chan-o-Cha urged better regulation of the workforce ...
Cheang Sokha and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/migrants-flee-thai-instability
FAO Estimates Cambodia 2014 Rice Exports to Increase Slightly to 1.2 Million Tons
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated Cambodia’s 2014 rice exports to increase slightly to 1.2 million tons over that in 2013 due to increased production. The FAO reports that its exports estimate includes unofficial exports of milled as well as paddy rice ...
Oryza News Staff
http://oryza.com/news/rice-news/fao-estimates-cambodia-2014-rice-exports-increase-slightly-12-million-tons
HAGL called out at the UN
A Cambodian delegation to the United Nations last week used the stage to shame the World Bank’s financial arm for failing to adequately monitor investments in a Vietnamese rubber giant accused of illegal logging, forced evictions and sexual harassment. Representing 17 indigenous communities in Ratanakkiri that ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/hagl-called-out-un
Illegal wood exports to China tripled in 2013
Cambodia’s exports of protected rosewood and other high-value timber to China more than tripled last year, according to U.N. figures cited in a new report that blames lax law enforcement across the Mekong region and skyrocketing demand in China for pushing some species to the ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/illegal-wood-exports-to-china-tripled-in-2013-58593/
Journalists garner support, monks silent in wake of attacks
Condemnation has grown following Friday’s attack on a journalist near Freedom Park as the Ministry of Information joined the U.N. Human Rights Office in denouncing the attacks. On Saturday, the U.N.’s human rights representative in Cambodia, Wan-Hea Lee, called for an investigation into the beating of ...
Kuch Naren and George Wright
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/journalists-garner-support-monks-silent-in-wake-of-attacks-58145/
Amnesty International urges Gov’t to scrap asylum seeker plans
Amnesty International on Friday lambasted a pending deal that would see people seeking asylum in Australia to be resettled in Cambodia. “Australia should be ending its offshore processing and detention of asylum seekers, not looking to outsource its refugee responsibilities to another, much poorer country,” ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/amnesty-international-urges-govt-to-scrap-asylum-seeker-plans-57996/
UN Rep asked to focus on public assembly ban
The U.N.’s deputy high commissioner for human rights, Flavia Pansieri—who is on a weeklong mission in Cambodia —has been asked to address an arbitrarily enforced ban on public assemblies, which has been in place since January. In a letter dated Monday, Muth Chantha, secretary-general of the ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/un-rep-asked-to-focus-on-public-assembly-ban-57654/
UN critical of pending asylum seeker deal
Officials with the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday spoke out for the first time against Australia’s plans to send some of the asylum seekers trying to reach its shores to Cambodia, saying the pending deal was not a “real ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/concern-over-migration-chiefs-family-connections-57202/
UN concerned about detainees’ presence at trials
The U.N.’s human rights office in Cambodia expressed concern Monday that 22 detained protesters may not be allowed to attend their trials on Friday, while the government insisted that the prisoners will be transported to the court. Two minors were arrested for intentional violence for their ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/un-concerned-about-detainees-presence-at-trials-56914/
Leaflets get unionist in hot water
Police in Svay Rieng province yesterday afternoon arrested a union worker who was delivering flyers supporting a stay-at-home strike scheduled to begin after Khmer New Year. While delivering about 1,100 fliers to union members at Full Fortune Knitting, Kem Chamroeun, a 25-year-old Collective Union of Movement ...
Mom Kunthear and Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/leaflets-get-unionist-hot-water
Cambodia lagging on energy, water, says UN
A United Nations study released on Friday shows that Cambodia has the highest rates – among 11 Asian countries surveyed – of people lacking access to electricity, clean water and sanitation. The 2014 UN World Water Development report, titled Facing the Challenges, ranks Cambodia below countries including ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cambodia-lagging-energy-water-says-un
New report says garment sector fails to meet UN standards
Cambodian garment manufacturers and the association that governs them are failing to meet the standards set by the U.N.’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, as evidenced by lethal violence against workers during garment strikes in January, when five people were shot dead and ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/new-report-says-garment-sector-fails-to-meet-un-standards-54191/
UN Envoy Cautious Over Cambodian Political Settlement Prospects
A U.N. rights envoy to Cambodia on Wednesday expressed “cautious optimism” that the parties of Prime Minister Hun Sen and opposition leader Sam Rainsy would move toward ending their seven-month political deadlock following an agreement achieved this week between the two sides on a set ...
Radio Free Asia News Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/surya-subedi-03062014183612.html
Australia asks Cambodia to take asylum seekers amid violent crackdown
The Abbott government wants to send some asylum seekers to Cambodia, at a time when the country’s strongman prime minister, Hun Sen, is overseeing a brutal crackdown on dissent in one of south-east Asia’s poorest nations. Facing growing opposition after decades of authoritarian rule, Hun Sen ...
Lindsay Murdoch
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-asks-cambodia-to-take-asylum-seekers-amid-violent-crackdown-20140223-33amf.html
Plan aims to cut road deaths
Every day, five people die in traffic accidents in Cambodia – a number the government is hoping to reduce with a new policy aimed at cutting traffic accidents by 50 per cent in 2020. The National Policy on Road Safety, passed by the Council of Ministers ...
Chhay Channyda and Lieng Sarith
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/plan-aims-cut-road-deaths
Un envoy visits Boeng Kak, condemns killings
The U.N.’s special rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association, Maina Kiai, on Friday wrapped up a three-day unofficial visit to Cambodia by paying a visit to the Boeng Kak community, the site of the country’s longest-running land dispute. Inside the home of high-profile Boeng ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/un-envoy-visits-boeng-kak-condemns-killings-51726/
Military police asked to answer for protest deaths
Richard Rogers, the lawyer retained by the opposition CNRP to potentially submit a case against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government with the International Criminal Court at The Hague, said Thursday that letters were hand-delivered to two military police chiefs requesting information about the fatal shooting ...
Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/military-police-asked-to-answer-for-protest-deaths-51633/