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CNRP leader voices support for activist
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has called for anti-dam campaigner Alex Gonzalez-Davidson to be allowed to remain in Cambodia after the Khmer-speaking Spanish national was told the authorities would not renew his visa last week. Rainsy, the Cambodia National Rescue Party president, yesterday wrote a letter to Interior Minister Sar Kheng calling on him to reverse his decision to deny the activist a visa.
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Land swap fears at hospital
More than 100 staff members of the Phnom Penh Referral Hospital and 7 Makara Health Care Center met the capital’s health director yesterday to discuss concerns about a land swap after a recent announcement that part of the hospitals lost their land title. The meeting came after about 300 medical staffers filed a complaint to the National Assembly’s commission on investigation and anti-corruption last February 6 about a Phnom Penh Department of Land Management announcement made public a day earlier that the government had lost ownership of the two buildings that comprise the front of both hospitals.
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Strikers accuse management of using shock weapon
Hundreds of workers at a new factory in Kampong Speu province continued yesterday to strike for better working conditions after one of their colleagues was allegedly struck with an electroshock weapon on Friday by their Chinese boss. About 200 workers from Hor Ling Factory protested in front of the facility, located in Kong Pisei district’s Snam Krapoeu commune, over the attack against 29-year-old stock manager and translator Chouk Phally.
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City Hall Bans Drones After Palace Incident
City Hall on Monday announced a ban on the use of drones without prior approval, declaring them a threat to privacy and security, highlighted on Saturday when a drone flew over the Royal Palace and alarmed Queen Mother Norodom Monineath. The increasing use of drones by television companies and enthusiasts prompted municipal authorities to issue an injunction to protect the city’s residents from invasions of their privacy and the dangers posed by drones’ misuse, according to a statement released by City Hall.
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South Korea to Double Cambodian Migrant Worker Permits
The South Korean government will double the number of Cambodian migrant workers who are granted permits to take up employment in the country’s manufacturing, construction and agriculture sectors each year, officials said on Monday. There are currently more than 35,000 Cambodians working in South Korea who send home remittances of about $200 million annually. Last year, Seoul set a quota of 4,600 permits for Cambodian laborers entering the country, according to embassy officials.
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Custody battle for tortured children
Two young girls who were enslaved and tortured while serving as maids for a Phnom Penh couple last year are now embroiled in a custody battle between their uncle and the residential institution where they currently live. The girls have faced a long string of abuse. After neighbours confirmed that the pair, aged 8 and 15 years old, were often severely beaten by a couple who forced them into servitude, police removed the girls last June and sent them to the Social Affairs Department.
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Phnom Penh Gardeners Threaten to Strike Over Pay, Sick Leave
About 50 of Phnom Penh’s 270 gardeners gathered at the National Assembly and then City Hall on Monday morning to deliver petitions asking for a substantial raise to their modest monthly salaries, threatening to go on strike if they were denied. The gardeners, who prune the city’s parks and help sweep the streets, currently earn $85 a month and are asking for $150, along with permission to take off sick days without having their pay docked.
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Activist ‘thorn in govt’s side’
As opposition grew yesterday over plans to remove Areng dam activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson from the country when his visa expires later this week, analysts said the government was hoping to clear the way to develop the valley. With studies for the controversial hydropower dam close to completion, Ear Sophal, author of Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy>, said the authorities want the Spanish national “out of the way so they can proceed” with the project.
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Asylum seekers fall ill in forest
As security forces in Ratanakkiri province continued to seek the arrest yesterday of 32 Montagnards hiding there, villagers and a local rights worker said the harsh conditions had taken their toll on two of the asylum seekers. According to a villager who asked not to be named, the two men, who fled Vietnam on January 28, fell ill on Thursday.
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Areng Mapped in Hope Ecotourism Can Save Valley From Dam
A group of university students from Phnom Penh opposed to a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong province entered the project’s construction site on Sunday for a 10-day study aiming to highlight the area’s alternative potential for ecotourism. The trip comes amid the government’s decision not to renew the visa of the most high-profile of the dam’s opponents, Spanish national Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, a move that would force the outspoken activist out of the country.
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Hard life for kids in jail: report
Having begun life in an overcrowded cell with nowhere to play, little to eat and surrounded by abuse, when Dara* left prison at nearly 4 years old, he had not yet spoken a single word. Dara’s story is the second in a series of case studies released by local rights group Licadho, which aim to “bridge the gap in knowledge” about young children in the Kingdom’s prisons. According to the report, which was released on Saturday, Dara’s experience “highlights the critical importance of putting special measures in place when children are housed in Cambodian prisons with their mothers”.
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Koh Kong Families Ask Court to Stop Evictions
Representatives of 47 families in Koh Kong province that were recently ordered by the provincial court to immediately cede their homes to a Chinese company that claims the area for itself have filed their own complaint with the court asking that the eviction notice be canceled. In a February 2 decision, Koh Kong Provincial Court Vice President Cheng Bunly orders the families to hand over their property to the Union Development Group (UDG), which is developing a 45,000-hectare tract of Botum Sakor National Park into a $3.8-billion tourist complex. Since 2010, the firm has evicted about 1,000 families from the project area.
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Kidnapped girl found in Svay Rieng
A young girl, kidnapped from her home in Ratankkiri, has been reunited with her family a month after being allegedly abducted by an 18-year-old woman who took the girl to disguise a motorbike heist, police claim.
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Hundreds of Tuk-Tuk, Moto-Taxi Drivers Protest Incorrect Article
About 300 tuk-tuk and moto-taxi drivers protested outside the Phnom Penh offices of the Angkor Thom newspaper on Sunday morning, demanding that it correct an article about a traffic accident involving one of the drivers, according to a union official and the newspaper’s publisher.
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Suit threatened over killings
After decades of unabated, fatal border shootings, Cambodia’s opposition lawmakers are preparing to fire back by mounting a legal case that would hold Thailand’s prime minister responsible for murder. “We hope this will serve as a wakeup call. The leader of Thailand cannot expect killing and cruelty by his military to go unpunished and not properly investigated anymore. [Thailand] must be held responsible to the demands of justice,” said CNRP parliamentarian Son Chhay. Chhay said the opposition is actively seeking an international lawyer who could bring a case to the United Nations.
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Areng Mapped in Hope Ecotourism Can Save Valley From Dam
A group of university students from Phnom Penh opposed to a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong province entered the project’s construction site on Sunday for a 10-day study aiming to highlight the area’s alternative potential for ecotourism. The trip comes amid the government’s decision not to renew the visa of the most high-profile of the dam’s opponents, Spanish national Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, a move that would force the outspoken activist out of the country.
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Minister of justice backs loathed laws
Minister of Justice Ang Vong Vathana yesterday sought to defend three controversial judicial laws passed last year that were criticised for, among other issues, giving him too much power over the court system. Speaking to reporters following a closed-door questioning with the National Assembly Commission on Legislation and Justice, ministry spokesman Chin Malin said Vathana had responded to criticisms made by civil society groups and legal experts about the three laws.
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After Fatal Border Shooting, Even More Cambodians Return
After Thai soldiers last week shot and killed three Cambodians who entered Thailand to log luxury-grade rosewood, a district governor in Preah Vihear province thought it would be an appropriate time to warn locals of the dangers of crossing the border. “[On Thursday], we held a public forum about how they risk their lives illegally crossing the border in the Thai forest,” said Chea Kimseng, the governor of Choam Ksan district, which borders Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province.
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Latest Press Freedom Index Says No Gain for Cambodia
Press freedom in Cambodia showed no sign of improving last year, according to the 2015 press freedom index released on Thursday by Reporters Without Borders. In the annual index, compiled by the Paris-based advocacy group, the less freedom a country’s press exhibits, the higher its rank and absolute score.
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State-Secrets Law to Be Sent To Council of Ministers Soon
A draft law to protect state secrets has been in the works for more than two years and could be submitted to the Council of Minister for review in two months’ time, a senior police official said yesterday. The existence of the draft law first came to light on January 28 when the National Police announced on its website that the Interior Ministry was in the process of drawing it up. A post on the website said the law would aim to protect “state secrets in order to ensure national secrecy is strictly protected.”
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