Chin Chan

Nineteen NagaWorld casino employees were detained Tuesday afternoon as police attempted to break up a protest of more than 500 workers who had picketed in front of the casino for the past six days, demanding the company increase their salaries.

A court official at the Kompong Speu Provincial Court said Monday that a total of 16 union representatives have been charged with damaging property and inciting violence during a protest outside a garment factory earlier this month, twice the number of arrests previously confirmed.

Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith on Friday defended a decision by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling CPP to not participate in a meeting on Wednesday at which six of the eight political parties contesting seats in the July 28 national election pledged to stamp out corruption.

Three hundred workers have been fired from Taiwanese-owned Sabrina (Cambodia) Garment MFG Corp., which produces clothing for U.S. sports brand Nike, after large-scale demonstrations were held outside the factory last week.

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.

Two rival workers unions continued to trade barbs Thursday, each blaming the other for a violent clash between striking garment workers and police at a factory in Kompong Speu province on Monday that saw eight people arrested.

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

About 1,000 garment workers on Wednesday demonstrated outside Kompong Speu Provincial Court calling for the release of eight people arrested during a protest this week over wages at a factory supplying U.S. brand Nike, a union official said.

The head of the Free Trade Union (FTU) has threatened a huge protest and national strike if eight people arrested during a violent demonstration Monday are not released.

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 the air thick with dust and the road peppered with water-logged potholes and cracked concrete.

The classrooms inside the Confucius Institute (C.I.) on the campus of the Royal Academy of Cambodia are a model of studiousness. The white walls are freshly painted, brand new chairs and desks are in perfect rows and a shiny wooden lectern stands at the front of the room next to a white board that doubles as a projector screen.

Cambodian prisoners are trying to avoid being taken to Phnom Penh for their appeal court hearings because the General Department of Prisons is failing to ensure they are returned to their provincial prisons, causing inmates to remain incarcerated far from their families.

Cambodia is still a way off implementing World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on intellectual property rights, despite a deadline to do so in just over a month.

A massive power outage Wednesday in Southern Vietnam brought rolling blackouts that lasted for hours to Ho Chi Minh City, the entire southeastern region of Vietnam and large sections of Phnom Penh.

A strong kick in the midsection sent the petite girl flying backwards as she held on tight to the knife that was meant to protect her.

The dining hall of a garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district that supplies clothes to U.S. brand Gap collapsed into a pond Monday, injuring more than 20 workers who were eating lunch, workers and officials said.

A small padlock hangs around the gates of Veal Mean, the once ornate garden in front of the National Museum where a specially built cremation site for late King Father Norodom Sihanouk still stands more than three months after the revered monarch was cremated.

The Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court charged a 15-year-old girl with slander Tuesday after she prank-called a popular radio station claiming to have been kidnapped, a ruse that led to a 19-hour police search, court officials said.

In an effort to speed up the process for vehicle owners seeking license plate registration, the Transport Department has decided it is no longer necessary for people to have their import tax papers verified at the Phnom Penh Municipal Post Office.

($) An official at Unesco on Wednesday criticized the owner of an historic French colonial-era building in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district that was demolished last year and now has a bright red-and-blue office supply store built in its place.