Cambodia News | Khmer News – ពត៌មានខ្មែរ

A commuter train plowed into a barrier at a Buenos Aires station Wednesday, killing nearly 49 people and injuring hundreds, officials said.

Some 200 families live on this and one other dump in Rach Gia. They are three generations of Cambodians who fled the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. It’s the only home they have ever known.

Long known as one of the last major Asian cities without a skyline, Phnom Penh embarked on a high-rise building boom in the middle of the last decade, only to see it derailed by the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. Although a few tall buildings were completed, including a 32-story bank tower, other ambitious projects—like an 1,820-foot skyscraper that would have been the tallest in Asia at the time and among the tallest buildings in the world, behind Dubai’s 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa—never got off the ground.

The minimum wage for Cambodia’s garment workers rose by $5 to $66 a month in January, but remains among the lowest in Asia. Massive inflation has also meant Cambodian garment workers have seen a real wage loss of over 14% during the last 12 years.

Corruption-perception score (0-10 scale, higher is better): 2.1
Free-press score (0-100 scale, lower is better): 63
Political-rights score (1-7 scale, lower is better): 6
Civil-liberties score (1-7 scale, lower is better): 5
Business-transparency score (0-10 scale, higher is better): 5
Final corruption score: 27.2

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stumbled and was caught by a security guard as riot police helped her force a path through a crowd of rowdy protesters following a ceremony to mark Australia’s national day Thursday

Human rights in Cambodia have gone from bad to worse in January, prompting Human Rights Watch to issue a damning report on the Southeast Asian nation’s rights slide. The company eventually provided some former villagers with plots of land at relocation sites, but the desolate sites were 50 km from the capital, without bathrooms, schools, hygiene provisions or even buildings… The Borei Keila residents aren’t the only Cambodians who have felt the government’s wrath this month. Four protesters were shot and injured last week in the small town of Snoul, located on the way to Siem Reap during a land grab dispute.

Take Cambodia, which ranked at the bottom of a recent regional Transparency International corruption survey. Its government workers pad their paltry, sporadic pay by demanding bribes for everything from birth certificates to school grades. One oft-cited International Monetary Fund working paper argues that paying civil servants twice the wages of manufacturing workers is associated with a reduction in corruption. In Cambodia, civil servants make less than half what a garment worker makes.

It wasn’t quite the day the music died. But the Internet felt eerie Wednesday as large swaths of the online community went dark in what leaders called an historic protest to kill proposed online anti-piracy legislation. By day’s end, the massive protest appeared to have completely shaken up any political support left for the already imperiled bills in Congress.

The United Nations voiced concern Wednesday over Cambodia’s delay in appointing a foreign judge to the Khmer Rouge tribunal, paralysing probes into two cases strongly opposed by the government. Swiss judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet arrived in Phnom Penh last month as the UN’s choice to replace a German judge who abruptly quit in October over government opposition to further prosecutions linked to the 1975-1979 regime.

A Cambodian court Wednesday sentenced a 68-year-old Michigan man to 10 years in prison for having sex with children. Phillip Bruce Shepard was arrested in the capital, Phnom Penh, in July.

A country better known for its cultural attractions and its tragic history, Cambodia doesn’t often catch the attention of fashion-focused globe-trotters. But a group of designers and forward-thinkers are trying to change what visitors expect from the Southeast Asian country that’s home to the temples of Angkor Wat.

The destruction of Borei Keila community on 3 January and the manner in which this act of grave violation of human rights by the government was conducted is total déjà vu.

Cambodian authorities hold nearly a dozen villagers following a standoff in the capital. Police opened fire and arrested 11 villagers who clashed with local officials and security guards on Tuesday over a forced eviction that left a dozen people injured in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh