Cambodia to Resume International Adoptions on January 1
Cambodia will allow inter-country adoptions to resume from January 1 next year, four years after the government stopped adoptions amid claims of corruption and baby selling, government officials confirmed yesterday. Speaking after a meeting with Susan Jacobs, the U.S. State Department’s special adviser on children’s issues, Secretary of ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-to-resume-international-adoptions-on-january-1-4934/
Villagers’ homes levelled in Pursat
A coalition of about 30 soldiers, police, forestry officials and military police armed with chainsaws razed some 40 houses belonging to villagers in Pursat province’s Santre commune yesterday, claiming the villagers were illegally living in a state forest, villagers and officials said. According to resident Chin ...
Court frees 13 Cambodian land eviction protesters
An appeals court Wednesday ordered the release of 13 women who were jailed for protesting being evicted from their homes without adequate compensation, in a case that had critics had highlighted as an example of injustice. The women cheered in the courtroom, their supporters applauded and ...
Forestry Activists Find Illegal Timber Haul
Members of the Prey Long People’s Network ended a three-day patrol of the forest yesterday and said they had discovered about 300 cubic meters of illegally logged timber and swathes of state-owned forest being encroached on by private companies. “Authorities are paying no attention to itthey ...
Railway Family Payouts Could Be Increased
The government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will start drafting a new resettlement plan this month that could improve the compensation on offer for some of the roughly 200 Phnom Penh families losing their homes because of rehabilitation of the country’s railway network in ...
Cambodia Not Ready for Inter-Country Adoptions
It has been one year since Cambodia announced that it was lifting its ban on intercountry adoptions beginning January 1, 2013, but despite praising Cambodia’s efforts to implement international regulations, countries that ban adoptions of Cambodians said this week that they were no closer to ...
Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-not-ready-for-inter-country-adoptions-46465/
IFC Ombudsman to help settle Phnom Penh airport land dispute
Representatives for the hundreds of families facing eviction from homes around Phnom Penh International Airport have agreed to let the compliance ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank, mediate a solution to the land dispute with the ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ifc-ombudsman-to-help-settle-phnom-penh-airport-land-dispute-53146/
Exports expand: HK the new market for organic rice
In a first for the Kingdom’s organic rice, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), successfully exported its produce to Hong Kong earlier this month, the organisation’s top official confirmed yesterday. ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/exports-expand-hk-new-market-organic-rice
Secretariat of Civil Aviation to ‘swap’ headquarters
The State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) has swapped its headquarters on Norodom Boulevard and will move to a location adjacent to Phnom Penh International Airport by next year, civil aviation officials confirmed Tuesday. Sinn Chanserey Vutha, deputy director-general of the SSCA, said construction on the ...
Khy Sovuthy and Joshua Wilwohl
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/secretariat-of-civil-aviation-to-swap-headquarters-57076/
U.S. renewable energy developer eyes investment opportunity in Cambodia
The Willowbrook Company, a New York-based renewable energy development company, is seeking support from Cambodia to build a 250-megawatt solar power plant, the Cambodian Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Friday. Edward J.Sappin, visiting chief executive officer of the Willowbrook Company, urged the support from ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2014-08/22/c_133576584.htm
Cambodia's garment, footwear exports up 12.6 pct in 7 months
Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia’s largest income earner, reported a 12.6 percent rise in exports in the first seven months of 2014, according to the data of the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday. The country exported apparel and footwear products worth 3.47 billion U.S. dollars during ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-09/25/c_133672486.htm
Fit for the future
As Cambodia continues to develop, information technology skills are increasingly in demand, especially as the government seeks to diversify the economy and bring in companies which will need staff with strong high-tech skills. To that end, last month the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), in cooperation with the Cisco ...
Of Fish, Monsoons and the Future
As the sun rises on Tonle Sap Lake, fishermen head out from floating villages like this one, past half-submerged mangroves and flooded shrub land, to check their nets, much as they have for centuries. Every year, the lake yields about 300,000 tons of fish, making it ...
Chris Berdik
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/science/of-fish-monsoons-and-the-future.html?_r=2
Fine arts university relocation sparks concerns
A plan to move Cambodia’s oldest fine arts college is sparking concern among teachers, students and artists. Established in 1918, the university is considered the primary center of arts and culture education in Cambodia. ...
Socheata Hean and Sun Sokhen
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/fine-arts-university-relocation-sparks-concerns/2934383.html
U.S., S. Korean, Chinese, Japanese leaders to attend 21st ASEAN Summit in Cambodia
U.S. President Barack Obama, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda have already confirmed their participation in the 21st ASEAN Summit and related Summits here on Nov. 15-20, said Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Hor Namhong on Monday. ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-10/22/c_131922509.htm
President Obama Expected to Attend Summit in Phnom Penh
A senior White House official has again indicated that U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to attend the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh in November. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell reiterated Mr. Obama’s plans to attend the ...
U.S. seeks to cut aid to Cambodia
Lawmakers in the U.S. and human rights activists are pushing for cuts of more than $70 million in aid to Cambodia if Prime Minister Hun Sen wins the July 28 elections. Many factors have pushed the U.S. to this point be it unfair and unjust, such ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=YTQ1OTEyZDAxMTd
Can’t see the forest …
The percentage of Cambodia covered in forest has fallen from about 72 per cent in 1973 to only about 46 per cent in 2013, satellite image data released yesterday shows. A series of animated maps that Open Development Cambodia (ODC) produced from NASA satellite images detail ...
Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/can%E2%80%99t-see-forest-%E2%80%A6
Rosewood exports to Vietnam achieved with fake signatures: official
Thousands of cubic metres of endangered Siamese rosewood were sent to Vietnam in 2014 with export permits bearing the Photoshopped signature of a retired Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) secretary of state, a ministry official said yesterday. ...
Jack Davies and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rosewood-exports-vietnam-achieved-fake-signatures-official
Criticism Continues of Shortcomings in Asean Rights Declaration
Criticism continued yesterday of the Asean Human Rights Declaration, which was signed in Phnom Penh on Saturday after regional leaders decided to make last-minute revisions that were widely deemed as inadequate. U.N. experts ans civil society groups criticized the lack of consultation in drawing up the ...