Land Concessions Signed After Hun Sen Ordered Moratorium
According to documents published in the latest Royal Gazette, Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on three land concessions covering more than 20,000 hectares last month, 11 days after a moratorium on the granting of such concessions was announced. On May 7, Mr. Hun Sen signed ...
Facing Chinese Dam, Monks Fight for Temple
Monks residing in Koh Kong’s remote Areng Valley have begun raising funds online to renovate their local temple, despite plans in store for a large Chinese backed hydropower dam that would leave the site completely inundated. The 108-MW hydropower dam, to be built by ...
Kuch Naren and Kene-Hern Chen
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/facing-chinese-dam-monks-fight-for-temple-31987/
Sand-Dredging Boats Active One Day After Ban Announced
Sand-dredging boats were active along the Mekong River in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district on Tuesday, despite the city’s municipal governor, Pa Socheatvong, having ordered a complete suspension of dredging in the city the day before. Phnom Penh City Hall on Monday put in place the temporary ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sand-dredging-boats-active-one-day-after-ban-announced-39522/
Cambodia to resume international adoptions next year
Cambodia will resume international adoptions in 2014, more than four years after suspending them over concerns about child exploitation, an official said Wednesday. Deputy Social Affairs Minister Nim Thoth told reporters that foreigners interested in adopting Cambodian children would be able to make applications in the ...
The Salt Lake Tribune Staff
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/57218072-68/adoptions-cambodia-resume-international.html.csp
Convicted killer back on stand
More than six years after the slaying of Free Trade Union president Hy Vuthy, one of the men convicted of his murder, Chan Sophorn, 35, appeared in court yesterday for a retrial. Sous Sam Ath, the judge presiding over the case at the Phnom Penh Municipal ...
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/convicted-killer-back-stand
Village Chief Starts Petition to Remove Opposition Monk
A village chief in Kompong Thom province has begun collecting signatures on a petition to remove the opposition-aligned head monk of his local pagoda, whom he has accused of embezzling the pagoda’s money. Kheang Khean, the chief of Krachab village in Stung Sen city’s Achar Leak ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/village-chief-starts-petition-to-remove-opposition-monk-49972/
Torture, beating of detainees continue, report finds
Detainees and prisoners continue to be administered electric shocks, beaten unconscious and even smothered by plastic bags, with 49 new allegations of torture or abuse at the hands of authorities this year, according to rights group Licadho, which says in a report released Wednesday that ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/torture-beating-of-detainees-continue-report-finds-62461/
Hun Sen Moves Ahead With ‘Reform’ Plan, Minus Opposition
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday laid out more details in his plan to introduce a series of political reforms after a narrow win for his long-ruling CPP at the polls in July, including creating a new national working group and establishing public forums to ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-moves-ahead-with-reform-plan-minus-opposition-51126/
Government responds to Rainsy’s Cambodia, Ukraine comparison
The Council of Ministers’ Press and Quick Reaction Unit (PQRU) on Friday published an extended criticism of a speech made by opposition leader Sam Rainsy last week in which he promised his supporters that the political change that swept Ukraine’s president from power would soon ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-responds-to-rainsys-cambodia-ukraine-comparison-53401/
Living on a dwindling trade
In Samrong Leu village, a picturesque community nestled deep in the verdant fields of Kors Kralor district, the acrid smell of smoke fills the air. Outside almost every house in this community, billows of smoke continuously emerge from the domes of homemade mud kilns, drifting around ...
Kevin Ponniah and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/living-dwindling-trade
Commune chief leads protest against Adhoc
A CPP commune chief in Battambang province led more than 150 villagers in a demonstration on Friday outside the local office of rights group Adhoc after a representative of the organization accused the official of corruption for allegedly selling plots of public land to local ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/commune-chief-leads-protest-against-adhoc-68562/
Drug connection denied
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nephew Hun To has emphatically denied all allegations published by Australian newspaper The Age about his involvement in a heroin-trafficking and money-laundering syndicate targeting Australia. Hun To, whose wife and children reside in Melbourne, Australia, told the Post yesterday that he plans ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032755268/National-news/drug-connection-denied.html
China giant looks to Kingdom
Shandong Shantui, a Chinese firm and one of the largest manufacturers of heavy construction machinery and largest producer of bulldozers has expressed an interest in investing in Cambodia’s agricultural sectors. General Manager Cheng Zhaohong met with Cambodia’s National Assembly President Heng Samrin yesterday morning to present the company’s ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012080757846/Business/china-giant-looks-to-cambodia.html
Cambodia Proposes New Initiatives For Green Tourism
In line with Royal Government policy determining tourism as the Green Gold, 2011 is the year that we commenced mainstreaming the green tourism concept to all stakeholders. Cambodia started some new initiative to inspire green tourism in the country. “The Clean and Green Concept is basically ...
No Access to Kratie Village After Killing
The village in Kratie province where a teenage girl was shot dead by government security forces on Wednesday remained completely sealed off to independent observers on Friday, drawing concerns from human rights workers that the government had imposed a state of martial law in the ...
Gov't Denies Flouting Ban on Concessions
The government on Friday denied it had violated a moratorium on granting new land concessions when Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on more than 20,000 hectares of land to three rubber companies 11 days after the ban was announced on May 7. According to documents ...
Waste to Watt
In an outbuilding at Lok Sear’s rice milling operation in Kandal province, two four-meter-high cylindrical machines vibrate and hum as the occasional chicken and duck pecks near the concrete blocks holding them up. While they do both feature a thinck band of aluminium around their ...
Fire Insurance Costs Soar for Garment Sector
Large payouts last year by local insurance companies to two garment factory owners and regional natural catastrophes have resulted in a huge hike in the cost of fire insurance for commercial premises in Cambodia, brokers said. Cambodia’s insurance industry paid out some $24 million in fire ...
Homes Razed to Stop ‘Secession,’ Officials Say
The homes of nearly 200 families living in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district were demolished yesterday and Monday after officials accused the residents of being involved in a secessionist plot, local officials and villagers said. District governor Chhe Chhiv said that authorities had demolished 191 homes ...
Construction Sector Faces Chronic Labor Shortage
Cambodia’s construction sector is facing a massive labor shortage due to a recent boom in construction projects throughout the country and workers migrating en masse to Thailand in search of higher wages. In 2012, the construction sector expanded rapidly with the total value of approved projects ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/construction-sector-faces-chronic-labor-shortage-19742/