Environment and natural resources
Water resources
Authorities Seize Excavators Constructing Illegal Reservoirs
Kompong Thom provincial military police confiscated 29 excavators and arrested four drivers in a four-day operation ending yesterday aimed at stopping the illegal construction of reservoirs around the Tonle Sap lake, officials said. The reservoirs, which are used to retain water for use in dry-season farming, ...
Hun Sen Calls on Public to Help Protect Tonle Sap Fisheries
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday marked National Fish Day by urging the public to report anyone fishing inside the Tonle Sap conservation area he established earlier this year to help protect and revive the lake’s vital fish stocks. “People have to dare to stand up and ...
Cambodia releases 600,000 fry, shrimps to observe 10th National Fish Day
At least 500,000 baby fish and 100,000 young shrimps had been released into a reservoir in the Eastern part of Cambodia on Sunday to mark the 10th National Fish Day. Annual event is aimed at encouraging people to actively join forces to preserve fish species ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2012-07/01/c_131687674.htm
Hundreds Protest Lao Dam Project
The Venerable Sann Leang, executive director of NGO Environmental More than 500 villagers held a march in eastern Cambodia Friday to protest a controversial dam project on the Mekong River in Laos they say is undergoing construction despite a pledge to halt progress while officials ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/dam-06292012165509.html
Cambodian villagers protest controversial Laos dam
Cambodian villagers demonstrated on Friday against a controversial Lao hydropower dam that activists say is being built in defiance of an agreement to assess its potentially damaging impact on millions of people first. About 200 villagers whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River urged a halt ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/us-cambodia-laos-idUSBRE85S0FX20120629
Inspiring tech entrepreneurship
The arrival of Startup Weekend in Cambodia marked a new beginning for high-tech entrepreneurship as more than 80 people worked on all kinds of new business ideas all weekend at Yellow Tower across the Tonle Sap from The Riverside. Chief Marketing Officer Joey Pomerenke of Startup ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062556987/Business/tech-entrepreneurship.html
B Kak 15 Petition Sent to Japanese Embassy
Boeng Kak protesters continued their fight for the release of 14 women and one man imprisoned since May 24, delivering a petition to the Senate and the Japanese Embassy on Friday that they hope will spur new intervention in the long-running land dispute. More than 100 ...
Sand Settles on Boeng Kak Project as Site’s Future Uncertain
In Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district there is a 133-hectare mound of sand that was once a lake. It took nearly four years to fill Boeng Kak with that sand. On the southern perimeter of the massive sand pit sit two large billboards. On those billboards there ...
Stevia Nutra Corporation Set to Launch Stevia Propagation Centre in Cambodia
Stevia Nutra Corporation — (The Company), an Agro-Management company focused on stevia agronomics is pleased to announce that it has successfully acquired 50 acres of prime agricultural land in Cambodia for its new innovative Stevia Propagation Centre (SPC). The property is located just outside the town ...
Cambodia wants Kuwait tourists
Tourism officials in the Kingdom have suggested that the Kuwaiti ambassador should push for direct flights between Cambodia and Kuwait, and invited Kuwaitis to invest in Cambodia’s soaring tourism sector. “We need more and more investment in the tourism sector,” said tourism minister Thong Khon. He ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012052956447/Business/cambodia-wants-kuwait-tourists.html
Cambodia Home to Frenchman in Bo Xilai Drama
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Throughout the drama this spring revolving around the dismissal of the ambitious Chinese official Bo Xilai and the investigation of his wife as a murder suspect, the most mysterious figure has been a French architect named Patrick Henri Devillers. When Mr. Bo ...
Farmers Blame Gold Mines for Cattle Deaths
Villagers in Battambang province’s Phnom Proek district have called on the government to shut down several unlicensed gold mines being blamed for the deaths of cattle that drank from a pond contaminated by chemical runoff. “Three of the village’s cows died and two became sick after ...
Questions Over Missing 10 Hectares of Lake
In order to pacify concerns that filling in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake would lead to flooding, it was claimed by officials that 10 hectares of the 90-hectare lake would be preserved to absorb heavy rainfall. Now, four years after sand began streaming into Boeng Kak, ...
Northeast new focus for tourism
The Ministry of Tourism will shift its focus to ecotourism development in the Kingdom’s northeast after efforts to promote travel to Cambodia’s coastline proved successful. ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012050956045/Business/northeast-new-focus-for-tourism.html
Laos Says Xayaburi Not Environmental Threat
The Laos government has said that all the necessary environmental assessments for the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River have been completed and that no damage will be inflicted on the fisheries in countries further downstream when built, an official at the Cambodia National Mekong Committee said yesterday. Watt Botkosal, ...
Reckless mining in Prey Lang takes toll on environment
Chemical substances used in about 3,000 mining drills operating in the Prey Lang forest in Kratie and Kampong Thom provinces are wreaking environmental havoc and making people sick, a report by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights released yesterday says. Substances used by a number of ...
Protesters pushed back from World Bank Office
In what is becoming an increasingly popular – and coordinated – protest tactic among Phnom Penh’s dispossessed, several women took off their shirts and bras during a demonstration over land rights that briefly turned violent near the World Bank yesterday. About 100 protesters, most of them ...
Khy Sovuthy
Water minister urges Laos to halt Xayaburi
Cambodia has urged Laos to halt construction of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in the country’s north, a letter obtained by the Post yesterday reveals. “Preliminary construction on Xayaburi dam has continued despite the lack of regional agreement,” Minister of Water Resources and Cambodia National Mekong Committeechairman Lim ...
Xayaburi opposition escalates in Thailand
Criticism of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in northern Laos is mounting in Thailand – the country set to enjoy most of the electricity if the project is completed. Representatives from 130 Thai civil-society organisations yesterday published a statement backing a report that outlines an ...
Tonle Sap illegal fishing increased, group says
Tonle Sap fishermen and fisheries experts said yesterday that illegal fishing on the lake had increased substantially since Prime Minister Hun Sen cancelled commercial fishing lots in March and urged authorities to crack down on violators. The prime minister suspended commercial lots across the country last ...
Thai protesters rally against Xayaburi dam construction
Protests over construction of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in northern Laos could spread from Thailand to Cambodia as communities along the Mekong River begin to feel its negative effects, an International Rivers programme director said yesterday. About 70 Thai villagers who rely on the ...
Cambodia, Vietnam telecoms jointly launch Super Highway Network
State-owned Telecom Cambodia (TC) and Vietnam Telecom International (VTI) on Friday jointly launched Super Highway Telecom Network in order to improve Internet and telecom services in Cambodia and to meet customer’s demands, said a joint press release. The 260-kilometer super highway link connects VTI’s POP (Point ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-04/20/c_131541368.htm
MP urges government to scrap Koh Kong dam project
A dam project set to flood thousands of hectares of protected forest and displace about 1,500 indigenous minority villagers in one of Koh Kong province’s most precious ecosystems should be scrapped, opposition Sam Rainsy Party MP Son Chhay said yesterday. The 109-megawatt dam project in the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012042055676/National-news/dont-dam-minority-mp-says.html
Controversial dam takes step forward with impact study
An environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the controversial Stung Chheay Araeng hydropower dam in Koh Kong province has been completed, representing a major step forward towards construction, officials said yesterday. Koh Kong deputy governor Sun Dara said he had yet to see a hard copy of ...