Land

Cambodia’s newest demining employee comes with an impressive resume, years of experience – and four legs. Rambo touched down in Phnom Penh yesterday, then was driven to the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) training facility in Kampong Chhnang province. He is the first of 18 trained ...

Logging by Vietnamese-owned concessionaire Company 72 has once again spilled the boundaries of its land in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district, this time without paying proper taxes to the Forestry Administration (FA), local forest conservation activist Romas Svang said yesterday. ...

Fifty families who have lived in squalid conditions at Borei Keila in the capital’s Prampi Makara district since they were evicted and their homes destroyed have accepted City Hall’s offer of temporary shelter at the site, their representatives said yesterday. Evictee Sar Son said the 50 ...

Soft-drinks giant PepsiCo has pledged to take a “zero-tolerance” approach to land grabs by its sugar suppliers. In a statement posted on the company’s website on Tuesday, it said the move came in response to a campaign by Oxfam, which targeted Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. ...

Already under attack by overfishing, pollution and deforestation, Tonle Sap Lake fisheries face an even bigger threat in the form of hydropower dams, according to experts. Laos’ planned Don Sahong Hydropower Project in particular has environmentalists fearing an emptier, less bio-diverse lake, and a nation pitched ...

Rights group Adhoc on Wednesday helped 105 communities locked in long-running land disputes across the country refile their complaints with local courts and other state agencies in a concerted effort to push the government to finally resolve their cases. Covering a broad cross-section of the country’s ...

As villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley continue to block Sinohydro Corp employees from entering the area where the Stung Cheay Areng dam is planned, conservationists and rights workers have spoken of the havoc it will wreak if it goes ahead. In terms of the ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday heard the case of a woman charged with defaming mining magnate and RCAF Lieutenant General Nim Meng in relation to a land dispute in Preah Sihanouk province. Presiding Judge Kim Dany said that Sok Neang Gek was being charged ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht said he has no plans to launch an investigation into Cambodia’s much-criticized sugarcane plantations after a meeting with Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. Bottom line: Cambodia’s free trade benefits to Europe are safe for ...

When he assumed leadership of Phnom Penh municipality in May 2013, Pa Socheatvong vowed to be a governor who would get things done. His predecessor, Kep Chuktema, oversaw the filling in of Boeng Kak lake and the mass eviction of its residents. A similar scenario unfolded ...

A 250-kilogram piece of unexploded ordnance (UXO) left behind from the US’s extensive bombing campaign here was found on Saturday by construction workers digging in Kandal province’s Ksach Kandal district, and was safely removed yesterday, Cambodian Mine Action Centre authorities said. ...

Seven Chinese nationals were prevented from entering the Areng Valley in Koh Kong province yesterday as locals continued their standoff with the operator of the Stung Cheay Areng dam concession, villagers at the scene said. Ven Vorn, a community leader among those blocking a road used ...

Dozens of ethnic minority Kreung villagers protested outside the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Monday, demanding the release of a fellow Kreung man presently in pretrial detention for setting fire to a pile of wood on land the community sold in 2007 but claims it was ...

The Belgian demining NGO APOPO, which is pioneering the use of mine-detecting rats in the former battlefields of Cambodia, has received funding from the German government to expand its mine-clearance work in the country. In November, the government gave the green light for APOPO to begin ...

Desperate ethnic minority villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley have blocked a road that was to be used to transport heavy machinery onto their lands to start construction of the highly controversial Stung Cheay Areng dam, according to villagers and officials. Three Chinese employees of ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht will visit Cambodia this week, the European Commission announced, with rights groups hoping that land grabbing related to sugar plantations will be high on the agenda. Following bilateral meetings in Brussels last week between Cambodia and the EU during ...

A representative for villagers living in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district who say that buyers from a local company failed to uphold a 2007 land deal has been charged and temporarily detained by local authorities for allegedly destroying private property. Haing Noeur, 50, was detained on Saturday after ...

Members of six ethnic communities in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom town yesterday accused local authorities of blocking their efforts to protect community and wildlife sanctuary forests, where they say luxury timbers are logged by Villas Development, a company co-owned by the wife of Mondulkiri Deputy Governor ...

Alleged victims in seven separate land disputes in Kampong Cham province yesterday agreed to file a petition to the provincial governor, following a meeting with rights group Adhoc. ...

The World Bank on Thursday asked Phnom Penh municipal officials to do more to help the thousands of families the city evicted from the Boeng Kak neighborhood to make way for a CPP senator’s private real estate project, and is now waiting for a reply, ...

Cambodian environmental groups yesterday stepped up their calls for the Don Sahong dam in Laos to be cancelled, after a visit to the site failed to convince them the hydropower project would not harm the Mekong River and the people who depend on it. ...

The 8th EU-Cambodia Joint Committee was held in Brussels on Thursday, preceded by the subgroups on development cooperation, on trade and on institution building, administrative reform, legal and judicial reform, governance and human rights, the European bloc said in a press release. The two sides ...

Two of the country’s most powerful and politically connected business owners are on the board of governors of the company thought to have brokered a controversial deal between the world’s largest hydropower developer and the Cambodian government, documents obtained by the Post show. Cambodian People’s Party ...

Nearly a million hectares of land has been granted to ordinary Cambodian citizens through social land concessions (SLC) since May 2012, the government has claimed, though civil society groups have cast doubt on that high figure and questioned how many landless or evicted poor have ...